= 27d567bc2d48d9f40e9ccc20ea370b15)
Michelle_Z comments on Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality discussion thread, part 22, chapter 93 - Less Wrong Discussion
You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.
= 783df68a0f980790206b9ea87794c5b6)
Loading…= b715d02e85f7b3b4ae65ca3d3e450868)
Subscribe to RSS Feed
Powered by Reddit
= f037147d6e6c911a85753b9abdedda8d)
Comments (354)
I'm going to go out on a limb and assume laughter is the appropriate reaction. It's a joke.
It's a joke, yes. MoR has been known to be hilarious at time, although not so much recently.
Given Eliezer's commitment to truth, however, I'd say there's about a 30% chance he was telling the explicit truth, though I wouldn't think she'll stay that way.
The plot of HPMOR was planned from the start and Eliezer started writing it before FiM premiered. What reason would he have back then to consider putting horned, winged horses into the story? And I think that if Hermione does return, it won't be in a way allowing for some sort of cross-fandom referential side-joke added as an afterthought. I wouldn't give it 30%.
Which is all a great shame, because everything is better with ponies. ;)
Planned out from the start, but there's bound to be blank spots.
I don't think there'll be any real ponies in here (which is a shame), but there's a good chance Harry won't be able to bring back Hermione until he's cracked magic to the point where people can take arbitrary forms, and Hermione becomes an alicorn for a few paragraphs just to test it out.
Actually, this sounds increasingly probable the more I think about it. Troll regeneration is.. a form of continuous self-transfiguration. Some combination of that and however-the-heck animagus forms work might be the key to bringing her back - the regeneration to fix the bodily damage, the animagus bit to get her mind back (or convince magic that it's back, I suppose).
Let's call it.. um, 20% that self-transfiguration is involved with her resurrection (a number that includes the chance of resurrection), and 30% that alicorns are at least temporarily involved.
I had a similar thought--"Harry cracks magic to the point where people can take arbitrary forms"--and actually, I'd put the probability at >50%. In fact, I am slightly worried Eliezer will be disappointed in everyone who didn't immediately realize he was almost certainly telling the truth. He doesn't strike me as the type to say false things as a joke without a clearer warning that it is a joke. Unless someone can find an example of him doing that previously.
I'm playing with the idea of a transhumanist angle on Hermione coming back-- does she come back as previous Hermione, or is she able to take whatever form she wants? A mind is entangled with its past and its body, but maybe going through as a large a change as being rewritten from the universe's memory includes the ability to be rewritten in more ways.
Possibly Hermione will end up coming back as an incorporeal form, like a ghost with self-awareness or maybe as an upload/sentient portrait.
Thanks. My first reaction was just this seems too surreal. Any other story in which Harry Potter does not kills dementor and there's a reasonable explanation and laughter would have been my first reaction.
Or Professor Quarrel saves Harry from a horde of yaoi fangirls and there's a reasonable explanation.