Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality discussion thread, March 2015, chapter 120

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 120.

Plans for next chapter release:

The next update will be on March 13th, 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Eliezer Yudkowsky which is not supposed to be publicly available (which includes public statements by Eliezer that have been retracted).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 120.

Plans for next chapter release:

The next update will be on March 13th, 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Eliezer Yudkowsky which is not supposed to be publicly available (which includes public statements by Eliezer that have been retracted).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.

I'm struck with Dumbledore's ruthlessness.

Pretend to kill someone to keep your enemies in line, but really just stash them away to be used as a trump card again later, whether as a hostage or a way to reconcile with your enemy. That's good.

"There's only one way to hurt a man who's lost everything. Give him back something broken."

Stephen Donaldson

I'm struck with Dumbledore's ruthlessness

Actually I think he was just following his own advice:

While survives any remnant of our kind, that piece is yet in play, though the stars should die in heaven. [...] Know the value of all your other pieces, and play to win.

All things considered I think it was the most compassionate choice he could have made.

9Gondolinian11y

I'm not sure I'd call Dumbledore "ruthless" just for this. While there might very well have been pragmatic benefits to hiding Narcissa instead of actually killing her that Dumbledore took into account, that's not at all incompatible with a simple desire to not cause an unnecessary death.

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Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality discussion thread, March 2015, chapter 120

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Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality discussion thread, March 2015, chapter 120

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