You're looking at Less Wrong's discussion board. This includes all posts, including those that haven't been promoted to the front page yet. For more information, see About Less Wrong.

Anubhav comments on Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality discussion thread, part 12 - Less Wrong Discussion

5 Post author: Xachariah 25 March 2012 11:01AM

You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.

Comments (692)

You are viewing a single comment's thread. Show more comments above.

Comment author: Anubhav 27 March 2012 07:53:04AM 3 points [-]

First paragraph: Irrelevant.

Maybe it's just an inherent constraint of writing a Harry Potter fic.

In other words, you're talking about what makes a fic a Harry Potter fic, not about what HPMoR is about.

a story that eventually revealed that "prophecies don't really exist and are always cons" ... would be in the same class as a story that eventually revealed that "magic doesn't really exist, it's all sufficiently advanced technology controlled by aliens who are the real mastermind, villain, and Harry ends up teaming with Voldemort to defeat them". It might be a good story, but it's not a Harry Potter story.

In other words, a story where Arthur is king of Britain rather than a supernatural adventurer isn't an Arthur story. A story where Merlin is a major character isn't an Arthur story. A story where Mordred is actually an alien isn't an Arthur story.

What I'm saying here is that you're drawing a line in the sand between "Harry Potter stories" and "not Harry Potter stories", but that line doesn't correspond to any kind of sharp division in the real world.

Comment author: wedrifid 27 March 2012 08:54:32AM 3 points [-]

sharp division in the real world.

Something about reading this as it relates to fanfiction makes me smirk.

Comment author: Anubhav 27 March 2012 09:06:11AM 1 point [-]

Implying that fanfiction is not written in the real world.

Comment author: DanArmak 27 March 2012 08:21:54PM 1 point [-]

Like most human categorizations, it's a simplification. There's no line in the sand, but there's a rough gradient or spectrum stretching from stories not related to HP at all, through stories with similar themes that make people think of HP (but don't explicitly make the connection in the text), through stories that use the HP names and characters and settings but change events drastically from the series (like this HP and the Wastelands of Time), through stories that change fewer things (like HPMOR), and ending with some that stick to canon as much as possible.

This isn't about what stories "deserve" to be called "true HP fanfiction". That would end up as a No True Scotsman fallacy. My original wording was poorly chosen in that it made you (plural) think I meant something like this.

Rather, what I'm saying is: the story up till now has been consistent in terms of lying in a particular location on this spectrum. It has been consistently presented and written that way. If, now, in a new chapter, we found out that prophecies don't really exist and are all faked, that would be an idea typical on a story at a very different location along that spectrum. It would conflict with the story so far. Readers would not enjoy it. It would be bad storytelling. Therefore I believe with high probability such a thing will not be revealed in HPMOR.

Comment author: Anubhav 28 March 2012 03:43:35AM 0 points [-]

Rather, what I'm saying is: [stuff you're saying]

In which case, I totally misunderstood what you were saying. Never mind.