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hairyfigment comments on Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality discussion thread, July 2014, chapter 102 - Less Wrong Discussion

7 Post author: David_Gerard 26 July 2014 11:26AM

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Comment author: hairyfigment 05 August 2014 05:49:19PM -1 points [-]

You say that like Rowling had no choice but to use this well-known image for Dementors. Also, they're supposed to look somewhat like corpses underneath.

Comment author: Velorien 05 August 2014 06:14:01PM 0 points [-]

I increasingly feel like I've lost track of what you're trying to argue here. Would you mind recapitulating it for me?

Comment author: hairyfigment 05 August 2014 09:26:32PM -1 points [-]

What are you trying to argue in the great-grandparent? What am I supposed to take from the black cloaks, aside from the fact that it makes Dementors look like Death? I can imagine that perhaps Rowling chose this appearance because it allowed a frightening reveal later on. But that reveal uses the words "rotting", "death" and "deathly". On our first sight of a Dementor she also compares it to something "dead" and "decayed". She did this because fear of death seems near as universal as you can get. Dementors' most feared ability, destruction of the soul, has the same explanation.

The parallels that MoR!Harry sees are real, and they exist because death is (widely held to be) bad.