Personally, I feel that case 1 ("doesn't work at all") is much more probable
I've come to the opposite conclusion. Should we drag out quotes to compare evidence? Is your estimate predicated on just one or two strong arguments, and if so could I bother you to state them? The most probability mass to my estimate is contributed by Voldemort's former reluctance to test the horcrux system and his prior blind spots as a rationalist when designing the system, and the oft-reinforced notion of Harry actually being a version of Tom Riddle, indistinguishable to a 'powerful' magical artifact (the Map), acting as an adult as an 11-years-old, "Riddles and Anwers", the FF.net title, etc.
Speaking up prolongs Harry's life until Voldemort does an experimental test.
The actual challenge may be to notice that the challenge isn't well-posed, that the binary variable to be optimized ("live, if only a little longer") is but a greedy solution probably suboptimal to reaching the actual goal. Transcend the teacher's challenge, solve the actual problem, you know?
Speaking up gives up an easy win
Kind of important. Winning the test, losing the war.
3) Horcrux hijacking works, and there's no workaround. It doesn't matter if Harry speaks up or not.
I disagree, it matters: Voldemort goes back to the mirror, freezes Harry in time. Keeps him unconscious through his death eaters. He outclasses everyone else who's left by orders of magnitude higher than he does Harry, from what we've seen. There are plenty of ways to simply cryonically freeze Harry then keep him on Death Eater guard until he made sure he closed the loopholes. Consider that he only learned he could test the system without danger to himself by using others as a proxy "test units" a few hours prior to current events.
PS: There's, incidentally, as zen-like beauty to the solution: In order to survive, all you need to do is die.
‘If you cling to your life, you will lose it, and if you let your life go, you will save it.’ —Luke 17:33 (NLT, which seemed the nicest phrasing of those that I found on one list)
But this sort of sentiment is more in line with canon than with MoR. Of course, this particular instance gives it a twist that neither Rowling nor Luke intended.
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 113.
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.)
IMPORTANT -- From the end of chapter 113: