Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality discussion thread, February 2015, chapter 112

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 112.

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Eliezer Yudkowsky which is not supposed to be publicly available (which includes public statements by Eliezer that have been retracted).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 112.

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Yudkowsky which is not supposed to be publicly available (which includes public statements by Eliezer that have been retracted).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

Eh, the important thing is his respawn network. That's what makes him the Dark Lord. He's built a pyramid of atrocity, cut a swathe through the people of the land, turning their individual contributions to the world into Extra Lives sitting in his reserve.

Buffing any particular avatar is nice, I guess, but the Troll/Unicorn bells and whistles are not useful to a wizard who expects to fight. Wizards fight with the killing curse. Troll/Unicorn/Broomstickbone Voldemort isn't any more terrible than a Voldemort who hides inside some anonymous wizard and murders his enemies by surprise, returning swiftly when killed in another disguised body.

Buffing any particular avatar is nice, I guess, but the Troll/Unicorn bells and whistles are not useful to a wizard who expects to fight. Wizards fight with the killing curse.

True, but being hit with AK isn't the only thing that can disembody him. Other magical attacks, dangerous magical creatures, muggle attacks, magical or mundane accidents, etc., would not be a threat to him with Hermione's new protections. Being disembodied would be a serious setback for his current plans, and would leave his horcruxes vulnerable until he could find a new host, so I think it's reasonable to want to take precautions against stupid little unexpected things that could cause that.