Vaniver comments on Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality discussion thread, February 2015, chapter 112 - Less Wrong

4 Post author: Gondolinian 25 February 2015 09:00PM

You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.

Article Navigation

Comments (287)
Tags: fiction hpmor harry_potter fanfiction

Comments (287)

You are viewing a single comment's thread. Show more comments above.

Comment author: Vaniver 25 February 2015 09:42:09PM 3 points [-]

The resonance would have to be resolved somehow, unless Harry intends to sacrifice himself, which I doubt would be rational because it now seems that Voldemort's horcrux network is still functional.

I'm reading one of Voldemort's claims in this chapter to be that the resonance, rather than caused by Lily's sacrifice, was caused by Riddle's curse that he put on himself and his descendants, and Voldemort is no longer at risk now that Harry has attempted to end Voldemort's immortality. It could be the case that this is Voldemort's mistake, and love remains the power that he knows not, and there would still be magical resonance if the two came to magical blows, and in canon it's relevant that their wands both have Fawkes's feathers in their core.

Comment author: SilentCal 26 February 2015 12:06:49AM 3 points [-]

I don't think the curse caused the resonance, for two reasons. First, Voldemort never harmed a Riddle. He arguably killed a Potter, but he made no move against the ensuing Riddle. This isn't the type of story to have a race condition bug in the Dark Lord's curse, though that's a great idea for omake.

Second, the don't-kill-each-other curse doesn't explain the feeling of doom or the Azkaban resonance incident very well.

Comment author: ChristianKl 26 February 2015 09:48:03AM 0 points [-]

First, Voldemort never harmed a Riddle.

He did kill his family.

Comment author: Jost 26 February 2015 10:29:12AM 1 point [-]

True, but irrelevant since they are not subject to the curse:

Before I created you, I invoked a curse upon myself and all other Tom Riddles who would descend from me.

(chapter 112)

Comment author: hairyfigment 26 February 2015 12:25:06AM -1 points [-]

Nor does it explain the pain in Harry's scar or his crawling feeling after the gunshots. (Harry was supposedly never under the curse to begin with, in which case he can't still be under it.)

Relevant, from Ch 111:

Harry felt a sense of terrifying apprehension in the air, as though the sense of doom had always been been out of focus and had now clarified, concentrated into a physical pain in the scar on Harry's forehead.

Comment author: Jost 25 February 2015 09:56:00PM *  3 points [-]

in canon it's relevant that their wands both have Fawkes's feathers in their core.

And since this fact is explicitly mentioned in chapter 6 (see quote below), I expect this to play a role in one of the future chapters. (“Law of Conservation of Detail”)

"It is very curious indeed that you should be destined for this wand when its brother why, its brother gave you that scar."

That could not possibly be coincidence. There had been thousands of wands in that shop. Well, okay, actually it could be coincidence, there were six billion people in the world and thousand-to-one coincidences happened every day. But Bayes's Theorem said that any reasonable hypothesis which made it more likely than a thousand-to-one that he'd end up with the brother to the Dark Lord's wand, was going to have an advantage.

Professor McGonagall had simply said how peculiar and left it at that, which had put Harry into a state of shock at the sheer, overwhelming uncuriosity of wizards and witches. In no imaginable world would Harry have just went "Hm" and walked out of the shop without even trying to come up with a hypothesis for what was going on.

(edited for formatting)

Comment author: Nornagest 25 February 2015 10:05:10PM *  8 points [-]

In canon it's fundamentally a coincidence; in story terms it functions as foreshadowing for the Horcrux reveal, but since Horcruces in canon don't seem to affect people's personalities or magic there's really no good reason for it, unless we want to grant wands magical Horcrux-detection powers that we've never seen elsewhere.

Here, though, Harry isn't just a vessel for Voldemort; he's actually a copy of the same soul. It makes perfect sense for the wands to be very similar, and it makes sense from an authorial perspective to emphasize that: it looks like an echo of canon in the event, but it's the sort of thing that enriches the story on a second reading.

Comment author: Jost 25 February 2015 11:56:14PM 3 points [-]

Horcruces in canon don't seem to affect people's personalities or magic

w/r/t magic: IIRC, the Voldemort-Horcrux inside Harry is responsible for him being able to speak Parseltongue. (Although my memory is a bit fuzzy on this; it’s been a while since I last read book 7.) Also, there’s a weird horcrux/magic interaction, which leads to the King’s Cross scene near the end of book 7.

w/r/t personality: Wearing a Horcrux can at least influence the mood of the wearer, see the big row between Harry/Hermione and Ron in book 7. (Why canon!Harry is apparently not influenced by being a horcrux is still a mystery to me …)

Here, though, Harry isn't just a vessel for Voldemort; he's actually a copy of the same soul. It makes perfect sense for the wands to be very similar, and it makes sense from an authorial perspective to emphasize that: it looks like an echo of canon in the event, but it's the sort of thing that enriches the story on a second reading.

You’re absolutely right; the Law of Conservation of Detail is already satisfied by that. However, I still consider Priori Incantatem a plausible option for the next few chapters.

Comment author: CronoDAS 26 February 2015 05:49:04AM 2 points [-]

Why canon!Harry is apparently not influenced by being a horcrux is still a mystery to me …

He was - he had a kind of telepathic link to Voldemort, which gave him visions of what Voldemort was doing. Snape was supposed to teach Harry Occulemency to keep Voldemort out of his head, but it didn't work; Voldemort sent Harry a false vision of Sirius in danger to lead him into a trap.

Comment author: Jost 26 February 2015 10:23:47AM 0 points [-]

Oh, absolutely!

Sorry, my original phrasing was bad. Let’s try again: I still don’t understand why the horcrux inside canon!Harry seems to have no influence on his mood, similar to the mood changes caused by wearing Slytherin’s locket in book 7.

Comment author: higurashimerlin 27 February 2015 04:39:50PM 2 points [-]

I guessing it did and Harry had nothing to compare it to. It has been suggested that Harry's canon step parents were effect and made into complete monsters by ten years of being around a horcrux.

Comment author: CronoDAS 26 February 2015 09:28:42PM 1 point [-]

Hmmm... Well, Harry did spend most of "Order of the Phoenix" acting like a moody teenager. Maybe he just got used to it after a while?

Comment author: TobyBartels 26 February 2015 08:15:35PM 1 point [-]

Maybe it did, just think how jolly Harry might have been otherwise!

Comment author: Gondolinian 25 February 2015 10:04:20PM 0 points [-]

and in canon it's relevant that their wands both have Fawkes's feathers in their core.

I wonder if the Elder Wand will come into play. It has so far not been mentioned in the last two chapters, but that doesn't mean Voldemort doesn't have it/hasn't been using it.

Comment author: Nornagest 25 February 2015 09:49:08PM *  0 points [-]

I'm reading one of Voldemort's claims in this chapter to be that the resonance, rather than caused by Lily's sacrifice, was caused by Riddle's curse that he put on himself and his descendants [...]

That doesn't explain the Godric's Hollow explosion, since Harry wouldn't have been a Riddle instance at the time. I'm pretty sure Voldemort was telling the truth about the resonance, unless something else leveled the Godric's Hollow cottage and killed Voldy's last instance.

Voldemort can just shoot Harry now, however, where previously the curse would have prevented him from doing so.

Powered by Reddit Powered by Reddit