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JTHM comments on Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality discussion thread, part 20, chapter 90 - Less Wrong Discussion

9 Post author: palladias 02 July 2013 02:13AM

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Comment author: Randaly 02 July 2013 04:28:17AM *  4 points [-]

what's the silver?

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.)

Comment author: JTHM 02 July 2013 04:32:14AM *  14 points [-]

"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.

Comment author: fubarobfusco 02 July 2013 05:34:34AM 1 point [-]

Or a horcrux? We still don't know what the ritual for that looks like.

Comment author: elharo 02 July 2013 10:39:33AM 2 points [-]

We know from canon and Word of Rowling that it involves murder, and is so disgusting it almost made her editor vomit.

Comment author: NancyLebovitz 02 July 2013 01:03:09PM 8 points [-]

Nitpick: "felt like vomiting" is well short of being almost made to vomit.

Comment author: tondwalkar 04 July 2013 03:17:17AM 1 point [-]

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.

Comment author: hairyfigment 02 July 2013 08:48:18AM -1 points [-]

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.