Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality discussion thread, part 10

Oscar_Cunningham

16 Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality discussion thread, part 10

by Oscar_Cunningham

7th Mar 2012

1 min read

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(The HPMOR discussion thread after this one is here.)

This is a new thread to discuss Eliezer Yudkowsky's Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality and anything related to it. There haven't been any chapters recently, but it looks like there are a bunch in the pipeline and the old thread is nearing 700 comments. The latest chapter as of 7th March 2012 is Ch. 77.

There is now 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.

The first 5 discussion threads are on the main page under the harry_potter tag. Threads 6 and on (including this one) are in the discussion section using its separate tag system. Also: one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine.

As a reminder, it's often useful to start your comment by indicating which chapter you are commenting on.

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Yudkowsky which is not supposed to be publicly available (which includes public statements by Eliezer that have been retracted).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

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Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality discussion thread, part 10 — LessWrong

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gwern14y70

Why, in this theory, did Voldemort abandon his quite successful campaign, become the lame Quirrel, and begin fiercely criticizing his former self and attempting to reform magical Britain's children into tools that would defeat his former self?

Bugmaster14y110

My own (admittedly somewhat romantic) hypothesis is that Quirrelmort is trying to correct his past mistakes.

Recall the conversation that Dumbledore has with Harry regarding escalation and proportional response. Dumbledore tells Harry that the Light cannot, must not win every battle, because some victories come at too high a price. Harry, on the other hand, believes that the ends justify the means, and that it's all just a matter of thinking up a sufficiently clever solution. Without Dumbledore's intervention, he would've escalated the SPHEW-bully conflict... (read more)

0anotherblackhat14y

Maybe he knows how Minister Fudge will react (badly) and hopes to get Dumbledore sacked.

1075th14y

He didn't abandon his campaign, he got blown out of his body when he tried to kill Harry Potter. Later on he possessed Quirrell, and as he said himself, "One can never quite disentangle the mind from the body it wears". Perhaps he's imbued with some of Quirrell's own opinions. Quirrell must have been somewhat Voldemort-ish before the possession, if Voldie chose him as a suitable vessel. Incidentally, when all has he criticized Voldemort? I can think of one time, when he said that Voldie was foolish to wish the story of the dojo to be retold. But if Quirrell's part of the story was really Voldemort, then that was simply a lie; Voldie DIDN'T kill everyone on his first visit to the dojo, but later on, deliberately, to sow fear. At any rate, we shouldn't take Quirrell's opinions of Voldemort at face value, given that, to some extent, they're the same person. "Don't believe everything you read." And Voldemort isn't training Britain's children to defeat a Dark Lord, he's training them to defeat the Muggles. In MoR, Voldemort actually has a good reason to hate Muggles and Muggleborns: their recklessness with power (nuclear weapons, etc.). In his speech before Christmas he all but stated his belief that there would someday be a climactic battle between wizardkind and the Muggle world, which only a united wizarding world could win. That is his ultimate purpose for Dark Harry: to lead the world (or help Voldie lead the world) against the Muggles.

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