Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality discussion thread, part 23, chapter 94

elharo

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 94. The previous thread has passed 200 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, 21, 22.

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Yudkowsky which is not supposed to be publicly available (which includes public statements by Eliezer that have been retracted).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Yudkowsky which is not supposed to be publicly available (which includes public statements by Eliezer that have been retracted).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

I agree about Voldemort's motivation. As to why it didn't work, I I think Quirrell has been rather explicit that wizards were sheeple:

"Dueling?" said the Defense Professor. From behind it wasn't visible if the pale face was smiling. "That is nothing, Lord Greengrass, to what my students have learned. They have learned not to hesitate in the face of ambushes and greater foes. They have learned to adapt when combat conditions change and change again. They have learned to protect their allies, to protect more those who are more valuable, to abandon pieces which cannot be rescued. They have learned that to survive they must follow orders. Some have even learned a little creativity. Oh, no, Lord Greengrass, these wizards will not hide in their manors and wait to be protected, when the next threat comes. They will know that they know how to fight."

My tentative hypothesis is that Voldemort/Monroe realized that his original strategy to unite Wizarding Britain by presenting them with a common enemy wasn't working, so he set up the events in Godric's Hollow to make it appear that Voldemort had died (in an absolutely ridiculous and implausible way, that everyone except him and HJPEV would immediately believe). Then he could proceed to try something else.

It's commonly said that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. It would probably be better here to say the definition of irrationality is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. Quirrell, unlike almost everyone else in the story except HJPEV and maybe Amelia Bones and Moody, is rational.

I suspect Harry's memories of that night are faked. I don't have any good hypotheses for what really happened though. I'm toying with the possibility that Voldemort didn't actually kill Harry's parents, and possibly they aren't even dead. There are 2 or 3 clues that could point to that, but I don't think they're strong enough to overcome the prior implausibility. More likely Voldemort did kill James and Lily, and then did something to Harry, Horcruxed him most likely, but deliberately, not accidentally. How does anyone know, in canon or HPMoR, that Voldemort cast Avada Kedavra on Harry? All we have is the burned body. No one except an infant saw it happen.

Note that there is also no explanation why Avada Kedavra of all things would produce a burned body. That particular bit of description ("burned husk", "burned to a crisp" etc.) has been repeated often enough to be strong foreshadowing, and burning is a great way to make a corpse unidentifiable, especially if dental records for the supposed victim are unavailable and/or no-one has ever heard of such a form of forensics.

Note also that Harry has no memory of Voldemort actually casting the Killing Curse on him. His memory apparently cuts out right after his mother's death.