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 93. The previous thread has passed 300 comments.
There is now 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.)
The first 5 discussion threads are on the main page under the harry_potter tag. Threads 6 and on (including this one) are in the discussion section using its separate tag system. Also: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17,18,19,20.
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Eliezer Yudkowsky which is not supposed to be publicly available (which includes public statements by Eliezer that have been retracted).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.
Disclaimer: I am thoroughly enjoying HPMOR. That said, I just don't think Eliezer is quite grokking the substance of feminist complaints.
It makes complete sense within the story for all the female characters to do what they do, given what they've defined to be and what circumstances have arisen. The death of hermione makes complete sense. But its a fridging, of course its a fridging, because you are the author. You created these characters, and put them into the situation. If you tell a Superman story where he kills, and you set up circumstances where the only thing he can do is kill, then, sure, within the story, we buy that Superman needed to kill in that circumstance. But you, the author, put him in that circumstance, made him and his opponents make choices which led to that death, because you wanted him to kill.
I don't think Eliezer necessarily intended to make the female characters in this fic weaker than the male ones, more passive, more timid, more prone to mistakes, but thats how it has turned out. And for the defence that this is what he got from canon? Well to be honest its quite clear that many of these characters aren't the characters from canon. Moody is far more competent, Dumbledore very different, and Quirrel... Yet Hermione and McGonnogal are essentially as flawed as they were in the original text.
A feminist reading does not negate the quality of something, and I wouldn't necessarily say the story should be modified at this point at all, but its something to be aware of. We can enjoy problematic things even while acknowledging they're problematic. HPMOR isn't the first and won't be the last piece of fiction to fail at a feminist reading.
What if Hermione dying was NOT to motivate Harry?
What if she died because it was her Destiny? She went to do battle with the troll, because it was her duty to die and be reborn as something greater than she was? It wasn't Harry's fault because she chose to be struck down, and will become even more powerful than we could possibly imagine?
If it's all part of her plan, will you retract the critique?