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Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality discussion thread, part 12
The new thread, discussion 13, is here.
This is a new thread to discuss Eliezer Yudkowsky's Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality and anything related to it. With three chapters recently the previous thread has very quickly reached 1000 comments. The latest chapter as of 25th March 2012 is Ch 80.
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, eleven.
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Eliezer Yudkowsky which is not supposed to be publicly available (which includes public statements by Eliezer that have been retracted).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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Comments (692)
Somewhere in the last thread's 1000 posts, it occured to me that it might be useful to have a list of non-obvious insights aggregated. This is stuff that may be missed if the reader has read only HPMoR but is unfamiliar with canon, or it may be things that are well hidden in plain sight. I know it's not normal practice to rot13 such things, but the sheer density of them makes it seem prudent.
Dhveery vf Ibyqrzbeg.
Yhpvhf guvaxf Uneel vf Ibyqrzbeg.
Dhveery znqr gur Iblntre 2 cebor n Ubepehk.
Uneel nppvqragnyyl thrffrq gur ybpngvbaf bs Dhveery'f Ubepehkrf.
Dhveery xvyyrq Evgn Fxrrgre.
Qhzoyrqber urycrq Yvyl znxr Crghavn'f ornhgl cbgvba.
Dhveery unf gur Erfheerpgvba Fgbar Qrnguyl Unyybj.
I know there's a bunch I'm missing so feel free to add. Ideally, they should not be controversial, just easily missed.
I didn't actually spot that last one. Where should I be looking?
Me neither. I was going with 'Harry has it'.
Possibly Harry will swap it for Dad's Transfigured rock when the bad guy isn't looking?
Quirrell stops short the field trip in chapter 40, saying something's come up that requires he be elsewhere, soon after Harry shows him the symbol (and that's the only real news for Quirrell that's shown). Strongly suggests that Quirrell knows where an object is with that symbol and, now he knows what it is, is going to fetch it.
If the backstory is the same as canon, Riddle in fact did gain possession of the ring that held the stone without immediately knowing it for what it was. Chapter 27 has a reference to a ring that tends to confirm that the backstory is, indeed, same as canon.
It's possible that Quirrell was unsuccessful in obtaining the object, but the most likely scenario is he went and got it without trouble and now has it.
Also Ch. 77:
I'm guessing what Quirrell lied about is that it was months ago, rather than just about one month ago...
He has that stone too? And Dumbledore doesn't know it? That would surprise me.
I assumed they were referring to the Philosopher's Stone, which (at least in canon) is hidden in the third floor corridor.
Ah, I was confused, thought Resurrection Stone and Philosopher's Stone were the same thing.
No - one extends life and turns lead to gold, the other resurrects the dead.
I thought gur Erfheerpgvba Fgbar was in the same state as in canon.
In canon, it's part of Morfin Guant's family signet ring. If you're familiar with canon, you'd know who would currently be in possession of it in this timeline, if they knew what to look for.
And they get told what to look for in HPMoR ch 40.
Could we get a very brief summary of the arguments for these too? I've just now started reading the discussion threads, but there's a significant barrier to entry if you don't understand why people think these things.
Would the chapters containing the primary evidence for these (20, 38, 20, 46, 26, 17, 40, respectively) be a good start?
Unlikely, since I'm unlikely to rearead them - I've already read it start to finish twice and none of these seem obvious to me. Well, a few do.
I'm really just looking for
Dhveery znqr Iblntre 2 n ubepehk - erzrzore gung pbairefngvba jurer gurl gnyxrq nobhg jurer jbhyq lbh chg fbzrguvat vs lbh arire jnagrq fbzrbar gb svaq vg?
Ohg jura V qvfpbirerq gung Cvbarre 11 jbhyq nyfb or yrnivat gur Fbyne Flfgrz sberire," Cebsrffbe Dhveeryy fnvq, uvf teva gur jvqrfg gung Uneel unq lrg frra sebz uvz, "V fahpx vagb ANFN, V qvq, naq V pnfg n ybiryl yvggyr fcryy ba gung ybiryl tbyqra cyndhr juvpu jvyy znxr vg ynfg n ybg ybatre guna vg bgurejvfr jbhyq." Chapter 20.
Oh yeah... That too. :-)
I retract my below comment. I am too curious not to reread these chapters, and in retrospect that comment was somewhat rude and unthankful for finding these for me. So thanks.
You're welcome. For what it's worth, I didn't see your comment as rude (I don't play the kind of games where I ask a yes-or-no question, but you're not allowed to say no).
Most of it relies on canon knowledge and how HPMoR mirrors canon.
1) Dhveery vf Ibyqrzbeg va pnaba.
2) Rnpu bs gurve vagrenpgvbaf punatr qenfgvpnyyl va erernqvat. Rfcrpvnyyl Yhpvhf' "V xabj lbh qvq vg" abgr gb Uneel naq Pu 80'f vagrenpgvba orgjrra gur gjb.
3) Dhveery farnxf va gb frr gur Iblntre 2 cebor gb znxr vg ynfg 'fvtavsvpnagyl ybatre'; Dhveery pubbfrf n Uberpehk gung jvyy yrnir gur fbyne flfgrz.
4) Uneel pubbfrf 5 uvqvat fcbgf; va pnaba Ibyqrzbeg unf 5 (cyhf gur qvnel) Ubepehkrf uvqqra.
5) Evgn fxrrgre vf n orrgyr navznthf va pnaba; Dhveery fznfurf ure.
6) Gur cbgvba Qhzoyrqber urycf Yvyl vf pnyyrq Rntyr'f Fcyraqbe; Rntyr'f Fcyraqbe vf n Q&Q ornhgl cbgvba. Uvf zbqvsvpngvbaf pnhfr gur fnzr fvqr rssrpgf gung Crghavn rkuvovgrq.
7) Ibyqrzbeg unf gur Erfheerpgvba Fgbar va pnaba ohg qbrfa'g erpbtavmr vg; Uneel gryyf Dhveery vg'f vqragvslvat genvgf.
I didn't know Ibyqrzbeg unf gur Erfheerpgvba Fgbar va pnaba ohg qbrfa'g erpbtavmr vg. (The last one) Thanks.
I think "accidentally" needs to be added to the fourth and fifth ones. When I went back and read them I remembered them happening, but I thought you meant they were done intentionally and consciously.
Oh, the 4th one is accidental but the 5th is not.
Quirrel's exact words to her were "Yet I find that I cannot deny myself the pleasure of simply crushing you."
Ah. Well caught. I think I read this too fast... Both times I read it.
Jung vf gur rivqrapr gung Dhveery unf gur Erfheerpgvba Fgbar?
Why is HPMOR's Quirrellmort so much less violent than HPMOR's Voldemort?
HPMOR paints a Voldemort fixated on punishing his inferiors, a Voldemort who never used persuasion or inspiration when he could rely on suffering.
Yet Quirrellmort, for all that he talks cynically and is prepared to kill or memory-charm, prefers not to punish when he can benignly persuade or inspire.
In HPMOR, Voldemort was grandiose, cynical, and punitive. Quirrellmort is grandiose, cynical, but not punitive. We see him kill to remove danger, but we don't see him torment to instill subordinates' fear of him. Why the change? Options:
Of those four, my bet is on Horcrux!Harry, but even that doesn't quite make sense to me. Why'd you change, Quirrellmort?
Quirrell and Voldemort are personas designed to play different roles. You are looking for different urges, but there are instead different purposes behind these roles, that call for different behaviors, with any urges controlled too reliably to manifest if contrary to the purpose.
Ch. 79 (Dumbledore):
Ch. 61 (Dumbledore):
Ch. 63 (Quirrell):
Quirrell is not Voldemort, Quirrell is Riddle, just as Voldemort is Riddle.
I like the idea that "Voldemort" was very consciously a role; that fits the Occlumens speech Quirrell gives to Harry.
But still, which is more plausible? That Voldemort's violence was an optimal choice for the situation? Or that Voldemort was stupidly violent?
Quirrell uses the monastery story to argue Voldemort was stupidly violent, which at minimum implies Voldemort had a reputation consistent with stupid levels of violence. Dementor!Harry, which I read as a representation of Voldemort, thinks
which is about as stupidly violent as it gets.
Let's put it this way: if Voldemort's violence level was rationally chosen, the author's worked really hard to disguise that fact.
I believe Dementor!Harry was just damaged by the Dementor, producing both grotesquely negative motivations and poor impulse control.
The chapter emphasizes that it's a separate personality system that's running Harry at that point (which doesn't prove it's Voldemort, but is suggestive). E.g.:
Although it's not absolutely definitive; Dumbledore's line in reply is
which argues for "he's damaged" as you suggest rather than "he's alien [and Voldemort]" as I'm suggesting.
Look at results, though. Until whatever it was happened ten years ago, Voldemort was winning the war with those tactics.
Modulo Harry, those tactics were good enough – no doubt about that. But were they optimal?
Probably not optimal if he could go back and redo from start. But sometimes "good enough" is good enough. Shifting tactics in the middle of a war, to the extent of completely changing your public persona, when a lot of the loyalty of your followers (and the fear that keeps bystanders uninvolved) depends intimately on your existing persona, would not be easy at all.
The simplest reason is that Quirrelmort is simply not in a position to indulge any sadistic impulses the way Voldemort was. He spends hours each day conked out completely, and he has no powerbase to retreat to. Overt malice of the kind Voldemort practiced would very rapidly earn him an adavra. There are quite a few other possible reasons - for one thing, Tom Riddle is not running on the same wetware anymore, and his original brain might have been miswired in a way that did not carry over, or heck, the original Quirrel could have been very calm and unflappable, so now Quirrelmort just cannot get a good temper tantrum going no matter how hard he tries.
True, he doesn't have the power base to openly attack anyone and everyone in the wizarding world. But Quirrell is a wizard with power dwarfing all others except Dumbledore. He could indulge as much sadism as he wants on random people in spots across the globe. If he has the appetite, he could do it.
And with obliviate, he could probably arrange to have Minerva as his sex slave with minimal risk.
(Chapter 70)
Well, that's what he would say either way, isn't it? (Not that I believe he would, the motive seems too human, but it's the principle of the thing.)
Mostly true. The bayesian evidence from that is weak. However, I do think that if he did do this sort of thing, he would be less likely to raise the topic in the first place. Well, unless he's playing one level above me, in which case it would point in the direction of guilt, or he is just messing with my brain, Arrggghhhh!!
Anyway, it doesn't seem to fit Professor Quirrell style. (Though like Harry, I am beginning to wonder if this whole "style" business mean anything.)
Or maybe it's just a departure from the original story? This Voldemort doesn't have much in common with the canon one.
The monastery, Bellatrix, and Dementor!Harry evidences of Voldemort's violent behavior cited above are original creations in HPMOR. HPMOR doesn't just ignore canon!Voldemort's punishment fixation; it reaffirms it.
There should be a reason.
Quirrell had older students beat up Voldemort's enemy during class. He squashed a reporter who mildly annoyed him, cast the Killing Curse at an Auror and probably arranged to put Hermione in danger of Azkaban.
Now if Voldemort were supposed to be stupid, this would still represent a change. But all of his most competent opponents say the opposite, that he seemed frighteningly intelligent. And all the old instances of violence, IIRC, served a forward-thinking purpose in addition to hurting people. (At least if you accept my interpretation of the way he treated Bella.)
Because he failed as Voldemort, updated his model of the world, and is trying a different approach as Quirrell.
It seems to me this is the point of the monastery story: being gratuitously violent may have earned Voldemort status, but it did not get him what he actually wanted. MoR!Voldemort is more rational than canon!Voldemort, so he noticed this fact.
He failed due to whatever happened ten years ago with Harry. We don't even have a good theory yet, IMO, of what that was (and the canon options are misleading).
Apart from that - a day before that - he had not failed at all. His old-style abusive tactics were keeping the Death Eaters in line and were successfully terrorizing the populace, and he was winning the war using those tactics.
However, those tactics may be inappropriate to his current position as Quirrel, because he doesn't have any real minions or subordinates, just a few people he manipulates without their knowledge.
Did he fail or, on learning of the prophecy, pretend to lose?
You're forgetting that Tom Riddle actually did study at the monastery before he destroyed it to deny that training to his enemies.
Voldemort is especially violent and comes off as stupid, but he's just one of Tom Riddle's characters, and if you consider their actions as a whole they're smarter than they appear, on purpose.
There is a classic trick that card counting teams use to avoid detection. If one person shows up, and bets conservatively until the cards are in their favor, and then immediately starts making huge bets, then it is obvious that they are a card counter and the casino can throw them out. But, if that one person betting conservatively simply leaves the table once he thinks the deck is in his favor, and then someone else comes in wearing a loud Hawaiian shirt and acting like a "wild and crazy" risk-lover, then it just looks like someone risk-averse has been replaced with someone risk loving, and neither looks like they're counting cards.
Do we know this? If I recall correctly, all we know is that Quirrelmort says that Quirrel learned there and Voldemort didn't. So as far as I can tell it's an open question whether it was pre-possessed Quirrel who studied there, or Voldemort (or neither).
Well, I suppose the other alternative is of course that Quirrel madethe whole thing up. But if he was telling the truth I don't see any other explanation that makes much sense.
The other hint is that
Implied in Chapter 49, Prior Information, when Harry and Quirrell are discussing Slytherin's monster:
I think that's fully compatible with either possibility. If Voldemort studied there, then he would have reason to destroy it; to not "leave the source of his power lying around". But if, on the other hand, he didn't study there (because he was refused), then he would again have a reason to not leave a source of power lying around. (If I can't have it, no one can.)
Hypothesis 1: Voldemort both stupidly destroyed a school (instead of coming back later in disguise to learn the martial art) and stupidly allowed the tale to spread (letting people know he neither knew the martial art nor was able to control his temper).
Hypothesis 2: Voldemort was smart enough to learn the martial art from the school, combined vengeance for the humiliation he experienced with sound strategy in destroying it afterwards, and then spread misinformation to his enemies that would cause them to underestimate both his abilities and his self-control.
You can construct intermediate hypotheses, but #2 sounds a lot more like MoR!Voldemort to me than #1.
I think you're right that Hypothesis 2 is more likely than H1. However, both assume that some tale (true or false) about Voldemort visiting the school has been circulated in wizard Britain. But as far as we know, that tale is told for the first time in Quirrell's class. As always, Quirrell is our only source:
Of course, if this is the first time the story is told, people may wonder how Quirrell knows. But this is the same chapter in which Quirrell rather blatantly lies and claims to have been a Slytherin, when he (Quirrell, not Voldemort) in fact wasn't.
Sorry, how do we know this?
This came up in one of the previous threads:
But during the interrogation we get this:
I think JoshuaZ meant we don't know for sure that Scrimgeour wasn't lying to trip Quirrell up, the way he did with the Fuyuki thing. (The fact that canonically Quirrell was in Ravenclaw argues against this, but it doesn't seem a sure thing.)
Yes, that's one of the intermediate hypotheses. Call it 1.5 --
Hypothesis 1.5: Voldemort stupidly destroyed a school (instead of coming back later in disguise to learn the martial art), but was smart enough to not spread the tale. Then as Quirrel, he spread misinformation to his enemies that would cause them to underestimate both Voldemort's abilities (now that he's learned the martial art from Quirrel) and his self-control (Quirrelmort having more than the old Voldemort).
It works with what we "know", but still seems to me to be too Canon!Voldemort and not enough MoR!Voldemort for my taste.
Do we have any way of knowing if that story told by Quirrell was true?
I was thinking the same thing. It goes with the "make Harry the Dark Lord and then upload into him" theory. I'd spin it a little differently, though. It's not that he just tortures for fun, but that he is completely indifferent to the suffering of others. So torture is useful if it serves a witty joke, or gains him a nickel. It goes with Harry's intent to kill, and his "Heroic" consequentialist morality. His job is to "get the job done". Also, the demented Harry wasn't proposing to torture people for the glee of their pain, he was just proposing that the death of the annoyers would "get the job done" in removing annoyances.
It's unclear to me that any of the stories of Voldemort's "surplus evil", reveling in sadism, are necessarily true. They all happened offstage. Further, it's unclear that he was even totally indifferent to the suffering he caused. Just as I think Dumbledore took "credit" for burning Narcissa to seem more ruthless to his enemies, might not Voldemort have done similarly all along, to spread terror? That he was quite ruthless in waging war, I have little doubt. But the reports of surplus evil are just stories. Did Draco actually see Voldemort have Bellatrix crucio herself? Did anyone? Did Voldemort actually kill the dojo? How did they verify that the skin on the wall was actually of that guy? Even if it was, how does anyone know what order the skinning and killing took place in? Do we even know that the snake in the chamber of secrets is dead?
So maybe Voldemort hasn't changed at all as Quirrell.
Whether it's Lucius, Malfoy, or Voldemort, EY doesn't seem to deal in black and white. For any human, he doesn't. For Death, yes, but humans, no. No one is the bad guy in their own story.
Why is everyone 100% convinced that Voldemort is Quirrell?
In my read through I would have given that outcome a very low probability because it seems too obvious and the authour explicitly makes fun of it in one of the first few chapters.
The answer to this question is a secret, don't decode unless you're sure you want to know:
Gur nhgube fnvq fb.
The trick is to ignore personality. Never mind how calm or mean someone seems. Just ask: which characters show actions and knowledge that are distinctive to Voldemort?
In canon, Quirrell could not touch Harry because he was Voldemort. In the fic, Harry and Quirrell also cannot touch.
In canon, a Horcruxed object becomes especially long-lived and durable, and the maker of the Horcrux tries to hide it or get it out of others' reach. In the fic, Quirrell tells Harry he enchanted the Voyager 2 space probe to make it super-durable, and talks to Harry about where to lose objects so they'd never be found.
Voldemort knew how he behaved with Bellatrix Black, and is almost the only person with strong reason to rescue her. Quirrell knows and tells Harry how to behave with Bellatrix Black, and persuades Harry to rescue her.
Dumbledore identifies the Bellatrix rescue as bearing the style of Voldemort. Quirrell designed the Bellatrix rescue.
Dumbledore identifies the Hermione frame as having been done by Voldemort. Quirrell was the one who found the bodies, and is the only wizard in Hogwarts we know to be a post-Voldemort newcomer to Dumbledore's acquaintance.
"Quirrell" admits to the interrogating Auror that he is an imposter.
It's easy to miss because we don't think that a personality like Voldemort could turn so calm and un-sadistic as Quirrell. In fact that's the whole background to my post above -- that it's weird how much MoR!Quirrell's leadership style differs from MoR!Voldemort's. How could be so dumb in the past and so clearheaded now?
But once you allow for the possibility of a personality change, or an incredible Occlumens-style personality disguise, Quirrell is the overwhelming candidate. Just watch knowledge and action, not attitude.
Naq gurer'f gur snpg gung Ryvrmre fnlf fb. (Edit: as pedanterrific says below.)
past voldemort seeming dumb should also clearly be at least partially the effect of the winner's narrative. (is there some name for this?)
I don't think HPMOR!Quirrell is Voldemort. canon!Quirrell has Voldemort's face on the back of his head (concealed by a turban). HPMOR!Quirrell does not. His head is visibly bare, although I recall there's something a bit odd about the appearance of the back of his head, perhaps as if something had been removed. This has to be a sign of something. I'm guessing that Quirrell does have or has had a piece of Voldemort in him, but it's read-only, not executable. Quirrell is in charge of himself, and is on the side of light, but his exposure to Voldemort's innermost thoughts and memories has given him a coldly accurate appreciation of what actually works.
EY himself already said as much in the notes, so I think this topic is settled.
Not HPMOR talk, just a suggestion for these discussion threads:
I think that it would make far more sense to start a new thread after every new update rather than when they reach a certain number of comments. New people starting in this thread will miss a lot of good ideas posted in the last one, and also that it is better to have all ideas in one thread than scattered so we can refer to them. Having two threads without any new update in between could also create unnecessary rehashing of old posts.
Since the update schedule seems to be spaced about a week apart, there will probably be about 500-1500 comments in the meantime so there is little chance of having to create new threads too early. In the rare case, a minimum number of comments can be assigned if updating is too frequent.
This. Please.
Agreed. Call this the Ch. 81 thread, and stick to the previous one until it posts.
Edit: Close to 300 posts, and 81 won't even go live for 26 hours yet. I think I failed.
Short detour back to chapter 79, to look closely at the night's events:
At midnight, Draco and Hermine meet for the duel. (Let's assume they did have a duel, because implanting very believable (but still false) memories into both of their brains would take about twice the time of the duel and would thus be unnecessary work.) Let's assume that the duell takes about 15 to 20 minutes, so it's now 12:20am. Enter Mister X. Mister X stuns Draco, implants false memories (< 1 min) into Hermione's brain of her doing the Blood-Cooling Charm, and finally performs the Blood-Cooling Charm on Draco in a way to make sure he survives for >6 hours. Mister X is back in his room at 12:30am and needs to wait 6 hours (plus epsilon) until all traces leading to him have vanished.
And guess what:
Some Bayesian updating on P(Quirrell did it | Quirrell found Draco at 6:33am) tells us that this increases the probability of "Quirrell did it" by a quite noticeable amount.
OTOH, I'm not sure whether it would be okay to just do the math, without taking into account the possibility that Eliezer chose that time deliberately to steer us in a certain direction. Any thoughts on that?
My model of EY says that he would want the evidence he gave us to point to the true culprit--more evidence ought to make finding who did it easier, not harder. If EY chose that time deliberately to point at Quirrell, it's further evidence that Quirrell did it.
And his comment to the effect that he doesn't intentionally mislead readers, made about 4 hours after this one, implies that it may have been in reference to the above hypothesis.
This is contingent on whether the duel would last for 15-20 minutes. To my (admittedly leaky) memory, we haven't seen a proper duel in MoR yet, and I don't believe that any duel in canon lasted for that long either.
Even if the duel lasted only a few minutes and everything was over by, say, 12:10 or 12:20, that would mean Quirrel only waited six hours and 13-23 minutes, depending. Could even be deliberate-- an attempt to throw suspicion off himself by making the timing not quite perfect.
On the other hand, if I take "he's only three minutes late" as evidence that he did it, and "he's more than three minutes late" as evidence that he did it, I'm violating a principle of rationality.
I think he had something to do with it anyway.
If you take "he's just a few minutes late" as strong evidence that he did it, "he's quite a while late" as weak evidence that he did it and "he's early" as very strong evidence that he did not do it, this violation disappears.
Good point, thanks.
The duel between Dumbledore and Grindelwald in canon lasted three hours, according to the Harry Potter wiki.
Is it conceivable that Hermione will spend time in Azkaban without protection from Dementors, and the story will have to build from there?
Anyone know whether HPMOR has gotten any academic attention?
http://www.mendeley.com/research/harry-potter-and-the-methods-of-rationality/
I have no idea.
How on earth does the abstract relate to the putative topic?
Yes, that is the question! Congratulations, you have won our Daily Double!
Some kind of database mixup. Note that the pubmed link is to an unrelated article with a different abstract.
It's not reasonable that Hermione would be unprotected. Everyone in the order of the phoenix knows how to cast a patronus and send it to someone else, and Harry could do a lot more than just protect her from Dementors if it came to that. Plus the chief auror has already said that the aurors wouldn't stand for a 12 year old being exposed to Azkaban, about the only way I can see Hermione being in Azkaban is with 24/7 patronus guards. Anything else leads to open revolt.
I can't conceive of something being inconceivable.
Well if she's going to spend 10 years like that, better turn it into an Occupy Azkaban movement and bring in lots of books so she can study and a Floo portal so she can talk to her friends and she'll tele-graduate Hogwarts with all honors.
That's reassuring. However, people who punish tend to not be mellow about their chance to be inflict misery being snaffled away from them.
So, if Hermione is in Askaban but immune to dementors, now what?
Surely if that were an option, the families of those in Azkaban would have been doing the same already. I'd go along with Quirrell on this - no one but Harry would stick their neck out for Hermione. She doesn't even have wizarding family.
Lucius implied that those who wouldn't stand for it would be replaced, and that shut Bones up. I don't see open revolt by anyone but Harry.
Everyone in the Order of the Phoenix plus Harry plus Draco isn't a lot of people. It's easily possible that none of those people know anyone in Azkaban that they think is innocent. Actually, for all we know Dumbledore was motivated to find a way to send Patroni to other people by his father being in Azkaban.
Sure, all the prisoners who have family/friends in the order sufficient to provide 24/7 support, that believe the prisoner is wrongfully imprisoned, and have the support of the Aurors are already being protected. The rest have to make due with the occasional visit and bribe their way past the aurors.
They would of course believe it to be a temporary solution, just until they can commute Hermione's sentence to a lighter/more appropriate one, but as the saying goes; "there's nothing more permanent than a temporary solution."
Didn't they start checking whenever there's a patronus for more than three hours, to prevent innmates becoming animangi?
I suppose that it's possible that they'd turn a blind eye to Hermione.
Yeah, but if the caster isn't right there, what are they supposed to do about it?
I'm not sure, but I'm sure they'd have something they can do. There's nothing else keeping someone from slipping a prisoner an animangus potion, leaving, and then casting a patronus there after they leave.
There may be some kind of counterspell, or a way to find the caster.
There doesn't have to be something they can do. Up until recently, there was nothing stopping someone from slipping a prisoner an animagus potion and just standing right there with a Patronus up. It's entirely possible that no one in the DMLE has even considered trying to find a way to prevent this, since (as far as they know) the only ones capable of it are the Order of the Phoenix.
Can we add a link in the article heading to discussion section eleven?
Apologies if this was in the earlier thread; I didn't see it.
Some facts: When Quirrell is being interrogated, he "sneezes" to cancel the spell "polyfluis reverso", which would show who, if anyone, had polyjuiced into Quirrell. Canon has it being posession, not polyjuice. Also, he suggests that someone is possessing Quirrell in a way that makes it unlikely to be believed.
Some speculation: Quirrell wants the auror to think that he's somebody else polyjuiced as Quirrell, and is willing to reveal that he is capable of powerful wandless magic to do so. He also at least partly reveals that when he messes with the room's lighting earlier. Why does Quirrell not try to hide this ability better when he knows the strategic value of hidden abilities and, IIRC, only a few wizards (Voldemort among them) are known to be capable of wandless magic?
I'm not sure it's wandless.
Chapter 65.
Then again, the Auror doesn't know of this, so your point stands.
Is this your inference? When I read that chapter, I immediately googled it and 'polyfluis' to see what it did, but only turned up MoR.
Or ask why he told the lackey to tell the Ministry that he ate the Dementor. Why is he painting a target on his back, indeed...
Well, that's the obvious implication of
Ah. Should've looked harder at the other MoR hit.
Would it make sense for Quirrell to be Sirius Black polyjuiced? He might actually just be polyjuiced; that's why he's been so intent on helping Harry, because he's SB. He's able to do wandless magic because once he became an animagus he figured out that other wandless magic was also possible, or at least how to do this.
Oh, just thought of something. Narcissa's murderer could be not Dumbledore, not Bones, but Voldemort, if she was working as an informant. This gives Dumbledore ample motive to say something like "I killed her" to Luscious, and might be reflected by some sort of evidence kept in Dumbledore's hidey-hole, like a burnt piece of Malfoy-themed jewlery.
Also, can you make a portrait with arbitrary personality traits? How about a self-improving painting factory?
Even if Dumbledore didn't kill Narcissa, he would still have a motive to take credit for doing so: to discourage Death Eaters from targeting family members of his allies.
Only tangentially HPMoR related (HPMoR hammers on the #5 point, will hopefully delve deeply into the #6, and touches on the others), but this Cracked article was an interesting perspective:
From #4:
General announcement:
I do not lie to my readers.
Almost everything in MoR is generated by the underlying facts of the story. Sometimes it is generated by humor (I can't realistically claim that Ch. 5 would have comic timing that precise in a purely natural universe). Nothing is generated to deliberately fool the readers.
There are two exceptions to this claim I can readily recall - cases where red herrings made it into the text - and they occur in Ch. 21 where my phrasing of Dumbledore's note to Harry was influenced to be overly compatible with the fan theory (which took me quite by surprise) that the notes were sent by Sirius Black. And in Ch. 77 when Mr. Hat and Cloak says "Time -", which was generated to be compatible with the postulate of a Peggy Sue. I may go back and eliminate both of these at some point to make the text herring-free.
Methods of Rationality is a rationalist story. Your job is to outwit the universe, not the author. There are also cases where people have scored additional points by successful literary analysis, e.g. Checkov's Gun principles. But the author is not your enemy here, and the facts aren't lies.
Of course there are various characters running deceptions and masquerades, but that is quite a different matter.
Of course this is exactly what you would say if you DID lie to your readers.
No, because unlike certain TV shows you the reader will hold him accountable afterwards.
What do you mean by "hold him accountable." It's not like I'd stop donating to SIAI if he pulled a dirty trick on HPMOR readers.
You lose trust when the next story comes around. So far everything in HPMOR makes sense, I think it is reasonable to assume this will continue.
I watched a few tv shows where a well thought out plot was promised upfront. But later it turned out the creators just made things up as they went along. This usually breaks down at some point. When this happens repeatedly one is less likely to get into it again.
Anything in particular that spurred this announcement?
Oh, and do you ever intend to read the later books?
I'm guessing the large amount of very low probability ideas for Harry's solution in the next chapter.
I've said it many times, and I'll say it again... this is a better solution than most of what's been proposed in the discussion thread so far.
Hopefully i'm not deluding myself by believing that my solution outlined here is equal or superior to Harry's solution whatever it is.
I outlined my solution here
http://lesswrong.com/lw/axe/harry_potter_and_the_methods_of_rationality/64am
Check out Chapter 24, which mentions "The Rule of Three": Any plot which requires more than three different things to happen will never work in real life.
I'm counting atleast 8 different things that have to go right for your plot to work (steal Draco's wand, steal Hermione's wand, steal Jugson's wand, convince Snape/Quirrel/Dumbledore to cooperate with your plan, convincingly tamper with the wands, sneak back and return Hermione's wand, return Draco's wand, return Jugson's wand)
Having a few very minor read herrings is a generally accepted part of literature as long as they aren't extremely deceptive. In this context, both of the two seem minor enough to be fair.
Re-posting it so you see it in the inbox:
Eliezer, could you please confirm / deny / decline to answer whether the fic is past its halfway point? Anubhav and I have a persistent memory that you did at one point state that it was, but I can't find that statement so I'm wondering if I just crossed a couple of brain-wires.
Any ideas on what Harry's going to pull out of hammerspace to save Hermione? My guess is "oh btw every single one of you owes me a lifedebt from that time I KILLED VOLDEMORT. Thus saving Lucius from the quote-unquote Imperius Curse. Pay up plzkthx."
Failing that, I can imagine Harry and Fawkes going on a Dementor-killing spree.
That seems to be the consensus #1 and #2 options, yes.
Between chapter 80 and 81, here's my analysis. I can think of seven broad possibilities;
1.) Do nothing
2.) Attack publicly
2b.) Attack publicly in disguise
3.) Stealth attack
4.) Retreat and regroup
5.) Change the board
6.) Deus Ex Machina
1.) Do nothing; I list this simply because people often forget that inaction may be the best possible action. Here, that doesn't seem to be the case. On the other hand, once you realize that sacrifice is necessary, why not give in to the dark side? What's one muggleborn more or less? With proper obliviation Harry can literally forget about Hermione. Plus, the dark side has tasty Hufflepuffs. And cookies.
2.) Attack publicly.
While romantic, this puts Harry into a massive, wasteful, battle with basically all of wizarding Britton.
He's good, but realistically, he'd lose.
Blackmailing the council publicly seems equally pointless. Even if they gave in, it would be disastrous in the long run. On the plus side, this is by far the most dramatic possibility. It's not hard to imagine Harry laying waste to the Dementors essentially freeing all the prisoners, and throwing the wizarding world into complete and utter chaos.
2b.) Attack publicly in disguise. Basically, put on a mask and break Hermione out of custody. Again, several possible ways to do it, but all with the significant drawback of making Hermione a wanted fugitive.
3.) Stealth attack. Harry and Quirrell almost succeeded in getting Bellatrix out without any help and without anyone knowing. With the order and the aurors attempting it, it wouldn't be unimaginable that they could remove Hermione without anyone finding out. On the minus side, Hermione would have to become a non-entity for 10 years, and they'd have to sneak her back in. On the plus side, the comedic potential is enormous. Almost every major character could reasonably have a motive to sneak Hermione out, even the evil ones. Massive Gambit Pileup ensues.
4.) Retreat and regroup The bad part of this is Hemione will be in Azkaban for some amount of time. The good part is that it doesn't result in Harry being at war with magical Britton before he's ready. This probably isn't as bad as it first seems. Many will be outraged by the decision to send a 12 year old girl to Azkaban, including, I bet, Draco Malfoy. Now that the court room acting is over, "Draco" can argue for leniency, and Lucious can soften his heart over the plight of so young a girl who was clearly unaware of the severity of her crime, and blah blah blah. Lucious wants Hermione away from his son, discredited, and wants to stir up the blood purists. All that is accomplished if Hermione is locked up in, say, Nurmengard, and his son vows to stay away from her. Add in a bad publicity campaign smearing the wizingamot "Malfoy says 12 year old girls should be tortured in Azkaban". Harry might even be allowed to visit and banish a few dementors, rather than having to do it clandestinely
5.) Change the board. Determine who really cast the blood chilling charm. Find out who killed Narcissa Malfoy, and give them up. Or the dark path - find someone and give them up as Dracro's assailant/Narcissa's killer, without considering their actual guilt. (Harry could put his minion Lesath Lestrange to good use.) Find something else that Malfoy wants, like say, the philosopher's stone, and give it to him. Become god. All good things to work on, but their timing is not under control, which means this really is a variation of one of the other options with extra work added.
6.) Deus Ex Machina. The author could make anything happen. While it might be that only the author can save them now, it's not something I'd expect the characters to plan for. And I for one would feel cheated if that was the final solution.
Eliezer's clue sounds to me as though there's enough people in the Wizingamot whose interests and/or desires aren't served by convicting Hermione, and it's possible to identify them and change their minds once Harry stops thinking of the Wizingamot as a single inimical force. The details are left as an exercise for the student.
Chapter 38: Lucius Malfoy claims that he was under an Imperius curse cast by Lord Voldemort. In canon, that claim was made by many powerful pureblood lords.
Chapter 26: Freeing someone from an Imperius curse by killing the caster of that curse creates a debt
Chapter 4: Bounties payable to the killer of Lord Voldemort could be delivered to Harry Potter.
Conclusion: Harry Potter is owed a blood debt by a number of the lords of the Wizengamot, which might be large enough that he could call it in and save Hermione. Even if it is just Lucius who owes him this debt, it could be enough.
Comments: Law of Conservation of Detail leans towards these facts being used, feels very desperate and Harry like, allows Hermione to come back to Hogwarts as a student.
What's Dark about this plan? And why wasn't it considered at the pre-trial conference at Hogwarts?
Actually, "because Dumbledore doesn't want Harry to do that" answers my second question, but raises its own questions.
To call in favors he never earned for something he had no conscious control over to subvert the political process of a nation qualifies as at least a little bit dark. I think that it wasn't considered because Harry doesn't think of himself as being the one who killed the Dark Lord regularly, and he doesn't know that much about how debts in Magical Britain work. Only once he fully slipped into his Dark Side and became willing to do anything did he see that he could call in these debts.
I don't believe that Dumbledore would think of subverting the political process in that fashion. That things follow a "good process" seems to be very important to Dumbledore, even when it results in bad ends. That is the most charitable interpretation, and I believe it to be possible.
Oh wow, I completely forgot about the bounties. My gold's on this theory now.
Hermoine is still on the hook in the eyes of Draco and everyone for murder. I believe the story demands a fully vindicated Hermoine to continue, which is why I think Harry will frame Lord Jugson for the false memory charms on Draco and Hermoine. I go into further detail on this elsewhere, just check my comment history.
What False Memory Charm on Draco? I thought the current leading theory was that Hermione was GHD Attacked, FMC'd, then later on (after the attack?) Obliviated of the FMC. I don't see how Draco needed to be messed with at all.
This would be if they were stunned immediately on entering the trophy room, like Harry said we don't even know if a duel took place. Granted he could have just waited until after the duel and stunned Draco from behind, both would look the same to us.
Now that I think about it I actually like your way better, cloak and hat is there invisibly and makes sure Draco wins the duel, then stuns Draco while he is leaving. Less work to do with the False Memory charms, less work to do with tampering the wands, and less chance of messing up on evidence since an actual duel was fought.
What makes you sure that Hermione didn't stun and Blood-Chill Draco herself?
If it were, one could argue that Harry's certainty re: the false-memory charm deliberately fools the reader.
I don't understand what you mean. Harry believes she was FMC'd into obsessing over Draco and believing he was plotting to kill her. That's quite sufficient to drive her to murder, without it actually being her fault.
He also believes that performing the Blood-Cooling Charm was a false memory. (At least that's how I understand the following quotes from ch. 79.) I'll admit however, that the evidence is not as clear as I thought, when I wrote the previous comment.
[…]
Oh, you're right, I misremembered Harry's proposed scenario in the second quote.
Yeah, on balance I think that the duel actually happened and Harry's suggested second round of FMCs is unnecessary- that just comes down to Harry not being willing to believe that Hermione is capable of cold-blooded (ha) murder, even in that state of mind.
A big deal has been made about Hermione's innocence; i.e. Harry's extensive thoughts on the Milgram experiment after Azkaban. The implication seems to me to be that no, that is definitively NOT sufficient to drive her to murder; in fact, nothing would be sufficient to drive her to murder.
If by "herself" we mean without being Imperiused, Confunded, Dark-ritualed or otherwise having her mind directly messed with, it's because we've been inside Hermione's mind enough to know that she wouldn't murder a classmate.
Human beings have characteristics just as inanimate objects do.
Maybe we have different standards, but the Groundhog Day Attack and (at least) one False Memory Charm is quite enough mind-messing for me to believe she did it.
ETA: just to make it perfectly clear, I don't think this value of "she did it" is the sort that should require her to be held liable in a criminal trial. I just meant that the Stunner and Blood-Chilling Charm came out of Hermione's wand while she was holding it.
I don't think a False Memory and whatever persuasive words were used in the Groundhog Day attack would have sufficed for her to cold-bloodledly murder a 11-year old classmate, even if she had seen him openly declare a desire to rape Hannah Abbot. (she might have hot-bloodedly murder him then, but not cold-bloodedly so).
Okay. How about we take up this discussion again in, let's say, thirty-five hours?
'She was Imperiused and then Obliviated' seems to be the likeliest hypothesis.
I still can't figure out whether you're excluding the Imperius.
chapter 79
'She was Imperiused and then Obliviated' looks like the likeliest hypothesis right now.
Sorry? In canon, many powerful pureblood lords claimed to have killed Voldemort?...
Ah. You mean they claimed to be Imperiused. I'm obscurely disappointed. For a moment I imagined a coalition of Rational Pureblood Lords going around saying "it's ridiculous to believe a baby survived the Killing Curse and killed the Dark Lord, really we ambushed him and left the burned husk of his body".
Any option that doesn't allow Hermoine to be cleared of all charges to go back to school is not an option
The hidden 7th Option.
Use a false memory charm on a student to generate testimony framing someone else as false memory charming Draco and Hermoine. My favorite path right now it to set up Lord Jugson using the time turner, invisibility cloak, tampering with the wands, and a False memory charm on a student. I go into more detail here http://lesswrong.com/r/discussion/lw/axe/harry_potter_and_the_methods_of_rationality/64am
That would fall under 5. "... find someone and give them up as Dracro's assailant/Narcissa's killer, without considering their actual guilt." And like any option that falls under that broad category, we don't know how long it would take to carry out, so it's more "Let Hermione go to Azkaban while framing Lord Jugson." (action 4 plus 5)
If I were going for the safe, boring route, I'd pick 4 combined with trying to determine (and prove) the actually guilty party who false memory charmed Hermione. There aren't very many people who;
Let's discuss Dementors. I was surprised to learn that a lot of people came away from TSPE believing in Harry's initial hypothesis, that Dementors had no minds of their own and were controlled by the expectations of the people nearest them. To me, this seemed conclusively disproved by something Harry isn't aware of: the fact that the dozen Dementors he scared away went back to their hundred-plus brethren in the central pit and thereafter all of them refused to tell the Aurors where Harry was, despite the fact that there were quite a lot of Aurors believing very strongly that they would.
If there's something I'm missing that rescues this hypothesis, I'd appreciate it being pointed out. At this point, I have to believe that whatever ritual (or possibly "law of magic", if we believe Harry) creates Dementors also imbues them with at least some independent decision-making ability, and that they have goals which include 'continuing to exist'.
That was my impression as well. This means that Harry could order the dementor to do pretty much anything. All he'd really have to do is demonstrate that he can command them and he'd open up several options. Of course, all of this depends on Harry knowing that the dementors aren't controlled only by the expectations of those around them.
My prediction (80% certainty) is that the cliffhanger resolution will not have been guessed here or in the chapter reviews.
http://predictionbook.com/predictions/6170
(Also, are you really willing to trudge through all the reviews to test your prediction?)
I'm actually fairly confident in my guess to be honest. I guess we will see in a day.
I notice I am confused.
Well, considering Quirrell is in custody, it can't hurt to look elsewhere. If Dumbledore doesn't bring Quirrell under heavy interrogation of his own after he is released, then I will be confused.
So the question is, does Quirrell know that the Map exists / is possible? If he does, either he's already beaten it or he can't risk ever going back to Hogwarts. If not, he's about to get caught by Dumbledore in the seat of his power while weakened.
I would be a little annoyed if Quirrell's circumvented the Map- it would be way more impressive if he arranged for the Great Quidditch Reform plus Ravenclaw and Slytherin winning the House Cup from outside Hogwarts.
Edit: I am wrong.
What will Quirrell display as on the Map? One would think that, if the Map read "VOLDEMORT", the Weasley twins would have figured it out. (There's an analogous, hilarious, inconsistency in canon; how did the twins never see Peter Pettigrew sleeping in Ron's bed?)
If Voldemort did steal Quirrell's body rather than use Polyjuice, he might just appear on the map as "Quirrell".
Possibly "Tom Riddle".
It wouldn't read Voldemort in any case; Dumbledore expects, and I have no reason to expect otherwise, that Voldemort would show up as Tom Riddle.
The Twins' POV mentions two errors in the Map, one constant and one intermittent. If Quirinus Quirrell sometimes (maybe whenever he's out of zombie-mode) reads as Tom Riddle, that would be the intermittent one, and if Quirrell and Riddle were constantly superimposed, that would be the constant. The Twins wouldn't necessarily think this was extremely suspicious; if they looked it up, they'd find a Tom Riddle was Head Boy in 1945, and nothing after that. (His identity wasn't common knowledge.)
Of course, both of those ideas have the problem that if Dumbledore ever talks to the Twins about the Map, the jig's up. So another possibility is that Quirrell did something (to himself or possibly the Map) to keep his name from showing on it correctly. If Quirrell's name is constantly (or only when out of zombie-mode) scrambled or blurred into illegibility, that would work too.
Quite right, I completely overlooked that.
However, this does raise an interesting and completely tangential question about the Map. How does it know everybody's name? What 'database' does it---or rather the enchantment that it is an interface for---make reference to?
An obvious answer would be birth certificates. It is not (too) unreasonable to suppose that wizards have them too, and that the Map is clever enough to map people to their birth certificates. I have no idea how it would do this, but in any case I don't think this can be how the Map works.
First, what if my birth certificate is destroyed? Of course I can get a replacement, but there will be a period in which there is nothing the Map can refer to in order to determine my name. It could 'cache' my information, I suppose. But what if a baby is born in Hogwarts? What does the Map say before the baby is named?
This leads into the second, larger, problem. The enchantment that the Map is an interface for is supposed to be part of the Hogwarts security system. I've gotten the impression that Hogwarts was raised all at once by the Founders; the enchantment in question would have been cast then. 'Then' is the 9th or 10th century, according to canon. "Civil registration" of births didn't begin in the United Kingdom until 1837. Prior to that I think births were often registered with churches, but surely there were many whose names had no official status; they had 'common-law' designations (this still must occur often).
So how does the Map work?
Maybe it works by a registry of current and former students and faculty at Hogwarts, and people who are neither show up as "Intruder (number)" or something. In modern Wizarding Britain this would include basically everyone.
I mean, if the Founders created the Map as part of the Hogwarts security system, they wouldn't have been all that concerned with putting a name on everyone who could possibly step foot on the grounds, they'd just want to be able to locate students and differentiate them from anyone else.
I can't remember, did the Beauxbatons and Durmstrang delegations show up on the Map in GoF? Not that it really matters, the canon!Map and MoR!Map are different enough that it wouldn't be much evidence.
This theory, unlike the birth certificate one, can easily explain how the Map matches people with names. During the Sorting, McGonagall reads aloud a name, and the next person who puts on the Sorting Hat is assigned that name. (Assuming the Hat is hooked up to the security system, or vice versa.)
Actually, that's even better- we have a known mechanism by which (something that could be hooked up to) the Hogwarts wards can read minds to determine names. So it actually doesn't require some extraneous piece of paper or database or whatever, but on the other hand would only work on people who've been Sorted.
Other than the "external database" option, the only other sources of name information I can think of are:
I feel that picking someone's name from their own mind seems the most elegant and consistent. It doesn't handle babies (Before the parents choose a name, can a baby even be said to have one? Babies would have to be special-cased regardless), but it does allow arbitrary people to be mapped (multiple strangers being indistinguishable from each other seems like a serious flaw in a security system) and requires no external registry. On the one hand, it seems like interrogating the mind of every human is vastly more complicated than just looking up the name in a database, but to the kind of epistemology which would seem obvious to a 9th-century witch or wizard I can see it being "obvious".
(And to respond to your question about Pettigrew in the great-grandparent, I would assume that the map skips over animals entirely, which would probably include animagi. This would tend to lend a slight amount of weight to my "the map displays your name as you know it" theory, as if the names came from how everyone else around you knew you there would be no reason not to include pets.)
If my theory is true, it raises an additional interesting question: Is it possible to obliviate yourself selectively so that you lose all knowledge of your own name? (Possibly storing the memories in a pensieve first so you can recover them later) And if so, is the map the only piece of the Hogwarts security system which might be impeded by this?
A further idea: Professor Quirrel is shown to take a very loose approach to identity and names ("Identity does not mean, to such as us, what it means to other people.") Possibly Quirrelmort is the constant error, not because his name is wrong, but because he doesn't have a name attached to his marker at all.
A large part of the plot of Prisoner of Azkaban hinges on the fact that Lupin noticed Pettigrew on the Map while he was in rat form.
In Quirrell's case, he may be a powerful enough Occulumens to prevent the Map from reading his mind and so learning his name (if your theory is correct).
What makes you think they didn't?
</humor>
(The obvious answer to this inconsistency is that they had no reason to spy on their brother/the first-years' dorm, but... He used to be Percy's rat. They never spied on Percy? BS.)
We, the readers, know directly about lots of evil things Quirrell has done (e.g. kill Skeeter, break Bellatrix out of prison). We have also used this knowledge to guess at nefarious motives in other, less obvious, cases: like guessing that he was trying to dement Harry, or guessing that he is Hat&Cloak, or guessing that he is constantly manipulating Harry for his own ends.
Dumbledore has access to none of this knowledge. To Dumbledore, Quirrell is an exceptional teacher of Battle Magic who has the interests of the students at heart. He does not appear to take part in politics, with the exception of his pro-unification speech after the battle in the lake.
Dumbledore thinks that Voldemort is "less than spirit, less than the meanest ghost." The ancient tales he found speak of "wizards possessed, doing mad deeds, claiming the names of Dark Lords thought defeated."
The two pictures don't fit together — Quirrell is not doing mad deeds nor claiming the name of the Dark Lord. It's true that Dumbledore knows Tom Riddle was exceptionally brilliant, but I don't think it's idiotic of him to not guess that maybe the old tales of past dark lords only told of the stupid ones, and that Riddle's style of possession would be different.
Wait, killing Skeeter was evil?
I was under the impression that that created a tremendous dose of positive utility for pretty much everyone. Readers included.
Author's notes for chapter 27.
It's really easy to feel a total lack of empathy for fictional characters, especially if they're the sort that nobody likes. I don't actually want to murder hack journalists, but it's pretty funny to do when there's no real human dying.
wait, Quirrel killed Rita? Can any of you quote that part for me? I can't believe I skipped this one.
Squished her like a bug.
See Chapter 26:
(The stumbling happened earlier in the same chapter, Quirrell covered it though, feigning dizziness.)
Wait, breaking out Bellatrix was evil?
If you assume that Quirrel is Voldemort, then either he was lying and Bellatrix was just flat-out evil, or he MADE Bellatrix the way she is and presumably his motives for breaking her out have less to do with healing her and more to do with freeing his evil minion. It's possible Riddle's body had some sort of neurological problem that made him psychotic, which Quirrel does not share, making him regret his past actions, but I think this is unlikely and that he's still just evil.
And we heavily suspect that once Quirrel returns to Hogwarts, the Marauder's Map will show Dumbledore Tom Riddle's name next to his location...
I don't.
Whatever the hell happens, it has to end with a snap.
Dumbledore's trickeries: just how much is he covering up?
We know, now, from the "Santa Claus" stunts, that Dumbledore is quite capable of trickery. Reading between the lines, it appears he cruelly sabotaged Snape and Lily's teenaged relationship.
What other deceptions belong to Dumbledore? Several are possible.
The prophecy and Snape:
The "confessor" interlude makes it clear that Snape was present for Sybil's prophecy. Does that mean that Harry is wrong to theorize that Dumbledore arranged for Snape to hear it...
... or did Dumbledore use a Time-Turner to make sure Snape heard the prophecy live and in person, so that Snape would be baited more credibly into telling Voldemort?
Rita Skeeter's False Memory Charm:
Dumbledore rewards the Weasleys for the prank, which happened to benefit Harry Potter and deprive Lucius Malfoy of a tool. Is it possible that he not only rewarded them for it, but committed the active part of it himself?
Amelia Bones burning Narcissa Malfoy:
There's suggestive evidence within the text ("Someone would burn for this") that Amelia Bones is hard-bitten and fire-minded. We also see her specifically pulling back Dumbledore from confessing to Narcissa's murder. Is it possible that Bones performed the murder, and afterward Dumbledore pretended to Lucius that he had been Narcissa's killer?
Lily's final Dark-ritual conversation with Voldemort:
Lily's last conversation with Voldemort just so happens to replicate the requirements of a Dark ritual - you name the thing sacrificed, and then the thing to be gained.
Did Dumbledore prompt Lily on what to say if confronted by Voldemort, to trigger the accidental Horcruxing that saved Harry?
How much of this is Dumbledore actually guilty of? Do we know or suspect other trickeries, or have other evidence?
...Now that's awesome.
The prophecy was made before Harry was born; the Potters were in hiding for more than a year before the attack.
Fixed. Thanks!
Also,
In canon Kendra died some time before Ariana, not in the fight.
I don't understand how you get this from
Removed confusing clause. In the fic, we have
This is a change from canon. Presumably it points to a secret about Dumbledore.
Ah, no it's not?
Here's a real change from canon:
chapter 18
No clue what it implies, though.
That's really awesome.
I've always considered the protection Harry had by Lily's "Love" (in canon) to be essentially dark magic done by Lily. She spent her own life to cast a ridiculously powerful and specific spell of protection on her son. The 'power of love' nonsense is true only in the mundane sense of the term. It was the motivation to use the spell. This doesn't devalue the power of love - that's how love really works - it influences the incentive of intelligent agents.
I wouldn't place this one in the realm of 'guilt'. Assuming things happened according your story, Dumbledore gave Lily the power to do something that she wanted to do (sacrifice, save). Helping other people save their babies does not accrue guilt.
Where do prophecies come from?
The idea of Time itself designating some people and events as Important and composing vague poetry about them is incompatible with a universe that runs on simple physical laws and is obviously nonsense. Doubly so if those laws are actually timeless. I hope I can state this unequivocally.
If Eliezer wants to teach his readers that a hero can be anyone with the talent, courage, and conscientiousness to do what's right, that there are no auras of destiny, that heroes choose themselves, then he can't actually have the planet's operating system, the Source of Magic, amputating the characters' destinies by choosing which ones to promote to Power User status. Even if it has a naturalistic explanation, a story whose heroes are ordained by fate would teach the same lessons as Star Wars. While David Brin is reading it. And Eliezer wouldn't do that, right?
Dunno.
Depending on where you draw the line, anywhere from four to six false prophets have now appeared in the story. I assumed they were there to prime you - really, beat you over the head - with the idea that prophecies can be human fabrications. But perhaps Eliezer just likes to repeat himself.
Similarly, the repetition of Grindelwald's name should be priming us to accept his subsequent appearance in the story and not find it arbitrary or contrived. Chapter 42 is utterly pointless except as foreshadowing of his motivation for returning. If Trelawney's prophecies have a human author, it should be someone who can play at the same level as Dumbledore and Voldemort, but not be one of the prophecies' dupes. Grindelwald is the only available candidate. It fits the rhythm of the story, which is pounded out with falling anvils: Harry being forced to fight Voldemort and Grindelwald at the same time is the sort of escalation of challenge he faces routinely. It's a reasonable guess.
But there's nothing connecting Grindelwald to prophecy. And I was wrong the last time I guessed at his role in the story, trying to shoehorn him into Voldemort's superfluous second secret identity, Mr Hat and Cloak. So I don't know. Where do prophecies come from?
It took me a bit to come up with a hypothesis about what this means, but... are you referring to the fact that Chapter 42 mentions male homosexuality? I really can't see what else it might have to do with Grindelwald, but that's... that's something alright.
Yes, that would be awful. But I meant this:
I don't expect Sirius to show up, since his tale was told to its conclusion. His nemesis was Peter, and Peter is dead. Which leaves open the question of why we heard so much about him. One reason for recounting his story in MoR would be to establish a parallel motivation for Grindelwald's return as an antagonist.
Uh...
and
Re. the second quote, in light of Eliezer's statement that the story contains no red herrings: good point.
Second quote: Excellent catch.
Maybe it's just an inherent constraint of writing a Harry Potter fic. If you change so many things that there aren't even prophecies anymore, and the one about Harry and Voldemort is a false one, then it's not fanfic anymore, it's a different universe with characters who happen to have the same names,
Edit: my comment was very poorly worded, based on reactions. It's not that there is a sharp division of stories into "real HP fic" and everything else. Please see my latest comment replying to replies to this one.
... Has it occurred to you that "fanfiction" and "original story" may not be sharply delineated categories? Cases in point: every major story from before the Age of Copyright, like the Greek myths or the King Arthur legends or the Robin Hood stories. Pick two versions a couple centuries apart and you'll find changes way more drastic than this one, and yet you can't pick out a version in the chain joining them that wouldn't qualify as fanfiction of the earlier versions.
What makes you so sure the HPMoR universe is reductionist and/or runs on simple physical laws?
HPMoR is a rationalist story, not necessary a reductionist story. A true rationalist must be willing to update against even reductionism, if the evidence leads there.
It's the fundamental simplicity and regularity of the universe that allows the basic tools of rationality to work at all. Reality is laced together too tightly to permit a world where 'muggle science' can function but Occam's Razor isn't reliable. Eliezer couldn't teach his brand of rationality with a universe that ran on genre tropes instead of particle physics.
ETA: Okay, he could try, but it would be a mistake. And I know that he knows this, because I learned it from him.
Well, to some extent yeah, I guess. If SPHEW's plan to tie up Harry and drag him alongside as a bait to "Adventures" had worked, then Hermione giving up on reason might have had merit.
But that (genre tropes vs particle physics) is a rather false dichotomy. I can imagine a fictional universe which designates pieces of knowledge as fundamental entities, and can therefore designate "importance" on events, based on how many people will come to know of them, and can throw back pieces of knowledge through Seers.
It's not our universe, but that would still be a universe one could attempt to sensibly reason about -- and I think that's the sort of different universe that Eliezer would find fun to write about.
In short, I don't share your model of Eliezer.
Has anyone suggested Harry simply giving a long impassioned plea, thus acting as Hermione's missing lawyer? He might be able to sway enough of the voters if he proposes a satisfactory lesser punishment (and passes a rhetoric and/or sophistry skill check). Hagrid was convicted of murder in Hogwarts, and his punishment was having his wand snapped and being expelled.
One thing I don't understand: why is the charge against Hermione that she tried to end the line of a noble house? Wouldn't Lucius be still alive and hypothetically capable of producing another heir? Did Voldemort castrate him while he was "Imperiused"? That would explain why he's so hostile toward him now.
Maybe Lucius is not so much physiological unable, but psychological unwilling to sire another heir after his Narcissa died a horrendous death?
This seems like brinksmanship. My instinct tells me Dumbledore was right and anything Harry does is weakening the ultimate compromise that everyone who matters knows will be reached (most likely behind closed doors.)
We're given at least two hints about this during the trial, though I did not read too closely.
Agreed. The option that seems clearest to me is to Lose, not to escalate. It's the first Potions class all over again, with Harry offering to sacrifice his humanity and the political stability of the country for Hermione's comfort.
If Harry loses well enough, he may even win.
Reading through some of the speculation on Mr. Hat and Cloak, it seems like some people are pretty confident that it's Quirrell, whereas others don't feel it's decided. In particular this comment says:
But I felt like his behavior the last time I saw him didn't fit with what I would have expected from Quirrell (despite the fact that Quirrell was my first guess at his identity the first time he was introduced, I've been updating away from that ever since).
I recall seeing speculation that H&C was Grindelwald or Sirius Black as well, but it's hard to sort through all of the old discussion threads.
Could someone who's been following the discussions give me a summary of what sorts of speculation has happened re: Hat-and-Cloak, and especially if there's been any definitive answers given (i.e. posts from Eliezer)
My stab at what Harry could do:
As repayment for Hermione's blood debt towards the Malfoy family, he should offer himself - offer to serve the Malfoy family for a year, or until Hermione is cleared of the charge. Accepting this would not be a loss of face for Lucius, and there is already precedent - the way Crabbe and Goyle serve Draco.
The title of the arc is "Taboo Tradeoffs".
So my theory is that Harry is going to threaten to do something that seems extremely bad to the Wizengamot, but not to Harry (i.e. a taboo); something that's so taboo that they're willing to let Hermione go free even though they think she's an attempted murderer (another taboo).
No idea what the threat is going to be, though. Something like going over to Voldermort? Making a credible committment to not participating in his prophesied duties?
Is this supposed to be proof positive that Dumbledore is Santa Claus? A nod, and an empty statement?
A nod means "Yes" in English-speaking countries, so I'm sure it's supposed to be as much proof positive as Dumbledore saying "Yes".
I don't think we have any reason to doubt Dumbledore's word on this.