Edit: New thread posted here

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 86The previous thread  has long passed 500 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: 123456789101112131415, 16.

As a reminder, it’s often useful to start your comment by indicating which chapter you are commenting on.

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Eliezer Yudkowsky which is not supposed to be publicly available (which includes public statements by Eliezer that have been retracted).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.

 

Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality discussion thread, part 17, chapter 86
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I was thinking that as of this chapter, Harry now had enough evidence to promote to attention the hypothesis that Quirrell is actually Voldemort. He has reason to believe that Voldemort has access to a mechanism which allows him to take control of people and give them a portion of his power, and Quirrell's apparent backstory entails his having undergone a conspicuous increase in apparent competence, much like that which Moody and Dumbledore suspect of having happened to Lockheart. And he has the assurances of the Order of the Pheonix that Voldemort was really smart, no, seriously smart, trust us, you're still underestimating him. And he knows Quirrell is heavily misanthropic and cavalier with people's lives, and also he went out of his way to remove Voldemort's premier servant from Azkaban, who might be useful to other enterprising wizards if she was taught some of the lore of Salazar Slytherin, but also, as Harry has been told, is a key component in restoring Voldemort to power.

But then it occurred to me that given the fact that Quirrell's sudden spike in competence in his backstory occurred while Voldemort was still around, not after his death, he would have to draw the conclusi... (read more)

Primary piece of evidence against: Voldemort tried to kill Harry,

I don't think we know that.

I've always thought it would have made more sense in the original series to have Voldemort purposely make Harry into a Horcrux.

If making someone else a horcrux transfers some of your power to them, that makes them stronger, and better able to defend your horcrux.

It starts to look like a mutual immortality defense league. A bunch of people get together making each other their horcruxes, so that they all can't die without all the others being killed first, they all have an interest in protecting each other, and they conserve the power that they'd otherwise lose to the creation of the horcrux by contributing it to another member of the defense league.

2Desrtopa
We don't know that Voldemort tried to kill Harry, but Harry has much less reason to doubt it than we do. An Immortality Defense League sounds much cleverer to me than what we actually see if Voldemort was trying to make Harry into a horcrux, which is a guy making a horcrux out of the infant child of his own enemies. That sounds a lot less tactically sound than willfully perverse; of all the people he could have deliberately made into horcruxes, I don't think he had good reason to single Harry out as being a good choice to ensure his immortality. The only reason I can think that he would have had to single him out would be the prophecy, and that the sort of information where I would immediately wonder, in his place, if by horcruxing my own prophesied enemy, I would actually end up screwing myself over.
2buybuydandavis
I think so too, if I do say so myself. I hadn't thought of the IDL until this thread. Harry as a horcrux seems like a decent idea, though. If Harry were the only guy that could kill you, making it so that he can't kill you seems like a good idea. Also, he has a bunch of horcruxes in objects. Diversifying your strategy seems like a decent idea to me. Making one of your enemy, who everyone else will be busy protecting, enlists them in protecting your Horcrux. Also, I just thought canon was dumb having Voldie killed because Mommy unknowingly invoked some "old magic" through her love for Harry. Anything is better than that pap. EY seems to be rectifying that, writing a more believable plot line. First, he offers a plausible route for Voldie's destruction through intentional ritual magic by Lily orchestrated by Dumbledore. Second, I don't think EY will have Voldie destroyed by the unknown thing he did to Harry. I think Voldie recognized Dumbledore's ritual magic ploy and decided to go along with it and pretend to be destroyed.
4Desrtopa
But he only has a prophecy's word on that, and attempting to cash in on prophecies that way has a tendency to bite you on the ass (tvtropes links).
2undermind
It's been implied elsewhere, but I'm pretty sure that in HPMOR, Voldemort has specific plans for Harry that go beyond merely killing him, which included him deliberately being made into a horcrux. Some evidence for this: the odd italicized text fragments in the early chapters (which Eliezer has emphasized), Harry wondering many times at the convenience of Voldemort's supposed death, and repetition of the idea that Voldy should have a) known about sacrifice/dark rituals such as are involved in sacrificing yourself for somebody else and b) have had other, better, more guaranteed ways of killing Harry if that's what he had wanted to accomplish. Actually, further to that, I really think Voldy was intentional with the whole horcrux thing, as shown by the set-up of giving Lily the chance to escape. One possible reason for this is for Snape's loyalty; another, which I consider more probable now, is that if she was going to die anyway it wouldn't have counted as a sacrifice for the purposes of the (horcrux) ritual.
8Viliam_Bur
One person's modus ponens is another person's modul tollens. Reading this chapter made me update that Voldemort actually never tried to kill Harry. * He came for Harry (but he never said he came to kill him), probably motivated by the prophecy. * He killed everyone around (but he gave Lily a chance to leave). * He did something that resulted with scar on Harry's head. * Then someone (who exactly, if the event had no survivor besides a baby?) spread a story about how reflected death spell killed Voldemort. * And since then, nobody has ever seen Voldemort again. From more recent history (Quirrel's description and self-description -- although he could have lied to us/Harry) we can reason that: * Quirrel enjoys company of smart people. * Quirrel enjoys role-playing; but he recently prefers role-playing a good guy, because villains naturally attract insane people. * Quirrel does not hesitate to kill people who cross his path, but that is instrumental, not a terminal value. * Quirrel is very, very smart. So I guess that Voldemort, after hearing the prophecy, did not panic and try to kill Harry (unlike the Canon!Voldemort). Assuming that Voldemort/Quirrel is extremely smart and he knows how the prophecies work, he could expect that trying to kill Harry -- without "marking him as his equal" first, whatever that means -- would somehow magically fail, and that is an unnecessary risk. Perhaps the original plan was to simply take Harry and raise him as a Sith apprentice; to make him Voldemort's equal in skill, but also charm him into a smarter version of Bellatrix Black. (Converting is better than killing, because you gain an ally; like Harry later tried with Draco.) But during the action he realized that people expect him to kill Harry, and that this could be a convenient way to get rid of the Voldemort persona. So he just -- made Harry his horcrux? performed on him a brain surgery to raise his IQ? -- and disappeared, pretending to be dead; only to return to Harr
2Desrtopa
I tend to think any line of action which ends up with Riddle losing his body and having to fall back on his horcruxes, given that he apparently wants his old powers back based on his efforts to get at the ingredients to revive himself and/or the Philosopher's Stone, probably contained some element of accident. Also, the act of training his prophesied enemy, one of whom is bound to vanquish "all but a remnant" of the other, doesn't sound like a great way to serve his own interests. It's not like he's likely to subvert the prophesy and gain a powerful ally, it's just another avenue to empowering the person who's his greatest threat. If I were in Quirrell's place, and knew about the prophesy, I would be wondering "in what way can I ensure that whatever person this prophesy refers to will be least likely to be able to defeat me, assuming our conflict is inevitable?" Keeping in mind that if I try too hard to make a candidate into a nonviable threat, the prophesy will probably turn out to be referring to someone else.
[-]ygert340

Professor McGonagall looked like she was in pain. "Alastor - but - will you teach the classes, if -" "Ha!" said Moody. "If I ever say yes to that question, check me for Polyjuice, because it's not me."

Did anyone else laugh out loud at that line? :-)

Another subtle point that was full of win:

"I cannot believe that guy's reaction time," Harry said, brushing off his Cloak as he stood up from where he'd been lying invisible on the floor, unseen by his previous self. "I can't believe his movement speed either. I'm going to have to figure out some way to zap him without speaking an incantation that gives it away..."

The "I can't believe it" is because it's not true - this is the moment he figures out Moody can see him when invisible.

8Alsadius
I laughed at the face value of it, but I just realized the Goblet of Fire reference now. That's even funnier.
2Desrtopa
That one didn't hit me until after I finished the chapter.
1FiftyTwo
Only realised now...

This chapter, and the update to Chapter 85, are both fantastic. I hadn't noticed until now that Moody is the avatar of being pessimistic enough that your expectations overshoot and undershoot reality appropriately often (in the same way that Fred and George are the avatar of Aumann's agreement theorem), and I'm wondering what other avatars I'm missing.

This won't exactly be a new observation, but one thing I really like about reading MoR is that some of the most important events involve characters updating their beliefs, and in pretty much any other story the only way this happens is when characters announce themselves or other characters doing this, e.g. "Aha! So it was you who killed Prince So-and-so! You traitor!" and instead MoR characters update their beliefs inside their heads like sensible people and the reader has to figure out the nature of the update for themselves. I don't think I've seen this happen in any other story I've read, it is a great rationality exercise, and I more or less completely missed it the first time I read through. (That is, I noticed Harry doing a lot of updating because it's text instead of subtext, but it didn't occur to me that I would understand the story better if I kept track of updates going on in minds other than Harry's.)

Moody is the avatar of being pessimistic enough that your expectations overshoot and undershoot reality appropriately often

It's funny that Quirrel ought to be that too, because he's hyperrational and reliably cynical about people, and yet his backstory is that he failed to conquer England because he wasn't cynical enough and thought people would follow a Light Lord instead of backstab him.

Actually, I see a significant (at least 10%) chance that the person currently known as Quirrel was both the 'Light Lord' and the Dark Lord of the last war. His "Voldemort' persona wasn't actually trying to win, you see, he was just trying to create a situation where people would welcome a savior...

This would neatly explain the confusion Harry noted over how a rational, inventive wizard could have failed to take over England. It leaves open some questions about why he continued his reign of terror after that ploy failed, but there are several obvious possibilities there. The big question would be what actually happened to either A) stop him, or B) make him decide to fake his death and vanish for a decade.

Actually, I see a significant (at least 10%) chance that the person currently known as Quirrel was both the 'Light Lord' and the Dark Lord of the last war. His "Voldemort' persona wasn't actually trying to win, you see, he was just trying to create a situation where people would welcome a savior...

This is exactly how I read chapter 85, and now 86 confirmed it. My estimate is way over 10%, probably ~60%.

0Michelle_Z
Same. Though... what about Tom Riddle?
4MugaSofer
What about Tom Riddle? He grew up, decided to conquer Britain, and, being clever, played both sides to do so.
7MugaSofer
So, in other words, he lost twice.
5FiftyTwo
Evil overlord list rule 230 is "I will not procrastinate regarding any ritual granting immortality.". Which he's shown to be aware of. It makes sense, remaining evil overlord allows him access to all the materials of dark rituals and willing assistants, once he's achieved it successfully he has all the time he would like to do anything else.
2Nornagest
I've suspected something like that at least since Quirrell gave his speech at the end of the armies sequence, and 86 just gave me a lot of new evidence for it. By now I'd say my estimate is somewhere in the neighborhood of 80% for him playing both sides in a similar sense, though I don't think we have enough evidence to narrow it down to playing Light Lord as such -- just to set up a situation where a Light Lord would need to arise.
2DanArmak
This is certainly the obvious or surface theory that the text presents, and I believe in it too. But that doesn't change Quirrel's backstory; he played the role of Light Lord, and people didn't rally round him.
1Alsadius
One caveat - while Voldemort did seemingly try to set himself up as a Light Lord, the closest to such that actually existed in the end was Dumbledore. I think it's safe to assume that Voldemort is not Dumbledore.
[-]gjm110

Although, actually, that would be kinda impressive.

5Alsadius
I mostly wrote that comment as an excuse to write the last sentence, truth be told. It's an interesting enough theory(even if obviously wrong in this case) to make me wonder if any fics exist with it as a premise.
-3MugaSofer
OR IS HE? No. No, he's not.
0MugaSofer
That's ... far from certain.
0pedanterrific
Somehow I don't think Moody would make that mistake.
2DanArmak
It's pretty clear that whatever the reason Moody hasn't got a phoenix, it's not that he's not willing to solve problems right away by applying overwhelming force to a defenseless (but evil) enemy. And why hasn't he tried to become a Light Lord with a Light Mark on an army of personally loyal Aurors? Maybe he more enjoys the thrill of the chase than rationally plots how to rid the world of Dark Lords.

And why hasn't he tried to become a Light Lord with a Light Mark on an army of personally loyal Aurors? Maybe he more enjoys the thrill of the chase than rationally plots how to rid the world of Dark Lords.

Maybe because he has enough experience to know how much attempting to make himself any kind of Lord would increase his chances of getting killed.

5DanArmak
Now that is a much better reason than "because Light Lords inevitably become corrupted and Dark".
6Vaniver
Because that is how you become a Dark Lord.
-1DanArmak
Based on what? We know of only one such (alleged) case and that is Grindewald. Other Dark Lords have tended to start out Dark, thanks to Rowling's apparent beliefs about evil being intrinsic and unchangeable. Anyway, I'll take a corrupted Light Lord over a deliberate Dark Lord any day of the week.

I suppose this is where I need to make the obvious quotation:

If we must have a tyrant a robber baron is far better than an inquisitor. The baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity at some point may be sated; and since he dimly knows he is doing wrong he may possibly repent. But the inquisitor who mistakes his own cruelty and lust of power and fear for the voice of Heaven will torment us infinitely more because he torments us with the approval of his own conscience and his better impulses appear to him as temptations.

5DanArmak
It's a nice quotation, but where's the actual evidence? Has anyone shut up and multiplied and calculated the net value of trying to become a Light Lord? At least some of them must do good.
6Alsadius
Generally, people are too diverse to allow you to lord it over them without some serious force being used on dissidents, at which point you're not very Light anymore. The extreme case of this is people like Pol Pot or Robespierre, and Grindelwald is as good a fictional avatar of that sort as any. Now, there are historical examples the other way - Cincinnatus, for example. But most of them you'll find will either have been given their power instead of seizing it(which is obviously a lot less likely to cause violence), or they'll turn out to be a lot less nice upon closer inspection.
-4DanArmak
Being a Light Lord doesn't necessarily mean ruling ordinary people and making laws. Unless you're like Harry and want to change existing laws a lot. Being a Light Lord is about leading people in the fight against evil and Dark Lords, but only a few people are fit to fight like that. For that matter, Dumbledore is a pretty good Light Lord, his goals just happen to be different from Harry's.
4Alsadius
If you want to be a moral leader, you can do that and stay Light pretty easily - Gandhi is perhaps the archetype here. But few would consider him a Lord. When you go from consensual means(which are nice, but only ever affect a portion of society) to forcible means(which affect everybody, but are not nearly so nice), you're threading a needle to remain the good guy while you're doing it. It can be done - murder laws are forcible, but I think we can all agree they're good. But it's rare.
0DanArmak
Going back to the source, chapter 20: If Harry set about changing effective physical laws by magical means, he would be far removed from day-to-day literal lording it over the common people.
0Alsadius
Do you think that gods are less powerful than politicians? Good intentions and unlimited power are not always a good combination. I would trust Harry with literal omnipotence more than most people, but he's far too arrogant to be trusted with enormous-but-not-unlimited power, of the sort where he can screw things up better than he can fix them. Have you ever read Brandon Sanderson's Mistborn books, by chance? There's a character who I'm very much reminded of by this conversation. (Spoilers from the first 3 books follow) Gur ybeq ehyre jnfa'g ernyyl n avpr zna, ohg ur jnf npghnyyl n tbbq thl va fbzr vzcbegnag frafrf bs gur jbeyq, naq ur yvgrenyyl hfrq gur Jryy gb fnir gur jbeyq. Ohg uvf fnivat bs gur jbeyq nyfb erdhverq gur rasbeprzrag bs n gehyl njshy srhqny fbpvrgl, jvgu mbzovr nezvrf(gur xbybff), abovyvgl jub jrer rkcrpgrq gb encr crnfnagf naq yrtnyyl erdhverq gb zheqre gurz nsgrejneqf, naq greevoyr crefrphgvba bs uvf bja crbcyr. Naq guvf jnf yvgrenyyl gur orfg ur pbhyq qb gb fnir gur jbeyq, orpnhfr bapr ur unq zbqvsvrq gur jbeyq gb cerirag vgf qrfgehpgvba, uvf cbjre gb punatr vg shegure jnf tbar. Naq va gur raq, ur ehyrq bire uvf perngvba sbe n zvyyraavhz, hagvy ur jnf zheqrerq ol na natel qvffvqrag orsber ur pbhyq znxr vg evtug. Fnmrq vf npghnyyl bzavcbgrag(be ng yrnfg, nf pybfr gb vg nf ur arrqf gb or), fb Fnmrq pna svk uvf zvfgnxrf, ohg gur Ybeq Ehyre jnf genccrq ol uvf bja fhpprff. V jbeel terngyl gung Uneel zvtug jvaq hc n ybg zber yvxr gur Ybeq Ehyre guna yvxr Fnmrq vs ur fgnegf zrqqyvat jvgu gur ynjf bs gur havirefr.
1Eugine_Nier
I'm not sure I'd even trust him with omnipotence, since presumably even an omnipotent agent is still bound by the laws of logic and mathematics. In any case omnipotence without omniscience, at least, strikes me as recipe for disaster.
4TimS
It's kind of there in the name: Light Lord. More generally, any radical change in society's moral nature will require changes to a lot of laws.
-1DanArmak
Again, changing people's moral nature is just one thing a Light Lord might want to do. It's not even something Harry really wants to want to do. If a Light Lord was known for e.g. developing amazing new medicinal magic, prolonging average lifespans, giving everyone in the world a hundred Galeons, developing faster broomsticks, or changing the laws of physics to discourage murder - but all the time just ignoring human laws - then they could definitely do so without antagonizing the legal authorities.
0TimS
You are abandoning all the connotations and denotations of the phrase. Light Lord is explicitly intended to be a parallel to Dark Lord - and there aren't really Dark Lord parallels to the activities you listed (particularly while complying with your important caveat to avoid "antagonizing" legal authorities).
2DanArmak
There's no point discussing what the phrase Light Lord "really" denotes. Clearly I understood it differently from everyone else in this conversation, so inasfar as it has a correct meaning, you're right about it and I was wrong.
5MixedNuts
He wouldn't be good at it, would he? His role is purely defensive - thwarting and removing evil wizards without croaking in the process. There's little evidence he can plot that well, or lead a group that isn't a smallish team of fawning younger Aurors.
1DanArmak
He's very offensive on the tactical level. If that sums up to defensiveness on the strategic level, that seems like it should tell us something about Dark Wizards being better strategists than the Light ones.
4MixedNuts
Well, duh. It's easier to gain and keep power than to gain and keep power and also improve the world and never do anything too unethical.
4drethelin
Or the idea isn't as great as Harry seems to think it is. Moody knows a LOT more about the world and the wizarding world. I'm sure he can remember plenty of dark Lords that started out as light lords, for one.
1DanArmak
Where do you get that idea from? Apart from the single example of Grindewald. Besides, Moody wouldn't go Dark because he's got ETERNAL VIGILANCE on his side.
5gwern
Isn't a bad Light Lord pretty much exactly what Dumbledore fears? That suggests historical precedent, to be so worried after just a few months of Harry.
2DanArmak
From Dumbledore's words to Harry, I gathered that he was more afraid Harry might become a Dark Lord more directly without a significant Light Lord phase in between. I don't think he has the concept of a Light Lord present - great wizards are to him either Dark Lords or those who oppose them, not Light Lords who do something positive and unrelated to any Dark machinations. Also, I don't trust Dumbledore in particular to make a fair assessment, since he's the one most liable to be swayed by the single example of Grindelwald.
2FiftyTwo
Avatarwise: Dumbledore seems to be humanities/iberal arts/romantic ideals. Snape is (maybe?) undiscriminating cynicism. [retracted]

I don't think an avatar of undiscriminating cynicism spends more than a decade pining for his crush that got away.

7FiftyTwo
True, that doesn't fit as well. Its not quite an avatar, but his defining trait seems to be dramaticness, he shapes his life around his past mistakes. In contrast to Dumbledore who thinks in heroic tropes he thinks in tragic ones.
-2MugaSofer
Didn't get that until just now.

Harry is slowly updating on the evidence that the wizarding community is not as grossly incompetent as he originally believed.

I agree and it is extremely fun to watch happen to a character. All Harry's private scenarios of how to take over magical Britain in five minutes are a perfect example of his main character flaw: arrogance, or, his dismissiveness of the realities of politics as superfluous, "people stuff." It should be clear to the reader, anyway, that liberal use of Imperius would NOT be sufficient to take over the government, at least not for any meaningful length of time. Harry is making the same type of error that led to Voldermort's original failure, that is, modeling people as being simpler and dumber than they are, likely due to his own sense of superiority.

Totally unrelated, but I wanted to mention somewhere (and didn't think it worth making a new comment) that I laughed harder at "I once arrested a young Japanese who tried a similar trick. He found out the hard way that his shadow replica technique was no match for this eye of mine." than I have at anything in recent memory. (It is a Naruto reference.)