Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality discussion thread, part 11

Oscar_Cunningham

EDIT: New discussion thread here.

This is a new thread to discuss Eliezer Yudkowsky's Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality and anything related to it. With two chapters recently the previous thread has very quickly reached 500 comments. The latest chapter as of 17th March 2012 is Ch. 79.

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. (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.)

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, ten.

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Yudkowsky which is not supposed to be publicly available (which includes public statements by Eliezer that have been retracted).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

EDIT: New discussion thread here.

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Yudkowsky which is not supposed to be publicly available (which includes public statements by Eliezer that have been retracted).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

You're right, the Hogwarts wards don't detect or prevent Imperius cast by and on professors. That actually makes sense to add extra deniability for Quirrel (or whoever is controlling them). Edit: either I didn't see this part of the grandparent or I didn't realize the implications.

However, either the Imperius must be maintained indefinitely: too much risk of being found out one day? If something happens to the controlling character, short of death, does it provoke a Will save and break the Imperius? If the controlled character is examined, especially by a Legilemens, the Imperius would definitely be found out but would the controller be identified? Does someone being controlled necessarily know who the controller is?

Or it would be maintained for only brief periods, each time erasing the target's memory of being controlled.

Note 1: Lucius claims to have been Imperiused for years by Voldemort with at least some plausibility, so presumably all of this is surmountable.

Note 2: an Imperiused professor could be ordered to self-erase memories after each time they executed orders from the controller, so the two don't even need to meet to coordinate (pure mental control).

This looks like a game-breaking spell. A very powerful wizard who has infiltrated the enemy camp should carry out all of his actions via Imperiused agents. Are there any limitations? For instance, does maintaining an Imperius take up a piece of the controller's magic for the duration? How does one break it if one has captured a controlled piece but cannot face the controller directly? Inquiring minds want to know :-)