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

Oscar_Cunningham

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

by Oscar_Cunningham

17th Mar 2012

1 min read

1182

9

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Yudkowsky which is not supposed to be publicly available (which includes public statements by Eliezer that have been retracted).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

HPMOR (discussion & meta)

Personal Blog

9

New Comment

Rendering 0/1182 comments, sorted by

top scoring

(show more) Click to highlight new comments since: Today at 4:05 PM

Some comments are truncated due to high volume. (⌘F to expand all)Change truncation settings

Moderation Log

More from Oscar_Cunningham

Curated and popular this week

1182Comments

1182

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

Comment Permalink

mjr14y250

Okay, I don't really think this is how it'll go down - slightly too Dark Lordish. But the image was amusing, so here goes:

"It just happens that if Hermione doesn't walk, everyone but me will lose the ability to cast Patronus. Don't buy it? Oh, well, I'll just explain it to Hermione and she'll be able to testify under Veritaserum that I can do it."

Or, you know, have Hermione figure it out herself from Harry's note and do the blackmail herself.

Anyway, the blackmail potential for this is rather great, and I'd not be surprised to see it used in a more dire situation with more than Hermione on the line.

Showing 3 of 5 replies (Click to show all)

aleksiL14y140

What's the in-story justification for the dementor's presence anyway? I thought it seemed awfully convenient in case Harry decided to demonstrate his Patronus 2.0 but I couldn't figure out how it'd help enough.

I'd forgotten about the potential for ruining others' patronuses, though. That makes a lot more sense, especially considering he'd just reached into his dark side - possibly deeper than he'd ever willingly done before.

My guess: it wouldn't be enough at this point to just demonstrate a superior patronus or tell people about the possibility of ruining ... (read more)

6Rejoyce14y

Combining with this idea: Harry openly speaks about Patronus 2.0, everyone's Patronuses fail (especially the sparrow and squirrel currently guarding the Dementor, everyone would see them fail), Harry casts his Patronus to protect Hermione (or she figures it out and casts her own, not that she would get the chance to but she might figure it out at least), and the Dementor starts sucking souls until Lucius retracts his sentence. Heck, maybe even threaten to spread Patronus 2.0 to the media, make wizarding Britain's animal Patronus population fail, then Aurors won't be able to keep their Patronuses up to guard Azkaban. So even if Hermione gets in, she wouldn't get her happiness sucked...

3hairyfigment14y

This might work, in combination with something that I see others have suggested. You need some way to get them to listen. This would take a lot, given that they're already recording the verdict. So: would the threat of destruction goad a dementor into breaking through two animal Patroni? Can Harry believe this would happen? (If so, coldly claiming that he can destroy Patronus ability might create enough doubt in the others' minds that it wouldn't matter if dementors follow expectations or not.) This plan does have shortcomings, like the threat of killing someone's mind (perhaps even Hermione's) and the risk of revealing what he did in Azkaban (at least to MoR!Dumbledore).

See in context