I'd agree that it shifts probability away from that explanation, since passing out and waking up without a shred of compassion for other people is certainly less a reaction you expect from someone with only some fairly normal personality quirks than someone with something really unusual going on, although I'll note that Harry has always had something of a conflict between the part of him that cares about and wants the best for everyone, and the part of him which doesn't like or relate to other people, and this is certainly not unique or indicative of multiple personalities. But to say that exposure to a dementor "turns Harry directly into Voldemort" seems like jumping to conclusions to me. If we didn't already know that in the original canon, Harry was inadvertently made a horcrux of Voldemort, I'd say it was an extremely premature narrowing of the hypothesis space.
Voldemort might think like Harry did when he was dementor-warped, but we've never gotten to see inside his head, and he didn't act like Harry acted.
It's not merely that Harry thought a certain way:
There was a compulsion to chew and swallow chocolate. The response to compulsion was killing.
People had gathered around and stared. That was annoying. The response to annoyance was killing.
Other people were chattering in the background. That was insolent. The response to insolence was to inflict pain, but since none of them were useful, killing them would be simpler.
"The response to compulsion was killing." Not just "He wanted to kill Dumbledore". The way it's phrased implies a memory...
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 85. The previous thread has long passed 500 comments. Comment in the 15th thread until you read chapter 85.
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, 15.
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: