Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality discussion thread, part 22, chapter 93

daenerys

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 93. The previous thread has passed 300 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, 17,18,19,20.

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Yudkowsky which is not supposed to be publicly available (which includes public statements by Eliezer that have been retracted).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Yudkowsky which is not supposed to be publicly available (which includes public statements by Eliezer that have been retracted).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

Minerva McGonagall, having submissively accepted her character assassination at the hands of Harry Potter, now submits herself for public humiliation and complete self-abnegation

I don't see it like that at all -- I saw McGonagall:

Trying bravely to take blame away from Harry because, in her words, if she didn't, he would have no one to say those horrible things to, and
Bravely taking a public stand for her principles, trying to turn over a new leaf (or as she put it, "trying to do better")

At least, those are pretty clearly how she sees herself in those situations, not as submitting to Harry.

(I interpret the discussion about House points as simply meaning she 1. doesn't care about the points to anybody but the Weasley twins, and 2. is trying to be more inclusive and trusting of her students.)

Fundamentally, regardless of out-of-universe complaints, McGonagall was wrong in the way she dealt with this problem, and by extension in how she dealt with Gryffindor House.

She has taken the first step towards becoming a PC in this universe, which is being rational and changing yourself to fix your mistakes.

... she may also have just learned how to lose.

No, I think we'll be seeing much more of intelligent!McGonagall starting now...