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 93. The previous thread has passed 300 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, 17,18,19,20.
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Eliezer Yudkowsky which is not supposed to be publicly available (which includes public statements by Eliezer that have been retracted).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.
Sorry in advance for the giant comment. But this
makes sense of this
which looked like a type 3 foreshadowing. I think Dumbledore expects and intends to die soon. Certainly we're moving in that direction, with the recent talk of McGonagall succeeding him as headmaster. It looks likely to me that Dumbledore is plotting to end his own life at the hands of Grindelwald, whose return as an antagonist to Dumbledore was foreshadowed by the story of Peter and Sirius. This, in turn, reminds me of this
which looks like utter lunacy, but apparently is Dumbledore's idea of inspiration. He means to go out like Gandalf.
Probably. The alternative would be that he just thinks his time as a mysterious old wizard is almost up. Or it'll be gur Cbgvbaf Znfgre again. (Spoilers for the original novels.) But I think it's more likely than not that he'll be the one to give Grindelwald his role in the story, given that Dumbledore names himself as the one to haul him out of Nurmengard and ur ratvarrerq uvf bja qrngu va pnaba. Two birds with one stone.
In any case, in this story, Dumbledore wishes to die to escape a wasting death from advancing senility, not a phefrq unaq. To collect the relevant quotes in one place:
Plus the zillion uses of the phrase 'the old wizard', and the dog that didn't bark: the fact that still nothing has been made of the connection between Dementors, Dementation, and dementia. Dementors are named for the death of the mind, both of them eat away at memories and personality, and this has gone entirely unmentioned. Even the author's notes that listed the similarities between Dementors and death left it out.
Oh, and the fact that Dumbledore's really old, and that's what happens to people when they get old.
So there's a suitably heroic reason for Hermione to research the Philosopher's Stone - either to prevent it from happening or to prevent it from ever happening again.
Edited repeatedly for clarity.
BTW, the post says that spoilers from the original canon don't need to be in rot13.