I think this might be our first piece of evidence(it's not very good evidence, but evidence nonetheless) that the Interdict of Merlin is an actual, real magical effect, rather than just a cultural thing or a legend.
Why would we doubt it? It's a fact that high level spells cannot be passed down in writing. Surely many wizards tried to, if only to discover which spells are "high level". Presumably there's a sharp distinction between spells that can be written down and those that cannot. If wizards occasionally invented new ways to write down spells previously thought to be "high level", then they wouldn't assume that any other high-level spells couldn't also be written down by unknown techniques.
The simplest explanation for wizards believing in the Interdict is that it matches their personal experience. The Interdict behaves like a law of nature; every powerful wizard would rediscover it, even without existing tradition.
do we know if Flamel had any apprentices to whom he tried to personally explain how to make the Stone?
I don't think Flamel wants to explain to anyone how to make it. Instead he hoards it to himself.
My primary reason for thinking this is due to narrative causality. Harry wants immortality for everyone. If Flamel was like Harry, he would not be in hiding, instead he would be a famous immortal wizard who spent centuries trying to teach the best wizards of each generation (like Dumbledore) to duplicate his feat - or making more Stones for others. The actual Flamel seems set up to be a deathist and eventual foe of Harry's.
The other possible explanation is that making the Stone requires harming others so much that it becomes immoral to make it. This is true of a certain other famous way of making the Philosopher's Stone, and it also matches the Fundamental Law of Potion-Making.
I have to say, I personally have not gotten the impression that Flamel was being set up as an opponent to Harry - and this "open secret" notion only makes this seem more likely (it's not that he wants to be the only immortal, but that he's the only one capable of achieving immortality, was my thinking.)
That's a good point about the Fundamental Law of Potion-Making, although since Hermione was talking about how all Alchemy needs precise magic circles I would guess it's a distinct branch of magic to Potions.
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 87. The previous thread has 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, 17.
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: