Well, we know one thing that explains both the certainty and dark side, and does not require any unhappiness or accidental magic in his childhood: influence from a Voldemort horcrux.
You know, if it weren't for everyone else taking it so seriously, I would have (and did, before I started following discussions) dismissed Harry's so called dark side as a perfectly normal personality quirk which he makes a big deal of because once he's told he's a prophesied hero he feels he ought to have something dramatically appropriate like a mysterious dark side.
In his place, I wouldn't be thinking "My mysterious dark side is good at X," I'd be thinking "I'm good at X when I put myself into the right frame of mind."
Well, actually, in his place, I might be thinking "my mysterious dark side is good at X," but that's because if I were in his place, I'd be eleven.
In his place, I wouldn't be thinking "My mysterious dark side is good at X," I'd be thinking "I'm good at X when I put myself into the right frame of mind."
Sometimes I'm all simplistic and think to myself "I'm good at X when I get pissed off." Combined with a little emotional regulation with respect to pissed-off levels it amounts to much the same thing.
The next discussion thread 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 84. The previous thread has passed 500 comments. Comment in the 14th thread until you read chapter 84.
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, 14.
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: