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Kindly comments on Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality discussion thread, part 28, chapter 99-101 - Less Wrong Discussion

7 Post author: palladias 12 December 2013 05:10AM

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Comment author: ygert 15 December 2013 11:29:51AM *  4 points [-]

Unrelated to the latest chapters:

Inspired by RomeoStevens's comment in this thread, I am going over HPMOR, summarizing each chapter in a haiku. Tell me what you think:

Chapter 1:

Unexpected truth

Must still be updated on

Yes, magic is real

Chapter 2:

A show of magic

Tales of bitten teachers

The saga begins

Chapter 3:

Diagon alley

A peek into a new world

Stories of the past

Chapter 4:

Metal currency!

No real financial system

To speak of at all

Comment author: Kindly 15 December 2013 03:39:07PM 3 points [-]

Poetry is a union of form and content. Putting something into the form of a haiku is essentially trivial, so most haiku writers focus on content instead; however, your content should also be familiar to everyone reading, so you can't win there. (Also, #2 and #4 have 6 and 5 syllables in their respective second lines.)

Limericks would be good, if you could pull those off. Obviously, it would be harder. That's sort of the point, though: to impress people with form, you have to do something that isn't easy to do. On the other hand, if you write 101+ limericks, you'll probably be good at limericks by the end.

(Half good; I'm told the other half of limerick writing is that they have to be dirty and/or funny, ideally both.)

Comment author: Kaj_Sotala 16 December 2013 10:02:35AM 3 points [-]

your content should also be familiar to everyone reading

Not for those who've had the time to forget about the contents of the story. This could be a useful way for people to remind themselves of the rough structure of the story without re-reading everything.

Comment author: ygert 15 December 2013 05:23:27PM *  1 point [-]

I don't know. I think there is a virtue in succinctness, an art that appears when things are put into a tightly limited form. It makes you look at what is essential, and so shows the essence.

Maybe I'll try limericks next. It's as good an idea as any, I suppose.

Different people pronounce things differently, so arguing over syllable numbers is going to be be frustrating, but can you tell me how you see 6 syllables in line 2 of #2? Do you pronounce "tales" as a single syllable?

You are certainly right about #4 though, so thanks for the pointer. I changed it. It lost a bit of punch, but whatever. If I am building elegance out of restrictions, I had better keep to them.