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Yudkowsky which is not supposed to be publicly available (which includes public statements by Eliezer that have been retracted).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Yudkowsky which is not supposed to be publicly available (which includes public statements by Eliezer that have been retracted).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

I understand your theory about Avada Kedavra and Lily now. It has a few problems.

There's no reason to believe that Avada Kedavra is that unusual. It is one of two advanced spells whose workings are explained in detail, and the other is the Patronus Charm, which also requires a special state of mind. From this, it is entirely plausible that emotion-based spells are common among advanced casters, and not a great rarity that a) has special unique features and b) no-one's ever thought to study.
Your theory relies on all of our sources of information being incomplete or wrong (the entire wizarding world for all of its history, as well as Harry's memory), which surely merits some kind of penalty.
"Lily had been experimenting on life extension." Where do we know this from?
"In Harry's memory of Godric's Hollow, his mother Lily first gets the Dark Lord to agree to save Harry in exchange for her death." I'm not sure how this ties in to your theory, but either way, I suggest you review her actual words.

“Not Harry, not Harry, please not Harry!”

“Not Harry! Please... have mercy... have mercy...”

“Not Harry, please no, take me, kill me instead!”

Unless Lily is an amazing actress, these are not the words of a woman trying to manipulate someone into completing a ritual.

In looking up quotes, I did find a line that strongly supports your theory, however. It's when Fred and George are planning rumours to spread about the Defense Professor:

“...like when he claimed that you could only cast the Killing Curse using love, which made it pretty much useless.”

And this is Eliezer we're talking about, and it also does so happen that if your theory is correct, Voldemort would have observed the results of Lily's experiment and taken note of its success.