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gjm comments on Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality discussion thread, February 2015, chapter 108 - Less Wrong Discussion

5 Post author: b_sen 20 February 2015 09:53PM

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Comment author: [deleted] 22 February 2015 02:39:32AM 1 point [-]

...which would probably be out of character for Harry -- how likely is it that an eleven-year-old with WASP-sounding parents would spontaneously think of a line from a Jewish ritual? -- but, oh well, know your audience.

Unless he has some of Voldemort's knowledge stored up in that dark side of his? He's traveled pretty far and he's interested in the sorts of things that would lead him to read up on both the social technologies of religions and the cultures of the Muggle superpowers, so he'd be more likely than Harry to get it.

But it's probably just a throwaway reference.

Comment author: gjm 22 February 2015 10:04:23AM 1 point [-]

It's probably the single most famous line from a Jewish ritual that there is. But yeah, I agree it's a bit implausible for Harry to recognize it. I certainly wouldn't have at his age, though I wasn't as precocious as him.

(Much earlier in HPMOR, McGonagall is shown to know the Hebrew word for "gold" while Harry doesn't. Make of that what you will. Oh, and in Harry's year in Ravenclaw there is one "Anthony Goldstein (out of a certain tiny ethnic group that won 25% of the Nobel Prizes)".)