So far, the important spells get their detail work done. How does the improved horcrux work?
AFAICT all Q's claims of its total novelty are in human speech. It's possible but not certain that his previous Parseltongued comments horcruxes puts a lower bound on how similar they are. It certainly means he's confident his ritual is not the one the legends are about, but given that it ended up suiting the stories better than the weak horcrux, it's quite possible he unknowingly reinvented the true forgotten original. (speculation: this would explain the possible-but-improbable appearance of a sixth-year able to outsmart and kill Baba Yaga)
We know it was expected to make him a disembodied possessor spirit but in fact required the victim to touch an anchor, until augmented with the resurrection stone. We know it requires a murder. We know the user is conscious while residing in the anchors. We also know that the legends it resembles say that it works by tearing the soul.
We also know that the legends it resembles say that it works by tearing the soul.
So far that's the one part that doesn't seem to correspond to anything that's happened.
New long chapter! Since I expect its discussion to generate more than 160 comments (which would push the previous thread over the 500 comment limit) before the next chapter is posted, here is a new thread.
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 108
(and chapter 109, once it comes out on Monday).EDIT: There have now been two separate calls for having one thread per chapter, along with a poll in this thread. If the poll in this thread indicates a majority preference for one thread per chapter by Monday, I will edit this post to make it for chapter 108 only. In that case a new thread for chapter 109 should be posted by whoever gets a chance and wants to after the chapter is released.
EDIT 2: The poll indicates a large majority (currently 78%) in favor of one thread per chapter. This post has been edited accordingly.
There is 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.)
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: