Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality discussion thread, part 23, chapter 94

elharo

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 94. The previous thread has passed 200 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, 21, 22.

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Yudkowsky which is not supposed to be publicly available (which includes public statements by Eliezer that have been retracted).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Yudkowsky which is not supposed to be publicly available (which includes public statements by Eliezer that have been retracted).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

Surprised no one has commented on this so far:

"Do you in fact assign greater than fifty percent subjective probability that there is something like a Heir of Gryffindor and one or both Weasley twins are it. >Yes or no, evasion means yes. You're not going to succeed in distracting me, no matter how much I have to go to the bathroom."

The old wizard sighed. "Yes, Fred and George Weasley are the Heir of Gryffindor. I beg you not to speak of it to them, not yet."

Harry nodded, and turned to go, retrieving the Cloak from his pouch as he did. "I'm surprised," Harry said. "I read a little about Godric Gryffindor's historical life. The Weasley twins are... well, they're awesome in various ways, but they don't seem much like the Godric in the history books."

"Only a man exceedingly proud and vain," Dumbledore said quietly, as he turned back to the Floo roaring up again with green flames, "would believe that his heir should be like himself, rather than like who he wished that he could be."

Two comments:

1) the last bit seems like Dumbledore in senitmental yet serious and regretful wise wizard mode. Harry is Dumbledore's hero and 'heir' if you will. Does Dumbledore wish he had some of Harry's cold intelligence? Does he think many of his dead friends and dead family could have been saved by someone who was harder than he was from the very beginning?

2) do people believe that there is an "heir of Gryffindor" and that its the twins?

I read this as Dumbledore lying to Harry or, charitably, messing with Harry and I wonder, "why?" Dumbledore is usualy honest. He usualy hides his meanings in plain sight and says true but misleading things.

Then again, so does Harry, but if he has the body he lied about it outright and without hesitation.

The whole conversation is actualy quite odd. Harry misquotes what the sword translates as, but he knows the quote very well and has even quoted it at Dumbledore before. Why does he botch the quote this time?

I think it's important that this comes just a few chapters after Dumbledore regrets resenting Harry for having spent his fortune to save Hermione, when he (Dumbledore) chose not to do so to save Aberforth.

"I - I'm sorry, Harry - I -" The old wizard pressed his hands to his face, and Harry saw that Albus Dumbledore was weeping. "I should not have said, such things to you - I should not, have resented, your innocence -"

(Ch. 84)

3JTHM13y

I think it somehow relevant that Dumbledore said, "Fred and George Weasley are the Heir of Gryffindor", not "Fred and George Weasley are the Heirs of Gryffindor". Admittedly, I don't know what it means, but at this point, I think we can safely say that even minor quirks of grammar mean something in HPMoR.

7NancyLebovitz13y

That leaves out a third, and more sensible, alternative, which is choosing an heir which is the best person available. That person isn't likely to be an exact match to either the person who's doing the choosing or what that person thinks of as an improved version of themself.