Comment author: l2718 28 February 2015 09:32:15PM *  9 points [-]

Harry is allowed to solve this problem any way YOU would solve it. If you can tell me exactly how to do something, Harry is allowed to think of it.

This is not quite phrased correctly. While I know less magic than the protagonist (having not attended Hogwarts for a year), I know far more physics and mathematics than he does. I am also privy to world-building knowledge that he isn't. For example, we know about major artefacts:

  • The Elder wand has been repeatedly featured in the fic, but neither Harry!Riddle not Voldemort!Riddle are aware of it yet.

We also know little trivia:

  • Tom Riddle's middle name in this AU is Morfin, not Marvolo. Knowing canon this tells us something about Merope Gaunt's relationship with her father and brother.

In conclusion: it's not enough for us to think of a solution, we also need to explain how Harry can think of it. There's no point in simulating Harry's smarts on my hardware, I can use my own smarts. But I do need to simulate Harry's knowledge.

Comment author: l2718 26 February 2015 04:41:38AM 0 points [-]

Regarding Chekov's Elder Wand:

We have been repeatedly told about Dumbledore's "long dark wand" (Ch. 56,57,77,81,94,110), a "wand of dread power" (Ch. 77), which we know from Canon is the "terrible device" Grindelwald possessed (Ch. 77). In Azkaban (Ch. 57), Dumbledore confirmed this:

"Nonsense, my dear," the old wizard said cheerfully as he strode off yet again, waving as though in admonition his fifteen-inch wand of unidentifiable dark-grey wood, "I'm invincible."

Query: A key point in canon is the mastery of this wand. In this universe, Voldemort!Riddle has defeated Dumbledore before the latter threw the wand away. Does that make him the master of the wand?

Comment author: Jost 26 February 2015 12:27:33AM 25 points [-]

Quirrell, chapter 65:

“You are kidnapped from Hogwartss to public location, many witnesssess, wardss keep out protectorss. Dark Lord announcess that he hass at long lasst regained physical form, after wandering as sspirit for yearss; ssayss that he hass gained sstill greater power, not even you can sstop him now. Offerss to let you duel. You casst guardian Charm, Dark Lord laughss at you, ssayss he iss not life-eater. Casstss Killing Cursse at you, you block, watcherss ssee Dark Lord explode -"

With Dumbledore out of the way, Harry becomes the unrivaled leader of the light side, which could make him quasi-king of magical Britain with some maneuvring. His power only increases as he gets older. Voldemort!Riddle enjoys watching Harry!Riddle do all the work, while he goes on a multi-decade vacation on a nice beach in the Caribbean.

The End.

Comment author: l2718 26 February 2015 04:25:21AM 0 points [-]

This.

You beat me to posting this quote.

Riddle Sr. doesn't care to rule magical Britain, and will use this to rid himself of his Voldemort persona. Eventually he can reap the fruit of whatever magical research Harry!Riddle Jr. does, as well as have interesting challenges with him. I'm highly confident he doesn't want to restart the wizarding war (which he couldn't make challenging for himself no matter how hard he tried).

Pure speculation: similar to cannon, Harry will survive Voldemort killing him by coming back from Limbo (possibly the Riddle Horcrux Network).

Comment author: l2718 21 February 2015 09:04:56PM 5 points [-]

In Ch. 37, Quirrell explains how he found Harry:

"and no blood purist is likely to think of consulting a phone book"

Conditioned on Lord Voldmort being a blood purist, this is evidence for Quirrell not being Voldemort (probably the intended interpretation). In fact, this was evidence for Lord Voldemort not being a blood purist.

In response to Lawful Uncertainty
Comment author: Paul_Ogryzek 14 November 2008 05:06:10AM 0 points [-]

Just to clarify the utility of randomness issue, I think what some respondents are talking about is the benefit of unpredictablility, which is instrumental when playing a game against a live opponent. This is totally different from randomizing. I also don't think that saying that ants "randomly" search for food is the most accurate way to describe their process. So randomness, in its strict interpretation, is never optimal game strategy. Another thought I had is that there are some circumstances in which it would make sense to change one's prediction to red. If you had a good idea how many total cards were left and had the knowledge that blue cards had significantly over-represented themselves (50 total cards, 30 already flipped, all blue), it would lead to the conclusion that over half of the remaining cards would be red. Such a circumstance could lead to a higher than 70% success rate.

Comment author: l2718 19 February 2015 12:58:03AM 0 points [-]

Random search can be an effective strategy due to bounded rationality. As pointed elsewhere on this thread, the expected utility of a mixed strategy is not greater than the maximum utility of the pure strategies in its support. But determining the utility of the pure strategies may not be possible. For example, an ant cannot carry the neural machinery necessary to remember everything it has seen, or to use such information to determine with accuracy the most likely direction to food -- but it can carry sufficient neural machinery to perform a random walk.

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