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MarkusRamikin comments on Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality discussion thread, part 20, chapter 90 - Less Wrong
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Would you guys agree that Harry is being unfair to Minerva regarding his Time-Turner? "But you thought it was your role to shut me down and get in my way."
At the time she had it locked, she was right: he'd been irresponsible with it and needed to stop abusing his new toy every time a minor problem arose, and there's not a hint that even Harry disagreed with that. You can't refrain from such corrective actions on the remote possiblity that limiting your student's options will do harm. Not-limiting an irresponsible student's options in the relevant way can also lead to harm.
Yes, and it's part of a pattern of behavior. HJPEV consistently finds (seeks out?) uncharitable explanations for other peoples' behavior, especially when he's under stress. It's probably the most 11-year-old-like thing about him.
I think this is actually Harry's fault: He should've requested his time turner be unlocked as soon as he could plausibly argue that REALLY IMPORTANT things were happening around and to him. When Mcgonnigall first locked it, he was doing more harm than good with it.
It depends on what other corrective options she had. She might, for example, have password-protected it as a form of probation, and told him the password. She could then check every couple of weeks/months to make sure he hadn't used it, while still leaving him the option in case of emergency. Of course, she probably wouldn't have believed him able to not give in to the temptation, and it's hard to say whether she would have been right at that exact moment in time.
Considering that she was reacting to the signs of time-turner addiction, a phenomena that had been observed in others before, I think it was a safe assumption for McGonagall to make.
But the problem is, he's supposed to use it twice a day.
Maybe a password on the third use? We're getting into speculation over what contingency spells can and can't do now, which is unhelpful, but I do believe there must have been some solutions available other than the one used, and there is no indication that they were considered.
At some point, these people have a school to run. They can't spend all day thinking of clever stratagems and obscure contingency plans.
Isn't this exactly what they spend quite a bit of time doing?
Quite a bit, yes. That's most of why I made the above comment. If they'd spent ten seconds and moved on, I'd slam them for underpreparedness too. But there are limits on how much time they can spend, and they don't seem to have been particularly lax or dismissive. Sure, it's possible that something else could have been considered, but you're deep into the realm of diminishing returns.
Which would be fair, but we are dealing with Harry Potter, chaos magnet extraordinaire and number one target of the Dark Lord believed to be somewhere out there, as well as of any Death Eaters seeking vengeance. There are few circumstances in which he does not need to be considered as a special case, and I think McGonagall knew that by this point.
Which they've basically handled by giving the most imaginative one in the group(Harry himself) an unlimited supply of magical gadgets to defend himself and his friends as well as unlimited access to their war councils. I can think of worse strategies.
I'm no longer sure how this relates to my original point, which was that McGonagall's behaviour at the time of locking the Time-Turner was unreasonable given that other, less restrictive, options were probably available. At that time, IIRC, Harry had been given no other special gadgets except the Cloak, and was still in the process of fighting tooth and claw to be included in decision-making at all, rather than being treated as a passive, blissfully ignorant object of protection. (and I'm not sure what unlimited supply of magical gadgets you're referring to even with regard to the present)
The trinkets line referred primarily to
as well as the fact that she unlocked his Time-Turner basically for the asking.
At the time she locked it this was not the case, granted. But at the time she locked it Harry was abusing it wildly, and there was no obvious danger. Stopping him was the main priority, and the shell did that quite effectively.
I see. I hadn't made the association between Harry asking for those things and him actually getting them, since generally throughout the story his requests for sensible safety measures end up ignored by the authorities.
Those are far from unlimited. (except for the invisibility cloak). What about Muggle artifacts, though?
I still don't believe it's been explained why Harry didn't transmutate a one-crystal wide ring through the lock into paper. Is that part of what he blames himself for not thinking of?
the lock isn't just physical, it's magical.
But is was bypassed, allegedly by holding the locked case in place and spinning the time-turner within it.
It would be fine if it were tried and failed, but I think it's a better narrative if the specific actions the enemy took to prevent the time-turner from being effective were noted, or at least had some direct effect on the attempt.
Yeah. We've seen him be unable to break magical locks with transfig.
Where? We've seen magical locks resist all types of charms except the unlocking charm, but I don't recall magical locks being attacked by !Harry's transmutation powers.
He tried to transmute the lock and hinges of the door Draco locked him in.
With ordinary transmutation, not partial; evidence for locking spells preventing ordinary transfiguration. That partial transfiguration was considered impossible at the time the locking spells were developed is evidence that it can bypass them.
It would also be odd and useful if the locking spell allowed the casing to survive the kind of physical force that could be provided by a transmuted vise. Harry should know enough about mechanics and materials to create something which can produce both the force and precision needed to destroy the casing without harming the time-turner.
According to Quirrel, Draco's padlocked-glove-Colloportus trick would withstand 'lesser material forces', implying that it had, at the least, limited tensile strength. (Infinite hardness would be less wierd.)
I don't see why partial transfig should be any easier to break locking spells with.
If Transfiguration can create prestressed objects, (and Partial Transfig almost certainly can) it should be possible to make some very powerful one-shot equipment without liquids or gases. (this includes the transfiguration grenade I mentioned elsewhere.)