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Harry has, throughout the story, demonstrated a tendency to lecture people when simpler words were far more likely to get results. He is... not a good communicator.
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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
Yeah, that's Harrys MO. By this point it's almost a running gag (or it would be if it were less sad). In the first bunch of chapters Harrys lectures are really funny for just how out of place they are if you actualy imagine them coming from an 11 year old. In fact they are out of place if you imagine them coming from any real person at all, rather than from a character in a book. In the early chapters this is played for laughs and then even called out when Hermione notices that people in books speak like books.
Here though the exact same behavior goes from funny to sad. Stakes are too high.
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Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality discussion thread, March 2015, chapter 120
I hadn't realized that there was such an easy way to bring back lost memories. More reason to put that emerald ring into the Mirror, ASAP.
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Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality discussion thread, March 2015, chapter 120
This is a different, McG mentions the existince of a reversible memory charm to seal away but not lose memories to Hermione after she gets back from her trial. Which I now realize was foreshadowing this.
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Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality discussion thread, March 2015, chapter 120
The question Harry asks Draco and Draco's final non answer seem like a reference to the book The Sunflower by Simon Weisenthal.
Simon was in a concentration camp and called to the bed of a dying SS officer who asked for forgiveness. He felt pulled to both forgiveness and to the justness of telling the nazi that what he had done was unforgivable. In the end he said nothing.
The book has Weisenthal discussing the dilemma and then 53 other people of note commenting on what they would have done ranging from the Dali Lama to Desmond Tutu.
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Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality discussion thread, March 2015, chapter 119
I think you are right. I hadn't considered that, and I don't think Harry has either, but while Harry was thinking that "destroying the world" meant killing all the dudes, the Death Eaters were thinking of the ground blowing up, and there were two of them, so their interpretation probably prevails.
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Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality discussion thread, March 2015, chapter 119
As further evidence that the vow blocks killing all the people consider this.
The vow blocks Harry from telling muggels about magic and starting mass healing. At the time it blocks him the ideas he thought of were transfiguring nuclear weapons and plagues that could replicate before the transfiguration wore off. Neither of those poses any danger to "the world" but they pose great danger to the worlds people. Harry doesn't think of up quarks until after he has already been blocked. So the vow seems to be interpreted as killing everyone being the end of the world. Which is quite possibly how Harry understood it.
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Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality discussion thread, March 2015, chapter 119
Keeping it secret to the public makes sense on the other hand keeping it secret to the order of the phoenix is a different matter.
You keep secret without asking from people who are your equal or higher than you in status. If you get asked by someone lower than you to keep something a secret than you at least want to know the secret yourself.
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Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality discussion thread, March 2015, chapter 119
She knows it killed all the death eaters and that it doesn't even register as magic on their wards. That's somethjng she couldn't do. And it's thh kind of dangerous weapon she might think should be a secret to everyone.
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Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality discussion thread, March 2015, chapter 119
It's also almost exactly 368 and 2/9 uses per siderial day, the actual period of rotation of the earth without reference to the sun.
It would've been exactly that figure about 5,300 years ago.
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Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality discussion thread, March 2015, chapter 119
Based on that timing the stone was Gilgamesh's pearl
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Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality discussion thread, March 2015, chapter 119
Two quotes that are scary together:
"There can only be one king upon the chessboard. There can only be one piece whose value is beyond price. That piece is not the world, it is the world's peoples, wizard and Muggle alike, goblins and house-elves and all." - Albus Dumbledore
"I shall not... by any act of mine... destroy the world... I shall take no chances... in not destroying the world..." - Harry Potter
Harry is unfriendly. When it comes time for harry to choose between saving all the people and a small chance at saving the world, you will all learn to regret helping him get out of the box.
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Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality discussion thread, March 2015, chapter 119
I think there is evidence that "magic" has natural language processing and is capable of taking context and intent into account. I don't know that Harry wouldn't be unable to interpret distorting the world as killing everyone. Particularly dice the person he gave the vow to was particularly concerned about and motivated by the death of people (or at least of one specific person).
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Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality discussion thread, March 2015, chapter 117
I talked about just dismembering their arms before the chapter was even posted. I suppose them surviving would mean Harry can't make up a ridiculus story after the fact, though. HJPEV Gotta do an overly complicated plots that cost others more than he realizes at the time or else he just isn't HJPEV. >_>
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Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality discussion thread, March 2015, chapter 117
Unlike Harry, the death eaters have lots of wandless options. Not just one.
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Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality discussion thread, March 2015, chapter 117
I begin to wonder if we (the community) really found the best plan or if we are reading a sadder ending. Maybe there was a plan that saved everyone.
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Snape strikes me as a sort of a Ron situation. He's a character who has narrative weight because of cannon, but a comparatively small part in HMPMOR. That said, this was a fine sendoff.
I think Snape has a big part in HPMOR. At least he consumes a lot of narrative space. He essentially drives the whole hermione and the hero club arc, since if he didn't help them it would have been over fast. He does a lot to help Harry mature.