= 27d567bc2d48d9f40e9ccc20ea370b15)
DanArmak comments on Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality discussion thread, February 2015, chapter 108 - Less Wrong Discussion
You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.
= 783df68a0f980790206b9ea87794c5b6)
Loading…= b715d02e85f7b3b4ae65ca3d3e450868)
Subscribe to RSS Feed
Powered by Reddit
= f037147d6e6c911a85753b9abdedda8d)
Comments (352)
But why endanger the students by challenging them with a Forbidden Corridor that happens to be the place Voldemort is going to attack?
To have a public reason for a dungeon crawl inside your school. When you multiply it over, the danger posed by Voldemort is not enhanced that much by this move.
He didn't announce the Stone as a public reason for the Forbidden Corridor.
He doesn't need a reason for a dungeon crawl in Hogwarts because that's the kind of thing Dumbledore would do. He does need a reason for a series of actually off-limits deadly traps.
What he needs a reason for is putting the dungeon drawl in the same place as the deadly traps.
If he puts a dungeon crawl in another place than deadly traps, he needs to publically justify deadly traps, (and he would have put in a dungeon crawl without reason - remember that (at least) most insane things he does have a hidden reason). If he puts the dungeon crawl in the same place as the deadly traps, he can claim the latter to be part of the former, and it would stay "a thing that Dumbledore does", so long as nobody actually dies.
He doesn't have to tell anyone about the deadly traps (that are separate from the dungeon crawl) - they and the Stone are supposed to be secret. If Voldemort can't even find them, so much the better.
Since he doesn't admit publicly that there are deadly traps, his public justification of the dungeon crawl is the same no matter if there actually are traps or not.
Citation needed. What else has Dumbledore done that remotely resembles setting up a dungeon crawl in Hogwarts? The closest I can think of is this:
Which, in retrospect, sounds like Dumbledore is encouraging bullying more than anything else.
Using magic isn't limited to bullying.
From what we're shown in the story, magic use in the corridors (as distinct from dorms, private study sessions etc.) seems primarily related to bullying. There are people using utility charms in the corridors (e.g. Harry part-Hovering an exhausted Hermione), but we don't actually see this happen very often at all, whereas bullying is apparently frequent and endemic.
Really, this makes sense. Given that there is a ban on magic in corridors, you would expect bullies to ignore it much more often than law-abiding students.
Edit: Putting it another way, suppose we live in a world in which Dumbledore is concerned about the bullying problem and wishes to use his influence as headmaster to combat it (insofar as he can do so without ending up in a confrontation with influential parents). In this world, would you predict that Dumbledore would dismiss Filch's reminder in front of the whole school?