Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality discussion thread, part 25, chapter 96

NancyLebovitz

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 96. The previous thread is at almost 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, 21, 22, 23, 24, .

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Yudkowsky which is not supposed to be publicly available (which includes public statements by Eliezer that have been retracted).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

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, 23, 24, .

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Yudkowsky which is not supposed to be publicly available (which includes public statements by Eliezer that have been retracted).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

Wizards celebrate both Christmas and Easter. No idea why they would, but that is established in HPMoR and in canon. With the exception of Roger Bacon, we have not heard much of anything about religious witches or wizards, but it will strike me as strange the magical world has no religions, if only from the muggleborns and their descendants.
The quote "The last enemy to be destroyed is death" precedes the Peverell brothers by a solid millennia. While the Deathly Hallows is provides (weak) evidence in the other direction, even if it were a family motto, the origination is probably from the bible, as would be common from an old, heraldic family. Still, it is sounds like a suitable epitaph.

And of course, this presumes another deviation from canon, or to say a myth from canon, that the Peverell brothers created the Deathly Hallows, rather than receiving them from Death. Death, who exists in as a semi-sentient semi-being in HPMoR.

On a related note… What happened to the tattered cloak left by the Dementor in Chapter 45? May there be two True Cloaks of Invisibility?

What happened to the tattered cloak left by the Dementor in Chapter 45?

I thought those were ordinary cloaks, probably given to the Dementors by the Aurors, to make them look more... presentable. The cloaks are destroyed by the Dementors' presence, as all matter is, and have to be replaced.

2UnclGhost13y

Canon strongly implies that the original story was a dramatization of the story of the Peverells, who actually just made powerful artifacts, iirc. Also, dementor cloaks probably aren't invisibility cloaks, since people and other dementors can see cloaked dementors.

5Kindly13y

As far as Christmas and Easter goes, the first of these specifically has a non-religious explanation in HPMoR: [...] No similar explanation has been given for Easter, but I think it's reasonable to suppose that one exists.