Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality discussion thread, February 2015, chapter 108

b_sen

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:

You do not need to rot13 anything about HP:MoR or the original Harry Potter series unless you are posting insider information from Eliezer Yudkowsky which is not supposed to be publicly available (which includes public statements by Eliezer that have been retracted).

If there is evidence for X in MOR and/or canon then it’s fine to post about X without rot13, even if you also have heard privately from Eliezer that X is true. But you should not post that “Eliezer said X is true” unless you use rot13.

EDIT 2: The poll indicates a large majority (currently 78%) in favor of one thread per chapter. This post has been edited accordingly.

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:

You do not need to rot13 anything about HP:MoR or the original Harry Potter series unless you are posting insider information from Eliezer Yudkowsky which is not supposed to be publicly available (which includes public statements by Eliezer that have been retracted).

If there is evidence for X in MOR and/or canon then it’s fine to post about X without rot13, even if you also have heard privately from Eliezer that X is true. But you should not post that “Eliezer said X is true” unless you use rot13.

This chapter may sort out something which got on my nerves earlier in the story-- the long sequence where Quirrell is Harry's only friend. I'm not saying that Harry should have known Quirrell was Voldemort (and I still think it might have been more interesting if Quirrell had been seriously bad news, but not Voldemort), but it seems to me that Harry liked and trusted Quirrell more than he should have. (Sorry, no details-- I'm going by memory.)

I always found it extremely plausible. Harry has had an isolated childhood, by his own admission, lacking in friends, in intellectual equals, in people who would take him seriously. Quirrell is the first person he's met who thinks like him and is better at it and who gives out approval but in a sparse fashion. So we have a kindred spirit and a role model to admire (intellectually if not ethically) and a parental figure to dispense the sort of validation Harry can't get anywhere else. Quirrell pretty much ticks all the boxes for Harry, in a way no one else does. If Quirrell was actively trying to brainwash Harry, he could hardly have set up better conditions.

It's interesting that a kind upbringing can have such a large effect, but I'm not sure this makes sense-- why wouldn't more of Quirrell's misanthropy have carried over?

Quirrell doesn't hate people so much as he has given up trying to care about them after being bewildered and frustrated by their flaws. His Killing Curse is powered by indifference, not hate. Harry's scientific background makes it easier for him to understand why people are flawed in the ways they are, and it gives him hope that they can be improved, which is something Quirrell never had.