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Yudkowsky which is not supposed to be publicly available (which includes public statements by Eliezer that have been retracted).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Yudkowsky which is not supposed to be publicly available (which includes public statements by Eliezer that have been retracted).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

Given that there is a hole drilled through hogwarts, should it now be possible for everyone to deduce that Harry and Quirrell have a telepathic resonance?

I don't think so. Jumping from 'Quirrel knows where to go' to 'telepathic resonance' seems like a major example of privileging the hypothesis.

Even ignoring the issue that as far as we know from canon & MoR, "telepathic resonance" is a completely unknown and novel phenomenon and that people cannot know Quirrel is homing in on Harry rather than say Hermione or the troll, there are still dozens of more likely explanations: the school wards; troll tracking skills as part of the Defense professor's esoteric & eldritch lore; spy devices planted throughout the school; an Eye ("constant vigilance!") or other snooping devices; the Marauder's Map; supernaturally good hearing; tracking charms placed on Harry (IIRC, didn't Quirrel already do just that with Draco?); information from the future (if notes can be passed about bullies, why not trolls?); ghost/poltergeist/painting messages; etc.

Ok, you're right, there isn't enough information to get past the prior implausibility of the hypothesis. I think the other characters should assume he placed tracking charms on Harry. Any explanation about tracking the troll or Hermione would result in him arriving earlier, and when questioned, the divination professor can say approximately when Quirrell started to move, which cross-referenced with Harry's recollections shows that Quirrell's actions correlate with Harry being in danger, not Hermione. However, I assume that these tracking spells can be dete... (read more)

8DanArmak13y

From the POV of Dumbledore, there are several unexplained things about Quirrel's behavior: * Quirrel not only homed in on the troll. At some point he suddenly became so frantic that he blasted his way through Hogwarts. (He didn't do so immediately; indeed when the he goes to look for the troll with the rest of the Professors, he exhibits nothing like this kind of urgency.) This happened just as Harry encountered the troll. * Then, without having reached the troll, he suddenly stopped and said there was no more need to rush. Just as Harry killed the troll and Dumbledore arrived to secure the scene. * All the explanations that say he was tracking the troll and not Harry, imply he should have reached the troll before Harry did. After all, he left before Harry, he was probably moving faster (two-person broomstick vs. three-person), and he was moving in a straight line, blowing holes through the castle. Instead, he didn't even arrive by the time Dumbledore did. Now let's consider your suggestions: I think some are plausible but most are not. [...] Dumbledore would know everything the wards reported. If they alerted Quirrell to the location of the troll, why not Dumbledore (or McGonnagal)? And when they reported the death of Hermione, this should have caused Quirrell to hurry more, not to proclaim there was no more danger. [...] Then why didn't he find the troll before Harry did? (See above) [...] Moderately plausible. But: spy devices which are better than the Hogwarts wards? Or, which allow him to remotely look at any area instead of merely being alerted when a condition is triggered? I don't think Dumbledore approve of him taking such power. And Dumbledore would of course check his story - so the spy devices would need to actually exist, and not have been detected. [...] Not foreshadowed, hence bad storytelling. [...] Then why hadn't he consulted it right away before the professors left to hunt the troll, and see Hermione was out there? It suspends disb