Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality discussion thread, part 28, chapter 99-101

palladias

This is a new thread to discuss Eliezer Yudkowsky’s Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality and anything related to it. This thread is intended for discussing chapter 99, 100, and 101. The previous thread is at nearly 500 comments.

There is now a site dedicated to the story at hpmor.com, which is now the place to go to find the authors notes and all sorts of other goodies. AdeleneDawner has kept an archive of Author’s Notes. (This goes up to the notes for chapter 76, and is now not updating. The authors notes from chapter 77 onwards are on hpmor.com.)

The first 5 discussion threads are on the main page under the harry_potter tag. Threads 6 and on (including this one) are in the discussion section using its separate tag system.

Also: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27

Spoiler Warning: this thread is full of spoilers. With few exceptions, spoilers for MOR and canon are fair game to post, without warning or rot13. More specifically:

You do not need to rot13 anything about HP:MoR or the original Harry Potter series unless you are posting insider information from Eliezer Yudkowsky which is not supposed to be publicly available (which includes public statements by Eliezer that have been retracted).

If there is evidence for X in MOR and/or canon then it’s fine to post about X without rot13, even if you also have heard privately from Eliezer that X is true. But you should not post that “Eliezer said X is true” unless you use rot13.

The first 5 discussion threads are on the main page under the harry_potter tag. Threads 6 and on (including this one) are in the discussion section using its separate tag system.

Also: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27

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Yudkowsky which is not supposed to be publicly available (which includes public statements by Eliezer that have been retracted).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

1) Dunno, but I'm guessing it's for the same reason why he didn't just AK Hermione instead of using a troll? We haven't been told the full extent of magic useful for forensics in this story - for example, in canon there is a spell that allows you to check which spells have been recently cast, so if you find an AK'ed corpse it would be fairly simple to check everyone's wands for recently cast AK to narrow down suspects. (Not that there aren't other ways to discreetly kill, but my main point is that we as audience aren't aware of the constraints involved.)

2) Hogwarts ward doesn't operate outside of Hogwarts, and the ward pointed fingers at Quirrell for Hermione's death (presumably he possessed the troll or something). It wouldn't do for that to happen repeatedly - how many times can one use the "framing" defense? Doing it in the forest avoids the wards, the dead unicorns were a pretext for getting Draco out to the forest, and the unicorn killer identity creates a possible extra suspect,

Or, are you saying that it allows the heroes to fight back by simply relocating the unicorns? That's true...which means that Quirrell doesn't think he will desperately need additional unicorn blood in the future.

Dunno, but I'm guessing it's for the same reason why he didn't just AK Hermione instead of using a troll? We haven't been told the full extent of magic useful for forensics in this story

An AK'ed corpse in particular should be pretty easy to diagnose; the total lack of any other apparent causes of death should give it away.

However, there's nothing in particular to prevent feeding the corpse to any of the various horrible creatures in the Forbidden Forest.

0Mestroyer13y

Hmm, is the Forbidden Forest within Hogwarts wards? Because I thought the reason he didn't kill Hermione himself was so that Harry wouldn't take it seriously when the wards said that "the defense professor" killed her.