I thought the way chapter dealt with Hagrid was very appropriate. The fact is Hagrid wouldn't have much to add to the story and Harry wouldn't be able to interact with him well, but that fact IS a little sad.
Eh. It and the Ron thing make the elitism increasingly distasteful. I mean, what does it say when the Malfoys care more for the underclass than you do?
But the fact is there's only so far I can go along with this before the reader-character disconnect becomes too great.
Honestly, I think it's passed that point for me. This was the Harry who told Minerva about the enchantment on the Sorting Hat; for him to make the choices he's made means he's in full Dark Lord mode. Harry's lost, and it's a question of whether or not he'll be redeemed, not whether or not he'll resist.
It also doesn't help that his morality is bland and broken; if he were rejecting interacting with Hagrid because he's an Objectivist, I'd be more interested; instead, he's just made the calculation that Hagrid is worthless to him but is deluding himself into believing he actually has compassion for all other people.
Having compassion for all other people doesn't necessarily mean wanting to be friends with them. We can value others' lives and well-being while realizing that we might not get along personally.
Update: Discussion has moved on to a new thread.
After 61 chapters of Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality and 5 discussion threads with over 500 comments each, HPMOR discussion has graduated from the main page and moved into the Less Wrong discussion section (which seems like a more appropriate location). You can post all of your insights, speculation, and, well, discussion about Eliezer Yudkowsky's Harry Potter fanfic here.
Previous threads are available under the harry_potter tag on the main page (or: one, two, three, four, five); this and future threads will be found under the discussion section tag (since there is a separate tag system for the discussion section). See also the author page for (almost) all things HPMOR, and AdeleneDawner's Author's Notes archive for one thing that the author page is missing.
As a reminder, it's useful to indicate at the start of your comment which chapter you are commenting on. Time passes but your comment stays the same.
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: