I would say it was, but only because you managed to include elements of the speculation while still thinking of plots and turns that I did not see speculated. With the amount of speculation I participated in, it felt like an excellent emotional roller coaster, which I will try to describe with a few anecdotal sentences.
"Yes, that idea has been referenced!" "Yes, that idea has been referenced as well! Multiple points, I knew it, I was expecting multiple points to come up, I should have posted that instead of remaining silent." "Oh, I should have seen that! In hindsight it feels like could have guessed that." "Wait, THAT wasn't the true answer?" "Wait, WHAT? I never would have guessed this!" "He's surprised, but it made perfect sense!" "Heehee, he even referenced that as well!"
But it seems like it was only that good because you managed to narrowly outwit the amount of effort I had to put into it and the amount of collective thought I had taken the time to read. I feel like if I had been speculating to an overly large extent that I wouldn't have been able to consider it as a story, but that if I hadn't been speculating at all I wouldn't have gotten the twists and turns it was taking.
So while I personally would vote for this option, I think I can see several reasons why it wouldn't necessarily work for other people in the same way it did for me, assuming I'm right about my mental pictures of other readers.
This is a new thread to discuss Eliezer Yudkowsky’s Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality and anything related to it. This thread is intended for discussing chapter 81, which should be published later today. The previous thread passed 400 comments as of the time of this writing, so it will pass 500 comments soon after the next chapter is posted, if not before. I suggest refraining from commenting here until chapter 81 is posted; comment in the 12th thread until you read chapter 81. After chapter 81 is posted, I suggest all discussion of previous guesses be kept here, with links to comments in the previous thread.
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.) When posted, chapter 81 should appear here.
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, twelve.
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: