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Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality discussion thread, part 25, chapter 96

6 Post author: NancyLebovitz 25 July 2013 04:36AM

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 96The previous thread is at almost 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,  1415,  16,  17,  18,  19,  20,  21,  222324,  .

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Yudkowsky which is not supposed to be publicly available (which includes public statements by Eliezer that have been retracted).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

Comments (524)

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Comment author: William_Quixote 25 July 2013 02:08:56PM 50 points [-]

Three shall be Peverell's sons and three their devices by which Death shall be defeated. - chapter 96

The one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord approaches, born to those who have thrice defied him, born as the seventh month - - chapter 86

There has previously been some speculation that the dark lord in Harry's birth prophesy is death rather than Voldemort. I think this interpretation just got a lot stronger.

James and Lilly had defied Voldemort but not death. The new lines back an interpretation that the Peverells thrice defied death with the three deathly hollows and Harry is born to the Peverell line.

This is, in some ways, a more natural interpretation of that clause since James and Lilly were in the Order and were defying Voldemort on a daily basis not just 3 times. The line of the Peverells makes the number three make sense rather than being arbitrary.

Comment author: gothgirl420666 28 July 2013 06:15:08AM *  12 points [-]

I can't believe no one has pointed this out yet. One line differs from the HPMoR prophecy and the canon one:

and either must destroy all but a remnant of the other, for those two different spirits cannot exist in the same world

and either must die at the hand of the other for neither can live while the other survives

This has obviously been rewritten to take out any reference to life or death, and instead talking about destruction and existence. Eliezer must have done this because "killing death" doesn't make sense. I would say 75% chance this theory is either true or discussed at some future point in the fanfiction.

Comment author: MugaSofer 29 July 2013 08:08:49AM 4 points [-]

I had figured that was intended to add "all but a remnant" so Our Hero wouldn't have to let the villain die. A most cunning misdirection, it seems - I think there's a good chance you're right.

Although judging by "he is coming ... he is here", EY doesn't shy away from questionably literal prophecies. (Or that didn't refer to Harry!)

Comment author: pjeby 29 July 2013 09:55:05PM 1 point [-]

Eliezer must have done this because "killing death" doesn't make sense.

I assumed it meant Harry's not going to be able to reach the Pioneer Plaque. (Though I'm not sure what Harry's remnant would be, in the reverse case.)

Comment author: kilobug 25 July 2013 03:01:06PM 11 points [-]

Great idea, but what of the rest of the prophecy ?

And the Dark Lord shall mark him as his equal

That I can't think how to interpret it... how did Death mark Harry his equal ?

But he shall have power the Dark Lord knows not...

That could be any of love, rationality, or hope, the most common hypothesis of what powers Harry have.

either must destroy all but a remnant of the other

The remnant would be memory then ? If death defeats Harry, Harry is dead, but people will still remember him, probably for a long while, and if Harry defeats death, the memory that death existed will stay forever in everyone. Or the remnant of death would be death of non-sentient beings ?

Comment author: wuncidunci 25 July 2013 07:50:48PM 10 points [-]

Dementors symbolise death. Dementors can destroy humans (by their kiss), and Harry can destroy dementors (by True Patronus). That if anything marks him as Death's equal. If not, dementors obeying him can be understood as him being Death's equal.

Comment author: hairyfigment 25 July 2013 08:37:23PM 1 point [-]

Yes, I was going to point out that "Make him go away," surely marked him as a monster or source of terror in someone's eyes.

Comment author: BT_Uytya 25 July 2013 04:46:58PM *  10 points [-]

[tinfoil hat]

mark him as his equal

Suppose that Killing Curse just bounced off the night Voldemort died, just refused to work for some reason. If "magically embodied preference for death over life" haven't worked on someone, I would pretty much say that it means something.

Also, possible foreshadowing in chapter 5:

"I have formed an idea..." said Professor McGonagall. "After meeting you, that is. You triumphed over the Dark Lord by being more awful than he was, and survived the Killing Curse by being more terrible than Death."

Funny to think about, but probably I just see patterns where there are none.

remnant of the other

My a bit stretched interpretation is that Bayesian Conspiracy and Chaos Legion are Harry's remnants.

[/tinfoil hat]

Comment author: malcolmocean 26 July 2013 01:29:53AM 3 points [-]

Funny to think about, but probably I just see patterns where there are none.

The part I've emphasized is oft called apophenia: "the experience of seeing meaningful patterns or connections in random or meaningless data."

In this case the data isn't random, but it may well be meaningless (i.e. not foreshadowing). I find the concept of apophenia a valuable way to understand how e.g. astrology seems so potent to so many people. Also conspiracy theories, etc. The apophenic tendencies of humans underlie many biases etc.

Comment author: ThisSpaceAvailable 27 July 2013 06:13:35AM 1 point [-]

In the canon, the "neither can live while the other survives" didn't really make sense to me. I was willing to buy/pretend that Infant Harry somehow didn't count, and Spirit Voldemort didn't count, but Voldemort spent three years in corporeal form after that.

Comment author: Viliam_Bur 25 July 2013 06:09:53PM *  1 point [-]

In HPMoR universe there is a ritual for summoning Death. Unless it is an euphemism for casting area-wide avada kedavra, it could mean Death is a person. A super-dementor or something. (In a world with magic, patronuses, dementors, cloaks that can hide their owner from death... why not?)

Words "shall mark him" are future tense. Maybe it didn't happen yet. It could happen after Harry (or someone else) summons Death. Probably after or during the magical FOOM.

(How exactly does killing the Death-person stop people from dying, I have no idea. I guess it is just another kind of magic. Or perhaps Harry will somehow stop people from dying, and the Death-person will try to stop him, e.g. by dispelling his magic.)

Comment author: BT_Uytya 25 July 2013 06:15:42PM 1 point [-]

Ritual for summoning Death is just reference to the spell of Seething Death from one of the Lawrence Watt-Evans books.

Comment author: atorm 25 July 2013 06:23:11PM 1 point [-]

Or the Rite of Ashk'Ente from Discworld.

Comment author: Axel 25 July 2013 07:12:03PM 13 points [-]

Or it's the ritual to create dementors. Quirrel says that "the spell to dismiss Death is lost" and nobody knows how to destroy a dementor.

Comment author: Aureateflux 11 August 2013 06:02:48PM *  1 point [-]

I like this line of reasoning. I've been batting around the idea that Dementors and Patronuses are essentially opposite (anti) versions of one another. Perhaps a dementor is made when someone tries to cast the Patronus Charm with entirely 'the wrong kind of thought to cast a Patronus Charm.'

A dark ritual would explain their persistence compared to the patronuses, but it doesn't adequately explain their number... Also, if the ritual created a dementor, wouldn't people be saying the ritual summons a dementor, rather than Death? Most people in hpmor seem to associate the dementors only with fear, not death, and you would expect otherwise if the ritual to summon death always resulted in a dementor.

Countering that, though, most people trying to summon 'Death' are probably both very sensitive to dementors and incapable of defending against them, so people could be mistaking the results of a Kiss with 'what happens when you try to summon Death.'

Comment author: Velorien 12 August 2013 01:13:12AM 2 points [-]

someone tries to cast the Patronus Charm with entirely 'the wrong kind of thought to cast a Patronus Charm

Under what circumstances would such an event actually take place?

A few obstacles:

  • A caster would already have been trained in the Patronus Charm (otherwise they'd not know the wandwork etc.), and therefore would be aware that there's no point trying to cast the Patronus Charm with non-happy thoughts.

  • The basic use of the Patronus Charm is emergency Dementor protection, which you would not want to mess up by experimenting with alternative kinds of thought when casting.

  • There must be countless instances of people trying to cast the Patronus Charm in the face of a Dementor, and failing because Dementor exposure had already turned their thoughts too dark. Wouldn't people notice if such castings could generate new Dementors?

Comment author: BT_Uytya 25 July 2013 07:40:05PM *  8 points [-]

Just remembered a serious objection, originally from Tarhish on reddit:

I had been thinking about this possibility for a while, but now it also requires Dumbledore to have lied about Lily and James hearing the prophecy in the Hall of Prophecy. Because if they did, then it means they were mentioned in the prophecy, and this theory does not, at first thought, seem to allow that.

(from here, it's only 4 months old, you still can upvote that)

This argument can be somewhat handwaved away by "James is ascendant of Ignotus Peverell, and prophecy talks about several possible futures", but still.

Comment author: MBlume 28 July 2013 06:58:27PM 4 points [-]

Harry frowned. "Well, I could listen to it, or the Dark Lord... oh, my parents. Those who had thrice defied him. They were also mentioned in the prophecy, so they could hear the recording?"

"If James and Lily heard anything different from what Minerva reported," Albus said evenly, "they did not say so to me."

"You took James and Lily there? " Minerva said.

"Fawkes can go to many places," Albus said. "Do not mention the fact."

Frankly, this reads like a non-answer to me.

Comment author: Fermatastheorem 29 July 2013 01:39:31AM 1 point [-]

I think Dumbles is trying to tell McGonagall that he took the Potters there while letting her keep plausible deniability.

Comment author: William_Quixote 26 July 2013 10:14:02PM *  4 points [-]

This theory fits some lines better than others. It's not a perfect fit, but it doesn't require Dumbledore to have lied. Even if "born to those who have thrice defied him" refers to the Peverell line and Death rather than to Lily & James and Voldemort, the "born as the 7th month dies" certainly does refer to Harry's birth and Lily had a hand in that. So she's mentioned in the prophesy and would be able to hear it under either interpretation

Comment author: redlizard 10 August 2013 05:55:32PM 2 points [-]

In canon, the assignment of eligible hearers to prophecies is done by Minesty workers. Specifically, the judgment that "the one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord" refers to Harry, and thus that Harry should have access to the prophecy, was made some time after the recording of the prophecy, by a human. On the assumption that things work the same in the rational-verse, the fact that Lily and James could hear the prophecy isn't evidence of anything other than the interpretation of the Minestry worker who handled the case.

Comment author: wuncidunci 25 July 2013 08:05:37PM 6 points [-]

My largest problem with the Dark Lord == Death theory is that it doesn't really square with Quirrelmort being another super-rationalist and Eliezer's First Law of Fanfiction (You can't make Frodo a Jedi unless you give Sauron the Death Star). Either Quirrelmort is a henchman or personification of Death, which is unlikely considering he is afraid of dying and the dementor try to frighten him in the Humanism arch. Or Quirrelmort is not the Sauron of this story but will help Harry to defeat the main bad guy Death. This could be a really cool ending, but I doubt that it would fit in the remaining arch.

Comment author: Vaniver 27 July 2013 04:51:26AM 3 points [-]

give Sauron the Death Star

I don't know, I think turning Sauron into death is comparable to giving Sauron the Death Star (i.e. your 'Quirrelmort is not Sauron' interpretation).

Comment author: ThrustVectoring 26 July 2013 05:16:22PM 1 point [-]

Or Quirrelmort is not the Sauron of this story but will help Harry to defeat the main bad guy Death. This could be a really cool ending, but I doubt that it would fit in the remaining arch.

Read Eliezer's short story "The Sword of Good". I half-expect a "The 'good' wizard is only playing the role and really isn't helping make the world be a better place, while the 'evil' wizard is actually the righteous one".

Comment author: wuncidunci 27 July 2013 07:53:47AM 1 point [-]

I've read it but didn't consider the possibility of a twist like that here as well.

Comment author: ChrisHallquist 25 July 2013 07:26:19PM 5 points [-]

"Three shall be Peverell's sons and three their devices by which Death shall be defeated."

When I first saw this line, I didn't think it was very important, but could it mean that Harry is actually going to use the three Deathly Hallows to defeat death, i.e. make everyone immortal?

I confess, I hadn't paid that much attention to the possibility, because the canonical Deathly Hallows don't seem well-suited for the purpose. But I suppose there could be some effect where when the Elder Wand is used to cast the Patronus 2.0, you get an Uber Patronus, or maybe it lets you lets you kill a hundred Dementors without depleting your own life force, or something. And I suppose the Resurrection Stone could easily get an upgrade from canon. But how could the Invisibility Cloak be used as part of the process of granting immortality, beyond hiding from Dementors? Could hiding from Dementors become really important at the climax somehow? Doesn't seem like it, if the Elder Wand + Patronus 2.0 takes care of the Dementors, hmmm...

Comment author: ygert 25 July 2013 08:47:09PM 5 points [-]

There is the theory that the Invisibility Cloak's power to hide one from Death does not only apply to Dementors, but to death in general. So if you put the cloak over someone who is dying, they would stay alive, at least until the Cloak is removed and death can find them again.

It's just another of those crazy crackpot theories floating around here, but I think it could fill in that gap in your theory.

Comment author: maia 26 July 2013 02:19:26AM 8 points [-]

The legend in canon says exactly that; the Peverell brother who got the Cloak was most successful, and lived a long time because the Cloak allowed him to evade death (until one day he took it off and got screwed).

Comment author: Xachariah 27 July 2013 04:51:29AM 7 points [-]

until one day he took it off and got screwed

He took it off and gave it to his son. In canon he meets death intentionally.

Comment author: ThisSpaceAvailable 27 July 2013 06:03:28AM 2 points [-]

I think that there's a difference between preventing imminent death, and avoiding death. That is, there's a difference between being in a situation where you "should" die, but you don't, and not getting in such a situation to begin with.

And in the canon story (which may not be canon; it appears in the canon, but that doesn't mean it's canon), the third brother greeted Death "as an old friend", so apparently he had the same attitude that Dumbledore had: dying after a full life is not a tragedy.

Comment author: Sheaman3773 31 August 2013 03:43:33PM 1 point [-]

Of course he had that opinion, Rowling was writing themes so deathist that even the me of that time--who had yet to even hear of transhumanism--was thrown by it.

Voldemort is defined as evil partially just because of his fear of and avoidance of death--if you notice, she explicitly built it so that most of his atrocities occurred after and because of the steps he took to avoid death.

Comment author: BT_Uytya 25 July 2013 04:56:35PM *  5 points [-]

Thing of note:

Harry in chapter 86:

...Don't get me wrong - I do realize that my interpretation sounds stretched. Trelawney's phrasing doesn't seem natural for describing only the events that historically happened on October 31st, 1981 ... But if you think of the prophecy as being about several possible futures, only one of which was actually realized on Halloween, then the prophecy could already be complete.

The prophecy can be interpreted in two ways: "Harry fights Voldemort" and "Harry fights Death" (ignoring more exotic ones like "Harry is Dark Lord and Quirrel is the hero").

At this point, both positions are justified. Yes, some lines look strange if we assume "Harry fights Death" point of view, but some lines look strange if we assume "Harry fights Voldemort" point of view: just look at chapter 76. The passage above suggests this is normal.

I find myself in a doubt about which interpretation is correct, and it looks like this is exactly as Eliezer wanted it.

Comment author: DubiousTwizzler 25 July 2013 03:51:35PM *  3 points [-]

The one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord approaches... born to those who have thrice defied him, born as the seventh month dies... And the Dark Lord shall mark him as his equal. But he shall have power the Dark Lord knows not... and either must destroy all but a remnant of the other, for those two different spirits cannot exist in the same world. - chapter 86

Oddly, I feel like each line in this prophecy could equally well point to Dark Lord as Voldemort OR Dark Lord as Death.

Although P(Dark Lord as Death) should get a complexity penalty since Voldemort should be the default candidate due to canon.

EDIT: The last sentence is wrong. What I should've said is that since Voldemort is the prophecy's referent in canon, and he is called the Dark Lord in both canon and hpmor, I'm still assigning >50% probability to Quirrellmort being the entity referred to in hpmor's prophecy.

Comment author: Manfred 25 July 2013 04:47:46PM 14 points [-]

complexity penalty

This is a misuse of jargon.

Comment author: DubiousTwizzler 25 July 2013 05:21:12PM 2 points [-]

Since it seems like these two explanations fit this specific piece of evidence (roughly) equally well, and we know that Quirrelmort is the entity referenced by the prophecy in canon, and that Voldemort is called the Dark Lord in both canon and hpmor, then why wouldn't Dark Lord as Death get a 'complexity penalty'?

If I'm using it wrong, please explain.

Comment author: Manfred 25 July 2013 05:30:18PM 12 points [-]

Complexity means it requires additional things to happen even if you had no evidence.

For example, a more complex hypothesis than "Bob is a human" is "Bob is a human who lives at 123 Fake St."

Voldemort being called the dark lord is evidence, and learning about new evidence does not itself make a hypothesis more or less complex. It's just evidence.

Comment author: DubiousTwizzler 25 July 2013 05:41:54PM 11 points [-]

You're right. Thanks for the correction!

Comment author: BT_Uytya 25 July 2013 05:41:59PM *  2 points [-]

You are talking about prior probability. P(Dark Lord is Death|no specific background information) roughly equals to P(Eliezer changes things from canon), which isn't very large; so after updating both with a equally favorable piece of evidence "Death is Dark Lord" is still behind "Voldemort is Dark Lord".

You can assign prior probabilities in various ways, and one of them is giving every hypothesis an appropriate complexity penalty (or you can just judge everything as equally likely, or give everything a simplicity penalty, or penalize every hypothesis according to how many people it affects, or...). Some ways are better than others, but:

1) Why "complexity penalty" should work in fiction, even in a rationalist fiction?

2) Why hypothesis "Voldemort is Dark Lord" is simpler than "Death is Dark Lord" in the sense of program length? One can argue that the former hypothesis points to the specific human from a pool of a 6 billion people (or 100 billion, if you want to consider every human ever lived) while the latter talks about some entity likely to be very basic from the Magic viewpoint.

Hope that clears some of confusion!

Comment author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 25 July 2013 06:50:04PM 12 points [-]

1) Why "complexity penalty" should work in fiction, even in a rationalist fiction?

Because there will still be an infinite (countable) number of finite hypotheses which could be considered and only a finite amount of probability to divide among them, which necessarily implies that in the limit more complicated hypotheses will have individual probability approaching zero. This will be true in the limit even if you define 'complexity' differently than the person who constructed the distribution.

Comment author: ThisSpaceAvailable 27 July 2013 09:59:06PM *  2 points [-]

Is "A or B" more "complex" than "A"? It seems to me that it generally takes more bits to say "A or B", but the prior for "A" should be smaller than for "A or B". Is there something in the "assign prior according to complexity" heuristic that accounts for that?

Comment author: Benquo 26 July 2013 06:17:13PM 1 point [-]

Hmm, I suppose you could judge the "complexity" of the plot of a fan fic by how much it deviated from Canon.

Comment author: BT_Uytya 26 July 2013 08:23:30PM *  2 points [-]

It's not very useful measure.

So, there is Lesath Lestrange, an original character. Which is more likely: "Lesath thinks that Harry is his Lord" or "Lesath is a 3-level (or any specific number instead of "3") player who wants to decieve Harry, and also he is H&C which is possible because he knows how to fool anti-obliviation wards"?

Your approach will just say "I don't know what to make of it. We have already departured from the canon and I can't work here" with a sad look on face.

EDIT: I re-read my comment, and it seems to be arrogant and condescending. I didn't intend it to be so, and not sure how I should change it, so I figured I should just apologize beforehand. Your approach to assigning priors is reasonable one, it just lacking some vital parts.

Comment author: Benquo 26 July 2013 11:10:44PM 2 points [-]

I agree that it's an incomplete measure. As you point out, we would need some measure of the complexity of divergences from Canon, which requires a more general measure.

Another way to put it would be, I don't think it's unreasonable in a fanfic to assign all the details prescribed in Canon a complexity of zero.

Comment author: BT_Uytya 26 July 2013 11:15:30PM 1 point [-]

This seems reasonable indeed.

(if you are interested, the thing you are pointing at is conditional Kolmogorov complexity)

Comment author: RichardKennaway 25 July 2013 07:24:12PM 2 points [-]

There has previously been some speculation that the dark lord in Harry's birth prophesy is death rather than Voldemort.

Voldemort's name means "full of death". (Maybe "thief of death".) Perhaps Voldemort made himself a personification of Death in order to personally avoid it, seeking for himself alone what the Peverells sought for all?

Comment author: gwern 26 July 2013 07:21:10PM 3 points [-]

Voldemort's name means "full of death". (Maybe "thief of death".)

Sure? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lord_Voldemort :

Some literary analysts have considered possible meanings in the name: Philip Nel states that Voldemort is derived from the French for "flight of death,"[10] and in a 2002 paper, Nilsen and Nilsen suggest that readers get a "creepy feeling" from the name Voldemort, because of the French word "mort" ("death") within it and that word's association with cognate English words derived from the Latin mors.[11]

http://harrypotter.wikia.com/wiki/Tom_Riddle :

the most accurate etymology of Voldemort would be the French sentence "Vol de mort" which literally means "Flight of death" (accurate considering the murder waves he commited and as his unique power). It is quite plausible that is the real etymology of his name as J.K. Rowling herself speaks French and had taught it once. The Catalan expression "vol de mort", also means "flight of death" or, since "Vol" may also be from the Latin root "volere" (will or desire), may mean "death wish".

Comment author: MBlume 28 July 2013 07:00:15PM 3 points [-]

I've always assumed it meant "flight from death"

Comment author: Benquo 28 July 2013 07:38:56PM 1 point [-]

may mean "death wish".

Killing intention?

Comment author: Kawoomba 26 July 2013 05:38:54PM 2 points [-]

It's a canon name, so let's not overthink it ...

Comment author: gjm 25 July 2013 02:59:29PM 2 points [-]

Nice idea, but how does death mark someone as his (its) equal? Surely not just by killing his friends, else a substantial fraction would be "the equal of death", which doesn't seem right.

Comment author: solipsist 25 July 2013 04:29:08PM 2 points [-]

Nice idea, but how does death mark someone as his (its) equal?

Hmm. How about:

HE IS HERE. THE ONE WHO WILL TEAR APART THE VERY STARS IN HEAVEN. HE IS HERE. HE IS THE END OF THE WORLD.

The destroyer of the world would be Death's equal. Being killer of Death itself wouldn't be too shabby either.

Comment author: OnTheOtherHandle 25 July 2013 05:01:10PM 5 points [-]

I don't have trouble believing that Harry is Death's equal, but this doesn't explain how he was marked by Death as his equal. The Killing Curse bouncing off for whatever reason might be the best explanation. The scar is Death's mark, not Voldemort's. That seems a bit...forced, but it does explain why Quirrellmort hasn't done anything besides kill Rita Skeeter and free Bellatrix Black only to never speak of her again. Death has struck many times, and has been the focus of Harry's rage and obsession, Voldemort has more than once faded into the background and seemed ambiguously an ally. Another reason to believe that the enemy is Death and not Voldemort is that Voldemort was defeated, as far as we know - he's not the Lord of anything anymore - while Death most certainly still reigns.

But to look at counterarguments - what if the mark we're talking about is not the scar at all? If the Dark Lord really is Voldemort, it's a bit silly to think that Voldemort would acknowledge a baby as his equal. Once Harry came to Hogwarts, Quirrell certainly recognized his rationality and intelligence, and marked him, if only psychologically, as his intellectual equal. "We're not like the rest of them, you and I..."

I'm still leaning toward the interpretation of Death as the Dark Lord, if only because I have no idea what Voldemort can pull in the next seven to ten chapters that would make him definitively the most important enemy presence in the story.

Comment author: Benito 25 July 2013 08:11:22PM 1 point [-]

The Patronus?

Comment author: Aureateflux 11 August 2013 05:52:56PM 1 point [-]

I don't think there's really reason to think this new prophecy must be evidence of any hypothesis made for the Trelawney prophecy(s). It's tempting to look at all the threes and see that that makes nice things happen to the parts of your brain that are concerned with pattern recognition, but there's no reason they have to even be referring to the same things at all. And depending on how you look at it, the simpler explanation is that they are just two different prophecies about two different things.

The time pressure explanation for prophecies suggests that it's rare for prophecies to be about the same events. By all rights we should be focusing on the fact that there seem to have been a series of prophecies and quasi-prophetic stresses all focused on one person. This is particularly true if 'He is coming' and 'He is here' refers to Harry (or more specifically the development of his mind or spirit), but even if it isn't, it seems Harry is a lightning rod for prophecies. That in itself might be more significant than the prophecies themselves.

Comment author: taelor 25 July 2013 10:14:03PM 1 point [-]

Would this imply that Harry is descended from all three Peverell brothers?

Comment author: ChristianKl 26 July 2013 08:17:11AM *  6 points [-]

Given that the brothers lived 800 years ago and the magical world is quite small that's very probable.

Comment author: Kindly 25 July 2013 10:42:29PM 5 points [-]

And then he uses a Time-Turner to have three total copies of himself to do the ritual?

Comment author: gthorneiii 25 July 2013 03:28:51PM *  1 point [-]

I strongly agree, but I'm still left wondering how to interpret the rest of the prophesy:

And the Dark Lord shall mark him as his equal. But he shall have power the Dark Lord knows not... and either must destroy all but a remnant of the other, for those two different spirits cannot exist in the same world.

Edit: The prophesy still seems to be a good fit for Quirrelmort for this second half, but Death for the first half. I'm left wondering if there is some important relationship between Death and Quirrelmort that may resolve this.

We know that Quirrelmort is afraid of death (as is Harry's dark side), and that Harry is entirely sympathetic to that view. Voldemort/Riddle/Monroe seem to have an aging effect on Quirrel's body. Could it be that Voldemort/Riddle/Monroe have engaged in some sort of arrangement with Death to secure their own immortality? This would make the Quirrelmort character both ally and enemy of Death, and complicate the interpretation of the prophesy as well as Harry's course of action.

Comment author: solipsist 25 July 2013 04:42:14PM 17 points [-]

Just spelling out that we have a much better idea now what the first lines of the book mean:

Beneath the moonlight glints a tiny fragment of silver, a fraction of a line...

(black robes, falling)

...blood spills out in litres, and someone screams a word.

The silver likely refers to:

Neither of them noticed the tall stone worn as though from a thousand years of age, upon it a line within a circle within a triangle glowing ever so faintly silver, like the light which had shone from Harry's wand, invisible at that distance beneath the still-bright Sun.

Comment author: UnclGhost 29 July 2013 03:54:22AM *  6 points [-]

Interesting. Some of the things that have been described as silver or silvery so far:

  • The Patronus charm (particularly the True Patronus)
  • The Deathly Hallows symbol in this chapter
  • The stars in space
  • The Invisibility Cloak (in canon, at least)

All of these seem to have in common that they represent some sort of resistance to death or indifference (usually represented by coldness, like the vacuum of space or Harry's dark side). This has probably already been pointed out a lot, but I predict that whatever is glinting silver in the prologue represents something similar, even if it's something else entirely (e.g. a dagger, the Sword of Gryffindor, etc.)

Edit: also, as someone pointed out earlier, the Philosopher's Stone now turns metals into silver as well as gold (see Hedonic Awareness).

Comment author: Romashka 12 December 2014 01:37:00PM 1 point [-]

...and Harry Potter. By Draco Malffoy, no less.

Comment author: gjm 26 July 2013 07:35:17PM 6 points [-]

If so, then:

  • Presumably what's happening is some ritual involving the Deathly Hallows, carried out by Harry or Voldemort or both
  • Most likely with the goal of defeating Death (somehow)
  • So I guess the litres of blood are a requirement of the ritual (note: in view of earlier stuff about how modest the things sacrificed in rituals are, it had better be something as grand as defeating Death)
  • Harry doesn't seem like the type to spill other people's blood even for such a goal (though, I dunno, he might) and Voldemort may quite possibly wish to spill Harry's
  • So maybe it's Harry's blood, and he's (directly or, or letting Voldemort do it) sacrificing his own life to put a permanent end to death for everyone else
  • Which would make a certain amount of dramatic sense
  • In which case, probably the word being screamed is "No!" or "Harry!" or something of the kind
  • Though maybe it ends up with him getting resurrected too; see, e.g., canon Harry Potter, Narnia, Jesus -- the first two being deliberately derived from the latter; not so congenial an idea to Eliezer as to Rowling (who is a Christian), but note Eliezer's "Ta-da" remark when Leah mentioned "Christus Victor" and divide-by-zero errors
  • So maybe e.g. Harry needs to be killed while invisible to Death because of the Cloak of Invisibility; perhaps that sends his soul-or-similar-thing to wherever wizards' souls go, but without him actually being properly dead, and enables him to fix things up there (a very "Christus Victor" idea; maybe too much so)
  • None of this seems to connect with the prophecy about "the one with power to vanquish the Dark Lord", but maybe as others have speculated the Dark Lord in question is Death or something

All, of course, pure wild ass-speculation.

Comment author: ChristianKl 28 July 2013 03:21:46PM 3 points [-]

Harry doesn't seem like the type to spill other people's blood even for such a goal

Why? What makes you think that the rational hero wouldn't push the fat man?

Comment author: gjm 28 July 2013 04:29:39PM 2 points [-]

What makes you think that the rational hero wouldn't push the fat man?

From chapter 39:

Well obviously I'm not going to popularize a method of immortality that requires killing people! That would defeat the entire point!

and recall his anguished inner debate about whether he would, in extremis, allow himself to kill people on the other side in his war against Voldemort. But, for sure, that's not enough evidence to be certain he wouldn't, which is why I added:

(though, I dunno, he might).

Comment author: 75th 27 July 2013 10:09:50PM 4 points [-]

I think "likely" may be an overstatement at this juncture. The entire Deathly Hallows insignia hardly seems like "a tiny fragment… a fraction of a line". I suppose it's possible that some ritual results in the glowy part being erased until only a small portion of the wand is left. But the word "glint" sounds like it's a metallic object moving and flashing light briefly, not something glowing with its own light continually for a time. And while it's possible that Harry will be driven to spill liters of blood to resurrect Hermione, that sounds more like a ritual for Little Hangleton than for Godric's Hollow.

It's definitely a candidate, though. It's in a graveyard, which as we all know is a great destination for bloody moonlit rituals in Harry Potter books. There is a silver line involved. Too early for "likely", but worth keeping in mind.

Comment author: MugaSofer 29 July 2013 07:50:17AM 3 points [-]

I always figured that was a knife, flashing. Y'know, because of all the blood.

Comment author: Randaly 25 July 2013 12:32:39PM 17 points [-]

There'd been some discussion of why HPMOR!Hogwarts was founded around 1200, as opposed to canon Hogwarts, which was "established around the 9th or 10th century." This chapter seems to make the reason clear: the founders were near-contemporaries of the Peverells, who kept their canon birthdates. Godric Gryffindor in particular seems likely to have been involved.

silently, making less noise than the dead leaves slithering along the pavement...

This is a quote from canon, in a scene where Harry is nearly possessed by Voldemort; it's Voldemort's memories of the night he died. It's italicized, as with Harry internal conversations, suggesting that this is part of Voldemort in Harry, remembering the night he died. (?)

Comment author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 25 July 2013 06:55:51PM 11 points [-]

My model of the Peverells has them substantially earlier than Hogwarts (because the Elder Wand seems like a more powerful artifact than the Sword of Gryffindor).

Comment author: topynate 25 July 2013 07:23:27PM *  14 points [-]

Aha! The prophecy we just heard in chapter 96 is Old English. However, by the 1200s, when, according to canon, the Peverell brothers were born, we're well into Middle English (which Harry might well understand on first hearing). I was beginning to wonder if there was not some old wizard or witch listening, for whom that prophecy was intended.

There's still the problem of why brothers with an Anglo-Norman surname would have Old English as a mother tongue... well, that could happen rather easily with a Norman father and English mother, I suppose.

And the coincidence of Canon!Ignotus Peverell being born in 1214, the estimated year of Roger Bacon's birth, seemed significant too... I shall have to go back over the chapters referring to his diary.

Comment author: Aureateflux 10 August 2013 05:58:46AM 1 point [-]

The name isn't really an issue for a number of reasons. It could have been changed by the family itself to take advantage of political and social conditions, and storytellers also would have reason to update the name to appeal to their audiences.

In fact, considering the centuries-long game of telephone that would be at play, it's more surprising that the modern name is as close as it is to the name that appears in the prophecy itself. This makes it fairly likely that the whole story had been lost and was rediscovered relatively recently and then gallicized.

Comment author: BT_Uytya 25 July 2013 01:57:17PM 1 point [-]

It's interesting that Godric's Hollow was named after Godric, not Peverells. It seems that they weren't as famous as him, for some reason.

Comment author: Velorien 25 July 2013 08:53:14PM 9 points [-]

Godric was the highest-profile member of a small group who led armies in battle, raised a castle by magic alone, and vanquished at least one and probably many Dark Lords. The Peverells created a small number of artefacts whose very existence faded into obscure myths known only to the learned. The difference in fame is entirely logical based on what we know.

Comment author: Viliam_Bur 25 July 2013 06:24:44PM 3 points [-]

It seems that they weren't as famous as him, for some reason.

Perhaps transhumanism was already controversial in 1200, so a less controversial hero was selected for naming.

Comment author: linkhyrule5 25 July 2013 07:51:21AM 15 points [-]

It strikes me that this is even more obviously a turning point than it already is.

First: This is the first hint to Harry that he is not alone. All this story, Harry has been defined by his aloofness; the one person as "sane" as he is cannot be trusted, and for all that Hermione tries she's just more of a apprentice than a co-hero, she's not on the same scale that Harry acts on.

No longer. Harry knows, now, that there are more like him, and they too are smart, and competent, and they have gifts for him from hundreds of years in the past.

Second: This also solves one of the problems I had been worrying about, which was: How can Harry solve Death without it looking like a Deus ex Machina? Sanderson's First Law: magic cannot be used to solve a problem except where it is foreshadowed and constructed from existing effects. There's been a few ideas tossed around - Summon Death + True Patronus and the like - but they all seem to have... unhelpful side effects. (In particular, actually ending "Death" would be a bad thing, because Death kills bacteria as much as it kills humans. You want to destroy "Death of Humans" or come up with a mass-producible immortality elixir, not kill Death outright.)

Comment author: BT_Uytya 25 July 2013 11:32:39AM 10 points [-]

Relevant quote, conversation with a Sorting Hat:

"And you would find loyalty and friendship in Hufflepuff, a camaraderie that you have never had before. You would find that you could rely on others, and that would heal something inside you that is broken."

It seems that something broken was healed at last.

PS: Tangentially related to the Harry's inability to rely on others: chapter 31, chapter 70 (Maybe if there were more heroes, their lives wouldn't be so lonely, or so short.), chapter 93.

Comment author: ikrase 25 July 2013 07:26:16PM 1 point [-]

Would be interesting to see what would happen to Hufflepuff HPEJV. Probably would see the graveyard earlier...

Comment author: kilobug 25 July 2013 10:12:03AM 7 points [-]

Death, with a capital D, the one represented by Dementors, the one defeated by True Patronus means "destruction of a consciousness" in my understanding. It's why animals are unaffected by Dementors, why the Patronus charms are animals, ... so ending Death with a capital D would make prevent the destruction of a consciousness, but wouldn't prevent death (with a small d) of bacteria, plants, and most animals.

Comment author: Velorien 25 July 2013 04:11:18PM 2 points [-]

Death, with a capital D, the one represented by Dementors, the one defeated by True Patronus means "destruction of a consciousness" in my understanding. It's why animals are unaffected by Dementors, why the Patronus charms are animals, ... so ending Death with a capital D would make prevent the destruction of a consciousness, but wouldn't prevent death (with a small d) of bacteria, plants, and most animals.

Perhaps I'm misunderstanding the thrust of your argument, but surely this wouldn't work in a reductionist universe like the one Harry believes he's living in, since there consciousness isn't a thing so much as a shorthand for certain electrical events in the brain? In other words, while humans differ from animals in having self-awareness, it is not the case that there is a thing called "consciousness" that humans have and animals don't. (cf. Cambridge Declaration on Consciousness)

Comment author: FeepingCreature 25 July 2013 05:04:27PM *  12 points [-]

Just because something is defined on a higher layer of abstraction doesn't mean that there is "no such thing", any more than there is "no such thing as an apple" just because physics doesn't draw object boundaries. Humans draw object boundaries, and in the HPVerse, magic listens to humans. I think the strongest thing you can say is "There is no such thing in reductionist physics as a consciousness", which is not the same as "consciousness doesn't exist" even in our universe, and doubly so in Harry's where magic gives concepts direct relevance.

Comment author: Velorien 25 July 2013 09:19:47PM 2 points [-]

I think you're missing my point. I'm not saying "reductionism prevents consciousness from existing". I'm saying that:

If consciousness in the Potterverse is the same sort of thing as consciousness in our universe (i.e. a way of describing electrical signals in the brain, and not a magical ineffable substance like a soul)

and

the differences between humans and animals in the Potterverse are same or similar to those in our universe

then

it is impossible for humans in the Potterverse to have consciousness while animals lack it

and

it is impossible to end death for humans but not animals using consciousness as the criterion for distinguishing between the two.

My original reference to reductionism was just to eliminate the possibility of Potterverse consciousness being a magical ineffable substance (in which case this argument would not apply).

Comment author: FeepingCreature 26 July 2013 03:44:11PM *  3 points [-]

I think this comes down to a sloppy definition of consciousness, where what parent possibly meant was self awareness plus symbolic comprehension of death.

Comment author: bogdanb 27 July 2013 08:40:59AM *  3 points [-]

plus symbolic comprehension of death.

Which is clearly pertinent due to how Patronus works. Good catch.

Comment author: kilobug 25 July 2013 05:58:28PM 1 point [-]

The way I see Harry defeating death is more in the shape of casting a spell similar to Merlin's Interdict, a global enchantment, that saves the data that makes someone this person whenever a consciousness is terminated, and respawn it in a functional body. Such kind of global spell definitely can rely on high-level concepts such as "consciousness" or "self-awareness", exactly like the Interdict of Merlin relies on similar high-level concepts.

And where to draw the line for animals an implementation details, that is relevant in what Harry "should" do, but not in the core idea.

It also seems that magic already contains similar distinction in the AK spell, which doesn't seem to affect animals in MOR, and in the way only humans can create ghosts.

Comment author: Viliam_Bur 26 July 2013 09:24:45AM *  8 points [-]

casting a spell similar to Merlin's Interdict, a global enchantment, that saves the data that makes someone this person whenever a consciousness is terminated, and respawn it in a functional body

Maybe someone (the Peverell brothers) already did something like this, just incompletely. The data is saved... but not respawned; just collected somewhere. This may be what is referred to as "souls".

Of course, humans being what they are, even if some wizards notice the souls, they don't start thinking about reincarnating them.

Comment author: ikrase 27 July 2013 10:26:46AM 2 points [-]

I suspect that something like this already exists, and is involved in ghosts, portraits, and the Ressurrection Stone, but does not recreate consciousness.

Comment author: Desrtopa 25 July 2013 06:19:55PM 6 points [-]

It also seems that magic already contains similar distinction in the AK spell, which doesn't seem to affect animals in MOR

Quirrell explicitly states in this first class that it will kill anything with a brain.

Comment author: BlindIdiotPoster 25 July 2013 07:35:28PM 3 points [-]

What gave you the impression that AK didn't affect animals?

Doesn't QM go on for a while about how it allows a wizard to kill any threat other than a dementor?

Comment author: Carwajalca 25 July 2013 06:59:06AM 15 points [-]

That was when the shining creature came to him, gleaming soft white beneath the candlefires of the Ravenclaw common room, as it slithered out from nowhere, the silver snake.

Any guesses why Draco is contacting Harry?

Comment author: Benito 25 July 2013 08:09:35PM 11 points [-]

It's just over 24 hours since Hermione died - he probably just found out. It's the sort of reason you'd get in touch with a friend you used to know pretty well until recently.

Comment author: JayDee 25 July 2013 10:43:38PM 10 points [-]

My second guess is that Minerva got in touch with Draco. She knows Harry taught him the Patronus from a conference in the headmasters office and has seen Harry's reaction to losing Draco.

At first I dismissed it at a silly thing for her to try, but now that she will be really making an effort it seems much more likely.

Comment author: monsterzero 28 July 2013 09:42:46PM 3 points [-]

Yeah, when I try to imagine future events in HPMoR, my brain keeps editing Minerva out. She was an NPC for so long that I'm having trouble factoring her in.

Comment author: BT_Uytya 25 July 2013 12:16:42PM *  3 points [-]

Versions already mentioned somewhere: "It was sad she died", "Harry, now you don't owe anything to House Malfoy anymore", "Father wants to disband Hogwarts because it's not safe anymore, Wizengamot vote is tomorrow".

My guess: the rationality-theme of this arc is roles, and this is relevant in almost every chapter. Probably something about Lucius playing a role of loving father instead of going off-script? Or Lucius playing the role of important Wizengamot member?

My second guess: it is connected to the (former?) belief of Lucius that Harry is Voldemort. Role of Death Eater overriding Lucius's neocortex?

Third guess: "Harry, you remember the vow you gave to me about murderer of Narcissa Malfoy? Listen carefully. I swore to find the murderer of Hermione Jean Granger and..."

Comment author: TrE 25 July 2013 09:07:43AM 3 points [-]

Draco will have heard about Hermione's death by now and probably wants to express his condolence and/or tell Harry that he has made a resolution to side with Harry as soon as he can.

Comment author: monsterzero 28 July 2013 09:36:04PM 5 points [-]

Draco's Patronus says in Parseltongue, "OK, we have the girl-child'ss body and are keeping it cold as insstructed. Now what?"

Comment author: Kindly 28 July 2013 09:37:56PM 3 points [-]

This probably isn't it just because it would've wasted a great opportunity for a chapter ending.

Comment author: JTHM 25 July 2013 05:28:00AM *  15 points [-]

For those who don't know, the actual origin of "The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death" is Corinthians 15:26, specifically, the King James version.

Comment author: RomeoStevens 25 July 2013 05:57:53AM 2 points [-]

It is unfortunately not true. Torture may very well exist after death is defeated.

Comment author: Viliam_Bur 25 July 2013 12:28:02PM *  14 points [-]

The last one of {X; X is enemy && X shall be destroyed } is death.

It can be true assuming that the remaining enemies are indestructible.

Comment author: [deleted] 25 July 2013 06:26:40AM 4 points [-]

Yeah, but those souls left in Hell and/or Purgatory post-Resurrection were asking for it.

Comment author: linkhyrule5 25 July 2013 08:03:50AM 13 points [-]

... On a side note.

That's a prophecy. Which means it'd be recorded in the Hall of Prophecy.

I'm starting to wonder exactly how many very good reasons Dumbledore had for keeping Harry out of that Hall.

Comment author: EternalStargazer 25 July 2013 04:08:34PM 7 points [-]

I predicted this way back in December. It seemed the most obvious explanation for Dumbledore's refusal to take him there.

The interesting thing is the recognition as Heir of the Peverells might open up even more prophecies, about he family itself instead of just about Harry. I wonder, if a Prophecy fails, does it jump to another person or is it repeated?

Comment author: malcolmocean 26 July 2013 01:45:47AM 1 point [-]

What do you mean, if a Prophecy fails?

Comment author: EternalStargazer 26 July 2013 08:28:30AM 4 points [-]

If you remember Snape's ramblings on prophecy, prophicies are spoken to those with the power to "fulfill or avert them". The thing is, if they are averted, that might just delay it. If Hero 1 fails to take down Dark Lady Example, Hero 2 might try in a decade and succeed. If Hero 1 failed and thereby averted a prophecy he previously heard, does the prophecy latch onto Hero 2? If it does, does the text and memory of the prophecy itself change? Is there just a new prophecy?

This sounds impossible until you realize that we already have proof of atemporal causation in this world.

Comment author: Spurlock 25 July 2013 05:00:28AM 13 points [-]

There had been only one thing Remus Lupin had thought of that might help, after he'd received the owls from Professor McGonagall and that strange man Quirinus Quirrell.

Harry was morally certain that Dumbledore, or both Dumbledore and Mad-Eye Moody, were following them invisibly to see if anyone tried for the bait.

It's seems that McGonagall and Quirrell are responsible for Harry spending the day with Lupin, and that Dumbledore knows exactly what they're doing. It's not entirely clear whether McGonagall and Quirrell knew that Lupin would decide to take Harry to Godric's Hollow, but Quirrell at least could probably guess.

All three of these people knew what Harry would find on his parents' grave. I don't recall McGonagall ever encountering Harry's transhumanist ideas, but Quirrell and Dumbledore would certainly know how Harry would choose to interpret the inscription.

Which makes it look as though one or more of these people might be indirectly trying to encourage Harry's efforts to resurrect Hermione.

Comment author: OnTheOtherHandle 25 July 2013 06:56:53AM *  12 points [-]

Wow, this was awesome! I wish I had read the canon so I would have had a chance to think about/predict what would happen when Harry read that inscription. This was just beautiful - a reminder of the heritage that transhumanists often forget we have. True, we have precious little tradition or precedent to fall back on - but in every generation in every era in every part of the world, there have been people who knew death for what it was and loathed it.

HPMOR is starting to be one tear jerker after another. I hope we'll get to see a couple more moments of levity, or - ideally - a moment of euphoria, when Hermione joins millions and millions of others we thought lost to history.

Edit: I really wish the word "pro-life" were available to describe this position.

Comment author: linkhyrule5 25 July 2013 07:45:08AM 3 points [-]

Even "Resurrection" has been hijacked.

I've been in the habit of using "Mass True Resurrection," to make the D&D reference instead of the Christian one.

Comment author: Benito 25 July 2013 07:38:54PM 2 points [-]

To a non D&D-er like me, it still has the other connotations.

Comment author: OnTheOtherHandle 25 July 2013 05:10:09PM 1 point [-]

"Resurrection" has been taken for 2000 years, but for a few decades there we had a chance with "pro-life." :(

Quick! Grab the third best word and trademark it!

Seriously though, I think "transhumanism" is too long and jargon-y, not to mention understanding it requires some knowledge of both humanism and Latin roots. The ideology deserves a word that is as pure and simple as the emotions behind it.

Comment author: Normal_Anomaly 26 July 2013 07:15:12PM *  4 points [-]

I've been using "lifeist" in my head for a while.

Another good word that's already taken: survivalist.

Comment author: OnTheOtherHandle 26 July 2013 09:34:03PM *  1 point [-]

I've heard "deathist" used to describe the opposing side more often than "lifeist" for the supporting side. "Lifeist" just sounds a bit awkward and silly, and "deathist", while funny, seems too much like typical Dark Arts tarring.

Comment author: [deleted] 26 July 2013 01:48:45PM 2 points [-]

Immortalism?

Comment author: Ben_LandauTaylor 25 July 2013 06:22:12PM 1 point [-]

I've been using "anti-death."

Comment author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 25 July 2013 06:57:14PM 2 points [-]

Lifeism.

Comment author: RichardKennaway 25 July 2013 07:35:07PM 11 points [-]

Lifeism.

Like racism, sexism, ageism,...? In a crowded world will "lifeist!" become a snarled curse at anyone not dutifully shuffling off stage after their threescore and ten?

Comment author: gjm 26 July 2013 04:28:19PM 11 points [-]

No. At people who don't want equal rights for zombies.

Comment author: Rain 25 July 2013 10:31:04PM 4 points [-]

I once called my brother a deathist, and he said, "Nuh uh, I'm just an anti-liveite!"

Comment author: bramflakes 25 July 2013 10:00:51AM 2 points [-]

Sorry to burst your bubble but in canon it meant exactly as Lupin thought.

Comment author: CAE_Jones 25 July 2013 10:40:50AM 14 points [-]

Which is a bit frustrating in a couple ways, seeing as Paul (the most popular candidate for the originator of said line) was talking about a literal resurrection of everyone, hopefully during his lifetime, and canon Harry then proceeded to defeat death by dying and coming back.

Comment author: OnTheOtherHandle 25 July 2013 04:49:18PM 13 points [-]

That was what frustrated me the most - how canon could preach to us about accepting death as inevitable while giving its main character the power to defeat death. It's sad that the narrative just accepts it as okay that the main character and the subject of the prophecy gets to be resurrected, but for anyone else to seek that would be folly.

Comment author: OnTheOtherHandle 25 July 2013 04:47:48PM *  3 points [-]

No I know - that's why it would have been interesting to know about the inscription and consider how HJPEV would obviously interpret it differently :)

Sorry, just realized "That was just beautiful" was ambiguous - not the inscription, but Harry's reaction to it. The inscription could not possibly have had such a humanistic meaning in canon, I know.

Comment author: ArisKatsaris 25 July 2013 09:37:05PM *  2 points [-]

In canon Hermione explains it as "life after death", not "accepting death".

Resurrection also counts as life after death, except that e.g. Christians expect God to provide said resurrections, and Harry seeks to accomplish it himself...

Comment author: DanielH 28 July 2013 05:24:38AM 1 point [-]

In canon, Hermione says it means exactly as Lupin thought, and Harry believes her (and J.K. Rowling intended it like that). As some of J.K. Rowling's quotes (no sources at the moment) about canon seem to imply that she does not see her interpretation of the books is just as valid as anybody else's, the idea that a descendant of Harry's could go to the graveyard of the Peverells, announce plans to defeat Death, and get HJPEV's results is canon-compliant.

Comment author: mstevens 25 July 2013 10:00:27AM 10 points [-]

Vague stylistic thought - I don't have anything specific to base this on, but this chapter feels like something EY has been saving up, and is now throwing in as he's decided it's time to start the ending.

Comment author: Kindly 25 July 2013 03:05:50PM 4 points [-]

The same can definitely be said of the troll chapter.

Comment author: EternalStargazer 26 July 2013 05:57:12PM *  8 points [-]

I'm an idiot. I'm not sure why I didn't see this before, except that it was 2 am when I first read the chapter.

I've read the other posts below, but I think we are missing something specific here.

Þregen béon Pefearles suna and þrie hira tól þissum Déað béo gewunen.

Three shall be Peverell's sons and three their devices by which Death shall be defeated.

-Spoken in the presence of the three Peverell brothers, in a small tavern on the outskirts of what would later be called Godric's Hollow.

Spoken in the presence of them. Not by them.

It was spoken to them by a Seer, before they made the Deathly Hallows. Possibly also before they had children.

It's a prophecy and they had two things to do to ensure its completion, create the Hallows, and sire whatever offspring eventually leads to the birth of one Harry James Potter Evans Verres.

Harry's final success over Death will include the Hallows. "...by which Death shall be defeated."

Comment author: BT_Uytya 25 July 2013 06:18:29PM *  8 points [-]

(By the way, tags on the opening post are wrong. There should be a tag reading "harry_potter", not two separate tags for the first and last name.)

Comment author: CAE_Jones 25 July 2013 05:33:16AM 6 points [-]

Given the increasing number of prophecies that could refer to Harry, it's no wonder why Dumbledore refused to bring Harry to the Department of Mysteries. I mean, besides the possibility that he'd get knocked out by the storm of orbs. We know of four so far--at the time that Dumbledore refused to take Harry to the Hall of Prophecy, Harry only knew about the one.

Comment author: bramflakes 25 July 2013 10:12:02AM 2 points [-]

What are the 4 again?

There was Trelawney's "all but a remnant" one, then her "he is coming!" one, and the one about the Peverells (which also applies to Harry). What is the fourth?

Comment author: CAE_Jones 25 July 2013 10:44:56AM 4 points [-]

I was treating the "He is coming!" and "He is here!" as separate prophecies. Also assuming that the mass seer freak-outs at the end of chapter85 imply that Trelawney's might have been one of several in the same vein (I suppose we'll find out if there is international news of mass prophecies any time soon, dependent on international communication regarding prophecies).

Comment author: gjm 09 August 2013 09:57:19PM 5 points [-]

"You." Professor Quirrell spun, and she found herself gazing directly into eyes of icy blue.

... (a few paragraphs, whose action gives no great reason to think that eye contact was broken) ...

A wordless image crossed her mind of a patch of glass on a steel ball.

Uh-oh.

Comment author: mjr 10 August 2013 06:13:08AM 1 point [-]

Well. Quirrell has already covered for Harry's penetration of the Azkaban wall. He wasn't explicitly informed about how it was originally done but he's somewhat good at filling in the gaps. (Obviously there's room for more confirmatory evidence though, so not a complete lack of uh-oh either.)

Comment author: undermind 09 August 2013 03:18:43PM 5 points [-]

Has it been pointed out yet that while Hermione lay dying and Harry was trying to save her, he neglected to cover her in the cloak that hides the wearer from death, and also neglected to notice this fact during the time afterwards when he was getting mad at himself for everything he had screwed up?

Comment author: Velorien 13 August 2013 02:14:46PM *  4 points [-]

Do we actually know that Harry has made the connection between "hides the wearer from death" and "may have life-prolonging effects"? For that matter, does evidence of same exist, beyond the fact that no known owner out of three or so died with it in their possession?

Comment author: Decius 24 September 2014 05:23:09AM 1 point [-]

If the cloak protects all within it from death, I predict that Harry will simply /turn it inside out/.

Comment author: ChristianKl 28 July 2013 03:35:25PM 5 points [-]

Isn't the fact that people like Dumbledore don't invest significant amount of time into thinking about ressurection a sign that they really do believe in life after death?

Comment author: HungryHippo 28 July 2013 05:38:22PM 4 points [-]

It could also be evidence that they don't like thinking about death. (Which inference you prefer depends on your own level of Quirrellness.)

Comment author: Rukifellth 28 July 2013 07:15:57PM 1 point [-]

Dumbledore feels no fear from the Dementor's presence- only fatigue and slight ache. If he didn't like thinking about death, the Dementor ought to have affected him more sharply.

Comment author: HungryHippo 28 July 2013 09:21:06PM *  3 points [-]

Harry to Dumbledore in Ch. 39:

"... look within the part of yourself that flees not from death but from the fear of death, that finds that fear so unbearable that it will embrace Death as a friend and cozen up to it, try to become one with the night so that it can think itself master of the abyss. You have taken the most terrible of all evils and called it good! With only a slight twist that same part of yourself would murder innocents, and call it friendship. If you can call death better than life then you can twist your moral compass to point anywhere -"

Comment author: Kindly 28 July 2013 09:35:16PM 8 points [-]

I think it's pretty clear that Harry doesn't have a good model of Dumbledore's beliefs at this point. Later on he figures out that:

Dumbledore really wasn't afraid of death. Dumbledore honestly, truly believed that death was the next great adventure. Believed it in his core, not just as convenient words used to suppress cognitive dissonance, not just pretending to be wise.

Comment author: HungryHippo 28 July 2013 09:57:48PM 2 points [-]

Good point! I missed that one.

Comment author: Rukifellth 28 July 2013 09:34:17PM 1 point [-]

Dumbledore believes in an afterlife, and unlike in the the Muggle world of non-magic, the idea is significantly harder to dismiss.

Comment author: hairyfigment 29 July 2013 09:42:19PM 2 points [-]

I thought this was the point Harry got right. Dumbledore says:

I have seen and done a great many things, too many of which I wish I had never seen or done. And yet I do not regret being alive, for watching my students grow is a joy that has not begun to wear on me. But I would not wish to live so long that it does! What would you do with eternity, Harry?

He doesn't talk like he has a model of reality in which he continues to exist forever. If anything, he sounds tired (and like he correctly expects to get more tired of being who he is). Now, in principle he could have a strong expectation of radical change that makes the next life wholly unlike this one, so that his objection to eternity does not apply. But why expect him to expect this? (And if, say, he does not expect most of his memories to carry forward, then in what sense does he expect to survive?)

Comment author: skeptical_lurker 27 July 2013 05:31:42PM 4 points [-]

I think this chapter explained something which has struck me as strange for a long time:

If the killing curse can be stopped by love, how come only Harry ever survived? Its not like Lilly is the only person who ever loved anyone, nor the only person who would sacrifice themselves to save another.

Maybe the Potters possessed a new, experimental deathly hallow, one capable of stopping the killing curse (or, alternativly, an old one whoes purpose has been forgotton). It must have limits on its power, otherwise James and Lilly would have lived, and probably wouldn't have been tested thoroughly, otherwise Lilly wouldn't have seemed to panic so much (unless she was acting to stop Voldemort guessing).

This could be the stone which glowed, and it may or may not require a love/sacrafice to power it.

Comment author: MugaSofer 29 July 2013 07:45:25AM 3 points [-]

I have believed, ever since Q detailed how rituals work and we saw that Voldie agreed that Harry would be spared if Lily died (because seriously, she thought that would work?), that Voldemort accidentally triggered a powerful Ritual, with Lily as the sacrifice.

Hmm ... is it possible that was deliberate? It doesn't quite seem to fit ... but then, they were pretty desperate.

Comment author: Sheaman3773 31 August 2013 03:30:23PM 1 point [-]

I thought about this for a while too, more than five whole minutes by the clock, and eventually I came up with a possible explanation.

It's not that Lily sacrificed herself for her child. As you and uncountable other people pointed out, that must have happened innumerable times throughout history, even just among the witches and wizards. It's that she sacrificed herself for her child when she could have lived.

Think of the oddness of the situation. The murderer arrives to kill the child, but not the mother. How often is that the case, historically? Then the murderer offers the mother a chance to live when she gets in his way, which is still stranger. When she rejects the offer to try to save her child, he does not bother to subdue her, but then chooses to kill her, which invalidates basically all of the explanations that I could think of that fit the above two criteria.

It's not that she sacrificed herself for her child--it's that the killer came with the express purpose of killing the child but sparing the mother, and she deliberately threw away that chance for her child. It never would have worked if he had come with the intent to kill her as well.

Which implies that Snape's request was what was needed to give Lily that opening. Which further implies that Snape really did save Wizarding Britain, if accidentally.

I don't believe I've shared the theory here before, I look forward to seeing if there are holes in the story that I have not yet discovered.

Comment author: Velorien 28 July 2013 10:36:59AM *  1 point [-]

If Harry was saved by a Deathly Hallow and not by Lily's sacrifice, then it should have saved James instead, since he was killed first.

One may counter that perhaps the Hallow had range limitations or something, but in any event it would have made more sense for it to be carried by/attuned to James or Lily rather than Harry. Among other things, they can defend themselves, and kill the person who unsuccessfully tried to kill them. Whereas even if Avada Kedavra was blocked by the power of love, all it would have taken was for another of Voldemort's minions to be present and finish Harry off (possibly with a more standard hex).

That said, your criticism of the power of love is one I wholly agree with.

Comment author: TimS 25 July 2013 02:52:42PM *  4 points [-]

No it doesn't! How would people even know what to pretend, if nobody had ever cared?

They don't know. That is what you observe.

I'm not sure I follow the second sentence. It doesn't seem responsive to the first.

Comment author: CrimsonWool 25 July 2013 03:07:21PM 10 points [-]

People don't know how to pretend to care, thus them being terrible at it - see, for example, not even spending five minutes to try to think of a way to bring their friends back to life.

Comment author: fezziwig 25 July 2013 03:13:31PM 3 points [-]

Right, but how would they even know that caring is the thing they're supposed to pretend to do?

Comment author: CrimsonWool 25 July 2013 04:38:16PM 1 point [-]

Because if you care about someone else (i.e. put a value on protecting and aiding that person), you become a resource worth preserving to that person.

Comment author: chasingbutterflies 25 July 2013 07:25:03AM 4 points [-]

I find myself confused by why Harry's interpretation of "The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death" is the logical one. The use of the word "last" in conjunction with Harry's interpretation either makes the statement pessimistic - that death is clearly more intractable than all our other problems, and thus will be last to be defeated - or implies that death logically takes the backseat to all other problems. I feel like the quote makes much more sense in the context of death being the final obstacle for each individual to grapple with and accept.

Overall I greatly enjoyed the sentiment of the chapter, and I found the incorporation of the Peverells to be especially clever, but the aforementioned line brings with it a great deal of friction.

Comment author: linkhyrule5 25 July 2013 07:46:41AM 11 points [-]

It's a semantics thing. Once death is destroyed, no (human) enemy can be; they can be disabled, rehabilitated, but no enemy can ever be killed again, because nobody can ever be killed again.

The absolute end of Death also requires the absolute end of Endings.

Comment author: gwern 25 July 2013 11:04:57PM 9 points [-]

There's another reasonable interpretation: that once you've solved death, that's the last real problem you have, and everything else can be fixed given enough time, and there is no need to destroy one's enemies ('do I not destroy my enemies when I make them my friends?').

With enough time, even Satan can be redeemed (which is, of course, a serious heresy).

Comment author: kilobug 25 July 2013 07:50:34AM 8 points [-]

I understand it as, "when death is defeated, there won't be real enemies anymore, because there is nothing so terrible someone can do to you or your friends if they can't kill". Of course it's not fully true, Neville's parents who were driven insane by torture are in a state as bad as death if not worse. But then, it can be considered that destroying their personality is killing them. And most importantly, it's a motto, mottos are always a bit oversimplification and exaggerating.

I definitely see much more twisting in understanding this motto as "destroyed" is just "make peace with" than as "last enemy" meaning that once death if defeated, there aren't any true enemies left.

Comment author: OnTheOtherHandle 25 July 2013 07:44:11PM 6 points [-]

I think it's kind of the video game concept of "the final boss." Every other enemy is lesser, you have to build up your strength in order to defeat Death. "The last enemy to be defeated" doesn't mean "Death is the last thing you should ever fight" or "Death has the lowest priority of all our enemies", but rather "Death is the ultimate enemy, the worst of all, such that when we defeat it our task is done."

Comment author: mavant 27 July 2013 06:57:54PM 3 points [-]

Don't know if this has been suggested before, but:

Possibility: Harry's "Father's rock" is the Resurrection Stone. Giving this one low probability, since it has thus far demonstrated no other magical properties, and just seems like a way to get Harry to grind his Transfiguration and mana stats.

Possibility: Harry's "Father's rock" is the Philosopher's Stone. Giving this one even lower probability.

Possibility: The Philosopher's Stone is actually the Resurrection stone, or a similar magical construct. Middling probability; Dumbledore refers to Flamel insisting "the Stone" be kept at Hogwarts, but never mentions the Philosopher's Stone; it seems quite plausible that all of the "Philosopher's Stone" rumors are in fact obfuscations about the true nature of the object, and that Flamel's wealth has more to do with his alchemical talents and his having had six centuries to accumulate capital than an actual ability to transmute base metals into gold.

Harry dismisses the possibility of the Philosopher's Stone far too readily, especially considering he already knows that magic, at least to some degree, works the way you (or the creator of a spell) believe(s) it will work, AND knows that fruit which seems low-hanging to him is obviously not so to the rest of the magical world. This smells a little bit idiot-ball-ish to me, even if he is correct.

Comment author: Baughn 28 July 2013 12:18:05PM 1 point [-]

Note that the Philosopher's Stone in MoR is actually supposed to transmute base metals into silver, not gold. I can't help but think that this difference is suggestive; if it was purely the result of a happy death spiral, gold would make more sense.

Comment author: fubarobfusco 25 July 2013 05:27:30AM 3 points [-]

Þregen béon Pefearles suna and þrie hira tól þissum Déað béo gewunen.

Harry perhaps now recognizes himself not as an originator of a plot against Death, but as an intermediate result of that plot.

Comment author: gothgirl420666 25 July 2013 05:24:14AM 3 points [-]

I'm re-reading HPMoR right now, I'm at chapter 31. I'm fuzzy on what happens in most of chapter 32 on.

Stupid question: is Quirrel Voldemort? I don't really care about spoilers.

Comment author: JTHM 25 July 2013 03:19:34PM 20 points [-]

At this point, it would be the greatest fake-out in literary history if Quirinus Quirrell was actually just Quirinus Quirrell.

Comment author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 25 July 2013 07:05:59PM 23 points [-]

Surprise! It's actually Nymphadora Tonks!

Comment author: DanielH 28 July 2013 04:33:58AM 1 point [-]

That would, aside from being completely impossible in various ways, actually answer a few questions. Such as how the Defense Professor (don't want to assign him an actual name when talking about who he might be) is able to do intricate and powerful magic in any body he wears. It would be, to use his word, inefficient to just be that powerful and that in control of his magic. We already know, from Tonks-as-Susan, that a Metamorphmagus can do amazing magic while Metamorphed (probably because they have no "natural" form and are equally comfortable with any humanoid body); this makes it likely that the Defense Professor is a Metamorphmagus somehow. Of course, that doesn't explain why he needs to "rest", which other theories do, so we'd need both this and a completely separate explanation of the resting, which are less probably by conjunction.

Also, on an out-of-world note, I doubt Eliezer Yudkowsky would have made the particular comment above if the Defense Professor were a Metamorphmagus; he would be more likely to say Sprout, McGonagall, or Hannah Abbott.

Comment author: ChrisHallquist 25 July 2013 08:27:48AM 7 points [-]

Basically, yes.

Slightly pedantic answer: they're still different people, but Voldemort appears to be possessing Quirrell, through some means different than the means used in canon, so that it isn't too easy for Harry to figure out what's going on.

Fully nuanced answer: referring to the villain as "Voldemort" may be misleading, because in this version it appears the person who was born Tom Riddle has gone through all kinds of identities and personas and the "Voldemort" persona seems to be less important to him than in canon. Also, though I consider it unlikely, I'm not sure we can entirely ignore the possibility that Riddle magically forked himself, and there are multiple spirits descended from Riddle running around. Also, for all we know the original Quirrell could be flat-out dead, and Riddle (or this particular spirit descended from Riddle) grabbed the body of a random muggle to use while impersonating Quirrell (again, may not be terribly likely).

Comment author: elharo 25 July 2013 10:38:35AM 4 points [-]

It's also possible that Voldemort/Quirrell isn't Riddle.

Comment author: Kindly 25 July 2013 09:03:57PM 6 points [-]

I would consider it a plot twist if Quirrell turned out not to be anyone he possibly could be.

Comment author: CronoDAS 25 July 2013 05:47:27AM 3 points [-]

Short answer: Yes, but we still have no idea what that actually means.

Comment author: fubarobfusco 25 July 2013 05:26:35AM 2 points [-]

What would it mean to "be" Voldemort? Quirrell seems to be entangled with past-Voldemort in some ways, but not in others.

Comment author: Velorien 13 August 2013 02:24:05PM 2 points [-]

Ignotus(?) Peverell created the Cloak of Invisibility, was immortal while he wore it, then passed it on to his son. As a consequence, he died and his son became immortal (presumably until he, in turn, passed it on to his child). Why didn't Ignotus simply make another Cloak of Invisibility for his son, or have his son make one for himself? They had the necessary knowledge, and however ardurous, demanding or costly the ritual, one would think it was worth performing just a few times a generation to keep oneself and one's family from dying.

Comment author: elspood 11 August 2013 06:56:47PM 2 points [-]

It was hard to muster a proper sense of indignation when you were confronting the same dignified witch who, twelve years and four months earlier, had given both of you two weeks' detention after catching you in the act of conceiving Tracey.

Given the fact that there is a Tracey, then that act of conception must have completed. So, either McGonagall caught them at exactly the right moment, or the Davises had just kept on going after they were caught...

No matter how it happened, this scene must have played out hilariously.

Comment author: Aureateflux 11 August 2013 10:03:37PM *  3 points [-]

Er, it's not like people can't be caught during the second round or after completion. This is also from McGonagall's point of view and could be unreliable. The time she caught them probably wasn't the ONLY time they had sex within the window of time that would have produced Tracey. It could just be a convenient conceit for McGonagall to be thinking it was during the time she caught them that the girl was conceived, since she only knows of one encounter during the appropriate timeframe.

Comment author: gesserit 06 August 2013 08:48:42PM *  2 points [-]

Greetings, forum!

Þregen béon Pefearles suna and þrie hira tól þissum Déað béo gewunen.

So, I confess myself a bit suspicious of whether the last bit really means what it's supposed to do/what the Patronus claims it does. The reason being that in both English and German, the direct object of the respective modern cognates of [ge]win[n]an, "to win" and "gewinnen", indicate the prize, not the foe: The latter is in both cases indicated as an indirect object employing a suitably confrontational preposition.

Like so: In order to win (gain) the princess, the knight must win against (subdue) the dragon.

Being neither a proper scholar of OE nor of linguistics, I obviously can't rule out that the intended/suggested sense is valid even so, but whenever English and German show commonalities of this ilk, the natural assumption is that both preserve something present in their common root, rather than that analogous changes occurred independently in both, surely.

If there are any Scandinavian-speakers around, it'd be good to hear if the corresponding constructions function the same in that branch of the Germanic tree as well.

ETA: Ah, I skipped over the assumption that the verb is indeed meant to be the one which gives us the modern "to win", rather than the one whence we get "to wean" and which would mean something along the lines of "growing accustomed to or familiar with", as another poster suggested. So, I'm retroactively adopting and stating that one now. :)

Comment author: Kindly 30 July 2013 09:11:27PM 2 points [-]

Prediction: HPMoR will end after 108 chapters.

(Warning: TV Tropes link. Notably, Failed Utopia #4-2 is listed as an example (because 107 clauses in a wish to make people happy are not enough); moreover, Death Note also has 108 chapters. There, now you don't have to click on the link if you don't want to.)

Comment author: 75th 02 August 2013 04:03:06AM *  1 point [-]

It could happen, though I think it will take a few more chapters than that to wrap everything up.

If you're implying that Eliezer has purposely sought to achieve a certain number of chapters, though, I'm almost certain that's not correct. He's mentioned too often his uncertainty as to whether certain plot points would be resolved in a single chapter or split into two. He's expressed regret at writing ten full chapters of the Self Actualization arc instead of accomplishing its intended purpose in a few paragraphs. He's certainly had a plot outline from the beginning, but it almost certainly wasn't chapter-by-chapter granular.

Comment author: Qiaochu_Yuan 25 July 2013 07:18:39PM 2 points [-]

The Elder Wand couldn't protect you from old age.

Does Harry already know or suspect at this point that Dumbledore has the Elder Wand? Either way, this looks like a piece of foreshadowing worth paying attention to regarding Dumbledore's fate.

Comment author: Petruchio 25 July 2013 01:22:03PM 2 points [-]

It strikes me as strange taking the words "The last enemy to be destroyed is death" as a family motto and manifesto, considering that it orginates from 1 Corinthians 15:26, concerning the resurrection of the dead, Jesus Christ's second coming and the abolishment of death. While it is similiar to Harry's goal, it certainly opposes it by way of means. Harry seeking the abolishment of death through mortal, albeit supernatural and magical, means opposes the divine plan of God. That Harry took this as a mission pasted down the Potter line generation to generation seems a lot more unlikely than it being a suitable epitaph on a gravestone.

Comment author: thomblake 25 July 2013 02:35:11PM 7 points [-]

Given the timing, it seems more likely in-universe that the particular English translation of that bible passage was lifted from the wizard motto.

Comment author: Kindly 25 July 2013 03:02:35PM *  4 points [-]

It's a fairly literal translation. I think the most likely option is that the Potter motto was first taken from the Bible in Latin, and at some point after the completion of the King James Bible (in the 1600s) the motto was updated to English.

The Peverells were, after all, contemporaries of Godric Gryffindor (at least in the HPMoR universe), so they would've been all over the Latin mottoes.

Comment author: BlindIdiotPoster 25 July 2013 07:21:24PM 1 point [-]

I was actually under the impression that the Perverells lived before Merlin.

Comment author: Kindly 25 July 2013 08:41:16PM *  3 points [-]

To be honest, I've just been getting this idea from things other people have said. But in canon (apparently according to the book Harry Potter Film Wizardry), Ignotus Peverell was born in 1214, and I've found no evidence that this is different in HPMoR.

EDIT: Apparently it is different.

Hogwarts, on the other hand, was founded over a thousand years ago according to the Harry Potter books, while in HPMoR it is repeatedly stated to be eight hundred years old.

Comment author: Petruchio 25 July 2013 03:11:50PM 3 points [-]

I am confused.

The particular Bible passage was written in Greek a solid millennia before Hogwarts was built, it was available in Latin at least since the 4th century (Latin being the language of the educated post-Roman Empire, and the language which magic seems to be based off of), and, according to a quick Wikipedia search, translated into Old English by the Venerable Bede in the 7th century.

Comment author: thomblake 25 July 2013 03:34:27PM 3 points [-]

according to a quick Wikipedia search, translated into Old English by the Venerable Bede in the 7th century.

You may be thinking of the Gospel of John, which Bede translated shortly before his death. As far as I can tell, there was never an Old English translation of 1 Corinthians, and if there was it was not well-known.

Comment author: TimS 26 July 2013 01:37:10AM 2 points [-]

I would be surprised to discover an Old English translation of any part of the Bible. The major theological movement to translate the Gospels into the vernacular (Lutherian Reformation) post-dates Old English by several centuries.

Comment author: Vaniver 27 July 2013 04:54:23AM *  2 points [-]

I would be surprised to discover an Old English translation of any part of the Bible.

Huh? thomblake just mentioned such a translation (though it's incomplete), and it's easy to verify on wiki or elsewhere.

Comment author: TimS 27 July 2013 06:24:17PM 2 points [-]

We can steelman my post to say we shouldn't expect many translations given the theological positions, or we can believe TimS_yesterday failed reading comprehension.

I'm putting my probability mass on that latter. Sorry, thomblake.

Comment author: CAE_Jones 25 July 2013 05:06:35AM 2 points [-]

I was wondering why/why not about the idea of Harry talking to Bathilda Bagshot in this chapter, and thoroughly convinced myself that Harry would have avoided doing so even had he thought about it (does he even know that she lives in Godric's Hollow?). The main reason would be that he believes that Dumbledore/Moody is watching him, which would vacate the point of talking to a historian over Dumbledore directly. The next biggest is that she most likely reports to Dumbledore, or has at least been warned that Harry would be there. The only gain that would come of it would be Harry getting to see what Grendelwald looked like when he was much younger, and that wouldn't be much if any use.

I still wonder if Bathilda knows any useful historical tidbits that Harry knows not, though. Doubtless he's read her books, but it wouldn't be surprising if there were some details useful to Harry that she (or her publisher) decided didn't belong there.

Comment author: Decius 22 September 2014 05:45:05AM 1 point [-]

The one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord approaches, born to those who have thrice defied him, born as the seventh month dies. And the Dark Lord shall mark him as his equal, But he shall have power the Dark Lord knows not... and either must destroy all but a remnant of the other, for those two different spirits cannot exist in the same world.

Looking at this with my current eyes, I see no reason to anthropomorphize the Dark Lord more than necessary. I think it is reasonable to say that Harry is "born" of the Peverell brothers, who have thrice defied death. Even at this point, death/dementors have marked Harry as an equal (by dealing with him), he has power that they know not, and he has resolved to destroy "all but a remnant" of it.

Comment author: BlindIdiotPoster 08 August 2013 01:47:10PM 1 point [-]

Prediction: Harry will have to make an unbreakable vow not to use the elixir of life himself in order to get the Philosopher's stone from the Mirror or Erisid

Comment author: Mass_Driver 02 August 2013 09:11:07PM *  1 point [-]

Puzzle:

Who is ultimately in control of the person who calls himself Quirrell?

  • Voldemort

If Voldemort is possessing the-person-pretending-to-be-Quirrell using the path Dumbledore & co. are familiar with, or for that matter by drinking unicorn blood, then why isn't Voldy's magic noticeably weaker than before? Quirrell seems like he could at least hold his own against Dumbledore, and possibly defeat him.

If Voldemort took control of the-person-pretending-to-be-Quirrell's body outright using incredibly Dark magic, then why would Quirrell openly suggest that possibility to the DMLE Auror in Taboo Tradeoffs I?

If Voldemort returned to life via the Philosopher's Stone, then how did he get past the 'legendary' and 'fantastic' wards on the forbidden corridor without so much as triggering an alarm?

  • David Monroe

If Monroe disappeared on purpose in 1975, and has been having random other international adventures since then, and has only just now decided to teach Battle Magic at Hogwarts (thereby ensuring his demise, per the Dark Lord's curse on the position) because his zombie syndrome is worsening and he is worried about living out the year, then what is his purpose in teaching Battle Magic? Is it just for the fun of it? This seems unlikely; he is very serious about his subject and rarely indulges in jokes or in irrelevant scholastic diversions.

Is it because he expects that teaching the students Battle Magic will help them learn to fight back and resist Dark wizards? Then why did he plan so poorly for his big Yuletide speech about resistance and unity as to allow Harry to seriously disrupt it? Could someone as intelligent as Monroe, whose major goal is to sway political opinion, really only give one big political speech and then, at that speech, fail to prevent one (admittedly precocious) student from giving a moderately persuasive opposing speech? Why not, e.g., cast a silent, wandless Silencio charm on Harry? Or simply inform him that he has 30 words in which to state his backup wish, or else it is forfeit? Or pretend to honor the wish that he would teach Defense against the Dark Arts next year? All of these alternatives (plus others) seem obviously better to me than tolerating such blatant interference with his primary goal.

  • Lucius Malfoy

If he had those kinds of powers, he would wield them openly and just take over Britain. Also, it's hard to imagine he wouldn't have been keeping a closer watch on his son, to the point where he would know if his son was involved in a duel and/or sitting around freezing for six to eight hours.

  • Slytherin's Monster

It has mysteriously powerful lore from the ancient past, and there's no firm evidence that it was killed or locked back in the Chamber of Secrets after Voldy broke in. In fact, the person who claims that Voldy's last words to the Monster would have been Avada Kedavra is...Quirrell. Not exactly a trustworthy source if Quirrell is the Monster.

OTOH, this would be ludicrously under-foreshadowed -- canon!Monster was a non-sentient beast, and the only HPMOR foreshadowing for the Monster focused on its being very long lived and able to speak Parseltongue. It's not clear how a rationalist would deduce, from available information, that the Monster was responsible -- we have very little data on what the Monster is like, so it's very hard to strongly match the actions we observe to the actions we expect from the Monster.

  • Albus Dumbledore

Lots of pieces of weak evidence point here; Dumbledore and Quirrell are two of the highest-powered wizards around, and are two of the weirdest wizards around, and have roughly the same power level, so the hypothesis that says they are both caused by the same phenomenon gets a simplicity bonus. Dumbledore is frequently absent without a good explanation; Quirrell is frequently zombie-ish without a good explanation; Quirrell is zombieish more often as Dumbledore starts to get more energetic and activate the Order of the Pheonix; I cannot think of any scenes where both Dumbledore and Quirrell are being very active at exactly the same time. Sometimes Dumbledore expresses skepticism at something Quirrell says, but I cannot think of any examples of them engaging in magical cooperation or confrontation. If they are the same person, then it is convenient that Quirrell made Dumbledore promise not to investigate who Quirrell is.

We know Dumbledore snuck into Harry's room (in his own person) and left messages for Harry warning Harry not to trust Dumbledore; perhaps Dumbledore also turns into Quirrell and warns Harry in Quirrell's body not to trust Dumbledore. It is a little unclear why Dumbledore would want to limit Harry's trust in him, but it could have to do with the idea of heroic responsibility (nihil supernum) or even just standard psychology -- if Quirrell and Dumbledore agree on something, even though Quirrell says not to trust Dumbledore, then Harry is very likely to believe it.

It is hard to imagine Dumbledore murdering Hermione in cold blood, but, as Harry has been musing, you can only say "that doesn't seem like his style" so many times before the style defense becomes extremely questionable. Dumbledore prevents Hermione from receiving a Time-Turner, was suspiciously absent at the time of the troll attack (but showed up immediately after it was complete, with just enough time in between to have obliviated Fred and George, who, conveniently, handed the Marauder's map over to the Headmaster and then forgot all about it).

OTOH, having Hermione attempt to kill Draco and then having the troll kill Hermione on school grounds is terrible for Dumbledore's political agenda -- he winds up losing support from the centrists over the attack on Draco, and losing support from everyone over incompetent security. The school, where he has been Headmaster for decades and where he must keep the Philosopher's Stone, might even be closed. It's hard to understand how putting his entire power base in grave jeopardy could be a deliberate plot on his part, nor is it easily explained in terms of feeling plot-appropriate (it doesn't) or Dumbledore's insanity (a fully general explanation).

Comment author: DanielH 03 August 2013 06:32:06PM 2 points [-]

It is possible, though unlikely given his increasing zombieness, that "Quirrell" has found a way around Voldemort's curse. The one that comes to mind is that Voldemort cursed the Defense against the Dark Arts position. Quirrell is teaching Battle Magic, not Defense against the Dark Arts, so he may be immune. Similarly, if Quirrell is Voldemort, he may be able to counter his own curse (or have put a check for himself or a loophole on the curse); if Canon!Voldemort had thought of that, he may have been able to successfully steal the Stone.

Comment author: Mass_Driver 05 August 2013 07:06:11AM 1 point [-]

Yes, Voldemort could probably teach DaDA without suffering from the curse, and a full-strength Voldemort with a Hogwarts Professorship could probably steal the stone.

I'm not sure either of those explains how Voldemort got back to full-strength in the first place, though. Did Voldemort fake the charred hulk of his body? And Harry forgot that apparent charred bodies aren't perfectly reliable evidence of a dead enemy because his books have maxims like "don't believe your enemy is dead until you see the body?" But then what was Voldemort doing between 1975 and 1990? He was winning the war until he tackled Harry; why would he suddenly decide to stop?

Comment author: Aureateflux 10 August 2013 04:23:14AM *  1 point [-]

I've been leaning away from the idea of Quirrel being Voldemort because there are so many differences between him and canon!Quirrel... They don't appear to be the same person and the details of Quirrel's affliction are different. At the very least, the possession is different, either for a fundamental reason or because HPMOR!Quirrel is more capable of resisting Voldemort.

This leads to a few hypotheses:

1) Quirrel is not possessed at all and suffers from some unrelated affliction, such as the side effects of a dark ritual. (Doesn't discount the possibility of Quirrel actually BEING Voldemort, no need for possession, depending on circumstances of his 'death')

2) Quirrel is possessed by Voldemort, but is able to resist in a way that causes or exacerbates the zombie state 2a) Quirrel is slowly losing against Voldemort (explanation for increasing frequency of zombie state) 2b) Quirrel actually overpowered Voldemort after he was possessed and counter possessed Voldemort, thereby gaining Voldemort's various resources (Voldemort rallying might explain increased frequency of zombie state)

3) The method of possession is somehow different, causing different symptoms.

Keep in mind that the only actual evidence for HPMOR!Quirrel being Voldemort is the proximity-based sense-of-doom and the problems with casting spells on each other. This is actually quite different from what happens in canon, where the issue is with the wands, not their persons. Also, the clash between the Patronus and the Killing Curse didn't cause the Priori thing to happen. So the doom feeling could have a number of different explanations while the spell-casting issue doesn't seem to be the same as that of canon (and even if it were, that's only evidence of Quirrel using Voldemort's wand, not actually of BEING Voldemort... And wasn't the location of Voldemort's wand what Bellatrix was trying to tell Harry during the escape?).

It seems to me that if Voldemort isn't actually the referent of the Prophecy (as speculated by others, it might refer to Death instead) then Voldemort might actually have died. Alternatively, I like the idea of Voldemort inadvertently casting a ritual while murdering Lily-- perhaps Voldemort's body, power, life, or a combination of the above we're sacrifices in addition to the sacrifice of the target's mother. It's hard to speculate what the actual result of that ritual might be aside from the sacrifices, but any of those effects on Voldemort would have similar consequences for Voldemort.

I think it's unlikely that it's all an elaborate decades long hoax by Voldemort since as you say it just doesn't make sense for him to give up the war like that. I would almost say that just as likely to happen might be some crazed wizard with an outsize talent for memory charms coming up with a way to effect a memory charm on a nationwide scale to completely fabricate Voldemort's entire history and existence... Maybe Mad-Eye should take another pass at Gilderoy.

Comment author: Stuart_Armstrong 01 August 2013 05:12:28PM *  1 point [-]

Source of confusion: Harry isn't dead. Why hasn't the Mysterious Enemy (ME) had him killed?

1) Harry isn't a target: he's just in the way of some other objective.

Let's lay that theory aside for the moment, on the grounds that it's not fun. The next most likely is:

2) ME's objective is to make Harry behave in a particular way.

So Harry is intended to go huge and dramatic. But that's a somewhat stupid plan on the part of ME, too prone to random factors derailing it. Except that we've already seen plans like that working, in one particular case: where time-turners are involved, and the person is manipulating themselves.

The easier way for Harry to achieve godhood is to break the restrictions on the time-turners, and go back arbitrarily far. This is fine - but the time-travelling future!Harry has to ensure that current!Harry forms the firm resolution to achieve godhood. So the ME is a time-travelling future!Harry, working to ensure that current!Harry does indeed follow the path to making the future version come into existence.

If we want to go all Ouroboros, we could have future!Harry influencing Harry's upbringing, feeding his "dark side" to ensure he ends up sufficiently intelligent and motivated to carry the plan through...

Comment author: loxfordian 28 July 2013 03:07:18PM 1 point [-]

If the invisibility cloak is so good at shielding people from death AND the Potter/Peverell family is focused on defeating death, why didn't James put baby Harry and Lily under the cloak as soon as they knew Harry was a target?

Harry is going about his daily life under cloak w/ broomstick now; surely his parents--who spent more time with Mad Eye than Harry has--would appreciate the need for constant vigilance when Voldemort wants to kill your baby.

Comment author: HungryHippo 28 July 2013 05:34:57PM 2 points [-]

The Potters did not know that Voldemort was after their son specifically, only that they were in general danger from the Death Eaters by being opposed to them and also active members in the Order of the Phoenix. At this time, they were hidden by the fidelius charm, which is some pretty serious magics: "As long as the Secret Keeper refused to speak, You-Know-Who could search the village where Lily and James were staying for years and never find them, not even if he had his nose pressed against their sitting room window!"

Voldemort only went for their son after Snape told him of Trelawney's prophecy, which was immediately after it was spoken, making very little time for McGonagall to inform Dumbledore and for the OotP to react. (Even supposing they could decipher the prophecy instantly.)

Also, the note from Dumbledore specifically says that James left the cloak in Dumbledore's possession before he died. (Maybe to prevent it from getting into Voldemort's hands.) This explains why the cloak was not available when then Potters needed it the most.

Comment author: pedanterrific 21 August 2013 04:59:35PM 2 points [-]

Really late reply, but: the prophecy was made before Harry was born; Voldemort and Dumbledore found out about it at roughly the same time (almost immediately); and the attack came when Harry was fifteen months old. They knew about the prophecy while they were in hiding.

Comment author: ChristianKl 28 July 2013 11:44:01PM 2 points [-]

Also, the note from Dumbledore specifically says that James left the cloak in Dumbledore's possession before he died. (Maybe to prevent it from getting into Voldemort's hands.)

Since Dumbledore was the strongest magician of them, giving the cloak to Dumbledore to fight more effectively might have been effective.

Comment author: loxfordian 28 July 2013 06:50:39PM *  1 point [-]

This explanation assumes that:

1) The Potters didn't have the cloak on them because they trusted in the Fidelius Charm to keep them safe from Voldemort/Death Eaters.

2) The Potters didn't have the cloak on them because they did not trust in the Fidelius Charm to keep it safe from Voldemort/Death Eaters.

So yeah, I don't buy it.

Comment author: HungryHippo 28 July 2013 09:51:33PM *  5 points [-]

I think you missed my point.

We know the Potters did not have their cloak because Dumbledore said so in his note to Harry.

To defend my parenthesis: earlier in the war, Voldemort taught Dumbledore that a human life is not of infinite worth. A corollary of this is that three humans lives may not be worth more than a deathly hallow. I.e. that the protection adequate for the safeguarding of three humans is not adequate for the protection of a deathly hallow (if the risk is that the deathly hallow falls into the hands of Voldemort).

Comment author: Rukifellth 28 July 2013 07:21:27PM *  1 point [-]

In Escalation of Conflicts

Fully two dozen different Charms must have been spoken, then, but no more invisible people showed up. One of them in particular made Hermione's heart sink; she recognized it as the Charm which had been listed alongside the description of the True Cloak of Invisibility, which would not reveal the Cloak, but would tell you whether it or certain other artifacts were nearby.

In Multiple Hypothesis Testing

"That eye," said Harry Potter. There was a strange fierce light in the boy's eyes. "That isn't any ordinary device. It can see right through my invisibility cloak. You dodged my Transfigured taser as soon as I started raising it, even though I didn't speak any incantations. And now that I've watched it again - you spotted all my Time-Turned selves the moment you Flooed into this room, didn't you?"

James must have known that it wouldn't be very long before Voldemort found Lily and Harry even with the Cloak, given Voldemort's legendary powers. Trying to hold him off despite this was still a better idea, as it would at least give Lily and Harry the chance to flee rather than hide.

Comment author: gRR 26 July 2013 07:58:23PM 1 point [-]

Regarding the "he's here... he is the end of the world" prophecy, in view of the recent events, it seems like it can become literally true without it being a bad thing. After all, it does not specify a time frame. So Harry may become immortal and then tear apart the very stars in heaven, some time during a long career.