Yes. In the heat of the moment when the character needs to make a split second decision, the author can sit back and and think long and hard about the answer.

When the hero has a choice and no opportunity to research it, the author can still do that research, or make up how the answer goes in his world.

What I was driving at is something subtler: I cannot count the times I have heard someone praise HPMoR for, among other things, teaching them something new to them. People loudly talk about how the got into rationality and Less Wrong from it, and how they got from HPMoR ideas that change their lives. This is good, and a sign that HPMoR is a darn good piece of fiction.

But: Eliezer did not gain any of those things. Eliezer cannot read HPMoR and be enlightened, for every piece of enlightenment contained within came from his mind. No, Eliezer is not perfect either, and I am sure he makes many mental mistakes that he has the smarter HPMoR character avoid. This is a point. He can write smarter characters than him. But, everything he has the characters do is something he knows, and it must be that way.

Eliezer may only know some of the things he has the characters do on the type 2 level, but know them he must.