One thing I really liked about this update is it helps explain why Harry hasn't figured out Quirrell = Voldemort yet. He's reasoning (perhaps without even having spelled it out in his head this way) that if Quirrell had been Voldemort, he would have won very quickly.
This is all fascinating, because it's a fairly good solution to the problem of "if Harry is so smart, why hasn't he figured out the solution to the problem that most of the audience has figured out by now?" I can't say I would have come up with that good of a solution to such a problem in any story I was writing.
That said, it seems like there are at least three conversations which could unravel the whole thing:
Harry learns enough about horcruxes to make the Pioneer Plaque connection.
Harry confesses about Azkaban, Dumbledore says "Harry, you fool!" and that's that.
Hermione tells Harry about her recent conversation with Quirrell, confirming David Monroe = Quirrell = the plotter and suggesting the possibility that Voldemort was toying with Magical Britain for the fun of it during the war.
Well, there is a thing that should at least ring a bell in Harry's mind to me. The "resonance" between Quirrell and Harry preventing their magic to interact which each other, when Voldemort transferred part of his magic to Harry, should be considered significant evidence towards Quirrell being Voldemort. Harry knows his magic partly comes from Voldemort, he knows Quirrell and his magic resonate in an unheard of way, and yet, he doesn't at least suspect a link between the two ?
Edit: New thread posted 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 86. The previous thread has long passed 500 comments.
There is now a site dedicated to the story at hpmor.com, which is now the place to go to find the authors notes and all sorts of other goodies. AdeleneDawner has kept an archive of Author’s Notes. (This goes up to the notes for chapter 76, and is now not updating. The authors notes from chapter 77 onwards are on hpmor.com.)
The first 5 discussion threads are on the main page under the harry_potter tag. Threads 6 and on (including this one) are in the discussion section using its separate tag system. Also: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16.
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: