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Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality discussion thread, part 16, chapter 85

9 Post author: FAWS 18 April 2012 02:30AM

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 85The 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: 12345678910111213, 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:

You do not need to rot13 anything about HP:MoR or the original Harry Potter series unless you are posting insider information from Eliezer Yudkowsky which is not supposed to be publicly available (which includes public statements by Eliezer that have been retracted).

If there is evidence for X in MOR and/or canon then it’s fine to post about X without rot13, even if you also have heard privately from Eliezer that X is true. But you should not post that “Eliezer said X is true” unless you use rot13.

Comments (1106)

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Comment author: Manfred 13 December 2012 06:07:55AM *  3 points [-]

There are muggle artifacts containing immense investment of intelligence. I bet some sort of Potions Master could make an unprecedented intelligence potion - or at least one good enough to let them figure out how to make the next one...

The potion should make a soft "foom" when stirred.

Comment author: avichapman 06 December 2012 02:11:26AM 5 points [-]

I was re-listening to the podcast of Chapter 20 (Bayes's Theorem) when I was struck by an idea. It builds on another idea I heard in this same forum. The original idea was that Quirrel had Horcruxed the Pioneer plaque and that, due to the nature of magic, his Horcrux passing beyond a distance of 6 light hours would lead to his death due to a limitation on magic's ability to affect things more than 6 hours into the past - which would be needed for faster than light communications.

Having now re-listened to that chapter, I've picked up some new clues. Harry had made the suggestion that it might be possible to add an entire human mind's worth of information to the Pioneer plaque by creating a portrait or arranging for a terminally ill person's ghost to be attached to it before launch. Quirrel of course denied that he had done anything like that through a bit of misdirection. This leads many to speculate that he had Horcruxed the probe, downloading a copy of himself into it for posterity.

I had the idea that perhaps he downloaded himself into the probe and then started to operate his body by remote control. When his body goes limp, it's because he's not at the 'controls' at that moment. Once the probe passes beyond 6 light hours, it will become impossible for him to continue to tele-operate his body any longer and he will be trapped on the probe for the rest of its flight time. I believe he is revealing an important clue in the following paragraph:

"Sometimes," Professor Quirrell said in a voice so quiet it almost wasn't there, "when this flawed world seems unusually hateful, I wonder whether there might be some other place, far away, where I should have been. I cannot seem to imagine what that place might be, and if I can't even imagine it then how can I believe it exists? And yet the universe is so very, very wide, and perhaps it might exist anyway? But the stars are so very, very far away. It would take a long, long time to get there, even if I knew the way. And I wonder what I would dream about, if I slept for a long, long time..."

Is he contemplating the eons that await him while the probe moves on to 'some other place'? Does he plan to put his mind on hold, to sleep, for most of that flight time?

Comment author: matheist 13 December 2012 04:24:27AM 3 points [-]

Very clever idea! But it doesn't pan out, sadly. I just checked on Wolfram-Alpha. The distance from the earth to Pioneer 11 on the Ides of May, 1992, Quirrell's presumed last day of class, is actually 4.84 light hours, not 6.

Some experimenting on W-A shows that Pioneer 11 passes 6 light hours around August 25, 1995.

Comment author: Paulovsk 03 November 2012 03:02:44PM *  3 points [-]

Latest Author's Note Update.

There’s a chance here to reach up toward that impossible dream of a better world where people aren’t crazy all the damn time, because believe it or not, nobody’s really tried anything like this before. [...] Science, reason, and rationality – it’s what Muggles use instead of magic, and it’s all we’ve got.

I thought it was really inspiring.

Comment author: MugaSofer 10 October 2012 11:55:45AM 1 point [-]

I recently came across an old comment decrying the fact that so many readers fail to conclude that Quirrell is possessed by Voldemort (it's so obvious, anyone who disagrees must be horribly biased, was the idea.)

Could anyone who actually thinks this step forward? I'm kinda curious as to how accurate that comment is, even now.

Comment author: Manfred 13 December 2012 06:28:20AM 1 point [-]

I think it's most likely after the end of the Azkaban arc, but before then I was of the opinion that Voldemort was somewhere else and Quirrell was a red herring. Certainly there have been various foreshadowings, but only the sense of doom was actually good evidence, if Eliezer was willing to foreshadow things just to keep us on our toes. But now that we also have drastic personality changes, I'm willing to accept it as most likely.

Comment author: Paulovsk 03 November 2012 03:00:52PM 2 points [-]

I had such a hard time convincing myself on this (quirrel = voldemort).

Yes, I'm probably biased, but I don't know how. I suspect it's because I can't think of how Quirrelmort would do all that stuff, so I assumed he wouldn't.

Comment author: RobertLumley 17 September 2012 01:23:26AM *  3 points [-]

From chapter 74: "Even so, the most terrible ritual known to me demands only a rope which has hanged a man and a sword which has slain a woman; and that for a ritual which promised to summon Death itself - though what is truly meant by that I do not know and do not care to discover, since it was also said that the counterspell to dismiss Death had been lost."

I missed this the first time I read it, but to me, it seems to pretty clearly refer to creating a dementor - Quirrell doesn't understand what it means because he doesn't know about the true patronus charm. Anyone have any theories on how this will be used, or if I'm off entirely? I can't imagine Harry creating a dementor, and Harry never seems to realize what this actually means. But Quirrell seems like he would if Harry ever told him about the true patronus form.

http://predictionbook.com/predictions/8287

http://predictionbook.com/predictions/8286

Comment author: Quirinus 25 September 2012 07:00:03PM 4 points [-]

I missed this the first time I read it, but to me, it seems to pretty clearly refer to creating a dementor - Quirrell doesn't understand what it means because he doesn't know about the true patronus charm.

I think it was implied that he somehow deduced that the dementors are a physical manifestation of death, possibly even before Harry's showcase of the true Patronus spell.

"No," Professor Quirrell said, sounding rather severe. "You don't tell us why, Mr. Potter, you simply tell us that we are not to know. If you wish to devise a hint, you do so carefully, at leisure, not in the midst of conversation."

Harry nodded.

"But," said the Headmaster. "But, but what am I to tell the Ministry? You can't just lose a Dementor!"

"Tell them I ate it," said Professor Quirrell, causing Harry to choke on the soda he had unthinkingly raised to his lips. "I don't mind. Shall we head on back, Mr. Potter?"

"I ate it". Eat death. Death eater.

Quirrell can't perform the true patronus because he isn't as hopeful and positive about the nature of humanity and the vanquishing of death. As dumbledore put it, he doesn't live, but cowers of fear from death.

And then, more interestingly, in chapter 53, when giving Bellatrix the death eater password:

"Those who do not fear the darkness..." murmured Bellatrix.

The snake hissed, "Will be conssumed by it."

"Will be consumed by it," whispered the chill voice. Harry didn't particularly want to think about how Professor Quirrell had gotten that password. His brain, which thought about it anyway, suggested that it had probably involved a Death Eater, a quiet isolated place, and some lead-pipe Legilimency.

Compare it to the plan Harry's dark side came up with on Chapter 81:

Say that, to set up the if-then expectation, and wait for people to understand and laugh. Then speak the fatal truth; and when the Aurors' Patronuses winked out to prove the point, either people's anticipations of the mindless void, or Harry's threat of its destruction, would make the Dementor obey. Those who had sought to compromise with the darkness would be consumed by it.

That's way too nice of a parallelism in prose for it to be a coincidence.

Comment author: ArisKatsaris 17 September 2012 08:48:49AM *  6 points [-]

Having just read most of Lawrence Watt-Evans' Ethsar series, I recognize now this as a reference to the spell of Seething Death.

Comment author: MugaSofer 17 September 2012 08:02:23AM *  1 point [-]

... Why would Quirrell create a dementor?

Considering he is especially weak to them, and the one Harry destroyed vowed to hunt him down as soon as it saw him.

Unless, of course, it gives you a personalized Deathly Hallow. Hmm.

Comment author: RobertLumley 17 September 2012 02:52:14PM 1 point [-]

Voldemort used dementors in his army in cannon. That was my thinking.

Comment author: TheOtherDave 17 September 2012 04:28:12PM 3 points [-]

That is a marvelous image, which is making me giggle.
Sadly, I suppose you probably meant "canon."

Comment author: RobertLumley 17 September 2012 05:38:15PM 1 point [-]

Hehehe, of course.

Comment author: MugaSofer 17 September 2012 03:43:30PM *  1 point [-]

Ah, right.

Suddenly, Harry teaching Qurrelmort how to reduce Dementor effects using the memory of the Stars is looking less wise.

Comment author: chaosmosis 13 September 2012 04:15:40AM 7 points [-]

Something is definitely funny with Goyle. He's able to do martial arts, is extremely good with a broomstick, and doesn't trust Draco when Draco lies to him. At first, my interpretation was just that Goyle was much more capable in this version. That's still a possibility, but I feel like if that were the case then maybe Crabbe also would have been made more capable. I feel as though Goyle will do something important soon, definitely.

I even briefly entertained the possibility that Goyle was a Mary Sue, for about ten seconds, but that idea doesn't have anything to recommend it besides the humor of it.

Comment author: matheist 13 September 2012 06:43:54AM 12 points [-]

He also spent a long time with the sorting hat.

"Goyle, Gregory!" There was a long, tense moment of silence under the Hat. Almost a minute.

Chapter 9

Comment author: chaosmosis 12 September 2012 01:36:55PM *  9 points [-]

Idea: someone should compile a list of times when Quirrell says "Interesting" or is otherwise surprised by Harry.

He does it a lot, and we might see an interesting pattern emerge.

Comment author: chaosmosis 11 September 2012 03:10:17AM *  3 points [-]

I'm doing a reread.

"In any case, when I was thirteen years old, I read through the historical sections of the Hogwarts library, scrutinizing the lives and fates of past Dark Lords, and I made a list of all the mistakes that I would never make when I was a Dark Lord."

Harry giggled before he could stop himself.

"Yes, Mr. Potter, very amusing. So, Mr. Potter, can you guess what was the very first item on that list?"

Great. "Um... never use a complicated way of dealing with an enemy when you can just Abracadabra them?"

"The term, Mr. Potter, is Avada Kedavra," Professor Quirrell's voice sounded a bit sharp for some reason, "and no, that was not on the list I made at age thirteen. Would you care to guess again?"

Why does Quirrell react this way? I see two major possibilities.

  1. He is picky about using the proper term. That's the surface appearance, and it jives well with the model of Professor Quirrell as a formerly evil teacher. But, we have to realize that ambiguous data might count as non ambiguous data when dealing with Professor Quirrell, because his skills at deception are so great. I think it's convincing that he might respond sharply to Harry misusing a term like that, but we don't see him do anything else in the book like that. And, if he was primarily focused on teaching, shouldn't he have been happier that Harry clearly understood the lesson he was trying to hammer into them, rather than focusing on a technical mistake? I think it's pretty convincing, but not an accurate explanation.

  2. He took it personally. Specifically, this might have happened because he had the opportunity to simply avada kedavra Harry, but then he didn't. I don't believe that it's ever been confirmed in HPMOR that Harry actually got hit by the killing curse. Using more meta clues, Harry's alternative to avada kedavra'ing your enemies is a suspiciously specific sort of scenario, but yet also a very obvious lesson. Voldemort would have been upset that Harry so easily recognized what his mistake was. I also think Harry's lighthearted tone would do a lot to provoke Voldemort. The combination of these things might have made Quirrell's mask slip.

I guess I don't really think there's any strong evidence for two, but it's just interesting to me how reading the book two times before this allows me to reinterpret Quirrell's behavior. I enjoy this.

Comment author: Benquo 12 September 2012 09:45:50PM 3 points [-]

1 sounds plausible because the name of the spell is also the manner in which it is cast; to develop the habit of saying a spell's name wrong could result in an accidental, disastrous misfire.

Comment author: chaosmosis 12 September 2012 10:34:57PM *  1 point [-]

Option 3: Both.

Comment author: gwern 12 September 2012 10:26:03PM 2 points [-]

I think #1 is much more plausible. Notice that Draco did not misuse any terms, and addressed Quirrel twice as 'Professor'; saying 'Abracadabra' is flippant and a tad contemptuous of the greatest gem of Quirrel's chosen field.

The personal version seems to either trade on knowledge of canon (not the first time, though! and such references can be spotted on the first read-through) or presume a version of Voldemort's fall we currently have no evidence for, although this is certainly a controversial topic.

Comment author: DanielLC 03 September 2012 05:48:58PM 3 points [-]

I don't know if anyone discussed this before, but it's been bugging me for a while.

It's supposed to be impossible to bring information back more than six hours with any combination of time turners. The obvious method would be that once someone delivers a message to you from the future, you can no longer go back in time further than six hours before when they're from. This wouldn't really work. Every time you travel back, you bring the information that you were not stopped by a time-traveler. Either the time turner never works, or anyone that's going to use one will be somehow completely immune to anything a time traveler does. They could send a black hole from the future that devours the planet, and you'd have to not only survive, but not even notice. Or, at least, you'd have to have a doppelganger that appears to come back from the post-black hole future but doesn't know about it.

Comment author: Kindly 03 September 2012 11:16:04PM *  5 points [-]

You're right. In fact, in the story we already have questionable use of information travel:

There was another pause, and then Madam Bones's voice said, "I have information which I learned four hours into the future, Albus. Do you still want it?"

Albus paused -

(weighing, Minerva knew, the possibility that he might want to go back more than two hours from this instant; for you couldn't send information further back in time than six hours, not through any chain of Time-Turners)

- and finally said, "Yes, please."

If there were a hard limit of some sort, then Dumbledore wouldn't be able to go back more than two hours after hearing that question, no matter what, because "there will be information in 4 hours" is itself information. The limit is somehow more complicated than that, which opens it up for abuse.

I expect this to be a plot point eventually.

Comment author: Alicorn 03 September 2012 09:33:35PM 4 points [-]

So you're thinking of something like this?

Alice: Okay, it's almost noon, and we've been sitting alone in this room for some hours now without seeing Carol, and this plan has been in place since last night. Bob, you wait until 6pm, and then check to see if the enemy has reached the pass yet. If they haven't, come back and tell me. But if they have, stay when you are - and if I don't hear from you at noon, I'll go back to 6am and tell Carol.

And then Carol-at-6am has information about whether the enemy has reached the pass at 6pm?

Comment author: DanielLC 04 September 2012 03:07:28AM 1 point [-]

Yeah. You can actually make arbitrarily long chains. You have each person go back in time and stop the next person if they're not stopped. You "start" the chain at the end, and depending on when you do it, you can send back one bit. For example, you give Alice, Bob, Carol, and Daniel time turners. At midnight, Alice goes back to stop Daniel if Bob doesn't stop her, at 6:00 AM, Bob goes back to stop Alice unless Carol stops him, etc. If the enemy attacks on the night of the 28th, Daniel stops Carol. If they don't, he doesn't. This means that if they attack, Daniel and Bob go back every day. If he does, Carol and Alice go back. You'd actually need a fifth person to make up for the fact that none of this is instantaneous, but if you have enough time-turners, you can send arbitrarily long messages arbitrarily far into the past.

Comment author: anotherblackhat 05 September 2012 01:10:08AM 2 points [-]

You don't actually know that Bob didn't see the enemy at the pass, you only know that for some reason, Bob didn't come back and tell you. Perhaps the reason he didn't is because you would have sent that information back in time, and so he couldn't.

Another possibility is that information loses "coherence" the further back it travels. (or forward, depending on which side your standing on) Think of it as a signal to noise problem - six hours isn't the limit, it's the limit of what we can correct for with the magic of the time turners. Prophecy seems to defeat the limit, but only by being nearly incomprehensible.

Or maybe it is possible, but insanely dangerous. There are hints that Atlantis was destroyed by something involving the time stream.

Comment author: Pavitra 30 August 2012 11:37:12PM *  1 point [-]

Crossposted from the WMG page.

Under the potion conservation rule, creating an Elixir of Life would require inputting some sort of immortality. Fawkes killed Narcissa to create an Elixir ingredient.

Edit: I'm an idiot.

Comment author: chaosmosis 05 August 2012 07:18:36PM *  2 points [-]

I figured out an exploit to make Horcrux users even more invincible.

A. If you make a Horcrux, you cannot be destroyed unless your Horcrux is destroyed.

B. People can be Horcruxes.

QED if one person turns another into a Horcrux and the other reciprocates then they have foolproof immortality.

This method also has three other benefits over the Dark Lord's attempt, that I can think of. First, it requires only two murders, not seven. Second, it causes twice as many people to become immortal. Third, you'll retain a much larger portion of your soul than you would otherwise, and avoid much of the consequent degeneration.

Quirrelmort is playing on the level below mine, clearly.

Comment author: Locke 06 August 2012 05:46:17PM *  3 points [-]

How about Animagus-ing into an immortal jellyfish? Certainly not an ideal life, but if it lets you keep old age at bay long enough the muggles will discover human immortality.

Comment author: gwern 05 August 2012 10:21:12PM 3 points [-]

Actually, that was suggested a while ago. :) It was one of the wilder theories; I don't think I bothered to record a prediction for it.

(IMO, I don't think it works. Consider Voldemort: he was destroyed by an Avada Kedavra and became a wandering spirit anchored by his physical Horcruxes, yes? So what would happen if he and Harry were mutual Horcruxes? You Avada Voldemort; he becomes a wandering spirit anchored by the physical living Harry; then you Avada Harry so Harry becomes a wandering spirit - but wait, there is no physical Horcrux, it was already destroyed! And with Harry now gone, so is Voldemort.)

Comment author: MarkusRamikin 20 July 2012 06:20:11AM 3 points [-]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pet_Rock

I have an untrustworthy feeling like I must have been the only person around here who didn't realize this.

Comment author: Carwajalca 18 July 2013 08:06:59AM 1 point [-]

Nope, you weren't.

Comment author: MarkusRamikin 15 July 2012 09:41:53AM 4 points [-]

Pox on ninja edits. I liked the Ghostbusters' song. :(

And I liked it when Quirrel said the single most dangerous monster in all the world was "The adult wizard".

Wonder how many more happened that I haven't noticed yet.

Comment author: 75th 18 July 2012 12:26:54AM *  7 points [-]

"The adult wizard" was changed quite a while before the most recent round of retcons. Most of the other changes I can understand, even the removal of Ghostbusters, but this one seems completely indefensible. He's listing species that are dangerous, so it makes more sense to use a biology-type word like "adult".

And as Quirrell is perfectly open later on in telling everyone that he believes Harry wishes to become a Dark Lord, and also that he still wishes to teach Harry how to defeat his foes, there's no reason for him to put on false airs and claim that all the students present will have Dark Wizards as their enemies. He even took "Defense Against Dark" out of the class's name for crying out loud!

Comment author: MarkusRamikin 18 July 2012 07:04:51AM *  3 points [-]

If you can understand the removal of Ghostbusters, please explain it to me. There's nothing entertaining about that part of the chapter any more.

I mean, I do know that some people in the reviews were unhappy with how 'now it's a songfic', but others liked it - I certainly did, it was funny to imagine - and at least the scene made sense. While now you have people just shouting Harry Potter! out of the blue, and basically everything happening and everyone reacting exactly as before for little apparent reason.

Comment author: 75th 19 July 2012 06:30:44AM 2 points [-]

I agree that the new scene seems very awkward, though I'm not sure whether I would have thought so if I weren't already familiar with the old version.

Eliezer has said that some people would have "massively bad associations" to songs in fanfics. I don't read fan fiction in general, so I have no idea what he's specifically referring to. But, err, given the interactions I've had with fandom people, I can definitely imagine them being utterly unable to see past their preconceived notions and snap judgments to logically evaluate a given scene on its own merits and subtleties.

Comment author: CronoDAS 19 July 2012 07:28:48AM 3 points [-]

He got a LOT of complaints in the reviews about the Ghostbusters song.

Comment author: Locke 18 July 2012 06:19:36AM 3 points [-]

Yeah, I'd really like to know Eliezer's reasoning here. What are the possible advantages of this change?

I suppose it is technically more accurate, since not all adult wizards are more dangerous than Dementors or Trolls. Dark Wizards, on the other hand, specifically train to be so.

Comment author: Paulovsk 10 June 2012 01:50:01AM *  2 points [-]

What's exactly the next step after I notice I'm confused?

How? How? In retrospect it had been an obvious sort of idea as cunning plots went, but Granger wasn't supposed to be cunning! She'd been too much of a Hufflepuff to use a Simple Strike Hex! Had Professor Quirrell been advising her despite his promise, or...

And then Draco finally did what he should have done much earlier.

What he should have done after the first time he met with Granger.

What Harry Potter had told him to do, trained him to do, and yet Harry had also warned Draco that it would take time to make his brain realize that the methods applied to real life, and Draco hadn't understood that until today. He could have avoided every single one of his mistakes if he'd just applied the things Harry had already told him -

Draco said out loud, "I notice that I am confused."

Your strength as a rationalist is your ability to be more confused by fiction than by reality... Draco was confused.

Therefore, something he believed was fiction.

Granger should not have been able to do all that. Therefore, she probably hadn't. I promise not to help General Granger in any way that the two of you don't know about. With sudden horrified realization, Draco swept papers out of the way, hunting through the mess on his desk, until he found it.And there it was.

In this short piece, Draco searches for some belief that he thought it was true but it couldn't be because he was confused. Is there any step by step or we just begin with it?

Comment author: cultureulterior 02 June 2012 07:25:47PM 4 points [-]

The deeper problem in Ch. 6 is that Harry’s conflict with Professor McGonagall looks too much like a victory – it is a major flaw of Methods that Harry doesn’t lose hard until Ch. 10, so he must at least not win too much before then. That’s the part I’m working on at this very instant.

Strongly disagree with this. That's the bit that caused me to continue reading. Luckily, I have the raw text downloaded, and can make my own canonical printed version.

Comment author: major 02 June 2012 04:41:01PM *  6 points [-]

Re: revisions

Harry reached up, wiped a bit of sweat from his forehead, and exhaled. "I'd like this one, please."

Harry's entire body was sheathed in sweat that had soaked clear through his Muggle clothing, though at least it didn't show through the robes. He bent down over the gold-etched ivory toilet, and retched a few times, but thankfully nothing came up.

Hermione shut her eyes and tried to concentrate. She was sweating underneath her robes.

"Forget I said anything," said Draco, sweat suddenly springing out all over his body. He needed a distraction, fast - "And what do we call ourselves? The Science Eaters?"

Children don't sweat that much - it's a physiological difference from adults.

(This is just the first page I found with a nice at-glance comparison table and a list of references.)

I have considered that this is a deliberate difference, some clue about the way magic effects wizards, like, magic increases body heat, and wizarding children get adult sweat-glands to compensate; this seemed interesting:

[Draco would have been dead], had his body's own magic not been resisting the effects of the Blood-Cooling Charm.

But, in the end, I think not. No, it looks much more like exaggeration to convey the character's state of mind; it's normal practice in writing as I understand, but somewhat unbecoming in rationalist fiction, I think. It undermines the idea that causality isn't violated for plot/writing reasons.

It doesn't surprise me that the amazingly insightful critics of HPMoR who may have picked up on this couldn't pinpoint it, though. Motivated cognition usually gets in the way.

Comment author: CAE_Jones 13 December 2012 11:53:40AM 1 point [-]

I think EY might just not be familiar with the physiology of children. Didn't the original version of chapter 7 imply that Draco couldn't get an erection? Puberty is nothing resembling a requirement for those. And the alternate version of "boy who lived gets Draco Malfoy Pregnant" had female Draco as 13, when it would have made more sense for Harry to be the older one (boys hit puberty later on average than girls).

Comment author: gjm 03 June 2012 10:21:53PM 1 point [-]

Could you explain your last paragraph? Is it referring to any (sincerely or ironically) "amazingly insightful critics" in particular? What motivated cognition do you think might be their problem? (For the avoidance of doubt: I am not asking you to explain the concept of motivated cognition.)

The impression I get from that paragraph is that there are some specific people (maybe just one specific person) you have in mind, that you think their thinking is messed up, and that you're indulging in a bit of snarkiness. But I am unable to come up with any coherent idea of what they might have said that would make much sense (ironically or otherwise, snarkily or otherwise) of what you wrote.

Comment author: major 04 June 2012 08:13:32AM 2 points [-]

I think it works like this: this sort of thing can trigger some people's bullshit detector. They sense that something is off when this 'rationalist fiction' tries to to claim some sort of special status, while still doing the usual writing tricks. Of course they fail to pinpoint the source of the contradiction (most don't habitually look out for the 'Is that your true rejection' thingy - especially if they already have some reason to jump to an EY-bashing conclusion, mostly something status-based; I call that sort of thing 'suspiciously self-serving'). Instead they offer less specific criticism, which of course will not be true, so it will be rejected by anyone else. Most of those who are not pre-disposed to negativity will simply ignore the sense of unease, if they have it at all.

Now, I could have said as much without the snark. I was trying to create an ugh field for the 'euthanistic critics'. I would not have my comment waved as banner in the "Yudkowsky's writing sucks" camp - call it a personal preference. Yeah, I'm probably overestimating the gives-a-shit quotient here.

Also I have criticized a few people for jumping to the conclusion of writer's mistake, when I thought there was more to it, so when I show how what I think a real mistake looks like... yeah, guilty of pride. And since that may make me look like more of an idiot, if Eliezer completely ignores this... that's why 'suspiciously self-serving' can be a problem; if it's not connected to reality, it's bound to flop. :(

I tried not to have anyone specific in mind when I wrote the comment, but I was most likely primed by mention of DLP.

Comment author: Eneasz 02 June 2012 05:32:02AM *  18 points [-]

In Ch. 7, the Harry-and-Draco conversation needs to be toned down even further because multiple parents have announced their intention to have their children read this fanfic – and I know that revision is going to be controversial, but Draco’s current conversation is also a little out-of-character by the standards of the Draco in later chapters.

I am very saddened by this. Chapter 7 was what really hooked me into the story. Half of it was Harry's incredible "This is why science ROCKS" speech, which is still one of my most favorite monologues ever. And half of it is the pure emotional shock of hearing an 11-year-old boy casually say he plans to rape a 10-year-old girl. It had an immediate physical effect on me, and the after-effects lingered for the rest of the day. The fact that it came so out of the blue in such an unexpected setting... it was damned effective. I will be very sad to see it go.

This raises a question for me - I know of at least one 11 year old reading this story. Sometimes kids read things above their grade level, and are exposed to concepts earlier than usual (I suspect that happened to almost everyone on LW). So... is HPMoR intended primarily for adult audiences, or for children? Considering the level of the writing, the many concepts that are probably too complex for most children, and the entirety of the Azkaban arc... isn't it fair to say that this is a work aimed at adults? And if so, should it really be diluted because some children will also get their hands on it? Can you imagine if your favorite dark/disturbing anime was trimmed to fit a PG rating because kids would end up seeing it?

Comment author: someonewrongonthenet 18 December 2012 07:30:45PM *  3 points [-]

One thing is clear...hpmor's Harry probably wouldn't approve of toning things down in a story just because children might here it.

The danger of exposing children is that they might get into misguided ideas, or get damaged by the exposure. The average child has heard rape jokes, so they aren't going to be damaged reading about someone talking about rape. Keep in mind, in this story we hear about murder and graphic depictions of both fantasy and realistic torture...removing the rape line is not going to make this that much more child friendly.

Nor will they get misguided ideas from that line, since it is clear that those types of statements are not acceptable and are the hallmark of evil people.

Really, the only people benefiting from the removal are the parents, who don't have to worry about awkward questions.

Comment author: NihilCredo 02 June 2012 08:36:16AM *  13 points [-]

Strongly agree with this.

I have no problem with making Draco's character more consistent, and if Eliezer honestly feels that that should mean removing or altering his casual dehumanisation of peasants, so be it.

But I urge Eliezer to seriously ask himself, with all his strength as a rationalist, about this and any other changes: "Would this be sacrificing the quality of the narrative for the sake of making a very, very mature story superficially more marketable to children?"

And yes, I feel those apparently charged words are wholly appropriate: removing a rape reference is just a terribly superficial way of making the story 'kid-friendly', because it isn't kid-friendly in much, much deeper ways. If a kid isn't ready to know what 'rape' means, would you want him to read Chapter 82? Or the Bellatrix chapters? If anything the rape reference in Ch. 7 works as an excellent gatekeeper, filtering the audience before the really disturbing stuff begins to kick in.

Comment author: roystgnr 09 June 2012 03:08:37AM 5 points [-]

Leading HPMoR's list of kid-unfriendly points: the question "what extenuating circumstances could make it right to torture an innocent person to death" is integral to the plot. Even if everything else that can be mangled into a toned-down version is so mangled, the result will merely be more artistically compromised, not more kid-friendly.

On the other hand, the definition of kid-friendly keeps changing. The Hunger Games trilogy includes (somewhat indirect, but still quite clear) references to prostitution (both in poverty-induced despair and as a result of human trafficking), as the cherry on top of the whole "children being forced to murder each other" plot line.

I would still suggest changing the rape reference for character consistency reasons. At least, Draco shouldn't think of it as "rape" - ISTR studies show that even real life rapists typically find some "she was asking for it" rationalization for their attitudes. MoR:Draco does an excellent job rationalizing pro-Death-eater attitudes later in the fic. A pro-rape rationalization might be different in that Harry ought to be able to see through something so appalling immediately, but from Draco's PoV there ought to be some self-justifying framing to it.

Comment author: 75th 07 June 2012 03:23:35AM *  3 points [-]

I agree, and will be more blunt: making that change strikes me as the kind of thing a conservative Republican Christian home-schooler parent would do to their children's books using Liquid Paper and an ink pen, rather than something that a rationalist — who understands that someday kids need to realize that the world sucks and human beings do awful things to each other — would do to his own story, which he has made abundantly clear is intended for adults.

Eliezer should simply advise those parents not to read the story to their children, unless they're absolutely certain that the children are ready for grown-up subject matter.

Comment author: Locke 02 June 2012 05:14:58AM 2 points [-]

I'm very much in favor of removing the Ghostbusters song from canon, and putting it in the Omakes.

Comment author: Merdinus 02 June 2012 06:31:27PM *  7 points [-]

No, man. It's era-appropriate and one of the few examples of Weasley awesomeness. It made me grin like a maniac when I read it. I think maybe having Rationalist!Harry chant the chorus was a bit off, but then, people do occasionally show odd bursts of confidence in front of strangers in humorous situations. It's a bit of a character-shift, but appropriate for the circumstance.

Edit: Months later, I just looked at the change, and it saddens me a fair bit. The replacement text feels like filler in comparison, and I'm afraid that when I convince people to try MOR they won't see him in the same awesome light I did so quickly. I feel like some of rationalist!Harry's mischievousness has been removed. I mean, I was almost pattern-matching him to a rationalist Bobobobo, but I enjoyed it.

Comment author: drethelin 02 June 2012 07:00:53PM 3 points [-]

I agree, though the version in the podcast is super awkward

Comment author: Eneasz 02 June 2012 07:08:54PM 1 point [-]

I was extremely self-conscious and awkward while doing it, I'm not surprised it came through.

Comment author: Paulovsk 02 June 2012 11:47:44AM *  3 points [-]

I didn't understand the song (I haven't watched Ghostbusters), but I think the existence of a song itself to Harry, when he's walking down to the selector hat is a nice, funny point in the history.

That's why I think it must to be kept. It's one of those things that actually makes sense in the HPMOR world.

Comment author: Normal_Anomaly 22 May 2012 07:39:30PM 4 points [-]

I just reread this bit, while Harry and Quirrel are discussing where to hide things:

Or ideally you would launch it into space, with a cloak against detection, and a randomly fluctuating acceleration factor that would take it out of the Solar System.

I just noticed that this could be the in-world cause of the Cvbarre Rssrpg.

Comment author: JoshuaZ 22 May 2012 07:43:15PM 1 point [-]

This point has been independently worked out by a few people. I think there have been at least two threads on that subject (a while ago I posted the same thing and someone pointed then to a prior thread discussing the same idea).

Comment author: 75th 20 May 2012 02:50:41AM *  4 points [-]

Beneath the moonlight glints a tiny fragment of silver, a fraction of a line...

(black robes, falling)

...blood spills out in liters, and someone screams a word.

That, of course, appears before the start of Chapter 1. It's gotten a lot of attention and a lot of speculation. Clearly it depicts something that happened in the past, or that will happen in the future, and we'll all get lots and lots of goosebumps when we figure out what it is.

But that passage has a little brother that I haven't seen anyone talk about. Before the start of Chapter 2, we get this:

"Of course it was my fault. There's no one else here who could be responsible for anything."

That doesn't sound that significant. It sounds like Harry Potter, to be sure, but it sounds like it could happen anywhere. The little blurbs before the chapters that follow do appear in those chapters, or at least in chapters nearby (I believe the Chapter 3 blurb appears in Chapter 6, and most of the rest appear in the body of the chapter they preface).

But this one does not. As far as I can tell with both grep and Google, this passage has not yet appeared in the story, 84 chapters later. Clearly it either (a) slipped Eliezer's mind and hasn't been revised in his several retcon binges, or (b) is way more important than it sounds.

To me, if I accept that this line must be important, it maybe sounds like something Harry would say after doing something really dark and evil, while he's in the depths of his Dark Side. Like, something horrible happens and it's not 100% clear that he did it, or someone like Dumbledore is in disbelief that he did it, and instead of denying it he just says "Of course it was me, idiot, who else?" Or maybe it's after he's out of his Dark Side, he realizes what he's done, and instead of trying to save himself he's just completely numb and confesses in a monotone.

EDIT: Or it might be Quirrell, sarcastically referring to everyone else's suspicion that all bad things must be the Defense Professor's fault. If so he's probably either confessing for real because he's beyond caring whether people know, or maybe he's hiding the truth in plain sight with false irony.

But I haven't been around for very long, so it's possible that people have whole edifices of theory about this quote and just don't talk about it because it's old news. Has it been talked about? If so, what's been guessed? If not, what do y'all think?

Comment author: grautry 20 May 2012 04:28:29PM *  7 points [-]

What it reminds me the most of is Harry's discussion with Hermione about the need for heroic responsibility - about always shouldering the responsibility for any final outcome of events, instead of thinking that your job is done when you, say, go to Professor McGonagall and tell her to do something about it.

My guess(though I wouldn't assign a very high probability to this) is that it will be uttered by Harry while he's away from anyone he considers to be sane or responsible(like, say, Quirrell) and he fails to prevent something tragic from happening. A more specific hypothesis: Quirrell's identity is revealed by him doing something unspeakably evil and Harry blames himself for not piercing the disguise earlier.

Comment author: CuSithBell 20 May 2012 04:47:56AM *  4 points [-]

Hm. Personally, I read that as how Harry sees everything that goes wrong - every poor choice that he allows other people to make, every tragedy he didn't adequately anticipate - as expressed, among other places, in his discussions in Diagon Alley with McGonagall about the difficulties growing up smarter than his parents and the potential necessity of a magical first aid kit. But yes, now that you mention it, it certainly could be something to be echoed darkly in the endgame - though I am likewise unaware of the potential edifices of theory surrounding it.

Comment author: wgd 15 May 2012 04:49:51AM *  6 points [-]

Has there been any serious discussion of the implications of portraits? I couldn't find any with some cursory googling, but I'll be really surprised if it hasn't been discussed here yet. I can't entirely remember which of these things are canon and which are various bits of fanfiction, but:

  • You can take someone's portrait without them explicitly helping, as evidenced in canon by at least one photograph of someone being arrested, whose picture in the newspaper is continually struggling and screaming at the viewer. I don't remember which book this was or any of the particulars unfortunately, but I'm pretty certain it's a thing that was in one of them. Or maybe one of the movies. Moving on.
  • They can perform simple tasks of short-term memory and carry on a coherent conversation.
  • They can walk from picture to picture to communicate with each other.
  • They can operate simple mechanisms in some way. In canon, the door to Gryffindor Tower is a portrait, which requires a password before opening.

As far as I can tell, portraits in the Harry Potter universe would be a gigantic game-breaker if it weren't for all the other game-breakers overshadowing them. I suppose it's possible to mitigate this (maybe a picture carries less of the "person" compared to a portrait for which they have to sit for hours) but if that's not the case, portraits appear to be essentially a way of involuntarily uploading a copy of someone and enslaving them for all eternity, and all you need is knowledge of what they look like and a modicum of artistic ability.

edit: Oh crap, in MoR they ask portraits questions about knowledge they would have had before being painted, like "what spells did they teach you as a first year" and "did you know a married squib couple". So you're not just getting a basic "human" imprint, you're getting that specific person.

And on the flip side of that, not all the portraits in Hogwarts are necessarily real people. What moral weight does a newly-created personality in a portrait have?

Comment author: Eugine_Nier 18 May 2012 02:06:29AM 2 points [-]

I was under the impression that portraits were sort of like the sorting hat.

Comment author: Eneasz 23 May 2012 10:02:04PM 2 points [-]

I believe it was discussed in Pretending To Be Wise, where Harry compares them to ghosts. Advanced but non-sentient partial simulations of people.

Comment author: Locke 14 May 2012 10:36:18PM *  2 points [-]

Even though Harry doesn't have magical-love-protection, I think we should take note of the fact that it's probably still in play and fairly broken.

If Quirrell could get Bellatrix to take a deadly spell from for him, he'd have Love's permanent protection against Dumbledore(if that were the caster). And, with the right amount of cleverness, he could probably arrange for her death to protect all death-eaters in the same way Harry provided protection to all of Hogwarts.

Frankly I wouldn't put it past Dumbledore to arrange for something similiar, for the greater good.

Comment author: Eugine_Nier 18 May 2012 02:02:05AM *  3 points [-]

The way cannon magic seems to work, love-potion based love probably doesn't count as Real Love for purposes of protection.

Edit: In fact the quote at the top of the Potter wiki article on love potions says:

Powerful infatuations can be induced by the skilful potioneer, but never yet has anyone managed to create the truly unbreakable, eternal, unconditional attachment that alone can be called Love.

Comment author: Locke 18 May 2012 10:42:31PM 3 points [-]

Bella isn't under the influence of a love potion, though.

Comment author: Eugine_Nier 19 May 2012 04:00:39AM 1 point [-]

Oops, I misread what you wrote.

Comment author: Rhwawn 19 May 2012 12:09:44AM 2 points [-]

I cannot help but find that quote hilarious.

Comment author: 75th 15 May 2012 12:02:36AM 2 points [-]

What makes you so sure that magical-love-protection exists in MoR at all? Eliezer already changed the Godric's Hollow script to allow other likely possibilities.

Comment author: Locke 15 May 2012 01:24:28AM 1 point [-]

I think Harry's Memories of Godric's Hollow are supposed to tell us that Quirrell knew better then to allow the sacrifice to take place, not that it just doesn't exist. I think we'd probably know if Eliezer had completely removed it, just as he explained his nerfing of Unbreakable vows.

Comment author: MugaSofer 18 August 2012 01:40:18AM 2 points [-]

I thought this was showing Voldemort mocking Lilly - he agreed sarcasticaly, since it was obvious he would simply kill Harry next if she surrendered - but accidentally fulfiling the requirements for a ritual:

"You see, Mr. Potter, the chant of every ritual names that which is to be sacrificed, and that which is to be gained. The chant which you gave to Miss Davis spoke, first, of a darkness beyond darkness, buried beneath the flow of time, which knows the gate, and is the gate. And the second thing spoken of, Mr. Potter, was the manifestation of your own presence. And always, in each element of the ritual, first is named that which is sacrificed, and then is said the use commanded of it." -Chapter 74

I assumed this was meant to allow events near-identical to canon without Quirrelmort seeming incompetent enough to simply forget about the vast magical power sacrificing yourself for love provides. Indeed, I suspect such a resource does not exist in the MORverse, both because it privileges love - a fairly unremarkable neurochemical state - and because its just too easy to exploit. It seems out of place, somehow.

Comment author: 75th 15 May 2012 08:50:51PM *  2 points [-]

I think Harry's Memories of Godric's Hollow are supposed to tell us that Quirrell knew better then to allow the sacrifice to take place, not that it just doesn't exist.

What makes you say that? I have a hard time seeing how that conclusion follows from the scene we saw.

I think we'd probably know if Eliezer had completely removed it, just as he explained his nerfing of Unbreakable vows.

He explained his outside-the-universe rationale for nerfing of Unbreakable Vows after the nerfing appeared explicitly in the story. But to my recollection, we have not seen much (if any) talk about the mechanism of Harry's surviving the Killing Curse. No one, not even Dumbledore, has said a single word about a Sacrificial Love Shield. If Eliezer ever explains the mechanism of Harry's survival, it will be when the explanation is no longer a significant spoiler for future chapters.

Comment author: Locke 15 May 2012 11:01:34PM 5 points [-]

I think it was fairly obvious that he was manipulating Lily into not choosing to sacrifice herself for Harry. She was initially going to sacrifice herself "for him" and with a few choice words Quirrell got her to attack him.

There are many ways Eliezer could have had Harry not be eligible for magic protection, E.g. just have Lily try to kill Voldemort straight away. Instead he made it look exactly as it would if Quirell wasn't an idiot who didn't know anything about love magic and was trying to prevent a love-shield.

It's possible he was just screwing with her, but It seems too coincidental that for him to screw with her in exactly that way.

Comment author: 75th 16 May 2012 01:46:20AM 6 points [-]

She was initially going to sacrifice herself "for him" and with a few choice words Quirrell got her to attack him.

Ah, I see. You and I agree, then, that in canon, Rowling intended us to believe that it was the defenselessness of Lily's sacrifice that protected Harry. That if the scene had gone in canon as it does in MoR, with Lily trying to curse Voldemort, that the protection would not have activated.

But we disagree as to the reason for the differences Eliezer introduced. You think that the universe is the same, and that Voldemort explicitly tried to counteract the Love Shield. But I find, and given what we know of Eliezer's values I think that he would really find, that Rowling's implication — that Lily's defending herself would somehow cheapen her defense of Harry — is morally repugnant. Therefore, I believe that the rules in MoR's universe are likely different from canon's.

I think the more likely reason for the difference is not to show that Voldemort was clever enough to dodge canon!shield, but rather to indicate the nature of MoR!shield. Assuming that Voldemort actually did cast the Killing Curse at Harry, and that it actually did rebound and blow Voldemort out of his body, I think what happened — or at least what we're supposed to believe right now — is that Voldemort unwittingly entered into a magically binding agreement when he taunted Lily. He was amusing himself with his cruelty, but his words were his downfall.

Comment author: Sheaman3773 27 June 2012 03:44:28AM 1 point [-]

It was love. You see, when dear sweet Lily Potter gave her life for her only son, it provided him with the ultimate protection, I could not touch him. It was old magic, something I should have foreseen.

So, of course, in a universe with a smarter and more competent Voldemort, he does foresee it.

I see your point; the fact that their words appear to follow the structure of a dark ritual is interesting, but it's also subtle enough that I wouldn't give too high of a probability to that thought. Too many other things are going on around it that we just don't understand for us to really be sure of anything, I think, including what we are meant to believe and what we should believe.

Comment author: matheist 13 May 2012 01:17:20AM 6 points [-]

Ng gigebcrf, rl fnlf, "V gubhtug crbcyr jrer tbvat gb trg "gur cybg" sebz Pu. 1-3, cbffvoyl Pu. 1, naq guvf jnf gur Vyyhfvba bs Genafcnerapl", naq yngre "Ru, lbh'yy frr jung V'z gnyxvat nobhg nsgre lbh ernq gur svany nep naq gura ernq Puncgre 1 ntnva."

What would a hypothesis about the end of the story look like which uses only information from chapter 1?

Claim: Harry's war with Voldemort will destroy the world. Support: In Chapter 1, Petunia says about Lily's reasons for not making her pretty, "And Lily would tell me no, and make up the most ridiculous excuses, like the world would end if she were nice to her sister, or a centaur told her not to ..." Suppose Lily really did say those things, and believed them, and that there was the force of a prophecy behind them. If Lily hadn't made Petunia pretty, Petunia would not have married Michael Verres, and Harry would not have grown up with science and math and sci-fi (and the attendant humanism) and rationality. A much weaker Harry would have attended Hogwarts, and fought Voldemort, and presumably would have lost. The world would survive, albeit under Voldemort's thumb.

As a result of Petunia being made pretty, Harry grew up around books that made him strong, strong enough to pose a credible challenge to Voldemort. If they're evenly matched, and fight to the death, then they take the world down with them.


This feels consistent with the events in the story so far, but it doesn't really seem that the story is driving towards this conclusion. Except most recently, with the ominous feelings from the various seers following (caused by? who knows) Harry's ominous resolution in chapter 85.

But it's all I've got for a prediction that's consistent with the events thus far and is foreshadowed in chapter 1.

Comment author: gjm 13 May 2012 11:32:51PM 4 points [-]

If Harry's going to end the world, surely a more likely way -- especially given the author's known interests and opinions -- is by bringing about the magical world's equivalent of a Singularity? MoR!Harry is on record (albeit not in chapters 1-3) as wanting to take over the world and, er, optimize it. There are suggestions elsewhere that terrible things have happened in the past on account of over-powerful magic. (Again, not in chapters 1-3.) Centaurs and other purveyors of prophecy might dread this even if the singularity ends up being a good one, because it would be a point beyond which they wouldn't be able to see anything.

Another possibility -- which again could reasonably be said to be heavily foreshadowed, if it comes to pass, but not in the first few chapters: Harry is somehow going to put an end to magic. (He wants to do away with Azkaban by any means possible, no matter how drastic. He's already explicitly considered the question of which side he'd be on if it came down to muggles versus wizards, and decided for the muggles.)

I don't assign a terribly high probability to either of these. There seems to be no shortage of mutually incompatible outcomes with a certain degree of foreshadowing, and if there's a good way to decide between them then I haven't spotted it yet.

Comment author: Randaly 13 May 2012 11:42:52PM 2 points [-]

However, Eliezer has said that he doesn't plan on putting a Singularity in the story.

Comment author: 75th 13 May 2012 02:12:27AM *  4 points [-]

I've always suspected that Petunia's paraphrases there of Lily are mostly true — that's a contributing factor to my believing that some level of apocalypse is in the story's future — but just guessing that Really Bad Stuff is going to happen seems a far cry from us "getting 'the plot' " from Chapter 1, or chapters 1 through 3.

Neither the remainder of Chapter 1 nor the whole of Chapter 2 seem to have any significant hints. In Chapter 3, here is what I can see that might have hidden meaning:

"I had the strangest feeling that I knew him..." Harry rubbed his forehead. "And that I shouldn't ought to shake his hand." Like meeting someone who had been a friend, once, before something went drastically wrong... that wasn't really it at all, but Harry couldn't find words.

Maybe we were supposed to get more out of this at the time? Perhaps we were supposed to infer that Quirrell or one of his alter egos had been an up-and-coming hero?

The Killing Curse is formed of pure hate, and strikes directly at the soul, severing it from the body. It cannot be blocked. The only defense is not to be there.

Maybe, contrary to my previous protestations, we are supposed to believe that Harry wasn't really hit with Avada Kedavra?

(And somewhere in the back of his mind was a small, small note of confusion, a sense of something wrong about that story; and it should have been a part of Harry's art to notice that tiny note, but he was distracted. For it is a sad rule that whenever you are most in need of your art as a rationalist, that is when you are most likely to forget it.)

I'd always chalked this up as being the revelation Harry has at the end of the Humanism arc: that Dark Lords don't usually go after infant children, and that there must be an important reason why Voldemort did. But maybe there's something more to it.

…Or, conversely, maybe we have already figured out the stuff Eliezer was referring to, we just didn't figure it out as early as he expected. Matheist, do you have a link to that quote? I couldn't find it by ⌘Fing Methods's TV Tropes pages.


(Does anyone else find it really weird to read "EY" as a reference to Eliezer? It always reads to me like a Spivak pronoun with faulty verb agreement.)

Comment author: matheist 13 May 2012 05:20:27AM *  3 points [-]

Caution, possible spoilers, in the form of comments about the guessability (or lack thereof) of the plot. First quote and second quote.

I always assumed that the note of confusion was, "How could anyone possibly know what spells the dark lord cast, and what the effects were, if there were no survivors besides a baby".

Comment author: 75th 13 May 2012 07:30:49PM *  6 points [-]

Hmm. It occurs to me that Harry's life in chapters 1 and 2 bears some similarities to Tom Riddle's life from canon. Both their mothers used potions to make their fathers love them; both their fathers thought magic was disgraceful; the Deputy Head of Hogwarts visited both of them, showed them magic, made them thirsty for knowledge of magic, and warned them against unacceptable behavior that both of them had exhibited in the past; both of them always knew they were extraordinary, and were proved right when magic came into their lives.

…but even if all that is intentional, which it almost certainly is, I still don't see what we're supposed to infer about the entire plot. Is Harry going to grow up, murder his family, create six Horcruxes, and hide them where someone can easily find them and destroy them?

I always assumed that the note of confusion was, "How could anyone possibly know what spells the dark lord cast, and what the effects were, if there were no survivors besides a baby".

That makes quite a bit more sense, and should in fact have been incredibly obvious. I didn't start reading Methods until the hiatus following the Stanford Prison Experiment arc, and I didn't start thinking and theorizing until after I'd read all those chapters twice, so I didn't approach the question with a properly blank slate.

Comment author: Sheaman3773 31 July 2012 07:43:21PM 4 points [-]

The most frustrating part of that note of confusion lies in the magic of the world, I think. What is actually possible to do with magic? What do witches and wizards think is possible? What does Harry think is possible?

Let me illustrate by looking at the question that you brought up:

How could anyone possibly know what spells the dark lord cast, and what the effects were, if there were no survivors besides a baby?

Prior Incantato: If they got their hands on Voldemort's wand, then they could see that he cast the Killing Curse. This would be weak evidence indeed, but it is possible to see what he cast. They did not recover Voldemort's wand, but Harry doesn't know this. Canon and MoR founded. Harry has no idea of whether or not it is possible.

Legilimency: A somewhat popular fan theory for canon, Dumbledore could have read baby Harry's mind right afterwards. Canon and MoR founded. Harry has no idea of whether or not it is possible.

Curse Scar: A lot of people make a huge deal out of the scar that Harry has. They seem to feel that it was created from surviving exposure to the Killing Curse, though how that would be known when he was the first ever is something of a mystery. Perhaps because it registers similarly to scars left behind by other Dark curses, at least in terms of being unhealable. See residue. Somewhat canon-founded. Harry has no idea of whether or not it is possible.

Divination/Scrying/Past-Viewing: It might be possible to remotely view the scene, to see what happened, from the past, in real time, or in the future. Divination is real, though it seems to be more cryptic than that, Scrying seems to be unknown, but Past-viewing is clearly not possible after what happened with Hermione, though Harry doesn’t know this yet. Partially founded. Harry has no idea of whether or not it is possible.

Wards: Clearly whatever wards they put up in addition to the Fidelius Charm (because in a more competent world, they shouldn't have had a single point of failure) did not keep Voldemort out, but that didn't mean that the monitoring aspects had to have died. It's possible that there's a magical video of the whole thing, or a record of what spells were cast where and when. Primarily speculative. Harry has no idea of whether or not it is possible.

Killing Curse residue: Perhaps one way that they could distinguish if the Killing Curse was involved in a death is by checking the bodies to see if there is a residue left over on the corpse. If Harry has the residue but is still alive, that would be strong evidence. Speculative. Harry has no idea of whether or not it is possible.

And this is just what I thought up in a few minutes. Harry could have multitudes of ideas about how magic works and what it could do, but until he learns something, he has no idea of what’s possible. How could the question be “how do they know?” when there are so many different possibilities of how they could know? We're not really much better, because though we have a leg up from canon, MoR has already changed some of the rules.

Comment author: Yuu 12 May 2012 06:33:27PM *  4 points [-]

Chapter 23:

If Harry is correct about how magic is inherited, this idea can bring some interesting issues in future chapters. Short resume of Harry's idea: there are recessive magic gene (M) and dominant non-magic gene (N). Magic users have two magic genes (MM), and pair of them are needed to work with magic. Squibs have one magic gene (MN) and muggles have two non-magic genes (NN) all of them can't do magic.

First, how squibs appears? Actually people with MN genes can live between muggles because muggle-borg wizards and witches are born from parents with MN genes. But let's just do not call them squibs. Real squibs are born from couples of witch and wizard and both parents have MM genes. N gene can appear here as a result of mutation only.

Second, half-breeds exist. Magic-users can have children from giants, goblins, veela and, possibly, some other creatures. These half-breed can use magic, and there are two possibilities: they have MM genes or they have some m gene. m gene should be recessive gene, when appears with M gene, because according to HP wiki all known half-breeds can use magic. So half-breeds have MM or Mm genes.

What can Harry do with all these things? He can come with some eugenic proposal how to increase number of wizards, this may even help to make relationship with Lucius better. He can just find this M gene and connect it to the source of magic. But I'm not sure, that Harry will have time for all these, he may have more important goals. I hope he can delegate some of these studies to somebody else, for example, to Draco.

By the way, can Polyjuiced person become pregnant and give birth?

Comment author: fubarobfusco 12 May 2012 08:18:28PM 1 point [-]

Second, half-breeds exist. Magic-users can have children from giants, goblins, veela and, possibly, some other creatures. These half-breed can use magic, and there are two possibilities: they have MM genes or they have some m gene. m gene should be recessive gene, when appears with M gene, because according to HP wiki all known half-breeds can use magic. So half-breeds have MM or Mm genes.

Canon has Hagrid and Maxime (half-giant), Fleur and Gabrielle (one-quarter veela), and Filius Flitwick (part goblin). Veelas and goblins use forms of magic, but giants don't. That may be not because giants lack the genetic ability, but because they lack the attention or intelligence to learn how to make use of it, though. Goblins appear to have intelligence around human level, but use magic differently from witches and wizards.

Other species noted for using their own flavors of magic include house-elves and centaurs. There aren't any part-house-elf or part-centaur characters in canon or HPMoR, though.

Comment author: Yuu 13 May 2012 05:53:41AM 1 point [-]

I agree about giants, they may lack of training to use wizard's spells, but some of their abilities may be magic-based, for example, spell resistance, extra strength (comparing with non-magical creatures of the same size), maybe some regeneration ability.

Harry can make some broad study of non-human blood and find something interesting.

Comment author: gjm 11 May 2012 01:19:20AM 3 points [-]

Chapter 83 on hpmor.com ends with a "you have reached the story's in-progress mark" note even though it is no longer the latest chapter.

Comment author: matheist 09 May 2012 10:38:03PM 4 points [-]

If I were Quirrell, and I wanted Hermione out of Hogwarts, and Dumbledore has warded her against magic, and I failed to convince her to leave, what would I try next?

I would identify those people who have the most influence over her, and attempt to convince them to convince her to leave. Who have we seen to have influence over her? By "influence", I mean that she respects them or might for some reason listen to them. Harry, Dumbledore, McGonagall, Flitwick, Mandy, her parents.

Quirrell likely won't be able to (or won't attempt to) talk Dumbledore, McGonagall, or Flitwick into persuading Hermione to leave. He can put pressure on Harry. Putting pressure on Mandy (either with mind magic or just psychology) might also be effective. Some interrogation techniques involve prolonged deprivation followed by small kindnesses. If everyone hates Hermione, a single friendly face could persuade her to do what she otherwise might not.

He could arrange for Hermione's parents to learn of the events. As McGonagall points out in ch 84, and as Hermione later thinks to herself during her chat with Quirrell, "Mum would want her to RUN AWAY and her father would have a heart attack if he even knew she was being faced with the question."

What other avenues does Quirrell have, besides persuasion? "Hostile magic" and a "spirit [touching]" her would be detected. Can he slip her a potion? Attack her physically? Use non-hostile magic, whatever that might be? Convince her to hex herself? Use hostile magic on someone else force them to attack her physically?

Comment author: Desrtopa 11 May 2012 03:05:46PM 2 points [-]

If I were Quirrell, and I wanted Hermione out of Hogwarts, and Dumbledore has warded her against magic, and I failed to convince her to leave, what would I try next?

I would identify those people who have the most influence over her, and attempt to convince them to convince her to leave. Who have we seen to have influence over her? By "influence", I mean that she respects them or might for some reason listen to them. Harry, Dumbledore, McGonagall, Flitwick, Mandy, her parents.

Shouldn't that depend on why he wants her to leave? If I were Quirrell, and I were trying to isolate Harry without him suspecting I was trying to isolate him, I would not encourage him to make the people around him leave. I also wouldn't want to do anything that would risk making the other professors unnecessarily suspicious.

Comment author: jaibot 10 May 2012 09:45:55PM 3 points [-]

"Not magic" seems like the obvious answer to me. RL Humans have been doing terrible things to each other forever without breaking any laws of physics.

Comment author: cultureulterior 10 May 2012 09:09:27AM 1 point [-]

I'm not sure the Powers that Be at Hogwarts would allow her to be taken home by her parents...

Comment author: glumph 13 May 2012 03:59:37AM *  3 points [-]

Do Hermoine's parents even have the right to withdraw her? Harry's parents apparently do not have such a right:

Muggles had around the same legal standing as children or kittens: they were cute, so if you tortured them in public you could get arrested, but they weren’t people. Some reluctant provision had been made for recognizing the parents of Muggleborns as human in a limited sense, but Harry’s adoptive parents did not fall into that legal category (Chapter 26).

Comment author: cultureulterior 13 May 2012 09:31:02AM 3 points [-]

But Professor McGonagall had made other visits after her first trip, to "see how Miss Granger is doing"; and Roberta couldn't help but think that if Hermione said her parents were being troublesome about her witching career, something would be done to fix them...

This quote in particular makes that point...

Comment author: 75th 09 May 2012 09:34:32PM *  3 points [-]

Some predictions for the next arc and beyond:

The climax where Quirrell's identity and/or motives are revealed will be in the next two arcs (p ≈ 0.8), and possibly in the next arc (p ≈ 0.3).

This last arc ended ominously; I think we're perilously close to seeing some serious shit. I assigned low probability to this happening in the next arc because Eliezer said the next arc picks up immediately after this one. We're still in April, and I have this hunch that maybe Harry's "What do I get if I can make it happen on the last day of school?" line to McGonagall was foreshadowing. I also think we'll get to see Quirrell execute his Christmas Wish plot. And speaking of Quirrell plots,

Quirrell will execute his Final Solution to the Granger Problem in the next arc (p ≈ 0.75) and very possibly succeed (p ≈ 0.5)

The next arc is going to pick up immediately following the last one. I assume that "immediately following" means "the day after". Quirrell might have given her more than one night to consider if he weren't planning on getting rid of her immediately. If seers all over the world have nightmares one night, then presumably something bad is going to happen very soon thereafter. Hermione meeting (or maybe even almost meeting) a horrible demise would send Harry straight to his Dark Side, and who knows what he'd do then.

The worldwide seer activity is due to Harry being about to kill a lot of people. (p ≈ 0.35)

Harry Potter's Dark Side just figured out a reliable way to kill large numbers of people in a small amount of time. Maybe he's about to use it.

The Trigger Warnings are next going to be updated for a chapter called Gur Olfgnaqre Rssrpg. Vs n ohapu bs crbcyr jngpu Urezvbar trg uheg naq yrg vg unccra, Uneel zvtug qrpvqr gurl nyy arrq gb qvr.

Or, if you connect Harry's two unwittingly ominous resolutions that directly preceded the two Trelawney nightmares, he might decide that everyone in Britain who supports Azkaban's use of Dementors needs to die. All he needs is a broadcast medium to disable the country's Patronuses, and he can send a Dementor to create a wizarding holocaust.

I assign low probability to this not because I think the clues don't point reasonably strongly in this direction, but because I fail to see how Harry and the story could recover from it. Perhaps Dumbledore would subdue Harry and take him into hiding? But then we wouldn't see the end-of-year stuff at Hogwarts, unless it happens two or three arcs from now.

At some point, Harry will break his Time-Turner to get out of a sticky situation. (p ≈ 0.85)

Twice in early chapters we were told that strange things happen when Time-Turners are broken. Once would be an offhand reference, but twice indicates to me that Eliezer has something in mind. If Harry successfully rescues Hermione from whatever Quirrell tries to do to her next, I think this might be how.


Those probabilities are mostly pulled out of thin air, but I've seen other people use them, so apparently it's expected. Is there some systematic method people use to arrive at them, or do you just sort of look out a window and see what number feels right?

Comment author: Alejandro1 14 May 2012 11:50:41PM 5 points [-]

A common method to get an idea what is the "subjectively correct" number to use as your probability is to imagine yourself betting (a moderate amount of money you would be willing to risk) on the claim, and deciding which odds would you accept. For example, if you would accept betting up to $40 against $10 on your claim, but not more, then the probability you assign to it is 0.8. If you would be willing to bet only up to $10 on a chance of winning $90, then your probability is 0.1.

Comment author: 75th 15 May 2012 12:08:03AM *  3 points [-]

I actually considered revising all my estimates using the rubric "What would I pay for ten shares of this prediction on Intrade?" But I decided that that method would likely introduce a strong bias based on my financial situation, even if I tried to imagine myself to be in a financial situation closer to the median.

Comment author: 75th 14 May 2012 12:28:51AM 6 points [-]

I meant to add this when I originally wrote the above post, but forgot, probably because it's pretty obvious:

A major focus of the next arc will be Quirrell teaching the first years to cast Avada Kedavra. (p ≈ 0.9)

Quirrell was antsy to get back to his classes, of which there are not many left. And teaching the Killing Curse is a good way to make sure Harry is deeply in tune with his Dark Side when Quirrell executes his plot against Hermione. Harry's Dark Side will of course be exceptionally good at casting the Killing Curse, and casting it will make it easier for him to stay Dark when he wants to. Whenever Harry next gets back to his Light Side thereafter, he'll be alarmed at how right it felt for him to cast it; indeed, he'll probably start finding it hard to resist casting it whenever something activates his Dark Side.

Comment author: aleksiL 14 May 2012 11:36:52PM 6 points [-]

I get the feeling that if Harry learns the Killing Curse he'll manage to tweak it somehow, on the order of Patronus 2.0 or partial Transfiguration.

I arrived at this idea by intuition - it seems to fit, but I don't think there's much explicit support. AFAICT I'm mostly pattern-matching on story logic, AK's plot significance and symmetry with Patronus, and Harry's talent for breaking things by thinking at them.

I think my probability estimate for this (given that Harry learns AK in the first place) is around 30%, but I suspect I'm poorly calibrated.

Comment author: 75th 15 May 2012 12:16:37AM *  2 points [-]

Interesting. I'm finding it hard to imagine what a "True Killing Curse" would do differently; the Standard Killing Curse seems to leave things pretty much good and dead. Perhaps it would kill Phoenixes permanently? Offing Fawkes would be a nice Yudkowskian punch in the gut. Or maybe it would kill all of the victim's horcruxes as well? But it'd be a drag if Eliezer introduced the Cvbarre ubepehk only to have Harry discover a shortcut that makes him not have to deal with it.

Comment author: [deleted] 14 May 2012 12:48:49AM *  3 points [-]

Those probabilities are mostly pulled out of thin air, but I've seen other people use them, so apparently it's expected. Is there some systematic method people use to arrive at them, or do you just sort of look out a window and see what number feels right?

The probability you assign to a hypothesis should accurately represent your degree of belief that the hypothesis is true. Moreover, your degree of belief should be coherent with the rules of probability theory. Unfortunately, we human beings are notoriously bad at probabilistic reasoning. So while there are systematic methods for assigning probabilities based on evidence, it takes a lot of work to use them properly. For a lot of untrained people, myself included, the best we can currently do is see how we feel, attempt to quantify it, and try to constrain it based on rational factors.

If you want to learn more, a few key search words here are "Bayes' theorem," "heuristics and biases," and "debiasing." If you read through the sequences - a daunting task, I know - a lot of it is covered in detail. Or if you'd prefer to read some academic papers and books on the subject, I'm sure I and other users could make recommendations.

Comment author: arundelo 08 May 2012 11:46:13PM 3 points [-]

Aaron Swartz (this guy) gave a short but glowing review to HP:MoR in April.

Comment author: cultureulterior 03 May 2012 03:59:22PM 7 points [-]

I think that Salazar's Serpent was a trap Tom Riddle fell into. It was a Langford Basilisk Horcrux, like the book Ginny got in the original timeline, so When Tom Riddle read out the information embedded, he was possessed by Salazar Slytherin. That's why nppbeqvat gb Ibyqrzbeg/Evqqyr/Fnynmne vg frrzf gb unir whfg orra n terng frecrag, abg n onfvyvfx, juvpu vf whfg jung ur jbhyq fnl. Guvf nyfb rkcynvaf gur qnzntrq guvaxvat Uneel frrf.

This might well explain Harry as well, since in OT Voldemort had a giant serpent hanging around. He might not have had one in this timeline, but if he did, it would explain a lot of why he kept it around- it was a horcrux duplicator/imprinter.

Comment author: shminux 03 May 2012 07:08:12PM *  2 points [-]

There has been some confusion on how the time turners work and whether they are compatible with relativity.

This comment is meant to explain the simplified mechanics of it, as outlined in the User Manual.

Time turner keeps track of its world line for up to 6 hours back. When activated, it creates a branch of the whole Universe inside the past lightcone of the spacetime point on that world line and transports the wearer to that branch.

FAQ:

  • Q. Why is my time turner limited to just 6 hours? A. Time turner has to keep track of your personal past well enough to spawn a completely new copy of the universe seamlessly and instantly. This is a lot of information to keep track of, a spacetime volume of roughly 13.6 billion light year^3*year. Your time turner keeps has a perfect snapshot of the current state of the Universe, and it contains a sophisticated magical firmware to extrapolate what this state had been up to 6 hours prior (proper time in the time turner's reference frame). This is done by simulating the universe backwards, which runs into the standard thermodynamical limitations. The hard limit of 6 hours was put in place to prevent the reconstructed copy of the universe from being significantly different from the user's subjective experience.

  • Q. Why does my time turner create a new branch of the universe instead of modifying the existing branch? A. Unfortunately, the laws of General Relativity prohibit any true modification of the past. The GR RFC specifies a unique metric (and therefore unique matter content) for each spacetime point. Any attempt to have two or more copies of the same object at the same point in spacetime would be in violation of the RFC, and so is not supported by your time turner.

  • Q. What happens to the original universe after I activate my time turner? A. The original branch still persists as if no time turner had been activated. However, since there is no known way to communicate between parallel universes, you do not need to worry about anything that happens to the copy of you and anyone you failed to save from a certain death by activating your time turner.

Comment author: MugaSofer 18 August 2012 02:12:23AM *  4 points [-]

I can't believe no-one has pointed this out yet:

The MORverse is timelessl, with a single, self-consistent timeline.

  • Harry's partial transfiguration stems from realizing that reality is timeless.
  • IIRC, Eliezer has mentioned that he thinks our universe is also timeless, and has mentioned this as a fact in other sci-fi works.
  • You can't "change" the past.

There is absolutely no need to debate the way time travel operates in the MORverse. There are, however. other questions about time turners, such as how they define "information from more than six hours ahead" in order to refuse to transport it.

Comment author: [deleted] 04 May 2012 11:20:22AM *  1 point [-]

I think it makes more sense to hypothesise that HPMOR-universe is a simulation being run in some meta-universe, and that time turners (and magic in general) are examples of complicated, explicit case rules that are hard-programmed into the simulation program.

To quote EY's story "The Finale of the Ultimate Meta Mega Crossover"...

"Vg npghnyyl qbrf fbhaq zber yvxr zntvp guna culfvpf," fnvq Unebyq Furn, jvgu n frevbhf ybbx ba uvf snpr. "V'ir orra guebhtu rabhtu jbeyqf gb xabj gur qvssrerapr - jul, onpx va zl rneyl qnlf, V hfrq gb geniry nebhaq orgjrra jbeyqf ol qrfpevovat gur ehyrf hfrq gb guvax nobhg gurz! Gur Ynjf bs Fvzvynevgl naq Pbagntvba, gung fbeg bs guvat. Riraghnyyl V jbexrq bhg gur ynjf bs gubhtug juvpu qrfpevorq gung jubyr zhygvirefr, juvpu vf ubj V tbg bhg... ohg bhe fgbevrf pna jnvg hagvy yngre. Naljnl, Znevn, gur ybtvp bs gur riragf lbh'er qrfpevovat vf bar jurer pbafpvbhfarff unf rssrpgf gung gnxr cerprqrapr bire gur ynjf bs culfvpf - jurer ybjre yriryf bs betnavmngvba tvir jnl gb uvture yriryf bs betnavmngvba. Gurer ner havirefrf jurer gur ivfvoyr ehyrf ner fvzcyr, zngurzngvpny, naq shaqnzragny, naq rirelguvat gung unccraf, unccraf jvguva gurz. Naq gurer ner havirefrf jurer gur ivfvoyr ehyrf ner pbzcyvpngrq naq unir rkcyvpvg fcrpvny pnfrf sbe fhesnpr curabzran - naq hfhnyyl fbzr bs gur ivfvoyr ehyrf ner nobhg zragny curabzran, naq qba'g ivfvoyl erqhpr gb ehyrf nobhg aba-zragny cnegf. Jr pnyy gur sbezre fbeg bs havirefr 'angheny', naq gur ynggre fbeg 'zntvpny'. Ol bhe pbairagvbaf, Znevn, lbh jbhyq or pbafvqrerq gb pbzr sebz n zntvpny havirefr - be zntvpny zhygvirefr, engure, fvapr lbh'ir nyernql zbirq nebhaq vafvqr vg naq qvfpbirerq fbzr bs gur ehyrf sbe geniryvat."

This explains why magic is so difficult to explain in terms of physical laws - it's irreducibly complex. Things like being able to sustain human-level cognition even after being transformed into a cat and time turners only counting it as information if you're consciously aware of some specific fact from the future (instead of knowing that there's something you might want to know, as Dumbledore does when Bones asks him if he wants to hear the news from six hours in the future) are products of the fact that that magical rules pay special attention to things like the brain states of humans. Similarly, the laws of thermodynamics are irrelevant because magical laws are just as fundamental and operate as exceptions to these rules - "energy cannot be created or destroyed except when someone waves a wand and says "fridgerio"."

If I'm right, the simulation probably either:

a) selects between possible time-paths on the fly, calculating the most probable path within a given, bounded probability space for any given moment. Most of these tend to not actually be loops at all (they're linear and don't include time travel), but when time turners get involved the universe has to chew through the numbers until it settles on the most probable, stable loop. In this case, the six hour limit may stem from a processing limitation, i.e. the computer can only handle a certain number of calculations at once. This version doesn't inherently explain kooky messages like don't mess with time, so they must be the product of specific, complicated rules too - "allow people to fool around with time unless they try to find primes or otherwise buck the system".

or b) calculated all of time from start to finish in one giant flop. In this case, there are no contingent time-paths, everything happens because it had to happen that way in order for the next thing to happen. In this case, the simulation had to choose not between different possible momentary time paths but different possible universes, and the six-hour limit is probably just a number that the simulators picked to keep things relatively simple. In this case, kooky messages are necessary because that's just what happens to happen in this universe.

Perhaps there is a set of meta-rules governing what the magical laws are, allowing people to invent new spells if they delve deep enough into the mysteries, I think we probably need more information to decide on that point. If such meta-laws do exist then we can expect Atlantis to have been a real civilisation in HPMOR-universe, which formulated most of the magical laws we see today by action of the meta-laws. If there aren't any such meta-laws, Atlantis is probably the civilisation/individual/planet/universe/computer running the HPMOR simulation (or else a previous situation which was used as a test-run for the current one), which would explain how it seems to have been "erased from time". It was never in the universe to begin with, so of course you can't see it by looking into the past.

Comment author: Eugine_Nier 04 May 2012 03:43:46AM 4 points [-]

Time turner keeps track of its world line for up to 6 hours back. When activated, it creates a branch of the whole Universe inside the past lightcone of the spacetime point on that world line and transports the wearer to that branch.

This seems inconsistent with Harry pranking himself.

Comment author: shminux 04 May 2012 03:49:14AM *  1 point [-]

Hmm, I guess the inconsistent part is the original Harry disappearing after awhile...

Comment author: Eugine_Nier 04 May 2012 04:01:36AM *  2 points [-]

If I understand your explanation correctly, the inconsistent part is Harry experiencing the prank the first time through the loop.

Comment author: shminux 04 May 2012 04:15:32AM 1 point [-]

No, that one is fine, as long as the story is told from the POV of Harry #2

Comment author: gjm 03 May 2012 10:53:09PM 2 points [-]

This seems like it's consistent with how time-turners look to their users, but it's not so clear that it fits with how their use looks to other people. Wouldn't you expect that (something like) half of all time-turner uses by people other than oneself would appear to fail (i.e., the user vanishes but there's no sign that they reappeared at an earlier time)?

Comment author: Benquo 07 May 2012 02:00:54PM *  1 point [-]

Much less than half the time. Remember, if Harry1 uses his time turner, he creates Universe2 with Harry2=Harry1_6_hours_ago. But in 6 hours, Harry2 will use his time turner, creating Universe3 with Harry3...

So IF there is a stable time loop of any kind, most universes will have that loop.

This raises the interesting prospect of stable sets of universes, with 6-hour histories A, B, and C. If a Harry that experiences A uses his time turner and does B, and a Harry experiencing B does C, and Harry experiencing C does A, then most copies of Harry will experience an inconsistent time loop, and it will seem like he actually went back and changed time.

If time loops are generally observed to be consistent, then this is evidence that single-state equilibria are much more probable than multiple-state equilibria.

Comment author: gRR 04 May 2012 01:54:50AM 1 point [-]

Q. Why does my time turner create a new branch of the universe instead of modifying the existing branch? A. Unfortunately, the laws of General Relativity prohibit any true modification of the past.

It is not actually necessary to change the past. It is sufficient to change the present, including all memories of affected people.

Comment author: ArisKatsaris 02 May 2012 07:51:32PM 3 points [-]

I just noticed that JKR has identified canon!Draco's wife (which is glimpsed at and never named in the epilogue of Deathly Hallows) as "Astoria Greengrass", Daphne Greengrass's younger (by two years) sister.

I wonder if Eliezer knew of this, and if that's part of the reason he made House Greengrass a "Noble and Most Ancient" one...

Comment author: 75th 03 May 2012 08:53:09PM 1 point [-]

TIL that Daphne Greengrass and Tracey Davis exist in canon, and were not created out of whole cloth by Eliezer for Methods.

Comment author: redbayes 05 May 2012 09:08:29AM 1 point [-]

You might find this site helpful to keep track of canon characters: http://familytrees.genopro.com/harry-potter/

I recommend EY to visit it too if possible, since he hasn't read the last few books, this might bring him to date with new developments.

Comment author: 75th 05 May 2012 09:22:21PM 1 point [-]

Hmm. That's interesting, but its interestingness is damaged by the fact that it lists neither Davises nor Greengrasses.

Comment author: ArisKatsaris 04 May 2012 01:42:39AM *  1 point [-]

Pretty much all first-year student characters of HPMoR with significant roles existed in canon, at least as names (most of their personalities were not detailed in canon) -- that most definitely includes the entirety of SPHEW, and other important-to-HPMoR figures like Blaise Zabini, and even less important figures like Kevin Entwhistle.

I was just wondering whether the specific making of Greengrass into a "Noble and Most Ancient House" was decided by Eliezer because JKR married off her Draco to a Greengrass family member. Or if it was just a coincidence.

edited to add: TIL I learned what TIL means.

Comment author: redbayes 05 May 2012 09:04:30AM 3 points [-]

The "I learned" is redundant, unless you mean that you learned that you just learned what TIL means, in which case you could have prefaced it with a 'that'.

I kid, I kid.

Comment author: [deleted] 01 May 2012 04:08:35PM *  7 points [-]

In an attempt to find Quirrell's motives, I have listed the evidence I have about him, and now have a theory I have not seen on LessWrong or anywhere. I did it mostly mentally, but I'll try to put down all the evidence I took into account as unbiasedly as possible. I assume you know Quirrell = Voldemorte = Tom Riddle.

-Quirrell said Harry's wish was impossible. The wish was that Quirrell come back again the next year as the Defense Professor at Hogwarts. He also burned the paper on which the wish was written and he did not tell the audience what it was. If Quirrell intended to come back the next year, he would not have minded the question. Therefore, he is probably only staying a year, but he does not want most people to know.

-He took Harry's "Dark Side" explanation in stride, which normally should have sounded like a terrible excuse. He therefore probably knows something about it.

-Hermione claimed that Quirrell wanted the Dementor to eat Harry. I see no reason for Hermione to have lied. Quirrell stopped the Dementor's feeding after Harry had already turned to his Dark Side by telling Flitwick to remove the wand. After this event, Harry's sense of Doom grew stronger. I doubt that Harry's Dark Side coming out would have been a permanent change, however, simply He didn't seem to do much else to turn Harry dark, except making him say that his destroying of Skeeter was a good thing, and that can easily be explained by him being annoyed by Harry's whining. I take it from this that he wanted to get Harry's dark side out more, and that that was the intention behind the Dementor, but he's not trying to turn Harry evil per se. -Quirrell also seemed very eager to believe Harry would have the ambition of becoming a Dark Wizard. I take it from this that he expected Harry's Dark Side to have more control over him.

-He gave a speech stating that magical Britain should unite with a mark under a good leader, inferring that it should be Harry, and claimed that Harry's next speech which said the opposite was interfering with his plots. He also has helped the students of Hogwarts grow stronger and wiser. I therefore presume that he wants light strong, because he could just as easily have been a bad professor, given Hogwart's track record.

-He was able to go to Harry's house thanks to a phone book, which probably required Harry's Stepfather's last name to find. This means he couldn't have kidnapped Harry before meeting him in Hogwarts, but that he could if Harry went back home for the summer.

-He rescued Bellatrix Black from Azkaban, but tried to do so subtly, and it would probably have been impossible to save her without Harry learning the True Patronus, which was not predictable. I know 2 possible uses to Bellatrix: come back to life, or get his wand back. Quirrell had the opportunity to kidnap Harry and still have Bellatrix Black (right after they had saved her, he could have just not gone back to Mary's Place and taken Harry with him), which would have allowed him to come back to life in full strength, but he didn't take it. The plan was supposed to go unnoticed, but that failed, which made Dumbledore, Minerva, and Snape suspect Voldemorte is coming back, preventing Harry from going back home for the summer. He then wanted to make a plot that would make everyone believe Harry had defeated Voldemorte again, so I presume he doesn't plan on coming back as Voldemorte, at least not yet.

-Quirrell had an opportunity to kill Dumbledore (when he was weakened by the Dementor), but he didn't take it. His plan is therefore not to kill Dumbledore, or at least he needs to get other things done before killing him, and taking that opportunity would have prevented him from accomplishing them because he would have been ousted from Hogwarts.

-Quirrell knows how to get back to life by stealing a body, though it has negative side-effects that get worse over time.

-Harry and Quirrell are very similar in terms of wand, parseltongue, and they have some weird magical resonance, and a sense of doom when they approach each other.

-Quirrell has told Harry not to trust Dumbledore. After saying "I don't suppose you have a common enemy" to Harry, Hermione, and Draco, he glanced at Dumbledore almost imperceptibly fast. The only thing I can make of this is that he doesn't like Dumbledore.

-Quirrell blocked attempts to identify him by the aurors who knew he was not Quirrell, but the Hogwarts map couldn't find him when asked to find Tom Riddle, his true name. I'm thinking body-stealing makes you that person for all things linked to the name of the purpose, which would make the spell identify him as Quirrell. He doesn't want the aurors to identify him as such, however, because they already know that he's not Quirrell, unlike Dumbledore. Update: as moritz has pointed out, Quirrell wasn't there when Dumbledore asked the map to find Tom Riddle. I also assumed that Amelia Bones was referring to Tom Riddle when she was talking about a person sorted into slytherin in his same year, though Eliezer has confirmed that this is not so by changing the year of birth. So I have no evidence for this anymore. But come to think of it, even if the map would identify Quirrell as Tom Riddle, that probably means that Quirrell doesn't know about the map, and therefore he hasn't planned for it.

-Quirrell tried to get rid of Hermione. I don't think he intended to get rid of Draco, because he saved Draco from death, and had Harry not beaten all odds and saved Hermione, Draco would probably not have been removed from Hogwarts by his father. He probably expected her to go to Azkaban, but he would settle with her going to some far-away school. I can think of 2 motives for this: turn Harry to his Dark Side more, or get rid of Hermione (probably both).

So what is Quirrell plotting? I think he's planning on stealing Harry's body like he stole Quirrell's, at the end of the year when Harry goes back for the summer. He's been bringing out Harry's Dark Side, which he probably created inside Harry (maybe as a "horcrux", whatever that is), because that would allow him to better fit inside the body. He doesn't want to turn Harry evil, however; he wants to become the hero again as Harry Potter, and become the ruler of Britain under a light mark. He's also trying to harm Dumbledore, though, because he doesn't like him and is a threat. Maybe he has other motives as well for harming Dumbledore. He got rid of Hermione because she is the most likely to notice a change in Harry, and he didn't do it during the Christmas vacations because it would be suspicious if both Harry changed and the Defense Professor disappeared at the same time, unless it was summer and the professor disappeared because he left for normal reasons.

Update 1: I read some more comments, and I've noticed that some people think Quirrell crippled Harry by turning him into an Occlumens and teaching him to lose. I disagree. Harry learned to pretend to lose, not to give up. I think this was more a measure to prevent Harry from self-destructing himself like he almost did when fighting Snape. And Harry becoming Occlumens, while preventing him from testifying under veritasaerum, was probably mostly to allow Quirrell to use Harry in his plots without the danger of Dumbledore legilimensing something important.

Update 2: It's interesting that I used an euphemism for the word "hate" when describing Quirrell's relationship with Dumbledore. The word "hate" just felt too strong to describe any emotion Quirrell could have towards others. Quirrell is far too good a manipulator, he even makes me feel as though he's too collected and calm to actually hate anyone.

Comment author: DanArmak 06 May 2012 12:55:56AM 2 points [-]

I think he's planning on stealing Harry's body like he stole Quirrell's, at the end of the year when Harry goes back for the summer.

Harry isn't going home for the summer.

Comment author: [deleted] 07 May 2012 05:46:33PM 2 points [-]

I know that, but he was originally going to go home for the summer. Harry has accidentally foiled it by messing up in Azkaban and effectively forcing himself to stay in Hogwarts, but that doesn't change what Quirrell's plan was in the first place. So now Quirrell will either need to find a way to remove Voldemorte from Dumbledore's fears, or come up with a new plan altogether. I guess I should have been more clear in my comment, sorry about that.

Comment author: moritz 02 May 2012 12:42:58PM 4 points [-]

but the Hogwarts map couldn't find him when asked to find Tom Riddle, his true name.

Note that Quirrel was at the Ministry for Magic for interrogation while Dumbledore used the map to search for Riddle.

Comment author: jimrandomh 01 May 2012 03:57:36AM 10 points [-]

I'm not sure how my mind dug this up, but way back in Chapter 17, Harry visits Dumbledore's office and is overloaded with bizarreness: Dumbledore sets fire to a chicken, he gives him his father's rock, he gives him his mother's potions textbook which contains a terrible secret... but one of these things is not like the others. Dumbledore gave Harry his father's rock, with instructions that Harry satisfied by creating a magical ring and wearing it at all times.

Blur out all the hilarious details for a minute, and that scene is: Dumbledore made Harry create a magical ring and wear it at all times, and distracted him so well that he never thought about what the ring does. My hypothesis is that some aspect of magic is governed by an XP-like mechanic, and that sustained transfiguration (especially of large masses) is an unusually effective way of gaining magical power. Dumbledore wants Harry to exploit this, but he considers it a major secret, so he substituted a nonsensical explanation and prepared a collection of very flashy distractions to keep it from being questioned. He might've even left the real explanation in his pensieve, so that he wouldn't have to lie. Read in this light, the scene makes a whole lot more sense. It explains Harry's anomalous magical power. It explains Dumbledore's anomalous magical power.

It is also the only way Dumbledore could truly mark someone as an equal.

Comment author: Normal_Anomaly 01 May 2012 01:02:48AM 14 points [-]

Does anyone else think it plausible that Harry's third last name, "Verres," comes from Mr. Verres in the webcomic El Goonish Shive? EGS Mr. Verres is a government scientist with a bespectacled semi-magical mad scientist son, and pretty much everything else in MOR is a shout-out.

Comment author: CAE_Jones 13 December 2012 10:50:23AM 2 points [-]

I'd always assumed it was related to Veres / Latin for truth.

Comment author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 02 May 2012 02:00:11AM 16 points [-]

Accidental, but I'm willing to claim credit for it. It started as a portmanteau of Vassar and Herreshoff.

Comment author: Postal_Scale 29 April 2012 08:34:43AM 1 point [-]

Who would win in a fight, Harry Potter-Evans-Verres, or the Harry Potter from Wizard People, Dear Reader?

Comment author: glumph 01 May 2012 02:16:44AM 2 points [-]

WPDR Harry could at least drink HPJEV under the table.

Comment author: chaosmosis 28 April 2012 06:17:52PM 5 points [-]

And then there was that promise Harry had sworn.

Draco to help Harry reform Slytherin House. And Harry to take as an enemy whoever Harry believed, in his best judgment as a rationalist, to have killed Narcissa Malfoy. If Narcissa had never gotten her own hands dirty, if indeed she'd been burned alive, if the killer hadn't been tricked - those were all the conditions Harry could remember making. He probably should've written it down, or better yet, never made a promise requiring that many caveats in the first place.

There were plausible outs, for the sort of person who'd take an out. Dumbledore hadn't actually confessed. He hadn't come right out and said he'd done it. There were plausible reasons for an actually-guilty Dumbledore to behave that way. But it was also what you'd expect to see, if someone else had burned Narcissa, and Dumbledore had taken credit.

Harry overlooks the huge out that Draco is leaving Hogwarts and so won't be reforming the Slytherins.

Comment author: chaosmosis 26 April 2012 02:47:14AM 8 points [-]

I just thought of something.

When Quirrell shows Harry the stars in outer space he's probably getting the images from his probe-Horcrux.

Comment author: pedanterrific 26 April 2012 02:49:36AM 2 points [-]

Think one step further. What does this imply about his other Horcruxes?

Comment author: CronoDAS 24 April 2012 03:12:53PM 1 point [-]

When was the Naruto omake added? I just saw it for the first time...

Comment author: ArisKatsaris 24 April 2012 03:34:33PM *  1 point [-]

Hah, thanks, I just read it (and noticed it) for the first time too.

It also contains a Puella Magi Madoka Magika reference. (and anyone who hasn't seen that show should immediately go and watch it without spoiling themselves at all about it if possible -- it's just 12 episodes long, and I think the yesy fansubs at http://yesy-fansubs.net/ are considered better than the gg fansubs one can find at piratebay, btw)

Comment author: LKtheGreat 24 April 2012 02:04:46PM 1 point [-]

I could benefit from using the hiatus time to reread MOR and make notes of anything that seems significant in light of 85 chapters' worth of perspective. This would be even more productive if some number of us read and analyzed together, I believe. Anyone care to join in such an endeavour?

Comment author: alex_zag_al 23 April 2012 01:04:25PM 9 points [-]

I think HPMoR has colored my thinking about scholarship and I'm really happy about this. Recently I have been reading the literature on mathematics education, and I find myself thinking of what I read as books that can give me power, like uncovering principles of magic and becoming capable of greater battle magic. I'm basically doing what Dumbledore and Riddle did and it works in real life.

Comment author: pedanterrific 23 April 2012 03:47:13AM *  13 points [-]

In canon, Bellatrix Lestrange is married to Rodolphus Lestrange and does not have a child. In MoR, Bellatrix Black is unmarried, but has a child- Lesath Lestrange, the acknowledged bastard of Rastaban Lestrange. (In canon Rodolphus' brother's name was Rabastan, but I'm assuming that's a typo.) Lesath is currently a fifth year, so he was born in either '75 or '76. Bellatrix was actively leading attacks as a Death Eater in '71. Presumably a pregnancy would require some amount of maternity leave from the whole 'going on raids, fighting Aurors' thing.

So. Why would Voldemort allow / order one of his most powerful servants to have a child?

Comment author: DanArmak 06 May 2012 12:45:52AM 7 points [-]

Um. Maybe he was experimenting with the powerful magic protection that a mother's love grants her child?

Comment author: Aharon 05 May 2012 10:37:59PM *  2 points [-]

1) Even in Muggle society, there are women who work close to their normal capacity despite pregnancy up to shortly before birth. 2) The physiological consequences after birth can probably be healed by magic. 3) Voldemort might also enjoy causing her psychological pain by having her become attached to the child she will bear and then taking it away from her afterwards. He continued torturing her well after he already had her total loyalty, so this might just be another way to do so.

Comment author: Eugine_Nier 24 April 2012 04:02:15AM *  5 points [-]

Given that his ideology is based to blood purity, he may very well (at least put up a show of) encouraging purebloods to have children.

Also, given what we know about Bellatrix's relationship to Voldemort, maybe Lesath is actually Voldemort's son and Rastaban adopted him after Voldemort's downfall, falsely acknowledging paternity so he wouldn't have the stigma of being the son of a dark lord.

Comment author: pedanterrific 24 April 2012 04:22:05AM 3 points [-]

Given that his ideology is based to blood purity, he may very well (at least put up a show of) encouraging purebloods to have children.

He chose to express this viewpoint by ordering his extremely loyal, highly skilled unmarried female pureblood warrior-assassin to have a kid in the middle of a war?

maybe Lesath is actually Voldemort's [son]

This is possible, but... he's kind of, you know, wimpy. I'm just not seeing it. (Also, it seems like we might have gotten some indication that Quirrell has interacted with him somehow, if this were true.)

Rastaban adopted [him] after Voldemort's downfall

Rastaban was in Azkaban immediately after Voldemort's downfall. Also, Lesath was somewhere around five years old at the time.

Comment author: Eugine_Nier 24 April 2012 04:27:54AM 2 points [-]

He chose to express this viewpoint by ordering his extremely loyal, highly skilled unmarried female pureblood warrior-assassin to have a kid in the middle of a war?

Well, the Nazi's did something similar.

Comment author: pedanterrific 24 April 2012 04:39:04AM 5 points [-]

Let me rephrase:

He chose to express this viewpoint by ordering his extremely loyal, highly skilled warrior-assassin to get pregnant in the middle of a war?

That's the relevant bit, and also coincidentally the part where the Lebensborn analogy breaks down.

Comment author: JoshuaZ 24 April 2012 04:09:02AM 2 points [-]

she wouldn't have the stigma of being the daughter of a dark lor

Minor note- Lesath is a boy.

Comment author: Eugine_Nier 24 April 2012 04:24:41AM 1 point [-]

Thanks fixed.

Comment author: SkyDK 23 April 2012 02:20:57PM 2 points [-]

a) I s'pose he does expect losses. Replenishing his ranks in the long term seems to be an acceptable idea (he is, more or less, immortal) b) Pity points? Perhaps the good guys held back against a pregnant woman? c) How long is she realistically out of the game, considering wet-nurses, time-turners and so on: half a year? d) If Bellatrix had gotten reckless, having a kid might have been a good way to rein her in a little bit..

Comment author: Logos01 24 April 2012 03:39:18AM *  4 points [-]

Emotional blackmail on LeStrange. Also -- half a year is too long a time period. by far.

Figure without time turners but with healing magics and potions an eight month birth. Rip the kid out of her womb, and heal her back into active duty. You lose her services for maybe a month. (Up to six months in and she's still combat-capable.)

Heal both kid and mother, and there you go. (also, if we can assume accelerated gestation potions then we get even more silly. No "downtime" at all No need for time turners.)

Comment author: ChrisHallquist 22 April 2012 04:38:29PM *  3 points [-]

This may have been addressed already, but why doesn't Harry suspect at this point that Quirrell is Voldemort, or at least working for Voldemort?

This is especially puzzling after we get to hear Harry's thoughts on what happened to Hermione in 85.

Now, maybe I'm suffering from obvious-in-retrospect syndrome here, given that I did not realize Quirrell was Voldemort until V ernq Ryvrmre'f fvapr-ergenpgrq fgngrzrag gung Dhveeryy vf Ibyqrzbeg. But that was before the Stanford Prison Experiment arc. Relevant facts in that and the Taboo Tradeoffs arc:

  • Quirrell broke Bellatrix out of Azkaban
  • Voldemort is the only person in the world with an obvious motive for wanting to break Bellatrix out of Azkaban, and is who everyone else thinks is responsible
  • Quirrell uses at least one alternate identity, and Harry suspects him of having many more
  • Quirrell's explanation of his motives for breaking Bellatrix out of Azkaban (she might know something useful, also a whim, see Ch. 60) aren't terribly satisfying
  • During Hermione's trial (Ch. 80), Harry thought that it "seemed horribly and uniquely plausible that the entity who'd Memory-Charmed Hermione was the very same mind that had - made use of - Bellatrix Black."
  • In Ch. 85, we see Harry is taking the possibility that Quirrell was behind the plot against Hermione seriously.

What pieces of evidence doesn't Harry have here? He doesn't know about horcruxes so he can't make the connection to Quirrell's story about the Pioneer Plaque, and Hermione hasn't (yet?) told Harry what she's realized about what Quirrell did and why (Ch. 84). But Harry still has a lot of evidence.

The one thing that may be tripping Harry up--and was tripping me up until the moment I mentioned in rot13 above--is that Quirrell seems very serious about his "I don't want to be a Dark Lord, I want you to be a Dark Lord, Harry!" line, and it's hard to make sense of Voldemort taking that attitude.

Maybe Ridvolquir interpreted the prophecy as saying he can't defeat Harry until Harry becomes a Dark Lord???

Comment author: drnickbone 04 May 2012 10:58:20PM *  1 point [-]

One thing that's been really puzzling me since re-reading TSPE - why exactly DID Quirrell break Bellatrix out? If it's to do the resurrection spell (as in canon) then why not take Harry's blood right after the prison break, and just resurrect already? (Further, it assumes that Voldemort's body was dead in the first place and needed resurrecting, which we can't assume because Godric's Hollow looks like a set-up.)

But Quirrell's own claimed motive (to learn some of Salazar Slytherin's secrets) is even dodgier. If Quirrell actually is Voldemort, then he knows those secrets anyway. (Or does he? If he died, them perhaps his Horcrux memory doesn't count as a living mind within the smallprint of the edict of Merlin).

So I observe that I am confused.

Comment author: Desrtopa 23 April 2012 01:35:15AM *  9 points [-]

Voldemort is the only person in the world with an obvious motive for wanting to break Bellatrix out of Azkaban, and is who everyone else thinks is responsible

What motive would Harry expect Voldemort to have? As far as I can recall, he doesn't know about the components required for the spell to revive someone kept from death by horcruxes, and Bellatrix is not a very capable servant for the time being, and he doesn't believe Voldemort cared about her in any case. Quirrell, on the other hand, has already claimed a selfish motive that he personally has for freeing Bellatrix that would not apply to Voldemort.

Keep in mind that for Harry, the potential hypothesis space is huge. Quirrell might secretly be Rudolph Wizencamp in disguise. Don't know who Rudolph Wizencamp is? Well, neither does Harry, he's only lived in the wizarding world for a few months after all. We can reason by dramatic convention and conservation of detail, but for Harry, the list of all possibilities raised by the facts about the wizarding world that he's aware of is far from exhaustive.

Comment author: 75th 23 April 2012 02:22:33AM 8 points [-]

Dumbledore told Harry in the "Today your war has begun" speech that Bellatrix was one of three things Voldemort needed to return as strong as he was before.

Comment author: Xachariah 22 April 2012 08:46:03PM 15 points [-]

I think you're missing the mundane explanation. Harry really likes Quirrell. He's the person he most relates with in the world; he's the person he looks up to; he's the smart/strong/cool teacher Harry wants to be when he grows up.

Surely there were other people, maybe better people, to trust and befriend? Professor McGonagall, Professor Flitwick, Hermione, Draco, not to mention Mum and Dad, it wasn't like Harry was alone...

Only...

A choking sensation grew in Harry's throat as he understood.

Only Professor McGonagall, Professor Flitwick, Hermione, Draco, they all of them sometimes knew things that Harry didn't, but...

They did not excel above Harry within his own sphere of power; such genius as they possessed was not like his genius, and his genius was not like theirs; he might look upon them as peers, but not look up to them as his superiors.

None of them had been, none of them could ever be...

Harry's mentor...

That was who Professor Quirrell had been.

Any person, especially a child, will gladly ignore and forgive a million counter-indications as long as they really like the person.

Comment author: Quirinus 23 April 2012 08:22:07PM 11 points [-]

For it is a sad rule that whenever you are most in need of your art as a rationalist, that is when you are most likely to forget it.

Comment author: alex_zag_al 22 April 2012 08:53:42PM *  1 point [-]

Maybe Ridvolquir interpreted the prophecy as saying he can't defeat Harry until Harry becomes a Dark Lord???

For Harry to be the Dark Lord in the prophecy, and Voldemort the one with the power to defeat him, would require Voldemort to be born to those who thrice defied Harry. Taken literally the prophecy requires the one with the power to defeat the Dark Lord to be younger than him.

Quirrell's explanation of his motives for breaking Bellatrix out of Azkaban (she might know something useful, also a whim, see Ch. 60) aren't terribly satisfying

Yeah, they're not satisfying to me either. If Bellatrix knew any rare and dangerous magic, I'd expect Dumbledore to have learned whatever he could from her by whatever means are within his moral restraints, and then Obliviated her to stop anyone else from doing the same thing. This puts some restraints on Quirrill's magic usage, too: if he uses any magic that he taught to Bellatrix, Dumbledore will recognize it.

Comment author: pedanterrific 22 April 2012 09:08:18PM 1 point [-]

I think that was a hypothetical alternate interpretation of "and the Dark Lord will mark him as his equal", actually.

Comment author: asr 22 April 2012 05:54:34PM 1 point [-]

Maybe Ridvolquir interpreted the prophecy as saying he can't defeat Harry until Harry becomes a Dark Lord???

Or possibly he is lying.

Comment author: ChrisHallquist 23 April 2012 02:17:32AM *  4 points [-]

Yeah, though somehow I believe him. Though if RidVolQuir can lie well enough that I believe him, with all my extra knowledge, no wonder Harry is fooled.

Reasons for believing him, though, are:

  • The "don't want to be a Dark Lord, not enough fun" rationale fits very well with what else we know about the HPMOR version of the character.
  • Shows other signs of being sincerely interested in teaching.
  • Was pissed off when Harry disagreed with his Yule speech, and apparently not just because Harry said so in public. Rather, he seems to really cares that Harry agree with him about it.
  • Has made a matter-of-fact prediction that Harry will become a Dark Lord, if he learns everything Quirrell has to teach. And he wasn't trying to deter Harry from that path, which suggests Harry going in that direction (if not succeeding) is a part of his plans.
  • Was annoyed with Harry when Harry wouldn't go along with his fake-defeat-of-Voldemort plan.
  • This quote: "I wish for Britain to grow strong under a strong leader; that is my desire. As for my reasons why," Professor Quirrell smiled without mirth, "I think they shall stay my own." Given Quirrell's Yule speech, the first part is pretty clearly true, and the second part is consistent with a plot with a component (Harry becoming Dark Lord) that in principle can't be concealed from Harry, but whose end result isn't in Harry's best interest.

Note: I've suspected Quirrellmort was sincere about the "help Harry become Dark Lord" thing for a long time, but I recently re-read Chs. 60-66, which greatly increased my confidence about that.

Comment author: DanArmak 06 May 2012 01:18:09AM 1 point [-]

The "don't want to be a Dark Lord, not enough fun" rationale fits very well with what else we know about the HPMOR version of the character.

And yet he played the role of Dark Lord for many years, even after he quit his Savior persona because that wasn't fun enough.

Comment author: buybuydandavis 25 April 2012 02:55:48AM 1 point [-]

Was pissed off when Harry disagreed with his Yule speech, and apparently not just because Harry said so in public. Rather, he seems to really cares that Harry agree with him about it.

I think the Yule speech was largely to set up the wizarding world to take Harry as their Dear Leader. Having Harry argue against it was not what Quirrell had in mind.

Quirrell:

It should have been obvious even to you that you should have stayed silent, and consulted with me first, not spoken your worries before the crowd!”

I think he wants Harry to be the Dark Lord too, so that in the end he can take over his body like Quirrell's and rule as Dark Lord Harry, when Harry seems to defeat Voldemort.

Comment author: buybuydandavis 21 April 2012 11:52:30PM *  7 points [-]

Hasn't Harry basically signed up to be a Dark Lord in 85, at least by the Sorting Hat's standards?

then the gloves come off and the villains die as fast as possible; and I won't pretend that real people in real life can go through a war without sacrificing anyone...

Compare the talk with the Sorting Hat:

I am not Dark Lord material!

“Yes, you are. You really, really are.”

Why! Just because I once thought it would be cool to have a legion of brainwashed followers chanting ‘Hail the Dark Lord Harry’?

“Amusing, but that was not your first fleeting thought before you substituted something safer, less damaging. No, what you remembered was how you considered lining up all the blood purists and guillotining them.

Comment author: Jonathan_Elmer 22 April 2012 01:13:06AM 9 points [-]

Oh god, I have this mental image of Harry standing next to a blood soaked guillotine insisting that he is a Light Lord!

Comment author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 25 April 2012 03:32:34AM *  4 points [-]

Aaand lo, this shows up:

Comment author: pleeppleep 26 April 2012 02:04:05AM 1 point [-]

Is the cutie mark supposed to be a patronus? I can't tell.

Comment author: [deleted] 01 May 2012 03:56:50AM 1 point [-]

Space shuttle, perhaps. What does "Mr. Swirl" mean?

Comment author: [deleted] 22 April 2012 02:55:34AM 5 points [-]

I don't think that's quite fair to Harry - he hasn't promised to kill everyone who disagrees with him, just "the villains". That's a pretty nebulous group, but I think given context we can infer that he's not planning a Reign of Terror-style pogrom just yet.

Sounds to me like he'll pursue non-violent methods unless he thinks the only reasonable way to save lives is by killing the bad guys. I mean, if it was just Lucius Malfoy leading the other side, and Lucius was only trying to further the pure-blood cause through political maneuvering and rallies and stuff, there'd be no reason to up the ante by getting violent. On the other hand, if there are people out there who are trying to kill Harry's friends in order to bring down the anti-purist movement then NOT responding with force would be bringing a knife to a gunfight. I thought that was the point of this whole soliloquy - it's fine to oppose plots with plots, but you have to be prepared to admit that non-violent counter-plots might not be enough against someone who is willing to actually kill people to get the job done.

Comment author: buybuydandavis 22 April 2012 05:33:06AM *  1 point [-]

Let's recall the full quote:

I will make a bargain with myself, Harry said to within himself, to all his parts. I will follow the path of the superhero as far as I can. But if I can't - if anyone dies, not just an Important Character like Hermione or Professor McGonagall but a single nameless innocent bystander who catches a Cutting Curse - then the gloves come off and the villains die as fast as possible; and I won't pretend that real people in real life can go through a war without sacrificing anyone...

To be more concise: "if a single innocent bystander dies, then the villains die as fast as possible". Which itself simplifies to "the villains die as fast as possible", since it is assured that an innocent will die in a war.

If Harry can't be the superhero and save everyone, the intent to kill comes out and he kills bad guys as fast and efficiently as he can. I'll admit it's probably not the guillotine, since if he has them captured, he probably won't kill them. But owling hand grenades? Well, maybe not either. Collateral damage. But a sniper with a clear shot? Of course, as fast as he can get those clear shots.

I thought that was the point of this whole soliloquy - it's fine to oppose plots with plots, but you have to be prepared to admit that non-violent counter-plots might not be enough against someone who is willing to actually kill people to get the job done.

Harry has gone beyond that, however. He's not just willing to kill, it's the first option. "The villains die as fast as possible."

To be fair to Harry, he's obviously wrestling with the issue, and trying to find answers. I don't know that this answer is going to last too long. All or nothing, save everyone or be completely ruthless, are clearly not the only two options, and I'd expect him to figure that out in fairly short order.

Dumbledore was only as ruthless as he felt he needed to be to win. Harry is talking about being absolutely ruthless toward his enemies, and exterminating them like a roach infestation.

Comment author: ChrisHallquist 22 April 2012 03:19:16PM 2 points [-]

But presumably "villain" here means something like "enemies actually involved in fighting this conflict, in other words who are likely to kill someone." Doesn't include people who merely have despicable opinions, or even bystanders such as Narcissa (possibly) was.

Comment author: Xachariah 22 April 2012 06:37:28AM *  4 points [-]

it is assured that an innocent will die in a war

It is not assured that an innocent will die in war, nor is it assured that there will be a war in the first place.

In a standard political disagreement, Harry shouldn't anticipate innocent deaths. The only reason Harry has to consider innocent deaths is that somebody targeted his friends. That still doesn't imply a war worth retaliating against, any more than any other random murder which occurs every day. You don't respond to a crazy murderer or an lone assassin with indiscriminate hand grenades against everybody who opposes you.

Harry doesn't know if there's going to be a war. Right now, there's no reason for anyone except for Quirrell to expect for there to be bloodshed, and that'll only happen if Quirrell decides to start some.

Comment author: TheOtherDave 22 April 2012 05:43:47AM 1 point [-]

Second option. Given what you quote, he's willing to let an innocent die in order to try out his first option: "the path of the superhero." Whether that's a significant investment in the first option or not depends, I suppose, on how likely he thinks he is to prevent innocents from dying via his second option, and on whether spending an innocent life he could have saved is a significant cost.

Comment author: drnickbone 04 May 2012 11:11:49PM *  1 point [-]

An odd thought: it will be a dramatic irony if the innocent is killed by Bellatrix. That would actually tie together the two Sybill premonitions/awakenings (first part of a prophecy is set up by Bella getting out; second part by Harry's resolution to kill the villains as fast as possible on the death of an innocent; another part still to come will be triggered by the death of the innocent itself at Bella's hand. Sybill doesn't understand the whole picture yet, which is why she can't articulate the whole prophecy.)

Comment author: Daniel_Starr 20 April 2012 11:37:09PM *  29 points [-]

HPMOR is making me rethink human nature -- because of how people react to it. This is a story full of cunning disguises, and readers seem reluctant to see past those disguises. RL rkcerffrq chmmyrzrag ng ubj many readers took forever to decide Quirrell = Voldemort; I think I now know why.

I suggest that humans are instinctive "observation consequentialists." That is, we think someone is competent and good if the observed results of their actions are benign. We weigh what we observe much more strongly than what we merely deduce. If we personally see their actions work out well, we'll put aside a great deal of indirect evidence for their incompetence or vileness.

In HPMOR, Quirrell's directly observed actions are mostly associated with Harry getting to be more of what he thinks he wants. Even rescuing Bellatrix amounts to Harry getting to save a broken lovelorn creature in terms of what we directly observe. To believe Quirrell evil we have to bring in all kinds of expected consequences to weigh against those immediate positive observations.

Does the resistance to saying Quirrell=Voldemort maybe reflect a broader unwillingness to overlook what we directly witness in favor of abstract deduction? If it does, this implies some interesting predictions about human behavior:

  • if you can be kind and moderate in your personal behavior, you can get away with incredible amounts of institutionally-mediated violence and extremism, especially to anyone who feels like they "know" you. Hypothesis: the most dangerous people are those who can give us the illusion of "knowing" them while they command an institution whose internal operations we don't see.

  • More generally, an institution "wired" to do us harm can get away with it much longer than an individual doing it personally and directly. Faceless corporate evil, faceless societal evil, and faceless government evil are much more deadly than our emotional impulses realize. Hypothesis: we are biased to confuse the institutions with our attitude toward their leaders, or to refuse to act against the institutions because of the outward manners of their leaders.

  • if this 'observation consequentialism' bias is heuristic, then maybe it evolved as an anti-gossip function. In that case we should expect that people are too quick to believe outrageous things about people they can't observe. Hypothesis: the further away someone is from your understanding, the less likely you are to think of them as mostly a typical human being, and the quicker you are to believe them a saint, a monster, or something similarly exciting.

  • And, alas for EY, hypothesis: telling a story about cunning disguises, in which the protagonist of the story does not see through those disguises, is almost always going to lead to lots of readers also not seeing through those disguises.

Comment author: Multiheaded 10 May 2012 02:39:49PM 4 points [-]

if you can be kind and moderate in your personal behavior, you can get away with incredible amounts of institutionally-mediated violence and extremism, especially to anyone who feels like they "know" you. Hypothesis: the most dangerous people are those who can give us the illusion of "knowing" them while they command an institution whose internal operations we don't see.

Exactly! That's just like what all the most infamous dictators did, and what Machiavelli recommends in The Prince.

Comment author: SkyDK 22 April 2012 11:03:34PM 5 points [-]

if you can be kind and moderate in your personal behavior, you can get away with incredible amounts of institutionally-mediated violence and extremism, especially to anyone who feels like they "know" you. Hypothesis: the most dangerous people are those who can give us the illusion of "knowing" them while they command an institution whose internal operations we don't see.

This suits extremely well with both local communities relationship to known criminals and to historical figures. Politics is a mind-killer and so on, but a lot of heroes of different nations have done some downright nasty stuff, but managed to keep their reputation due to perceptions about their personal manner. It has recently been used by leaders such as Chavez and Khomeini, but American presidents have also used this effect extensively (why kiss babies?) and historical figures from Cesar to Richard Lionheart and countless of medieval kings have also garnered good will by the actions they have undertaken in public while at the same time doing something in the opposite direction of way greater magnitude through their institutions of power.

Comment author: RichardKennaway 22 April 2012 04:42:37PM 1 point [-]

Could someone who has been reading HPMOR more assiduously than me say whether and where it has been explicitly revealed, in the story itself, that Quirrel is Voldemort?

Comment author: gjm 22 April 2012 06:15:07PM 2 points [-]

It has not.

Comment author: RichardKennaway 22 April 2012 06:59:41PM *  2 points [-]

Ah. In that case, I choose to discount gur qr-choyvfurq nhgube pbzzrag ba gur znggre and predict that Quirrell, as we have seen him so far, is neither Voldemort, nor Voldemort's puppet.

ETA: Edited only to rot13 something and correct Quirrell's name.

Comment author: pedanterrific 22 April 2012 07:31:15PM *  1 point [-]

Ah. In that case, I choose to [...] predict that Quirrel, as we have seen him so far, is neither Voldemort, nor Voldemort's puppet.

What odds would you give for that?

Comment author: RichardKennaway 22 April 2012 07:26:53PM 1 point [-]

I further predict, more speculatively, that Harry will wrongly come to the opposite conclusion, betray Quirrel, and only too late realise his mistake in turning against his strongest ally. Furthermore, Harry will make this mistake through applying what he has learned from Quirrel about good and evil to Quirrel himself.

All predictions based solely on my reading of the published story.

Comment author: RichardKennaway 22 April 2012 07:39:26PM 1 point [-]

And furthermore, as a result of this, Harry's eventual victory will come at far greater cost than it otherwise would.

Comment author: Jonathan_Elmer 22 April 2012 01:44:26AM 10 points [-]

I think the reason I was reluctant to accept that Quirrell is Voldemort is that Harry is a lot smarter than me and he trusted Quirrell.

Comment author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 25 April 2012 04:31:16AM *  13 points [-]

That's actually a surprisingly good reason. In real life, the best rationalist you know is probably not a character in a story and feeling a sense of opposing pressure when you disagree with them is probably a pretty good idea.

Comment author: Vaniver 22 April 2012 07:07:03AM 5 points [-]

This should cause you to update down your view of Aumann's Agreement theorem.

(I am reminded of many professional scientists tricked by charlatans when magicians were not fooled- because the scientists knew where to look for truth, and the magicians knew where to look for lies.)

Comment author: ciphergoth 11 September 2013 10:25:38AM 1 point [-]

On fictional evidence?

Comment author: Jonathan_Elmer 27 April 2012 12:16:10AM 2 points [-]

I have updated by learning of it's existence.

Comment author: pedanterrific 22 April 2012 07:10:56AM 2 points [-]

This should cause you to update down your view of Aumann's Agreement theorem.

Could you explain what you mean by this? I'm having trouble parsing "update down your view of".

Comment author: Vaniver 22 April 2012 07:25:48AM 7 points [-]

Could you explain what you mean by this? I'm having trouble parsing "update down your view of".

Aumann's Agreement theorem is a neat true result about fictional entities. Its applicability to real entities is subjective, and based on how close you think the real entities are to the fictional entities. Increasing that distance makes AAT less relevant to how you live your life, and increasing that distance is what I mean by "update down your view of."

My feeling is that those entities are really distant, to the point where AAT should not seriously alter your beliefs. "I trusted X because Y trusted X" is a recipe for disaster if you trust Y because of different domain-specific competence, rather than their deep knowledge of X.

Comment author: pedanterrific 22 April 2012 07:57:30AM *  5 points [-]

Right, ok. I'd already thought that AAT is essentially irrelevant to actual human behavior, so I was confused what brought it up.

ETA: No idea why you were downvoted so far.

Comment author: Desrtopa 22 April 2012 05:12:12AM 4 points [-]

I'm skeptical that people who've taken a long time to accept that Quirrel is Voldemort constitute a significant proportion of HPMoR readers. Sure, I've noticed a considerable number of them too, but HPMoR has a lot of readers. There's a risk of availability bias here; a reader who expresses skepticism that Quirrel is Voldemort automatically attracts attention from anyone who thinks it's obvious, whereas other people who think it's obvious don't.

Personally, I've had no trouble at all accepting that Quirrell is evil ever since his first class, where he praised Harry's killing instinct. Villains pointing out and encouraging protagonists' darker impulses is a time honored trope, and praising an eleven year old in front of a whole class of other children for his drive to kill seems pretty indicative of evil to me.

Comment author: drnickbone 23 April 2012 08:41:53PM 3 points [-]

Some thoughts...

When reading through the first time, it did seem really obvious that Quirrell was an improved, much more rational version of Voldemort; so blatantly obvious that it made me think if it was a clear red herring. (In the same way that Snape is the canon red herring.) I wondered if Eliezer had reversed things, so that Snape is the real villain and Quirrell the real good guy...

However on re-reading, my prime suspect is now Professor Sprout (Chapter 13):

Maybe Professor Sprout was the Game Controller - the Head of House Hufflepuff would be the last person anyone would suspect, which ought to put her near the top of Harry's list. He'd read one or two mystery novels, too

Comment author: gwern 23 April 2012 10:10:06PM 4 points [-]

the last person anyone would suspect

Of course, everyone knows that, just like they know Dumbledore's not really insane, it's just a cover!

Comment author: DavidAgain 22 April 2012 08:13:57PM 5 points [-]

Part of the problem is what 'he is Voldemort' really means: he isn't like canon Voldemort or even with how MOR Voldemort is reported to be.

As for his obvious evil: it's too obvious, he seems to be the sort who enjoys playing the cynical villain but is actually, if not nice, at least nice to his friends. And Harry seems to be a friend. If he was trying to manipulate Harry he wouldn't have called it intent to kill, he'd have called it being decisive or intelligent or somesuch.

Oddly enough, open villainy can be a great cloak for subtle villainy.

Comment author: Nornagest 22 April 2012 11:38:54PM *  14 points [-]

To be honest, I'm not even sure if Voldemort is Voldemort, in the sense of being the man behind the proverbial curtain here. Everything about him from the name up screams "assumed persona": he's far more theatrical a figure than a blood-purist demagogue would need to be, and some aspects of what he does even look counterproductive in that context. And while the canon Tom Riddle did all the same stuff and all for no particularly good reason, in the context of MoR I think we can assume that there's an agenda behind it.

I don't know for sure what that agenda is yet, but a good first step seems to be this question: why would you want to pose as a supervillain? As it happens, Eliezer has touched on that before.

Comment author: Locke 21 April 2012 03:11:21PM *  10 points [-]

I don't think anyone failed to see the signs that Quirrel is Voldemort in HPMOR. There are just those of us who believed it to be a Red Herring, because "that's how stories are supposed to work." If a potential solution to a mystery seems very obviously true in the first quarter of the story, then in most stories it's probably not the true solution. . Of course, at this point there's just no denying it.

Comment author: Grognor 21 April 2012 08:10:54AM *  8 points [-]

Or it's just the halo effect, since Quirrell is awesome and of course awesome people are always good. You are making things up!

Comment author: Paulovsk 21 April 2012 04:21:20PM 1 point [-]

You deserve far more karma than what you received, my friend.

By the way, could you link me to the argument expressed here?

RL rkcerffrq chmmyrzrag ng ubj many readers took forever to decide Quirrell = Voldemort

Comment author: glumph 21 April 2012 09:05:07PM 3 points [-]
Comment author: Paulovsk 22 April 2012 10:13:21PM 2 points [-]

Thanks.

Comment author: [deleted] 22 April 2012 03:04:41AM 1 point [-]

I don't understand why this was downvoted... the original source has been deleted but Glumph posted a link to an accurate copy of it.

Comment author: moridinamael 20 April 2012 11:55:44PM 16 points [-]

Additionally, abusive relationships persist because the victim just can't help but forgive the abuser when the abuser is choosing to be nice. It can be hard to even believe your own memories of abuse when the abuser is smiling at you and giving you compliments.

I try to recall Quirrell murdering Rita Skeeter in cold blood every time I catch myself feeling like he's the good guy in the story.

Comment author: Daniel_Starr 20 April 2012 06:55:21PM *  11 points [-]

Quirrell's tale of "I played a hero, but it didn't get me political power" doesn't hold up. The "lonely superhero" is just as much a mere storytelling convention as the "zero-casualties superhero". Either Quirrell is leaving something out, or the author is ignoring real-world politics for storytelling convenience.

In real life, successfully fighting societally recognized enemies gets you all kinds of political opportunity. Look at American Presidents Eisenhower, Grant, Taylor, Jackson, Harrison, and Washington. This is true in nondemocracies too: consider the Duke of Wellington, the Duke of Marlborough, or Sir Francis Drake.

What gets you loneliness and isolation is being a pioneer.

In real life, heroes go unrewarded exactly and only when their enemies aren't yet regarded as enemies by the rest of society.

The socially isolating thing isn't fighting Nazis when you're an American, it's fighting Nazis when you're a German. Being a reformer is isolating.

"The lonely superhero" is just as much a mere literary convention as "the zero-casualties superhero".

Of course, "the lonely superhero" reflects an underlying truth. The real bravery we could use more of from people is the bravery to give up status.

So the deeds we see Batman and Superman perform are mere stand-ins for socially brave deeds that make less good stories but matter far more: the scientist defending an unpopular hypothesis, the leader admitting to his followers he doesn't have an answer, the skilled and intelligent person who chooses to work on something that matters instead of something that makes the most money. Those are the real heroes we need, and they really are lonely.

So just as "the zero-casualties superhero" is a literary figure for "we need people who'll take risks for others", the "the lonely superhero" is a literary figure for "we need people who are willing to be mocked for doing what's right".

But within the context of the story, Quirrell's "I fought the villain but got no respect" is nonsense. Humans don't work that way. We have to assume Quirrell is leaving something out.

Did Dumbledore see through him and undermine him politically at every turn?

Alternatively, perhaps Quirrellmort is as bad at mass politics as he is good at individual violence? There's evidence he's got no clue how to handle 'inspiration' as a motive, though he gets 'greed' and 'fear' just fine.

Comment author: ChrisHallquist 22 April 2012 03:36:18PM 11 points [-]

Good points, but reading carefully, it seems Riddle's hero persona wasn't a pure "lonely hero." Rather:

There was a man who was hailed as a savior. The destined scion, such a one as anyone would recognize from tales, wielding justice and vengeance like twin wands against his dreadful nemesis.

Also:

Several times he led forces against the Death Eaters, fighting with skillful tactics and extraordinary power. People began to speak of him as the next Dumbledore, it was thought that he might become Minister of Magic after the Dark Lord fell.

However:

It was as if they tried to do everything they could to make his life unpleasant... I was shocked how they seemed content to step back, and leave to that man all burdens of responsibility. They sneered at his performance, remarking among themselves how they would do better in his place, though they did not condescend to step forward.

In particular, Quirrell's Yule speech reminded Bones of one or more speeches hero-Riddle apparently gave, which she describes as "castigating the previous generation for their disunity against the Death Eaters."

So taken together, it seems hero-Riddle was widely liked, and could have been the next Minister of Magic had he so chose. However, Riddle was upset about the fact that other people did not unite behind him strongly enough, did not take enough responsibility, and said mean things about him. (Note Riddle's decision making process based on what he enjoys doing most.)

He may have also worked himself into the awkward situation where, though he intended "Voldemort" to lose the war, it wasn't quite clear how that was going to happen because Voldemort's followers were more united.

Comment author: ArisKatsaris 21 April 2012 02:38:14AM 12 points [-]

In real life, successfully fighting societally recognized enemies gets you all kinds of political opportunity.

Well, yeah, it got Quirrel's "hero" political opportunity too. He was invited back to the fold of the Most Ancient House, and after the death of everyone else there, he would have wielded the vote in the Wizengamot. But they didn't sufficiently obey him as leader.

Look at American Presidents Eisenhower, Grant, Taylor, Jackson, Harrison, and Washington.

Alcibiades was accused and recalled by the Atheneans while on the expedition he had been advocating. Pausanias (victor of Plataies) and Miltiades (victor of Marathon) barely lasted a year after their famous victories, before getting accused of treason.

But within the context of the story, Quirrell's "I fought the villain but got no respect" is nonsense. Humans don't work that way

Knowing something of Ancient Greek history, and how they tended to treat all their most successful generals, it seemed very believable to me.