Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality discussion thread, February 2015, chapter 110

Gondolinian

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 110.

There is 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.)

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Yudkowsky which is not supposed to be publicly available (which includes public statements by Eliezer that have been retracted).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

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 110.

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Yudkowsky which is not supposed to be publicly available (which includes public statements by Eliezer that have been retracted).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

So what was the source of the resonance between Harry and Q?

Did I miss it?

I always assumed it was ritual magic, as arranged by Dumbledore and Lily, and performed by Lily.

But:

“James and Lily would have gone willingly to the death, if they had known.”

Which seems to imply that they hadn't known.

But it seems just way too convenient for Lily to just happen to fulfill the terms of a ritual, and it's unclear that V would have violated the terms by imposing his horcrux on Harry anyway.

At one time, I wondered if Harry was a time turned version of V, and that was the source of the resonance.

So what was the source of the resonance between Harry and Q? I went back to read the "while potion making" talk, but the source of the resonance seems to have been glossed over.

The source of the Harry-Voldemort resonance is that Harry was made into a Horcrux of Voldemort. Chapter 108:

The prophecy seemed to hint that if I destroyed all but a remnant of Harry Potter, then our spirits would not be so different, and we could exist in the same world."
"Something went wrong," Harry said. "Something that blew off the top of the Potters' home in Godric's Hollow, gave me the scar on my forehead, and left your burnt body behind."
Professor Quirrell nodded. His hands had slowed in their Potions work. "The reso

... (read more)

0Alsadius11y

Presumably that they're equal but opposite.