You're looking at Less Wrong's discussion board. This includes all posts, including those that haven't been promoted to the front page yet. For more information, see About Less Wrong.

Subbak comments on Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality discussion thread, March 2015, chapter 114 + chapter 115 - Less Wrong Discussion

3 Post author: Gondolinian 03 March 2015 06:02PM

You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.

Comments (423)

You are viewing a single comment's thread.

Comment author: Subbak 03 March 2015 07:36:58PM 2 points [-]

So I decided not too look at comments during the hunt. I then got a "solution", but decided to wait a bit for something better to post it. And then I did not have time to post it. Well, silly me...

Anyway, because I have not seen this discussed (but maybe it was and I missed it?), here's my take on defending yourself from most ways to kill you. Note that this would not have worked for Harry for various reasons (as I said, my solution was unsatisfying), but I still think it could be debated.

Fact 1: Killing Curses cannot be blocked by magic or material shields Fact 2: Killing Curses can be dodged Fact 3: Dark Wizards don't go around murdering people from far away by just casting Killing Curses in their general direction.

From this I deduce that it is very plausible that any legal target from a Killing Curse absorbs its entirety. Therefore, since it can kill anything with a brain, pulling a Skitter and coating your skin in a layer of insects should do the trick. Harry could transfigure himself a platinum armor (against bullets and similar things) and an armor of insects.

The main problem I see with this idea in the context of Chapter 113 is that any DE can just Finite Incantem Harry's Magic. So it's a strategy better suited to epic-level wizards who have stronger magic than first-years at Hogwarts. Also, I thought it was too ambitious a PT fro 60 seconds, but then Harry did manage to stall successfully.