Velorien comments on Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality discussion thread, part 22, chapter 93 - Less Wrong

5 [deleted] 06 July 2013 03:02AM

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Comment author: Velorien 06 July 2013 01:49:26PM 17 points [-]

On the other hand, I'd forgotten how disappointed I was in HermioneMOR compared to canon Hermione.

I think this is because canon!Hermione plays the voice of reason and maturity to the childish Harry and Ron, whereas HPMOR!Hermione in some ways serves the opposite role, being a real (and thus immature and limited) eleven-year old girl next to super prodigy Harry and trained-to-perfection Draco. Seen in that light, the extent to which she does manage to keep up is actually pretty amazing.

Comment author: Intrism 06 July 2013 03:38:23PM 19 points [-]

Her "reason and maturity," in canon, is basically playing the role of a responsible young girl. Rowling seems to think this is impressive; obviously, Eliezer does not.

Comment author: NancyLebovitz 07 July 2013 08:53:42AM 11 points [-]

I'm not sure about that last-- remember the bit in MOR where Hermione is right to trust the adults about the dangers of transfiguration and Harry wasn't?

Comment author: RobertLumley 06 July 2013 03:21:06PM 15 points [-]

I kind of recently came to the realization that I think Eliezer meant Harry and Hermione's relationship to personify what he says often, which is "Utilitarianism is what is correct, virtue ethics is what works for human beings".

Comment author: NancyLebovitz 07 July 2013 08:52:25AM 8 points [-]

It's been a while since I've read canon, but I remember that Hermione as largely motivated by love of learning (with loyalty to her friends as a strong second, but we don't see the two motivations in conflict, and loyalty isn't distinctive to her-- all the good characters are loyal), and HermioneMOR as largely motivated by wanting to maintain her self-image. MORHermione isn't as awful as that might be because the self-image she wants to match is (mostly?) built around virtue ethics, not vanity or status, but the two characters are very different to me.

From my point of view (and I don't know if anyone shares it), in the early parts of MOR, Hermione was this weird brittle conglomeration of traits that didn't even seem like a human being. I blew up about it, and upset Eliezer, and he did something to how Hermione was portrayed, I don't know what, so that she didn't make me crazy even though her character wasn't drastically changed. I leave the possibility open that Eliezer being affected by what I said calmed me down rather than that he changed the character, though I certainly didn't intend to affect him that strongly.

I have to take it on faith that Eliezer and practically everyone here likes MORHermione as much as they say they do because this isn't how I react to the character.

Comment author: taelor 07 July 2013 01:55:30PM 2 points [-]

From my point of view (and I don't know if anyone shares it), in the early parts of MOR, Hermione was this weird brittle conglomeration of traits that didn't even seem like a human being. I blew up about it, and upset Eliezer, and he did something to how Hermione was portrayed, I don't know what, so that she didn't make me crazy even though her character wasn't drastically changed.

When exactly in the story did this shift in portrayal occur?

Comment author: NancyLebovitz 07 July 2013 02:03:51PM 4 points [-]

The back of my head says around chapter thirty or so. I don't have a convenient way of tracking down my original comment to make sure.