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Yudkowsky which is not supposed to be publicly available (which includes public statements by Eliezer that have been retracted).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Yudkowsky which is not supposed to be publicly available (which includes public statements by Eliezer that have been retracted).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

Here's the passage from chapter 1:

Verärgert schnaubte Professor McGonagall durch die Nase. »O Ja, alle Welt feiert, sehr schön«, sagte sie ungeduldig. »Man sollte meinen, sie könnten ein bisschen vorsichtiger sein, aber nein - selbst die Muggel haben bemerkt, dass etwas los ist. Sie haben es in ihren Nachrichten gebracht.« Mit einem Kopfrucken deutete sie auf das dunkle Wohnzimmerfenster der Dursleys. »Ich habe es gehört. Ganze Schwärme von Eulen ... Sternschnuppen ... Nun, ganz dumm sind sie auch wieder nicht. Sie mussten einfach irgendetwas bemerken. Sternschnuppen unten in Kent - ich wette, das war Dädalus Diggel. Der war noch nie besonders vernünftig.«

My rough, not-a-native-German-speaker translation:

Professor McGonagall snorted angrily through her nose. "Oh yes, the whole world is celebrating, very nice" she said impatiently. "One might think they could be more careful, but no -- even the Muggles have noticed that something is going on. It was in their newspapers." With a jerk of her head, she indicated Dursley's dark living room window. "I heard about it. Swarms of owls, meteorites...they aren't all idiots. They must have noticed. Shooting stars over Kent -- I bet that was Daedalus Diggle. He never was very sensible."

I take from that that McGonagall doesn't expect the Muggles to know what it means that there are suddenly a bunch of owls everywhere, but that wizards everywhere nevertheless have a duty to make sure that Muggles don't see those sorts of things.

Thanks! (The translation is fine, btw.)

A few lines later, McGonagall states it even more explicitly:

»Das wäre eine schöne Bescherung, wenn ausgerechnet an dem Tag, da Du-weißt-schon-wer endlich verschwindet, die Muggel alles über uns herausfinden würden.«

(rough back-translation):

“That would be a big mess, if the muggles found out all about us, right on the same day when You-Know-Who finally disappeared.”