Why would (how would) the Basilisk transfer its secrets with a Dark Ritual rather than just, you know, talking?
Efficiency: speed & certainty. How many secrets would you be leaving behind before this incredibly baroque scheme was worth putting in place? How long would it take to communicate hundreds of ultra-advanced spells by one of the pre-eminent wizards of that golden age? How long can a student afford to be sneaking off to the Chamber?
We've seen legilimency used to read minds, but Order of the Phoenix also showed that it could be used to write to minds as well.
This seems to defeat the purpose somewhat. Isn't the point of the Basilisk to ensure that only Parselmouths can access the secrets? Presumably legilimency is, if not impossible, at least difficult to use on a creature with the Gaze of Death, but if there were rituals to transfer information from its mind to yours, obtaining consent under duress seems a small enough obstacle.
The new discussion thread (part 15) is here.
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 82. The previous thread passed 1000 comments as of the time of this writing, and so has long passed 500. Comment in the 13th thread until you read chapter 82.
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: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13.
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: