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drethelin 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: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 04 March 2015 05:50:47PM 8 points [-]

A lot of people think that Voldemort was going too easy on Harry, making this a "Coil vs. Taylor in the burning building" violation of suspension-of-disbelief for some of them. I am considering rewriting 113 with the following changes:

  • Most Death Eaters are watching the surrounding area, not Harry; Voldemort's primary hypothesis for how Time might thwart him involves outside interference.
  • Voldemort tells Harry to point his wand outward and downward at the ground, then has a Death Eater paralyze Harry (except heart/lungs/mouth/eyes) in that position before the unbreakable Vow. This would also require a retroedit to 15 or 28 to make it clear that Transfiguration does not require an exact finger position on the wand.

Submitting...

Comment author: drethelin 05 March 2015 07:21:55AM 10 points [-]

As AlexanderWales says, the biggest flaw is the wand. If you add a line about harry being left holding his wand so that Voldemort can impose further unbreakable vows if he sees fit, or he has it left in case he needs to demonstrate any secret knowledge (along the lines of Patronus 2.0), Voldemort goes from holding the Idiot Ball to just making a mistake. He's trading off Harry possibly doing something impossible with his wand vs a far likelier benefit.