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Qiaochu_Yuan comments on Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality discussion thread, part 20, chapter 90 - Less Wrong Discussion
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The first time this sentence appears in HPMoR is in the italic text that begins Chapter 2:
I'll assume the difference between "it's" and "it was" isn't significant. I'm inclined to refocus my attention now on the italic text that begins Chapter 1:
I didn't know what to make of this when I first read it, and I still don't. Does this describe an event that has already happened? It's not Hermione's death, since that didn't happen in the moonlight.
It's been debated constantly since the start because it's highlighted as important. The best guess was that it might have been when Voldemort attacked the Potters, but there's obvious problems with that (what's the silver? and as far as we know, no blood was shed by Voldemort since he favored AKs). Given that ch90 brings up blood as a powerful sacrificial element, it's looking more like it's about a future event and maybe a ritual by Harry - pursuant to bringing back Hermione being the obvious goal.
When you said AKs, I immediately thought you meant AK-47s. That put a very amusing picture in my head.
I might play too many videogames.
They share many characteristics, don't they?
The only plot-significant things that have been described as silver are Fawkes, the Time-Turner, Dumbledore's beard, Lucius Malfoy's cane, and Patronus charms. I think we can safely eliminate Dumbledore's beard and Malfoy's cane. If it is in the future, I would have dismissed the time-turner before the past 2 chapters, but not anymore.
(I still believe it likely describes the attack on the Potters. Edit: I no longer believe this.)
"Beneath the moonlight glints a tiny fragment of silver, a fraction of a line..."
This sounds like an alchemy circle, which has to be drawn "to the fineness of a child's hair." I guess it involves the creation of a philosopher's stone.
Or a horcrux? We still don't know what the ritual for that looks like.
We know from canon and Word of Rowling that it involves murder, and is so disgusting it almost made her editor vomit.
Nitpick: "felt like vomiting" is well short of being almost made to vomit.
And if Yudkowsky's going to make a Fullmetal Alchemist reference, we know how to make a philosopher's stone, or even crude approximations, but only using human scarifice.
Could be alchemy or related magic used to turn someone's blood into a fake burned body. (Free transmutation seems easy to recognize.) But I've been thinking of it as an event in the past, which now seems dubious.
In the first Canon, unicorn's blood is silver, and that has a life-extension effect.
IIRC, Canon!Dumbledore says it is used as a last, terrible resort of a wretched life (or something).
In canon, it's also Unicorn blood.
It could also be Harry using Godric Gryffindor's sword to murder someone (Bellatrix?) in order to power the Summon Death ritual.
I've always interpreted the Summon Death ritual to just create a dementor.
That is completely out of character.
Remember his anti-Batman resolution from a few chapters ago, where he said that a dead body means the gloves come off and he quits trying to fight a bloodless war.
Eliezer edited out his explicit resolution at some point before these updates began.
Noted. I think it's still a fairly accurate summary of his mental state, however.
Edit: Half of Ch. 85 is still basically in this vein.
<badass voice> Not anymore. </badass voice>.
Or he could just go all brutalist utilitarian.
You mean like this?
Ooops. No. I mean more like Grindelvaldesque.
Would Harry have access to the sword, being a Ravenclaw?
It could just be a random knife.
Possible, but unlikely.
The detail given could be that a knife is being used rather than a wand. And no-one we know would use a knife to kill rather than a wand unless there was a very special reason to do so.
Unless they can't do magic...
An alternative to Harry doing the ritual would be that Harry get's sacrificed by a ritual of Quirrelmort to bring back Voldemort.
Given how much Harry trust Quirrelmort, it should be in Quirrelmort's power.
Harry doesn't trust Quirrell anymore, hasn't trusted him since the Azkaban arc. That was made pretty clear inthe conversation in the dark warehouse immediately after the raid.
If a drop of blood is all that's required to summon fire that can burn through the walls of hogwarts, then what can liters of blood do?
Actually, it's not a drop of blood, it's a drop of blood for the rest of your life. But under a reasonable interpretation, Quirrel is perhaps being a little paranoid in avoiding use of that spell.
If we interpret the requirement as it frustrates one drop of blood from coming into creation, well, blood lasts ~120 days; if one drop is 0.05 ml and Quirrel is middle-aged and can expect another 40 years of life (the question about wizard lifespans is relevant here, though), then that's
0.05 * (365/120) * 40 = 6.1milliliters total loss.Or if we interpret it as reducing the total capacity of one's blood, well, adults have ~5 liters or 5000 milliliters, so you could use that spell hundreds of times before appreciably reducing your blood content (200 * 0.05ml = 10ml, so you'd go from 5000 to 4990...).
The latter explanation was my assumption. I am curious whether this capacity loss transfers across bodies when one is possessing someone else or has been resurrected.
IDK... Hermionie managed to shatter Hogwarts masonry with an explosive spell, and the Troll smashed it with a club.
Good catch. That slipped my mind. :o
Though, apparently the castle will be "scarred"...?
Presumably the cursed fire prevents regeneration, means that mundane repairs (magical or mechanical) will not properly integrate, or something like that.
Sacrificing liters of your own blood is more than enough to kill you.
Note that of the italicized parts that appear at the start sporadically throughout the first ~20 chapters, this is now the only one that has not yet appeared later in the story (I went through and checked).
I thought they would be in reverse chronological order or something cool like that, but no dice.
When you checked, did you record the chapter with the epigraph and the chapter where the line appeared in the text?
And if you did, would you share it?
here. Format is ugly, but simple.
Number of chapter with epigraph - "epigraph" number of chapter with line in text - "original quote"
All are copy pastes.
1 - "Beneath the moonlight glints a tiny fragment of silver, a fraction of a line... (black robes, falling) ...blood spills out in litres, and someone screams a word." Not yet appeard
2 - ""Of course it was my fault. There's no one else here who could be responsible for anything."" - 90 -""Of course it's my fault. There's no one else here who could be responsible for anything.""
3 - ""But then the question is - who?"" 3 - ""Am I - could I be - maybe - you never know - if I'm not - but then the question is - who? ""
4 - ""World domination is such an ugly phrase. I prefer to call it world optimisation."" 6 - "World domination is such an ugly phrase. I prefer to call it world optimisation."
5 - ""It would've required a supernatural intervention for him to have your morality given his environment."" 87 - "It would've required a supernatural intervention for him to have your morality given his environment -""
6 - "You think your day was surreal? Try mine." 6 - "You think your day was surreal? Try mine."
7 - ""Your dad is almost as awesome as my dad."" 7 - ""Your dad is almost as awesome as my dad.""
8 - ""Allow me to warn you that challenging my ingenuity is a dangerous sort of project, and may tend to make your life a lot more surreal."" 8 - ""I warn you that challenging my ingenuity is a dangerous project, and tends to make your life a lot more surreal.""
9 - "You never did know what tiny event might upset the course of your master plan." 9 - "you never did know what tiny event might upset the course of your master plan."(also present in Ch 11, second Omake)
10 - none 11 - none
12 - ""Wonder what's wrong with him."" 12 - ""Wonder what's wrong with him,""
13 - ""That's one of the most obvious riddles I've ever heard."" 13 - ""That's one of the most obvious riddles I've ever heard.""
14 - "There were mysterious questions, but a mysterious answer was a contradiction in terms." 14 - "There were mysterious questions, but a mysterious answer was a contradiction in terms"
15 - ""I'm sure I'll find the time somewhere."" 15 - ""2:47PM on Saturday it is, then. I'm sure I'll find the time somewhere."
16 - "I'm not a psychopath, I'm just very creative." 16 - "The best Harry had come up with was "I'm not a psychopath, I'm just very creative" and that sounded kind of ominous"
17 - ""You start to see the pattern, hear the rhythm of the world."" 17 - ""You see, Harry, after you've been through a few adventures you tend to catch the hang of these things. You start to see the pattern, hear the rhythm of the world."
18 - ""That does sound like the sort of thing I would do, doesn't it?"" 18 - ""That does sound like the sort of thing I would do, doesn't it?" said Dumbledore, smiling."
Thanks!
So 1, 2, and 5 are the only chapters where the phrase doesn't appear in the chapter itself. Do those numbers mean anything recognizable?
EDIT: Yeah. 4. 1, 2, 4, and 5. Upvoting for correcting me.
And 4.
I did not for all of them, but I can easily reproduce it. One moment...
One of the only things I can recall being referred to as a line, is the Line of Merlin Unbroken - the short rod Dumbledore has when presiding over the Wizengamot. Of course, that's not silver...
EDIT: Just expanding; the Line seems to both refer to the physical object Dumbledore holds, but also the succession of people, going back to Merlin - making Dumbledore literally a fraction of a line.
The first 20 chapters mostly have similar italicized bits at the top. Many have come to pass, but Ch. 1, the most mysterious of the lot, I do not believe has.
Anything to be learned by correlating the chapters where they appear with the chapters with the quote? E.g. do later quotes appear earlier in the book? Or do the appearances of the quotes reinforce the lessons of the chapter where the quote appeared in some way?
A silver cord is commonly said to connect the spirit to the body during astral projection.
Considering that the closest we've seen to astral projection is Hoarcruxes, and they'd be pretty useless if they were that obvious, this doesn't seem like a likely explanation, but I still feel like throwing it out there.
There is another ritual we know of which could be described by the above:
Of course there are obvious problems with the exact wording; and it is probable that this ritual just summons a dementor.