= 27d567bc2d48d9f40e9ccc20ea370b15)
Randaly 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)
From the most recent author's note:
What is the exception?
Well, we don't have a child villain to replace Draco. I keep hoping Tracey will discover her ambition, and that it's to be something other than a running gag. Dumbledore nudged Hermione into becoming a true warrior of the Light. Quirrell got the Darke Lady with an E. He can't be happy with that.
...You know, given that the entire point of the previous chapters was how people can change roles, I probably should've realized that when he says roles, that doesn't necessarily map onto individual people.
Nicholas Flamel, who is already known to change identities frequently, is the obvious candidate.
(And Flamel could also be Quirrell; Of the canon characters, there are four people likely to be as powerful as MoR Quirrell is: Dumbledore, Grindelwald, Voldemort, and Flamel. He's not Dumbledore; Grindelwald is probably still in Nurmengard; Voldemort is a distinct possibility, but that-one-infamous-post-we-all-know-about is, in my opinion, more likely to be a red herring than truth; Flamel is most likely. If Quirrell were not Flamel, Harry would be correct in assuming that Quirrell would kidnap Flamel if the stone were genuine. Lack of access to the elixir of life would also explain Quirrell's illness and the accelerated aging that Harry observed when Quirrell was in the infirmary. It also explains why Flamel knows that the Stone is hidden in Hogwarts. And if Quirrel/Flamel is female, that would explain how an attacker managed to intercept Hermione in the girls-only staircase. This theory also explains Eliezer's hints that a future story development will make it obvious that he is in no way shortchanging the female gender.)
I suspect that, if Flamel is Quirrell, the presence of the stone at Hogwarts is some elaborate trap to draw out Voldemort, whom Flamel may believe resides in, or is, Harry.
Edit 5/11/2014 (Spoilers up to Chapter 101): Dhveeryy unf abj orra frra qevaxvat havpbea oybbq, gur nqirefr rssrpgf bs juvpu ner fgngrq va pnaba gb or artngrq ol gur Ryvkve bs Yvsr. Synzry jbhyq or bar bs gur srj crbcyr jubz jr pna or pbasvqrag jbhyq or fher rabhtu bs guvf cebcregl bs gur ryvkve gb org uvf urnygu ba vg. Ubjrire, Dhveeryy unf nyfb orra fubja gb unir n yvax gb Uneel'f zvaq, n yvax juvpu Ibyqrzbeg cbffrffrq va pnaba naq sbe juvpu V pna vzntvar ab cynhfvoyr ernfba sbe Synzry gb unir. Gur onynapr bs rivqrapr va snibe bs zl traqresyvccrq-Synzry-Dhveeryy gurbel vf abj zhpu qvzvavfurq.
Could the troll have been female?
Another possibility is that Amelia Bones replaces Barty Crouch as the plot relevant hardcore anti-deatheater government official
I'm pretty sure the exception is McGonagall taking over Hagrid's role, in addition to her canon role.
No, I think it was mentioned in an earlier author's note or something that Eliezer explicitly changed the gender of exactly one character (not role); furthermore, that character hadn't appeared by the time that author's note was written.
In fact, he said that it was the one character he had a choice with...
If I had to guess, I'd say Quirrell. He's a person of very many identities; there's no reason that the first one necessarily was male. The only problem with that is that Dumbledore still seems to think Voldemort was Tom Riddle (see Chapter 79) but as Voldemort is said to have changed twice in his career as a Dark Lord (after murdering the House of Monroe, and after the last Monroe vanished) it's possible that he was replaced and Dumbledore didn't notice.
If Quirrell or Voldemort is female, Baba Yaga's a good candidate for her identity. Baba Yaga has been mentioned twice for no apparent reason.
By Quirrell:
And by Dumbledore:
Full disclosure: Upon first meeting Mr. Hat & Cloak I assumed he was Baba Yaga. Baba Yaga is pet theory, not a rational one.
Three times:
(Chapter 70)
That said, I think Baba Yaga's just a shout out like Harold Shea, not an actual character in this story.
Baba Yaga has "been dead for six hundred years," and a quick Wikipedia search suggests the historical myth is first recorded in 1755, nor can I find anything particularly relating her to being from around ~1400. Nicholas Flamel is six centuries old (canonically, he was born in 1327), which means the Philosopher's Stone, if it exists, is around the same age.
Not sure what kind of coherent theory you can come up with to put it all together, though... Voldemort = Baba Yaga seems a little... silly, especially given Quirrell talking about female wizard rapists, which, given that Canon!Voldemort is a rape baby and Quirrell is Voldemort, seems like pretty good evidence that HPMOR!Voldemort is a rape baby too.
Maybe Baba Yaga is Nicholas Flamel's true identity.
Yeah, Flamel/Crozier timeline aligns with Baba Yaga. A similar timeline and region alignment is the book The Massacre of Albania in the Fifteenth Century, mentioned offhandedly in Chapter 26.
Maybe some ritual required not a sacrifice of (whatever), but the sacrifice of the user's dignitiy? Though Baba Yaga COULD just be flamel's wife. He has one in cannon, I...think...
The actual historical Nicolas Flamel was married. According to Wikipedia his wife does indeed appear [EDIT: no, apparently just "is indeed mentioned"; thanks, solipsist] in Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone.
Not exactly. She is mentioned in a couple of references to Nicolas. If memory serves, these are a biography of Flamel, and at the end when Dumbledore mentions that Flamel and his wife have decided to destroy the Philosopher's Stone.
That guy is real? Wow.
Most everything about him in MoR, except for the part where he's immortal, lines up quite well with the historical figure: he published his findings regarding the Philosopher's stone, diagrams included. Of note is that the supposed real-world philosopher's stone did not immediately give Flammel the results he wanted; according to the book published in his name, some years passed between him getting it to transmute silver and getting it to transmute gold.
Historical Flammel also has an official grave site in France (Paris, if I remember correctly); I want to think he lived to his eighties, but it's been a few months since I last read about him.
The book-supposedly-by-Flammel mentions a mysterious old mage that helped him along the way; I would expect myself to go "SQUEEEE!" if it turned out Flammel's mysterious old wizard got mentioned in HPMoR.
I recall hearing that "grave" does not contain a body, although I'm not sure how the person who told me that knew. (They were suggesting using him in fiction, much as HPMOR did.)
For more on Quirrell as Baba Yaga:
http://lesswrong.com/lw/ibr/harry_potter_and_the_methods_of_rationality/9lq5
The exception could conceivably be Blaise Zabini. From the TV tropes article titled "Ambiguous Gender" -
It was not revealed until the sixth book that Blaise was male. While Eliezer chose to keep him male, he likely had the option to chose given the character's very uncertain past.
Here's hoping its Dorothy Evans-Verres.
Last time I saw this conversation go round, fannish consensus was that the exception is Tonks.
Can't be- Tonks is referred to as a girl twice, plus another time out of universe (by word of God).
Chapter 73:
Chapter 29:
Word of God:
It's the role that went to a character with a different gender, not a character who was gender-shifted while retaining their canon role. I think.
Excellent evidence researching.
Have you considered Draco? This seems strongly implied by Chapter 7.
Draco is not only a girl, she was removed before being at Hogwarts 9 months, what with the baby almost here.
But then it's not mpreg!