Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality discussion thread, part 18, chapter 87

Alsadius

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.

Spoiler Warning: this thread is full of spoilers. With few exceptions, spoilers for MOR and canon are fair game to post, without warning or rot13. More specifically:

You do not need to rot13 anything about HP:MoR or the original Harry Potter series unless you are posting insider information from Eliezer Yudkowsky which is not supposed to be publicly available (which includes public statements by Eliezer that have been retracted).

If there is evidence for X in MOR and/or canon then it’s fine to post about X without rot13, even if you also have heard privately from Eliezer that X is true. But you should not post that “Eliezer said X is true” unless you use rot13.

Spoiler Warning: this thread is full of spoilers. With few exceptions, spoilers for MOR and canon are fair game to post, without warning or rot13. More specifically:

You do not need to rot13 anything about HP:MoR or the original Harry Potter series unless you are posting insider information from Eliezer Yudkowsky which is not supposed to be publicly available (which includes public statements by Eliezer that have been retracted).

If there is evidence for X in MOR and/or canon then it’s fine to post about X without rot13, even if you also have heard privately from Eliezer that X is true. But you should not post that “Eliezer said X is true” unless you use rot13.

Point one: Snape originally stayed in love with Lily because of the lost chance. He actually did think he had a shot with her till he called her a mudblood, but Harry pointed out that in fact he never did. I mean some people fall in love and if their loved one dies, never date again, so I was assuming Snape's feelings were of that variety. He knew they weren't actually "dating" but he thought he'd had a chance before That Day. Now, Harry tells him "Sounds like this Guy never had a chance with that Girl ever, because she's shallow." So, yeah, hearing that he's held on to these feelings for no reason instead of "if only I'd not called her a mudblood we'd have married" - I can see how hearing that you've really wasted your past 11 years of life can piss you off. His rage was due to changing his mind, but clearly Snape finds it hard to Not Shoot The Messenger.

Point two: It's more that Dumbles probably had been insisting for years (in a more subtle way than I'm about to do) that Loving Lily made him a better person so he should continue to do so. But the axiom for Loving Lily - that he could possibly have been with her if he'd been a better person in the first place - has indeed shattered. I don't think he's mad b/c Lily was shallow specifically, but just that she never, ever, ever, would have been with him. So yeah, he's trying to update on that new axiom.

Point three: as others have said, Snape Loves Lily is canon, but if you take that axiom above, it's not quite that unrealistic. I knew a girl in college who didn't date for 4 years after her boyfriend was killed in a car accident. And remember Snape thinks it's his fault she died, too.