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Yudkowsky which is not supposed to be publicly available (which includes public statements by Eliezer that have been retracted).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Yudkowsky which is not supposed to be publicly available (which includes public statements by Eliezer that have been retracted).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

While the Statute of Secrecy was not mentioned explicitly in book 1, it was mentioned many times that the wizarding world is a secret. Just to name two instances:

Chapter 1: McGonagall clearly disapproves of the overblown celebrations of Voldemort’s disappearance (lots of owls, shooting stars), even stating that it would be a real mess if muggles found out about wizards. (No verbatim quote, since I don’t have the english book available right now.)
Chapter 5: Hagrid explains to Harry that the main task of the Ministy of Magic is to keep the existence of witches and wizards a secret.

(Families of muggleborn witches and wizards will learn about the wizarding world, of course; but other muggles won’t.)

With the rat, it’s less obvious: I would even argue that the relatively frequent mention of Ron’s rat in book 1 is weak evidence for it not being a normal rat. Plus, there’s a scene during the train ride to Hogwarts, where the rat is smashed into a window pane violently: Would a normal rat survive this without any apparent damage? Possible, but rather unlikely, so that’s additional evidence for the rat being somehow magical. (Wizards being more resistant to force than muggles is mentioned several times in the same book, as is the existence of animagi.)

Regarding Azkaban: No mention in book 1, yes, but it is mentioned in book 2, before it started to play a major role in book 3.

Regarding the last point (the cloak being special): Well, it belonged to Harry’s father but he gave it to Dumbledore for savekeeping. That alone is evidence that this is not just a normal cloak with a simple charm on it, which you could just buy again, if you lose it. Ron even says that such an invisibility cloak is extremely rare and valuable.

Thanks for keeping me honest, but I don't have the book available to me now either. If you can quote from a different language edition (especially German), that would help.

Without the book to review, what I relied on in my comment[^1] was this: When I first read it, I came away with the impression that there was no secret. I remember reading about Petunia's letter and concluding that the Evanses knew all about Witches and Wizards. (The differing reactions to them are like the attitudes towards Mutants in Marvel comics.)

[^1]: That, and checking the Wiki... (read more)

0Velorien11y

I've always wondered about that. You're in the middle of a deadly war, and consider yourself to be in such danger that you use a rare and powerful charm to make your house not exist for the uninitiated. Why do you give away an invisibility cloak, normal or unique, and why do you give it to someone who explicitly states "I do not need a cloak to become invisible"?

0Jiro11y

Smashing a creature against a wall at a specific speed is dependent on the square/cube law, since the kinetic energy is proportional to the creature's mass, but that kinetic energy is being spread out over a proportionately greater cross-sectional area than a larger creature. That's why a cat can survive a fall from pretty much any height.