You would think that after the basilisk literally became an example of the Streisand Effect, he would have learned his lesson.

My parents visited Israel when I was a kid. My grandparents' apartment had Israeli air-raid-quality shutters which ACTUALLY blocked out all the light; they were wooden slats that rolled down and stacked themselves solidly over the outside of the window. You pulled on the cord and the light went out completely - that simple. I expect it helped on noise reduction too, though I wasn't checking then. Ever since, I've taken the lack of this simple, extremely useful feature on any other windows I've ever seen, as proof that the housing industry is dysfunctional.

Aluminum foil. Use a gluestick to put it over your bedroom windows. Now there is darkness, and you can sleep. This made a huge quality-of-life difference to me, and I felt very silly for not doing it 10 years earlier. (A sleep mask, which I previously used, was not nearly as good a solution.)

And yes, I feel those apparently charged words are wholly appropriate: removing a rape reference is just a terribly superficial way of making the story 'kid-friendly

I didn't think it was kids that that particular removal was trying to make the story more friendly to.

In Ch. 7, the Harry-and-Draco conversation needs to be toned down even further because multiple parents have announced their intention to have their children read this fanfic – and I know that revision is going to be controversial, but Draco’s current conversation is also a little out-of-character by the standards of the Draco in later chapters.

I am very saddened by this. Chapter 7 was what really hooked me into the story. Half of it was Harry's incredible "This is why science ROCKS" speech, which is still one of my most favorite monologues ever. And half of it is the pure emotional shock of hearing an 11-year-old boy casually say he plans to rape a 10-year-old girl. It had an immediate physical effect on me, and the after-effects lingered for the rest of the day. The fact that it came so out of the blue in such an unexpected setting... it was damned effective. I will be very sad to see it go.

This raises a question for me - I know of at least one 11 year old reading this story. Sometimes kids read things above their grade level, and are exposed to concepts earlier than usual (I suspect that happened to almost everyone on LW). So... is HPMoR intended primarily for adult audiences, or for children? Considering the level of the writing, the many concepts that are probably too complex for most children, and the entirety of the Azkaban arc... isn't it fair to say that this is a work aimed at adults? And if so, should it really be diluted because some children will also get their hands on it? Can you imagine if your favorite dark/disturbing anime was trimmed to fit a PG rating because kids would end up seeing it?

Isn't Harry a little young to have played Fate/Stay Night, both in the sense of it being a Japanese porno game not suitable for 11-year-olds and it not having been made yet when the story is set?

EDIT: Clearly this is intended as a hint that he has the time-traveling adult Voldemort's memories implanted in him.

Just because your memory is going to get wiped afterwards does not mean that your on-the-spot preference is worth any less than post-memory-wipe-You's.

It really does, though. post-memory-wipe me lasts a lot longer. On-the-spot-me only exists until he decides.

If you had a choice between being memory wiped, then stubbing your toe; versus taking a powerful kick to the balls now, then being memory wiped, I doubt you would sigh and spread your legs.

Whoa, hey now. That's not just pain, that's an indignity. But you're right.

(Apples-to-apples I'd take the worst headache I've ever had if I wouldn't remember it and knew there'd be no long term damage over stubbing my toe in a conventional fashion.)

If you are gifted (or, in this particular case, cursed) with enough empathy that the very act of deciding to condemn a stranger to torture causes you pain, then I'm not sure you can concoct a hypothetical scenario wherein you can ignore said empathy while retaining your agency and/or identity.

I wouldn't call it "pain," but it is an unwelcome experience. Beyond a the risk of retribution or similar consequences, isn't that why you don't hurt the people you can hurt? Aren't there experiences you would not call pain that you'd choose pain over? I get the feeling that I'm missing something obvious, here.

I've got an idea why I was hesitating instead of taking the easy answer in the first place. I think it felt like a trick question and I fixed on the not-remembering part. It was so out of place, so wild that it just had to determine the answer. Like, why would you put that in the question if it wasn't what the question was about?

Acting without remembering has to be irrelevant, it's just too damn far out of scope. I'm never going to appreciate it on a meat level and don't need to plan for making decisions with that caveat. Fuck that noise.

Some skills aren't especially useful outside of the environment that spawned them.

Who is it telling you that you've got to have the other person tortured, if you just happen not to feel like it?

I may not understand what you're asking. Is this an internal family thing? There is only me in here, even if I talk to myself in thought.

The problem I have with the dilemma is that it expects me to separate myself-as-I-answer from myself-as-I-live-with-my-choice. If I had a realistic example, that might help

Scenario 1

me-who-answers : "I empathize with the fifty years of as yet hypothetical suffering of a stranger, and choosing that causes me more pain than I expect to feel from stubbing my toe, so I will choose to stub my toe."

me-who-lives-with-my-choice : "Ow! What the fuck did you do that for?"

me-who-answers : "So a stranger wouldn't suffer torture for fifty years."

stranger : "Yeah, thanks for that. You don't know how much that means to me."

me-who-lives-with-my-choice : "Yeah, you're right. I do not and cannot ever know, so he did not decide that for my sake. He decided it for himself. So, me-who-answers, how's that working out for you?"

me-who-answers : "Oh, I don't exist anymore."

me-who-lives-with-my-choice : "Well fuck you, toe-stubber!"

Scenario 2

me-who-answers : "Despite empathizing with the fifty years of as yet hypothetical suffering of a stranger, I recognize that I am ephemeral and my discomfort with this decision is less important than lasting effects on my successor."

me-who-lives-with-my-choice : whistles ignorantly

stranger : "AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!"

In the first place, I realise that you're probably going for an understatement, but I think it's worth noting that Rowling's world-building, in terms of thinking through consequences and implications, is actually atrocious rather than merely inferior. I'll never forget the moment when I realised that DISINTEGRATING LIVE KITTENS is standard spell practice for schoolchildren in the Potterverse, and no-one bats an eyelid. I sometimes ponder whether Rowling herself places an unnaturally low value on any form of life that can't speak a human language, or whether the themes evoked in the last books (that wizards are overdue to pay for their appalling record on non-human rights) are deliberately woven into the Potterverse at an extremely deep level.

That aside, could you give some examples of what you would consider such influences? Given that senior wizards in canon need to have guns explained to them, and that Muggle expert Arthur Weasley struggles to even pronounce "electricity", wizard obliviousness to Muggle society would seem to run so deep that I struggle to imagine one much influencing the other.

Incidentally, are there no Author's Notes for chapter 84?