Wait, since Chloe's theory was a TVTropes reference (see pedanterrific's comment) could the vrooping thing be too?
Oh my Bayes, it's completely obvious:
Clearly visible from where Harry had perched himself on his chair's arm was a truncated-conical object, like a cone with its top snipped off, slowly spinning around a pulsating central light which it shaded but did not obscure.
It's a lampshade. But what was Eliezer lampshading?
ETA: Obvious in retrospect, I should say. Which doesn't actually mean obvious at all.
Is your edit saying that (in retrospect) what is being lampshaded is obvious or that it's obvious that it is a lampshade? If the former, what is behing lampshaded?
Edit: You're obviously talking about latter. Oops.
This is a new thread to discuss Eliezer Yudkowsky’s Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality and anything related to it. This thread is intended for discussing chapter 87. The previous thread has passed 500 comments.
There is now a site dedicated to the story at hpmor.com, which is now the place to go to find the authors notes and all sorts of other goodies. AdeleneDawner has kept an archive of Author’s Notes. (This goes up to the notes for chapter 76, and is now not updating. The authors notes from chapter 77 onwards are on hpmor.com.)
The first 5 discussion threads are on the main page under the harry_potter tag. Threads 6 and on (including this one) are in the discussion section using its separate tag system. Also: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17.
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