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Donny comments on Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality discussion thread, part 14, chapter 82 - Less Wrong Discussion
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Okay, I was wrong. It's not at all likely that Dumbledore had the prophecy and Lily's death in mind when he turned Lily against Snape. He hadn't yet become willing to make that sort of tradeoff when the two of them were in school. And it beggared belief in any case that he could have correctly predicted the effects of his actions on Snape so many years in advance. So, no. Whatever his intentions were back then, if he's responsible for the prophecy, he merely capitalized on the outcome.
Despite that, I think it's now a little more probable that Dumbledore deliberately sacrificed the Potters, hoping to defeat Voldemort with Lily's sacrificial protection.
It also looks significant that Harry twice enumerated Lily's options as: leave, or stay and cast a curse. Voldemort offered her a third choice.
We know from canon that if she'd accepted, it would have saved her son. But Voldemort told her it wouldn't, and laughed at her for considering it. So she refused his offer and tried to kill him. Does that affect whether the protection is activated? Is it relevant that she had to willingly give her life out of love, when she died casting a curse that's powered by hate? Dumbledore didn't hear about this part. I'd love to know what he'd say.
I parsed that sequence as Voldemort deliberately manipulating Lily so as to avoid her placing any magical protection on her son. I don't think MoR Voldemort would have been stupid enough to overlook major feats of magic just because they involve something as unpalatable as love.
We can assume that it would have saved her son in canon. The universe of HPMoR doesn't need follow the exact same rules.
You're assuming that such a protection by sacrifice need exist at all in HPMoR.
Unlikely. The avadra did backfire.
Now, Voldie could have set up a backfiring scene and retired for 11 years on purpose, but then I can't fathom why: he was winning at the time.
It almost certainly did not.
AK sheds no blood. Of course, this could have been referring to another incident, but we'be been given no clues for what that incident might be.
It leaves no marks, either.
It never burns anything.
And Harry should have noticed the discrepancy right away, but he was all weepy and shit. I suppose you or anyone else could have the same excuse. It is, after all, well written.
Okay. It almost certainly did not backfire. But I'm still very very confused: what on Earth actually happened? Why on the Universe did it happen? Though I must say, I didn't take 5 minutes to think about it yet.
Well, there is this post from See that makes a suggestion regarding backfirage.
Well we know that the protection exists, because Harry is still alive.
We don't even know that Voldemort attempted to kill Harry that day. I've made a prediction at http://predictionbook.com/predictions/3237 against that idea.
We don’t know he had to have been protected from something. People in-universe thinks that Voldie cast AK and it rebounded, but in MoR we’re not told of any witnesses other than Harry and Voldie, the body found was burned, and his Dementor-triggered memory ended when Voldie locked eyes with him. It’s not a given that the canon scenario really happened in MoR.
True, but assuming even a modicum of forensics(prior incantem, say), it seems likely. What other process explains Voldemort's "death"? He's not stupid enough to try a plot that clever.
I have no very compelling scenario, but just because we have no obvious alternative is not very strong evidence in a universe with many smart characters and complex magic of which we don’t know most of the rules. Also, Eliezer changed lots of things from canon without removing them completely (e.g. the wicked step-parents stuff, the mess with Sirius and Pettigrew), and everyone believing a certain explanation for what happened without any witnesess which turns out to be wrong kinda’ sorta’ feels like his style.
True, I'd stick p=0.2, maybe, on the official story being wrong in some important respect. Still, the canonical version is by far the most likely.
The canonical version doesn't work.
* What's the probability that Avada Kedavra will leave a scar, when it has never left a scar before?
* What's the probability that Avada Kedavra will burn Voldemort's body, when it usually kills without a trace?
* Why would Voldemort have given his wand to Bellatrix before going to the Potters (as she mentions in Azkaban)?
* From a story-external perspective, why does the story keep hinting that this is not what happened (we are told Harry should have felt confused when he first heard the story, and ch.81 says the wisest wizards in the Wizengamot wonder why Godric's Hollow night happened, if it did happen, or why Dumbledore is lying if it didn't)
All those bits and pieces don't make sense if the events went down as in canon.
That would depend on figuring out what Voldemort wants, and we don't really know much about that. Even Dumbledore is at a loss in figuring out what motivates someone like Voldemort.
If it's just amusement, perhaps he just found being Voldemort to be boring, and sought to start another game.
If he wants to control the world, not just Britain, perhaps he felt he had no chance doing so as an open villain, he had to present himself as a hero instead (like Dumbledore being given the Chief Warlock position after he defeated Grindelwald).
And the above ideas are assuming the night went as Voldemort planned. If he was planning something different than what occurred, but what actually happened was caused by e.g. some magical trap set up by Dumbledore, the possibilities expand.
In canon, of course, we know that a Killing Curse hitting an inanimate object rater than its target results in a release of kinetic energy. In which case, both the scar and the burning are, in fact, reasonably probable results, given the prior that Harry couldn't be killed by the curse. The curse hit Harry, couldn't kill him any more than it could kill an inanimate object, and was converted into kinetic energy just like if it hit an inanimate object. The scar is the result of part of the kinetic energy being transferred to Harry through a not-perfect-but-adequate-to-save-his-life protection, while the rest bounced and hit Voldemort (and the cottage) with a lot of kinetic energy, causing blast and burn.
As HPMOR has (I believe) no examples the Killing Curse hitting inanimate objects, and we do not have enough data on magic theory that would allow us to construct an independent theory as to what a Killing Curse should do if it rebounded, how could we possibly construct a prior that would make the scar and blast improbable in HPMOR?
Your other points work, of course.
This is the first actually plausible-sounding explanation for this I've ever heard.
It's got a definite defect, in that the levels of kinetic energy shown in Order of the Phoenix were substantially lower than the "blow up the cottage" level.
But hitting an inanimate object versus a life-sacrifice-love-warded subject, and not being able to precisely measure how much power/concentration Voldemort put into different castings makes it, well, at least good enough for a Dumbledore explanation to the curious in a culture without the scientific method.
As far as I know it has left a scar on every single person who has survived it!
She mentions that she has his wand, not that he gave it to her. Perhaps she stole it after he died?
And you're right, the possibilities of traps are fairly open - though of course, the canon version could be considered a trap, if one laid unconsciously.
In Chapter 26 ("Noticing Confusion"), Quirrell reacted rather violently on hearing about a prophecy in the Daily Prophet:
"He didn't have any choice," said Harry. "Not if he wanted to fulfill the conditions of the prophecy."
"Give me that," said Professor Quirrell, and the newspaper leaped out of Harry's hand so fast that he got a paper cut.
This is evidence for the canonical version, I think.