Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality discussion thread, March 2015, chapter 117

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 117.

Plans for next chapter release:

Ch. 118 will post on March 9th, 2015, at 12pm Pacific (7pm UTC).

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Eliezer Yudkowsky which is not supposed to be publicly available (which includes public statements by Eliezer that have been retracted).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 117.

Plans for next chapter release:

Ch. 118 will post on March 9th, 2015, at 12pm Pacific (7pm UTC).

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Yudkowsky which is not supposed to be publicly available (which includes public statements by Eliezer that have been retracted).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

Killing people is horrible. It's why DE are "bad people", because they kill. You can't claim DE to be bad people, and yet rejoice at their death.

Yes, killing DE has Harry did it was a required evil - letting Voldemort win would have let to much, much more suffering. But that doesn't change that killing the DE was sad. They were people, and in their own eyes, they weren't evil. And some of them, like Malfoy, was a loving father, paying political cost to help his son feel better.

And the children of the Death Eaters are just kids. Draco may initially dreamed about raping and killing people, he doesn't know better, but he did help Hermione, too. And his pain at losing his father is as real any other child pain at losing his father - something no 11 years old should ever have to go through.

Denying humanity to people, considering they are better dead than alive, that their death isn't any sad, is exactly what Death Eaters did wrong. Harry, Dumbledore, Hermione, McGonagall know better than the eternal loop of hatred, they know that "an eye for an eye will make the whole world blind", and that a tragedy never undo another tragedy.

Yes, you can kill Death Eaters when they actually threaten you and you need to do it to prevent Voldemort from ruling the world - but that doesn't mean killing Death Eaters isn't sad, or that you should rejoice when a 11 years old kid suddenly loses his loving father.

Killing people is horrible. It's why DE are "bad people", because they kill. You can't claim DE to be bad people, and yet rejoice at their death.

No that's not why they are "bad people", and yes you can. Who is killed and why also matters. Or do you see no difference between murdering innocent people and killing Aurors, and killing the murderers themselves to stop them from going on another spree?

8buybuydandavis11y

Sure you can. Life is full of trade offs. When the tradeoff is sufficiently in your favor, you rejoice. Sometimes that involves people dying. [...] Then I won't expect them to rejoice at their own deaths, but in my eyes, there is plenty to rejoice over.

10Shmi11y

OK, I agree with the "sad" part (though not the "sadder" part). It was unfortunate that people had to die. I don't think HP should torment himself for not having thought of saving them.