Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality discussion thread, part 18, chapter 87

Alsadius

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:

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Eliezer Yudkowsky which is not supposed to be publicly available (which includes public statements by Eliezer that have been retracted).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.

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Eliezer Yudkowsky which is not supposed to be publicly available (which includes public statements by Eliezer that have been retracted).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.

In chapter 62, Harry remains in control of his emotions when Dumbledore "imprisons" him

"You're saying," Harry said, his voice shaking as the emotions inside burned through the outer calm, "that I'm not going home to my parents for Easter."

Despite his emotional state, he admits to Dumbledore that he understands his motivations. Realising that he had no true reason to be angry with Dumbledore, he kept his anger in check.

In this chapter, we see a protagonist loose control over their emotions. (as far as I remember that's the first time this happens, but it's a long read and I might be wrong). I suppose the intent is to show that the protagonists are, for all their intellect , still fairly emotionally immature children.

The autor's notes say

Come on, you knew Harry was going to screw up that conversation.

There are two people in this conversation. True, Harry could have modelled Hermione better, he could have predicted she would be upset and steered the conversation differently. It is equally true that Hermione could have modelled Harry better and she could have realised that he did not mean to cause emotional turmoil, and that his conversation style is in fact a sign of respect : it means that he believes she can handle the truth, that he doesn't need to walk on eggshells around her.

To put the blame for this debacle exclusively on Harry seems insulting to Hermione : she's not an NPC, she too carries responsibility for what happens.

You're correct as a matter of rationalist etiquette, but...

Harry is the only student character who sometimes has that level of control over his emotions. Dumbledore can do that. Professor Quirrell can do that. Severus Snape can do that almost all of the time (see Ch. 27). Professor McGonagall tries to do that. Draco, Neville, Hermione, and any other first-year student you care to name except Harry can't.