You're looking at Less Wrong's discussion board. This includes all posts, including those that haven't been promoted to the front page yet. For more information, see About Less Wrong.

skeptical_lurker comments on Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality discussion thread, February 2015, chapters 105-107 - Less Wrong Discussion

6 Post author: b_sen 17 February 2015 01:17AM

You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.

Comments (353)

You are viewing a single comment's thread.

Comment author: skeptical_lurker 18 February 2015 10:50:31PM 1 point [-]

I feel the need to point out that the first three rooms can be beaten very quickly in the manner that a first-year might (assuming that flying over the chessboard is ok) and yet Quirrel only slows down for the room which takes an hour. It would only have taken a moment to summon the snitch-key, and since they don't have a perfect read on Snape, if the potions room might have been trappeded, then so might have the other rooms.

Comment author: TobyBartels 19 February 2015 08:41:16AM 1 point [-]

The other rooms were trapped, but Quirrel detected and disarmed the wards. In Snape's room, he detected no wards, and that's what makes him suspicious.

Comment author: Izeinwinter 19 February 2015 11:55:02AM 2 points [-]

Snape has much better muggle lore than the average wizard. I'm guessing anyone trying to solve that room with violence will get a faceful of claymore mine or the equivalent. No wards detectable because the traps are not magic.

Comment author: TobyBartels 19 February 2015 10:34:39PM 3 points [-]

Snape is an asshole, but my model of him would not actually kill a first-year.

Comment author: tim 20 February 2015 02:33:17AM *  1 point [-]

I doubt a first year would have any chance of brute-forcing their way through a fire door that normally requires such a ridiculously complex potion to nullify.

Comment author: TobyBartels 20 February 2015 06:43:10PM 0 points [-]

If Fiendfyre is the only way to force it, then I agree. But ‘anyone trying to solve that room with violence’ is pretty broad.

Comment author: skeptical_lurker 19 February 2015 01:09:34PM 0 points [-]

And if this is possible (I have no idea whether there is a 'detect claymore' spell) then the other rooms could have had claymores too.

Comment author: Subbak 19 February 2015 11:57:55PM 2 points [-]

Well, it's possible that all the rooms were designed by different professors with little to no cooperations so that one single breach would not compromise the security of the whole thing. If Snape wanted to put claymores in other rooms, he'd need to tell the other professors.