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Yudkowsky which is not supposed to be publicly available (which includes public statements by Eliezer that have been retracted).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Yudkowsky which is not supposed to be publicly available (which includes public statements by Eliezer that have been retracted).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

I don't understand how Quirrell could possibly be behind the troll situation, given that he apparently didn't know where the troll would be and had to resort to extreme measures to get to the scene quickly, instead of conveniently waiting just nearby.

1) Trolls move around. 2) Quirrel had to be in the great hall with everyone else to allay suspicion 3) I don't think he planned on Harry confronting the troll. He only started going to where the troll was when Harry confronted it. He only knew where the troll was because he knew where Harry was. 4) If he planned on Hermione being killed (as opposed to the troll being a distraction for getting the Marauder's Map or some other scheme, as in Canon), it's in his interested to "search" for the troll far enough away that it has time to chase down and kill her before he can get to the scene, because not arriving in time is less suspicious than "failing" to save her.

4JoshuaZ13y

One level above. Edit: Actually I take that back, because that means all evidence would point to Quirrel no matter what. This is a fully general argument for Quirrel being behind everything ever.