Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality discussion thread, February 2015, chapter 110

Gondolinian

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 110.

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Eliezer Yudkowsky which is not supposed to be publicly available (which includes public statements by Eliezer that have been retracted).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.

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 110.

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Eliezer Yudkowsky which is not supposed to be publicly available (which includes public statements by Eliezer that have been retracted).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.

And further, since I do not want you throwing shoes -" Professor Quirrell made another gesture, and just within a globe intersecting the Greater Circle of Concealment, a slight shimmer appeared in the air. "Thiss barrier will explode if touched, by you or other material thing. The resonance might lash at me afterward, but you would also be dead.

So I guess Q disabled the Greater Circle of Concealment and the Globe before taking the Cloak.

I suppose it's all moving very fast, but shouldn't Harry have triggered the barrier to explode once he heard the story on how the Process of the Timeless worked? Quirrell's taking the cloak from him is predictable at that point.

Kill the hostage (himself), and at least momentarily incapacitate Quirrell before he can get the Cloak. Seems like a strong play.

Tom Riddle can't kill himself.

0Jost11y

And two weeks later, Quirrellmort is back at the same power level thanks to his next-gen Horcruxes and can make a new attempt to get the cloak, while Harry (who is most likely the most notable rival Quirrellmort had) stays dead. Doesn’t sound too strong to me. (Unless you value “Quirrellmort doesn’t get the cloak” about as high as “Quirrellmort doesn’t reach world domination”, which I don’t.)