Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality discussion thread, part 24, chapter 95

palladias

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 95. 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, 21, 22, 23, 24.

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Yudkowsky which is not supposed to be publicly available (which includes public statements by Eliezer that have been retracted).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

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, 23, 24.

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Yudkowsky which is not supposed to be publicly available (which includes public statements by Eliezer that have been retracted).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

Best guess is that Harry is a horcrux. He can't be killed, except with very powerful magic (Avada Kedavra or equivalent), and Quirrell can't use magic against him. Further, his last attempt at killing Harry was a total disaster. Chapter 65:

"Casst Killing Cursse? " Harry hissed in incredulity. "At me? Again? Ssecond time? Nobody will believe Dark Lord could posssibly be that sstupid -"

"You and I are only two people in country who would notice that," hissed the snake. "Trusst me on thiss, boy."

This does cast some light on how Voldemort got blown up in the first place. The fatal interaction of magic stems from Harry being a horcrux; but Harry's only a horcrux because Voldemort made him one. Further, the horcruxing most likely happened because of the weird interaction of magic which caused Voldie to blow up (and his soul-explosion, or whatever, then anchored itself to the infant Harry). It looks like there was some sort of trick with a Time Turner involved in Godric's Hollow to set this up. I suspect Dumbledore...

P.S. If Quirrell gets really desperate, he could of course try to persuade someone else to do the AK on Harry. Will be amazing if he can persuade Dumbledore to do it...

Your quote could be just making fun of canon though.