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Yudkowsky which is not supposed to be publicly available (which includes public statements by Eliezer that have been retracted).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Yudkowsky which is not supposed to be publicly available (which includes public statements by Eliezer that have been retracted).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

Deathly Hallows strongly implies that the owners of the Cloak never died until they chose to:

But that night, another wizard stole the wand and slit the brother's throat for good measure. And so Death took the first brother for his own. The second brother journeyed to his home when he took the stone in turn in thrice in hand. To his delight, the girl he once hoped to marry before her untimely death appeared before him. Yet soon she turned sad and cold for she did not belong in the mortal world. Driven mad by hopeless longing, the second brother killed himself so as to join her. And so Death took the second brother. As for the third brother, Death searched for many years but was never able to find him only when he attained a great age that the youngest brother shed the Cloak of Invisibility and give it to his son. And then he greeted Death as an old friend and went with him gladly, departing this life as equals.

(Of course, James didn't choose to die at Voldemort's hand, so it's tempting to read this as "the Cloak defends against old age rather than dying period" - except in canon, James had lent the Cloak to Dumbledore before he was murdered, so for all we know, it really does grant effective immortality/invulnerability!)

This is somewhat likely, but in canon that's a quotation from a fairy tale. Given the apparent attitude the Peverells had towards Death in MoR, I doubt things played out the same way in MoR as in The Tale of the Three Brothers, whether or not that's how it happened in canon.

1[anonymous]13y

I don't have the books handy to check this, but the Harry Potter Wiki claims that he faced Voldemort, wandless, while buying time for Harry and Lily to flee. Sounds like choosing death to me.