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Yudkowsky which is not supposed to be publicly available (which includes public statements by Eliezer that have been retracted).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Yudkowsky which is not supposed to be publicly available (which includes public statements by Eliezer that have been retracted).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

Right, he's not lying. Inability to lie in Parseltongue has been established clearly enough that it would be very odd for it to be broken now. Also, in between two Parseltongue statements, he says in English, "Still a fool. If no further matters remained between us, I would already have killed you." Why would he switch from Parseltongue to English and back to Parseltongue?

Now, let's look at what exactly he says.

"But you tried to end my true life jusst then, sstupid child. Now cursse iss lifted, and I may kill you any time I wissh."

"But you tried to end my true life jusst then, sstupid child." Harry tried to kill Quirrell. This is accurate.

"Now cursse iss lifted..." -- there was, at one point, a curse. This curse, at the time Quirrell is speaking, has been lifted, and no longer holds. What curse? It's not specified. Is he telling the truth about the details of the curse? He didn't say it in Parseltongue. Did the Riddle curse exist? It was only introduced in this chapter, and as far as I know, it wasn't foreshadowed at all. Maybe it did, maybe it didn't. But there was some curse that held at one time and no longer holds.

"...and I may kill you any time I wissh." -- he didn't say "as a result of the curse's lifting", and he didn't say he's willing to kill him. He just said that it is technically possible.

It could have to do with the bargain from earlier: "I do not intend to raisse my hand or magic againsst you in future, sso long ass you do not raisse your hand or magic againsst me."

Why would he switch from Parseltongue to English and back to Parseltongue?

If Voldemort can lie in Parseltongue, then it's a ruse to conceal that fact. This has the dual effect of causing Harry to accept the literal truth of what VM says in Parseltongue without question, as well as persuading Harry to not even attempt to tell any direct lies to VM in Parseltongue. Those are both strong advantages manufactured from thin air, and VM is clever enough to spin such a deception.

And "snakes can't lie", really? That's a pretty odd inversion of collo... (read more)