Benito comments on Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality discussion thread, part 21, chapters 91 & 92 - Less Wrong

4 Post author: NancyLebovitz 04 July 2013 11:49AM

You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.

Comments (366)

You are viewing a single comment's thread. Show more comments above.

Comment author: Benito 04 July 2013 02:19:53PM *  5 points [-]

Why doesn't Dumbledore just diffuse the responsibility? Have battles like the current ones run by different teachers throughout the year, and also have each teacher, in their own lessons, teach a bit more practically about their spells?

Or is a tradition thing, like the snitch? Will people not let Dumbledore get rid of Defence Against the Dark Arts, even though it means their children won't learn anything?

Comment author: William_Quixote 04 July 2013 02:51:15PM 19 points [-]

A risky plan. What if dividing the subject among 20 profs made all 20 of them subject to the curse and lost the entire faculty? In the wizarding world, messing with things you don't understand extremely well can be dangerous.

Comment author: Velorien 04 July 2013 03:00:06PM *  9 points [-]

That's a very good point I hadn't considered.

I wonder if Dumbledore has actually done any experimenting over the last 50 years, like the one-year contracts I suggest downthread, or having two staff members rotate responsibility each year (and teach something innocuous like Muggle Studies in the meantime).

A also wonder what kind of curse would have such an incredibly powerful effect, and whether Voldemort could have used a scaled-down version of it to, say, get Dumbledore out of the headmaster position. Bearing in mind the original curse was cast before Voldemort had even achieved his full power.

Comment author: hairyfigment 06 July 2013 05:44:21AM 0 points [-]

In canon, we have some reason to believe Voldemort cast a literal curse on the position long ago.

In MOR, we have little reason to believe Voldemort ever lost his original body, and almost no reason to think that he's been a powerless ghost.

Comment author: Velorien 04 July 2013 02:35:00PM *  2 points [-]

It would be very hard to implement. Hogwarts only seems to have one teacher per subject, and many of those have given no sign of usefulness outside their own subject area (Hooch, Sprout, Sinistra) or indeed within it (Binns, Trelawney). They would struggle to take on the content of the DADA curriculum even collectively.

We do know that some past defense professors have been effective even during just one year - Tonks is considered Auror material, for example, and she didn't pick all of that up from Quirrell. So abolishing the subject would be a step too far, not to mention that it would lead Hogwarts into conflict with the Ministry for failing to follow the national curriculum.

Comment author: Fuyu 04 July 2013 03:20:16PM 6 points [-]

I thought that was because Tonks trained under Moody?

"Sign up for the Auror preparation program in your sixth year," said Susan. "It's the next best thing. Oh, and if a famous Auror (assumed it was referring to Moody?) offers to oversee your summer internship, just ignore anyone who warns you that he's a terrible influence or that you're almost certainly going to die."

Comment author: Velorien 04 July 2013 03:26:39PM 10 points [-]

Yes, but one assumes that Moody doesn't offer to oversee someone's summer internship unless they've really impressed him.

Comment author: Izeinwinter 04 July 2013 05:10:05PM *  15 points [-]

She is a born shapeshifter. Of the line of Black. Moody offered to oversee that internship to learn who she was, because it would be fracking stupid not to. Finding out that Tonks is astonishingly decent people must have been the best news Moody got in decades.