Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality discussion thread, part 28, chapter 99-101

palladias

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 99, 100, and 101. The previous thread is at nearly 500 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, 25, 26, 27

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Eliezer Yudkowsky which is not supposed to be publicly available (which includes public statements by Eliezer that have been retracted).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, 25, 26, 27

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Yudkowsky which is not supposed to be publicly available (which includes public statements by Eliezer that have been retracted).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

In canon, Harry only ever tried casting spells on Voldemort twice, and both times it was Expeliarmis, and in both cases, Voldemort simultaneously fired Avada Kedavra, and in both cases, wandlore ended it in Harry's favor (in the first case, it was because their wands share a common core, which may or may not be due to their magical link. This one is notable, because it prevented Harry from casting on Voldemort as much as it prevented Voldemort from casting on Harry, but without his wand, Harry was still vulnerable to Voldemort's crucio. This effect was a flashier version of what happened in Azkaban, including a light show and images of the last few people Voldemort killed climbing out of his wand.)

Voldemort tried using Luceus's wand in later books to get around the wand problem, but this failed for reasons that did not seem adequately explained (something to do with wand ownership?)

I expect Quirrell was using his Alder wand in Azkaban instead of Foldemort's yew, in which case the connection in HPMoR presumably recurses a level.

If we use canon as a guide, if Harry touches Quirrell, it will cause them both pain (sense of doom), but to Quirrell it will do physical damage (Lilly's sacrificial protection). I expect there to be less of an imbalance in Harry's favor in HPMoR, but I didn't expect the troll or the unicorns, so my HPMoR predictions aren't so high confidence.