Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality discussion thread, February 2015, chapter 112

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 112.

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Eliezer Yudkowsky which is not supposed to be publicly available (which includes public statements by Eliezer that have been retracted).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 112.

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Yudkowsky which is not supposed to be publicly available (which includes public statements by Eliezer that have been retracted).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

Horcruces in canon don't seem to affect people's personalities or magic

w/r/t magic: IIRC, the Voldemort-Horcrux inside Harry is responsible for him being able to speak Parseltongue. (Although my memory is a bit fuzzy on this; it’s been a while since I last read book 7.) Also, there’s a weird horcrux/magic interaction, which leads to the King’s Cross scene near the end of book 7.

w/r/t personality: Wearing a Horcrux can at least influence the mood of the wearer, see the big row between Harry/Hermione and Ron in book 7. (Why canon!Harry is apparently not influenced by being a horcrux is still a mystery to me …)

Here, though, Harry isn't just a vessel for Voldemort; he's actually a copy of the same soul. It makes perfect sense for the wands to be very similar, and it makes sense from an authorial perspective to emphasize that: it looks like an echo of canon in the event, but it's the sort of thing that enriches the story on a second reading.

You’re absolutely right; the Law of Conservation of Detail is already satisfied by that. However, I still consider Priori Incantatem a plausible option for the next few chapters.

Why canon!Harry is apparently not influenced by being a horcrux is still a mystery to me …

He was - he had a kind of telepathic link to Voldemort, which gave him visions of what Voldemort was doing. Snape was supposed to teach Harry Occulemency to keep Voldemort out of his head, but it didn't work; Voldemort sent Harry a false vision of Sirius in danger to lead him into a trap.