Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality discussion thread, part 19, chapter 88-89

Vaniver

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 88-89. 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, 18.

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Eliezer Yudkowsky which is not supposed to be publicly available (which includes public statements by Eliezer that have been retracted).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Eliezer Yudkowsky which is not supposed to be publicly available (which includes public statements by Eliezer that have been retracted).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.

Harry would learn whatever he had to learn, invent whatever he had to invent, rip the knowledge of Salazar Slytherin from the Dark Lord's mind, discover the secret of Atlantis, open any gates or break any seals necessary, find his way to the root of all magic and reprogram it.

This doesn't sound like mere time-turning.

It might include redesigning death.

Possibly wishful thinking on my part, but I could see it as Harry starts the retrieval of Hermione's soul, and collaboration between them is required to reboot the universe without breaking it.

I'm bewildered at why Quirrel thinks he can get any particular result from Harry by having Hermione killed. Or is Quirrel assuming that Harry is now in a state where he can be manipulated reliably?

Minor point: It doesn't occur to anyone that Hermione might not be the only student who's missing?

Minor point: It doesn't occur to anyone that Hermione might not be the only student who's missing?

It's known that other students are missing; most of them are assumed to be locked in their common rooms, and the teachers are searching for the rest. Harry is uniquely concerned with Hermione because he (correctly) anticipates an assassination attempt on her.

0AlexMennen13y

I don't think he did it. Notice that he thinks it has been a surprisingly good day, suggesting that he thinks he gained something from Hermione's death, but did not orchestrate it himself.

0robryk13y

Unless there is a second troll, it doesn't seem important. EDIT: Or the student could be involved with the instigator of the whole conundrum (either as a victim or as a not necessarily willing helper)...