All of major's Comments + Replies

There's a theory going around about how it was Amelia Bones who killed Narcissa Malfoy, based on nothing more than the stray thought 'Someone would burn for this.' What she said to Dumbledore during Hermione's trial ('You know the answer you must give, Albus. It will not change for agonizing over it.') seems to be taken as further evidence.

sigh

Of course it was Voldemort who did it!

I think what most of you fail to realize is, the whole thing happened after Voldemort heard the prophecy from Snape. Dumbledore predictably ignored the blackmail, and would not h... (read more)

Hat and Cloak is Salazar's creature. He (it?) was put in the Chamber to be a counter to the second thing Merlin did when he laid the Interdict in force, namely biasing holders of time-displaced information toward simpler (non-catastrophic) loops - my best guess is, by creating random change in subject's mind which randoms into thoughts leading to paradox-free behavior; from this side of the 4th wall it can look like 'being stupid for the sake of plot'. (to clarify: the random thought is an extra degree of freedom by which the situation can be paradox-free ... (read more)

"don't think about it either way" does not necessarily mean indifference, it means reverting to default behaviour.

Humans are (mostly) pro-social animals with empathy and would not crush another human who just happens to be in their way - in that they differ from a falling rock. In fact, that's the point of hate, it overrides the built-in safeguards to allow for harmful action. According to this view, to genuinely not give a damn about someone's life is a step further. Obviously.

The thing about built-in default behaviour given by evolution is that... (read more)

Muggle hospital.

About horcruxes

Magic itself seems predisposed to keeping wizards in existence, what with ghosts and resistance to blunt trauma, and Avada Kedavra requiring they be very sure about the outcome, and all that. A ritual that requires murder seems to be opposing that spirit. Can't magic make up it's mind? Or was it designed by multiple, competing purposes?

It occured to me that horcrux might be more of a late addition to magic; a hack, a twisting of an existing function. If so, the requirement may not be there for the usual reasons (to represent the making of a ... (read more)

I think it works like this: this sort of thing can trigger some people's bullshit detector. They sense that something is off when this 'rationalist fiction' tries to to claim some sort of special status, while still doing the usual writing tricks. Of course they fail to pinpoint the source of the contradiction (most don't habitually look out for the 'Is that your true rejection' thingy - especially if they already have some reason to jump to an EY-bashing conclusion, mostly something status-based; I call that sort of thing 'suspiciously self-serving'). Ins... (read more)

Re: revisions

Harry reached up, wiped a bit of sweat from his forehead, and exhaled. "I'd like this one, please."

Harry's entire body was sheathed in sweat that had soaked clear through his Muggle clothing, though at least it didn't show through the robes. He bent down over the gold-etched ivory toilet, and retched a few times, but thankfully nothing came up.

Hermione shut her eyes and tried to concentrate. She was sweating underneath her robes.

"Forget I said anything," said Draco, sweat suddenly springing out all over his body. He neede

Care to elaborate? 'Interesting' is a word with many connotations.

As we know, Harry's idea of double memory-charm has not been presented to the Wizengamot, which is a good thing; not only is it low status, as Harry realized, it's also unlikely to work, as Snape pointed out. Also, that's not what happened.

Hermione has been told the right lie, to lead her through the right emotions - a growing suspicion towards Draco, mainly - and then she was Obliviated, and told the same lie over again, went through the same emotions again, and again. If the sense of disorientation isn't a problem, she could have been looped through just... (read more)

My guess is, the intermittent one is H&C taking the appearance (and name, on the map) of students who are elsewhere to walk among the children, listening to rumours, maybe even talking to them. I'm going to assume he can disappear as well as change shape when out of sight, otherwise it would be too easy to track him down; plus, that's why it's 'intermittent'.

At this point it's almost funny how everyone seems to think I'm dissing Eliezer. Oh, well. Sarcasm clearly doesn't work in writing.

:(:

Of course. Otherwise Eliezer would be a Bad Writer. There are circumstances where 'heat conduction' is the correct answer, you know.

Ha! Or maybe Eliezer has been rolling his eyes at us (or, rather, y'all), and gave us a blatant hint with the contrast of competent Quirrell interrogating sneaky Snape and less experienced H&C working on naive Hermione. I think you're just clinging to your one beautiful idea, instead of examining other possibilities - like, say, H&C is taking instructions from Quirrell, maybe?

See? Two can play that game.

Well, it's a historical fact that when I first saw this term-use-implies-identity idea, I rolled my eyes at it. What I think happens here is this:

The first appearance of H&C does indeed seem to imply Quirrell is H&C. He walks off after Zabini, Zabini's lie benefited him, and so forth. And however shakily, the common use of a term could support this as well.

But. Later we find evidence that it is indeed simply a technical term - as quoted above, (but it seems to be ignored, because the first H&C incident already implies a Q=H&C - at least I t... (read more)

there was the 'wards keyed in' statement of both H&C & Quirrell

Ch71:

Salazar Slytherin's ghost [...] is still keyed into the Hogwarts wards so he knows everything that happens, I bet.

So, maybe H&C is Padma!!1!

sigh. Can we please let this idea die already? It's no more than common use of a technical term.

Amelia Bones, Ch55:

And change the harmonics on everything changeable, they may have stolen our keys.

No, that was just something he was trying to get out of his system.

You got that right. After this thing becomes relevant in the story, there may be complains, and while I'm sure Eliezer will explain it competently, people are prone to throwing accusations of asspull around. So if there is enough detail in a time-logged, non-edited comment, it can be pointed out later. 'It's not an asspull, look, this idiot even guessed it. You can read about the stuff he used to do it in the Sequences.'

Now that I no longer feel like I'm doing LW a disservice by sitting ... (read more)

Um.. The initials are not clues, NBT is just how I refered to the theory (Next Big Thing). Sorry about any confusion this might have caused.

did you intend to skip actually telling us what NBT is?

Of course. The hard part about noticing your confusion isn't recognizing it, when it is pointed out. It's, you know, the noticing part. I tell you, I get a few points of karma for it, maybe, and everyone looses the opportunity to do it for themselves. Now, that's negative sum!

I think one thing that keeps people from asking questions is the flinching from the uncertainty that may never get resolved. But that's clearly not the case with MoR (unless Eliezer is evil, and his puzzles will never be resolv... (read more)

if souls and their attendant afterlife existed, it'd put quite a dent in the entire motivation for Harry's "conquer death and achieve immortality for everyone" program.

Oh, quite the opposite!

The mock offer he made to Lily is not funny. It's the kind of kick the dog thing authors write when they want to make you dislike the villain. Eliezer is better than that. What made it laughworthy for Voldemort was the delicious irony of Lily offering her life in exchange of a life that would not have been taken to begin with. From this it was clear he knew the whole prophecy and that Snape heard the whole thing. Took me some time to figure out why it's different from canon, though of course that should have been clear too. Snape is no fool. And the outcom... (read more)

Yes, well... It was only guessable since Ch43. Is that how you saw it?

So. Ch76, the part about how prophecies work. Has anyone else seen the connection to Amputation of Destiny?

Distinct Animagus form. Swap and teleoperate.

Aside from Harry's parents, there was only one "unrealistic" adult so far (by Ch6), McGonagall, who assumed Harry might have been abused. Her tolerance is reasonable.

It's irrelevant, though. Harry is behaving strangely, and you assume it's bad writing. I guess, since you have read some fanfiction ("OOC is irritating to me"), you aquired a useful heuristic for filtering out bad fanfic; it's just that it is bound to give some false positives.

Eliezer addressed it here

If you saw a character talking like that in a published SF novel, you would know that he was an alien or genetically engineered or that the author meant you to know something was funny about him. In fanfiction they assume that it's either the author's conceit or, more probable yet, you're just a terrible author who can't write realistic eleven-year-olds. I thought it was so blatantly lampshaded that nobody could possibly mistake it for an accident, but no, fanfiction readers just don't think like that - they don't look for clues

Harry was tested (via Veritaserum) after the Daily Prophet incident. The fact that he is being tested in regards to Quirrell's illegal activity is not evidence of it's failure, it only shows that it's impossible enough to make someone suspect Harry Potter was involved.

A flashback where Quirrell explains the failsafe to Harry might have helped, though. For example, he would have foresaw the hide-from-dementors nature of Patronus 2.0 as a clue for Dumbledore (which is probably what prompted him to make this particular failsafe in the first place). How much o... (read more)

I think Ch21 (near the end) played with this idea already. How many potential first week has Eliezer thought through before settling on that one, I wonder.

Also, it's a hint. With the previous generation so weak in Battle Magic (due to Voldemort's curse - and this was discussed before, I think), it was part of Professor Quirrell's plan to train up Harry's schoolmates as well, so he can have a decent army someday.

It's easy to miss it because of the funny. Eliezer does this kind of misdirection all the time.

Good, I'm probably no crazier then them, than. Did they also guess Quirrellmort's endgame plans before the hiatus? (Well, in retrospect, it was guessable way before that.)

If you want to figure out the James' Rock thing yourself, you should probably stop reading now.

I read this in ch58

Luckily - well, not luckily, luck had nothing to do with it - conscientiously, Harry had practiced Transfiguration for an extra hour every day, to the point where he was ahead of even Hermione in that one class; he'd practiced partial Transfiguration to the point where his thoughts had begun taking the true universe for granted, so that it required only slightly more effort to keep its timeless quantum nature in mind, even as he kept a firm m

... they make several copies of an inmate’s clothes when they enter, and replace them as the old pair wears out.

With respect, it sounds like you're clinging to your theory. A much simpler explanation is the effect significantly decreasing over distance. Also the effect on living prisoners body is psychological, wasting away, not physical, like corrosion or decomposition.

What would Harry have thought about leaving the flask, then?

Harry? You mean Harry "the Defense Professor of Hogwarts was all like 'Let's get Bellatrix Black out of Azkaban!' and... (read more)

Even assuming it's possible to tell the difference between a few years old rotting corpse and a few years old rotting death doll (magic might help there), Dementors don't care about the dead, and a powerful enough wizard can easily sneak into Azkaban to replace a corpse. Finding a fake corpse in Bellatrix's cell would be a mystery, another conspiracy theory, not a sure signature of Voldemort. It might not convince anyone. Why settle for half-solutions?

It took you long enough, but you are still to be congratulated on having realized it before most.

Unfortunetly, like the rest, you're still stuck thinking it was a mere distraction. Ask yourself, what happened as a result? Who's plan benefited from it? Was it foreseeable?

Harry is still too young, his magic is still weak. He will need some more time before he can be the Hero and Leader Dumbledore and Quirrell wants him to become.

Suppose the rescue plan goes flawlessly. No one would be the wiser, until the time some Bellatrix-sightings or something similar ca... (read more)

Ugh, really?

I thought it's obvious it was told to Dumbledore. I also thought it obvious it implies that it was Dumbledore who suggested the new rule. If people can't see that, I shouldn't be surprised most can't see the full extent of Dumbledore's plot.

Had the battle lasted longer, had one army pulled ahead in points, the other two would have switched to point-diminishing. The natural attractor for the situation was a three-way tie. All because whoever made such rule predicted Harry Potter would find the way to exploit it. Zabini's job was fine-tuning. And... (read more)

wedrifid

My interpretation (which Eliezer's above comment seems to have confirmed) was, Eliezer deleted Roko's comment for the exact same reason he would have deleted an epileptic-fit-inducing animation. Simply to protect some of the readers, many of whom might not even be aware of their own vulnerability, for this is not exacly a commonly triggered or recognized weakness.

I felt all the rest with 'existential risk' and 'supressed ideas' was just added by people in the absence of real information. Like, someone saw 'existential risk' near (in?) Roko's commen... (read more)

My apologies.

I was going to comment on how Ch61 made me realize I lack the ability to predict what others find obvious (specifically why Dumbledore and Snape doesn't see the purpose of the left-behind vial, and, more importantly, do reviewers fail to mention it because it's obvious or because nobody sees the discrepancy), but then I didn't, because I realized probably no one cares.

Ch 62. Holy crap! Dumbledore killed Narcissa in response to the kidnapping and murder of Aberforth?! That doesn't sound right. For one thing, how can he still own the Bird of Good, then?

Why would Bellatrix hide the wand next to Pappa Riddle's grave? Kinda arbitrary, isn't it? Unless that was the designated meeting place where she was supposed to wait. As Yvain pointed out, it's possible she aquired the wand from Voldemort's corpse, and went looking for the shade afterwards.

There are other possible meeting places beside the graveyard, the only reason I can see for going there is for the bones. It means a plan for the revival ritual was in the making, still missing an enemy. My guess is, it was a safety net thing, bring the baby there, do t... (read more)

What, nobody? Oh, well.

Voldemort stands next to the crib of his destined enemy, the one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord, the completely defenseless one year old child. The Dark Lord's most faithful servant, Bellatrix, is waiting for him at the graveyard, near his father's grave. One Side-Along-Apparition, and not even death will slow Voldemort down for long.

Too bad he died the moment he touched the baby.

I don't know about subtle. I noticed it on my second read.

Why call it Aftermath 2? Why not just a nameless block? How is it the result of anything?

I guess I didn't fail to notice my confusion.

Dumbledore messed with the girl's mind to test if Snape was still in love with Lilly.

What I'm a bit uncertain about is the 'Ever since the start of this year' part. Has he been setting something like this up every year to have something ready when needed? More like, was that an intended implication?

Mind, the second part only occured to me after I read the reviews re Ch29 Notes.

Naive argument coming up.

How Omega decides what to predict or what makes it's stated condition for B (aka. result of "prediction") come true, is not relevant. Ignoring the data that says it's always/almost always correct, however, seems ... not right. Any decision must be made with the understanding that Omega is most likely to predict it. You can't outsmart it by failing to update it's expected state of mind in the last second. The moment you decide to two-box is the moment Omega predicted, when it chose to empty box B.

Consider this:

Andy: "... (read more)

After all, your decision can't empty box B, since the contents of box B are determinate by the time you make your decision.

Hello. My name is Omega. Until recently I went around claiming to be all-knowing/psychic/whatever, but now I understand lying is Wrong, so I'm turning over a new leaf. I'd like to offer you a game.

Here are two boxes. Box A contains $1,000, box B contains $1,000,000. Both boxes are covered by touch-sensitive layer. If you choose box B only (please signal that by touching box B), it will send out a radio signal to box A, which will pr... (read more)