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Unknowns 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

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Comment author: Unknowns 05 March 2015 04:08:32AM *  2 points [-]

I was extremely disappointed by these chapters, enough so that I would prefer the shorter and sadder ending. Various things that seem to me wrong with it:

Harry's plan is the kind of complicated plan that would not really work, because of unknown constraints on magic, constraints on his concentration and imagination, either his magic or the strands themselves being noticed by Voldemort, or for some other reason.

Voldemort is left holding the Idiot Ball, which Eliezer promised would not happen, because he left Harry with his wand and glasses for no reason, as well as committing many other blunders that allowed all this.

Harry would not really think of such a plan, giving the way he was thinking in the earlier chapters (Eliezer essentially concedes this by saying that if the readers can think of it, "Harry is allowed to think of it" even though this is not realistic.)

It does not really fit with the rest of the story, even given the foreshadows such as Dumbledore saying that partial transfiguration might be the power the Dark Lord knows not and so on.

Harry has probably broken his Unbreakable Vow, since he does not know how prophecy works sufficiently to say for sure that preserving his life in this way is not putting the world in more risk. At least he would need to consult with Hermione before putting such a plan into action.

Total obliviation is a fate worse than death, and given that obliviation is a fairly well known and low-level spell, powerful wizards would surely have some kind of anti-obliviation wards that would prevent it from working on them.

The chapters do not make sufficient use of the Unbreakable Vow. Even without forcing positive actions, this particular Vow would almost certainly have much larger effects on Harry's actions (such as preventing the whole plan without consulting Hermione). Basically those who used the "HarryPrime" terminology are probably correct.

Now I want to see the bad ending, so that mentally I can make it the official one.

Comment author: TobyBartels 05 March 2015 10:57:12PM *  1 point [-]

Now I want to see the bad ending, so that mentally I can make it the official one.

Heh. That's what I do with Three Worlds Collide.

Actually, that's not really true. I count the official ending as the true ending; it's more like humans to behave thus. I just count the other ending as the good ending.

Comment author: wobster109 09 March 2015 09:19:18PM *  1 point [-]

I'm so cross with Voldemort! How could he have possibly left Harry with the wand? How could he? It's the exact sort of mistake he obviously wouldn't make, especially since he already demanded Harry's wand several times already. How could he have left Harry with an hour on the time-turner? The game was going to last all night, it would have been so easy just to use up all the hours. Why did he wait for last words? See points 14 and 16 on the supervillain list: NO last requests, NO last words. It's all so weird and uncharacteristically unlike him!