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...
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.
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.
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%.
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.
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.
I don't think an avatar of undiscriminating cynicism spends more than a decade pining for his crush that got away.
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.)
Remember that, in canon, Voldemort does indeed take over the Ministry with a few Imperiuses and a few assassinations.
I think this is more Eliezer once again obliquely making fun of how shallowly Rowling imagined her own universe, that its government could be broken by essentially any individual wizard of moderate power.
OK, so there are Moody and Voldemort, but pretty much every other wizard ever is grossly.incompetent.
No — they simply have not chosen to prove themselves to Harry, the viewpoint character.
I expect we'll find, soon, that Harry's model is wildly out of whack — adult wizards are, by and large, competent but flawed, especially the leaders and heroes. They simply do not let on to children everything they can do, nor their level of control over the world. Why? Because gifted children are not really all that rare, and teaching kids more magic than they are responsible enough to cope with is how you get Dark Lords — and dead kids.
Expanding on this — The purpose of magical education (e.g. Hogwarts) is not to teach kids as much magic as possible, to enable them to fix the world as Harry wants to do. The purpose of magical education is to safely and gradually expose them to magic, to maintain the current status quo and certainly to prevent any dumbass kids from destroying the world or killing each other. It also includes giving them chances to prove themselves responsible and skilled enough to wield more, and to put them in touch with adult wizards who might choose to individually teach more. But none of this is served by powerful wizards flaunting their top abilities in blatant and imitable fashion in front of the kiddies.
Parents in the real world want to give their kids every advantage too, but few sign their kids up for calculus class and gun-range time at age 6, you know? Parental conspiracies aimed at preteen children are remarkably resilient things(cf. Santa Claus). Teenagers are harder, but you can rely on most of them not actually wanting to be bothered learning any more than they have to.
could run strategic circles around them and kill half of all Dark Lords who ever lived by owling them bombs.
Harry thought he could figure out who the Death Eaters were by checking their arms for the Dark Mark. Turns out it's not that simple.
Now he (and you) still think that you get rid of a dangerous enemy by owling them bombs. Does either of you even have any reason to believe that there isn't a magical precaution against sending dangerous objects through the owl mail system?
That sounds like a cached thought. Bureaucracies can be programmed to have relatively well-understood side-effects of their survival. For instance, McDonald's is a bureaucracy that has a side-effect of producing hamburgers; a military is a bureaucracy that has a side-effect of politically inconvenient people getting dead.
I'm a little surprised that HJPEV didn't immediately update his probabilities regarding Quirrell's motives in Azkaban with the new knowledge from Moody that "You've got to mean it. You've got to want someone dead, and not for the greater good, either.", which would seem to discredit the Defense Professor's excuse that "a curse which cannot be blocked and must be dodged is an indispensable tactic."
Not necessarily; someone who's as deeply misanthropic as Quirrell might wish most people dead (having killed before, he can, as per Moody's explanation, wish people dead rather more casually than non-murderers.) If you're already capable of bringing intent-to-kill to bear on pretty much anyone who crosses you, you can probably use it strategically the way Quirrell suggests.
On the other hand, even if Quirrell's explanation holds true, it does suggest Harry should revise upwards his estimates of just how cavalier Quirrell is with other people's lives.
just how cavalier Quirrell is with other people's lives.
Surely Harry already understands that Quirrel places no intrinsic value on other people's lives. Perhaps this understanding is not visceral enough yet, though.
Now Mad-Eye Moody was turning slowly, always turning, surveying the graveyard of Little Hangleton. [...]
Moody didn't actually need to turn to survey the graveyard.
The Eye of Vance saw the full globe of the world in every direction around him, no matter where it was pointing.
But there was no particular reason to let a former Death Eater like Severus Snape know that.
Some time later:
"You see in all directions," Harry Potter said, that strange fierce light still in his gaze. "No matter where that eye is pointing, it sees everything around you."
Oops.
There's a little thing called MAGIC. Also: Eyepatches. It's not like it can't see through them.
I think I preferred the old version of 85 more than the new one. "The phoenix only comes once" seems a lot more made-up than Harry's original determination to abandon comic-book morality as soon as someone died, which felt very much in character.
86 is certainly interesting, even if it largely felt like a wrapping-up restatement of what we knew. That said, I loved the Moody duel, and after six months a bit of restatement is quite useful. Also, I'm torn between how to interpret Snape's last question - my first thought was that he was verifying the truth of a story he had been told("Your master tortured her, now join the light side already!" being the most likely), but upon rereading, I wonder if he was worried that she had been used as Horcrux fuel.
The new version was like a shock-glove-plated punch to the gut right at "I thought it was to my death I went". Wouldn't trade anything for that feeling. :)
Greater emotional impact in much fewer words. It actually feels awful, rather than sounding like a drawn-out rationalization. New version wins on both counts IMHO.
I never liked the old version. Harry pretty much admitted to himself that he was making a wrong choice, he expected his attempt to not kill anyone to fail, and yet he still delayed making the right decision because he couldn't accept it emotionally. That is not a superhero of rationality. Frankly, that is not someone to whom a phoenix would come.
I think part of the point of HPMOR is that rationality is hard.
Like people, phoenixes need high but achievable standards, and I think you're setting yours too high.
Phoenix utility functions are not human-friendly; they do time discounting differently from us. It's not that rationality is hard, but that true rationality combined with human values like Harry's does not meet with phoenix approval.
The post-edit Harry decided he would do the phoenix-right thing later. Once he decided that, the phoenix went away, and will not return. If he had decided that firmly earlier, presumably the phoenix would not have come to him in the first place.
The pre-edit Harry struggled with a similar question. To be consistent, I agree that a phoenix could and should have come to him while he was struggling. But once he had made his decision, the phoenix would definitely not come. Those are the phoenix rules, as given by the update to this chapter.
The decision Harry had come to pre-update was that he would not do whatever it took to free the prisoners of Azkaban; and also that he would not do whatever it took to protect his friends and strike down evil, until he allowed another person to die through being ineffective. Those are not decisions a phoenix would approve of. (Which is not to say I don't approve of them.)
In the same way (in HPMOR canon) Dementors are the projections/personifications of death pheonixes may be the personifications of courage or whatever.
[Maybe there's some sort of magical collective unconscious thing going on?]
(Anybody have a copy of old-85? I'd like to see the exact phrasings of it if possible, for continuing this discussion)
"What's that, Lassie? Somewhere a LWer is wishing they had made use of my archiving system so they could pull a particular page out of their local cache and upload it to Dropbox? Then we'd better hurry!"
So I've got an alternate version that includes the important parts of both endings. Feel free to use or modify it if you like it.
The boy stood there on the rooftop, his own eyes locked with two points of fire. The stars might have had time to shift in their constellations while he stood there, agonizing over the decision...
...that wouldn't...
...change.
The boy's eyes flickered once to the stars above; and then he looked at the phoenix.
"No. Not yet," the boy said in a voice hardly audible. "I can do better. I can end death itself, not just Azkaban, if you give me the chance. If I can't stop death, if more have to die while I wait for the right time, then I will. But not yet. I still think I can win this without loss, and I won't...can't!...throw away that chance at a big victory later for a small one tonight."
Without word, without sound, a sphere of fire surrounded the bird's form, crackling and blazing with white and crimson veins as though it meant to consume that which lay within; and when the fire dispersed into grey smoke, no phoenix remained.
There was silence on the top of the Ravenclaw tower. The boy gradually lowered his hands from his ears, pausing only to wipe at his wet cheeks.
One thing I really liked about this update is it helps explain why Harry hasn't figured out Quirrell = Voldemort yet. He's reasoning (perhaps without even having spelled it out in his head this way) that if Quirrell had been Voldemort, he would have won very quickly.
This is all fascinating, because it's a fairly good solution to the problem of "if Harry is so smart, why hasn't he figured out the solution to the problem that most of the audience has figured out by now?" I can't say I would have come up with that good of a solution to such a problem in any story I was writing.
That said, it seems like there are at least three conversations which could unravel the whole thing:
Harry learns enough about horcruxes to make the Pioneer Plaque connection.
Harry confesses about Azkaban, Dumbledore says "Harry, you fool!" and that's that.
Hermione tells Harry about her recent conversation with Quirrell, confirming David Monroe = Quirrell = the plotter and suggesting the possibility that Voldemort was toying with Magical Britain for the fun of it during the war.
"if Harry is so smart, why hasn't he figured out the solution to the problem that most of the audience has figured out by now?"
Please remember that the audience has a lot more information on the subject than Harry himself, for not only do we get to see whats happening in the scenes of the story without Harry in them, we also have the huge advantage of having read the canon Harry Potter books. As Quirrell worked for Voldemort in canon, our prior probability that Quirrell is working for Voldemort is high, even before we read HPMOR. Harry on the other hand, hasn't even had a reason to consider that this is a possibility, let alone to assign a high probability to it.
1- Harry could conclude Quirrell made the Pioneer Plaque into a horcrux without coming to the conclusion that he's Voldemort. That Quirrell has made at least one horcrux is evidence towards him being Voldemort, but not all people who've made horcruxes are Voldemort.
2- This would probably convince Dumbledore that Quirrell is the top candidate for being Voldemort, but I think Dumbledore would need to follow it up with more investigation to convince Harry; I don't think Dumbledore has much more evidence to bring to the table if Harry lets this spill that he hasn't told Harry already.
3- Suspecting Quirrell as the plotter hasn't led Harry to suspect Quirrell as Voldemort yet, and I don't really see how hearing David Monroe's explanation of his backstory would lead Harry to conclude he was toying with Magical Britain for fun; he could simply conclude he's a largely amoral person who tried being good for the reward, but concluded that it wasn't rewarding.
You're not supposed to say what he did to the Pioneer plaque out loud! It's more funner to realize it on your own.
Where do you get that he Obliviated Harry? All of his lines sound like reasonable first-iteration attempts, and Harry didn't lose time.
The, ah, the ellipses?
"I subscribe to a Muggle bulletin which keeps me informed of progress on space travel. I didn't hear about Pioneer 10 until they reported its launch. But when I discovered that Pioneer 11 would also be leaving the Solar System forever," Professor Quirrell said, his grin the widest that Harry had yet seen from him, "I snuck into NASA, I did, and I cast a lovely little spell on that lovely golden plaque which will make it last a lot longer than it otherwise would."
...
...
...
"Yes," Professor Quirrell said, who now seemed to be standing around fifty feet taller, "I thought that was how you might react."
...
...
...
"Mr. Potter?"
"...I can't think of anything to say."
"'You win' seems appropriate," said Professor Quirrell.
"You win," Harry said immediately.
"See?" said Professor Quirrell. "We can only imagine what giant heap of trouble you would have gotten into if you had been unable to say that."
They both laughed.
Waitaminute. That was just him staring silently, wasn't it? And the line about "fifty feet taller" just meant he seemed so much more imposing for hav...
CFAR could make very good use of a lot more money than this while starting up. I don’t work for the Center for Applied Rationality and they don’t pay me, but their work is sufficiently important that the Singularity Institute (which does pay me) has allowed me to offer to work on Methods full-time until the story is finished if HPMOR readers donate a total of $1M to CFAR.
That's quite the author's advance!
Speaking of which, isn't there anyone with CFAR-authority that wants to make a fundraising announcement post, as Luke did for SI?
HP: Punch AM in snout to establish superiority.
Anyone else getting tired of this? Harry does it to everyone he meets, including Minerva and Hermione.
Well, the premise of the story necessitates that Harry be an eleven year old boy and that he be highly competent. Having people constantly underestimate him is a practically unavoidable consequence.
Harry could just quietly, secretly exceed people's expectations, but when those people are his allies, it's probably a poor strategic decision.
Harry hasn't won consistently. He's lost plenty of mock battles, and while he sometimes gets his way against adults, he's sometimes thwarted. Harry also does have a couple advantages that can't readily be replicated by other characters, namely his technological and scientific savvy, and the True Invisibility Cloak, and the time turner which can't be replicated by most of his opponents.
Eliezer wrote ages ago that he gets people complaining that Harry wins too often and isn't sufficiently challenged, and people complaining that he loses too often and doesn't accomplish much, and considers himself to be doing his job properly if he's at least getting similar amounts of each kind of complaint.
He admits freely that Moody would have kicked his ass in a real fight, so I'm not sure how much actual superiority was established there.
Just because Harry's learned to keep his claws sheathed doesn't mean he's not still engaging in dominance contests.
I think in this case it's more an "I'm not as pathetic as you think I am" contest. Nobody's going to mistake him for the best duelist in that group, but he's not willing to concede complete inferiority. It's certainly a status game, it just doesn't rise to the level of "establish[ing] superiority".
I bet a large portion of the readership would have been disappointed if that didn't happen.
And in this particular case, that was the only fast way for Alastor to gain enough respect for Harry's competence that they could cooperate in the future. It wouldn't have been consistent with his already established paranoia if he just believed Dumbledore & co.
I can imagine this getting old eventually, but imo it hasn't happened yet.
Harry needs to think more before he tells people things just because they ask. Just because somebody's not Quirrell, Harry, doesn't mean that their knowledge has no consequences!
Holy shamoly, I got name-dropped in the notes.
Now I've got even more incentive to blast apart my current writer's block on "Myou've".
DO IT
To add to you incentive I'll donate £10 to the Against Malaria Foundation when you do (utilitarian blackmail?).
Voldie isn't like any other Legilimens in recorded history. He doesn't need to look you in the eyes, and if your shields are that rusty he'd creep in so softly you'd never notice a thing.
Harry and Quirrell spend a lot of time together, and now we learn that he might not even have to look Harry in the eyes. How much of Harry's brain has Quirrell already mapped out? Perhaps this is why he is always playing "one level above you". Maybe this is why Harry doesn't notice some things he otherwise might.
I'm going to start reading all their conversations assuming that Quirrell can read all of Harry's thoughts in real time the same way we can, and interpret all his statements in light of that. Could be interesting.
Gerald Grice. He was the first person Rorschach killed, and triggered his change. He killed Blair Roche, 6 year old girl, and fed her to his dogs. Both are named dropped by Moody as he discusses the Killing Curse.
My thoughts: 1) It's becoming increasingly clear that - even though Harry has accumulated a wealth of knowledge and evidence by this point about Dumbledore, Quirrell, Lucius and Snape - he still knows little about Voldemort (e.g. motives, background, abilities, weaknesses). I am fairly confident that this is intentional on the author's part; withholding Harry's (and the reader's) knowledge about Voldemort is an excellent way to ensure that a Revelation of information occurs within the next few chapters about Voldemort's background. 2) We haven't yet seen Harry's reaction to the fact that Flitwick invented a Charm; presumably he will update his model of the nature of magic when he has time to process this. 3) The joke at the beginning of the chapter making fun of America's disconnect with the rest of the world was particularly brilliant and appreciated
I found a review on ff.net that probably echoes with many others who are not as immersed in LW culture and even those that are. I thought a discussion of this person's points would be constructive so I've copied the review here: " So.
I have a few problems with this.
First of all, the use of terms and situations that the readers don't understand. In earlier chapters, you would do this, and then you would EXPLAIN the reference. That was something I liked. It was educational. Now, however, you're simply calling on references and expecting the audience to understand. I get that it would be irritating to have to explain everything, but it gets to a point where your fanfiction gets mixed up with your essays. And that's not good, because the result of this mixture fails to do the job of either a fanfiction OR an essay. Remember, the people who read this are unlikely to be previously familiarized with such sources.
Now, I don't think you're doing this on purpose, but to a reader who doesn't BREATHE the terms you use because they aren't in your field, it seems as though the only reason you include these are to make Harry seem smart. To you, it may seem natural for Harry to use such sour...
What percentage of "facts" Moody exposits to the audience/Harry do we think are false or misdirection? At the least, the comment about Avada needing to find a soul is out of line with Canon where it can be blocked by inanimate objects such as statues.
Also: I look forward to the inevitable Moody/Quirrel showdown/makeouts.
My guess is that this was a deliberate change. I always thought "cannot be blocked, except by inanimate objects!" was kinda lame.
Suddenly Quirrell's using it in the duel with Bahry is looking a lot weirder. What happens when he dodges it, does it go straight through the wall and keep on going indefinitely until it hits someone? Isn't that a massive liability since he risks someone seeing it, thereby giving away his presence?
Being able to be blocked by inanimate objects might seem "lame" for an epic forbidden spell, but being able to pass through solid matter like a jet of neutrinos turns it into yet another game-breakingly borkable element like the Bag of Holding. Combined with the Eye of Vance, Moody should mostly be able to avoid dueling in favor of sniping dark wizards through buildings.
This seems like an uncharacteristic failure by EY to think things through.
It's not clear what it would mean to not be affected by curved space or gravity, since there's no "straight" besides geodesics and no "non-accelerating" besides freefall, but that doesn't seem to stop much in the HP verse.
Speaking of curved space, I've noticed that there are spells to make things bigger on the inside. If you do this just right, you can create a singularity known as a cone point that ought to send any spell fired at it back in the direction of the caster. Also, you could make a faster-than-light drive, which could be used as a time machine.
I hereby declare Arresto Momentum to match the velocity of a small mass to the velocity of some much larger mass that the wizard thinks is a reference frame.
Does that mean Harry can't use it (becuse there is no universal reference frame) or he can use it in all sorts of munchkiny ways (I stop the car ... relative to the moon!)
I always find it strange when people are reading so many implications that clearly aren't there, and are denying the implications that are...
No doubt they feel the same way.
Don't worry, the power drops off with the inverse square of the distance. It's lethal at pretty much any reasonable range, but then drops off quickly after a half mile or so.
I just made that up.
Actually, it spreads as an Airy disc, which gives it a radius of about 300 metres at the far side of the planet, and the effect is divided among all the souls it hits. If you hit a city on the other side of the planet, you just take a couple days off everybody's life. (The technical term is "statistical homicide")
Given the descriptions of wandwork we've seen in canon and in MoR so far, I imagine it'd be difficult to reliably hit anything person-sized past thirty feet or so. You can't sight down a wand if you have to swish and flick (though a wizard's staff with a telescopic scope mounted on it is a nice Discworldly image), so it should be about as accurate as throwing a ball -- which is to say not very.
Moody/Quirrel showdown/makeouts
Moody♠Quirrell ... no, just no.
(Harry seems to have been through quadrant vacillation between Hermione and Draco, though. Hermione starts flushed for Harry, who doesn't reciprocate, so she goes pale instead to prevent him from becoming a Dark Lord. Harry♦Hermione seems pretty stable, although Harry has some pale infidelity with Draco — who briefly waxes caliginous before attempting to auspiticize between Harry and Lucius. After Draco drops Hermione, she tries to set up Harry♥Draco, not knowing that Draco has more ashen aspirations ....)
What do you mean, "no, just no"? Here are two extremely competent characters who will inevitably be pitted in full force against each other. They both respect competence in others (and likely relish a bit of a challenge), so they will necessarily admire each other, more and more as they get the measure of their respective power. They're not naive preteens drunk on their first slightly creative idea, they're adults with a lifetime of experience who know exactly how to have a rivalry. They'll never grow tired of playing against each other and they know that perfectly well. You will forgive me for shipping that just a little bit.
It's odd, being reminded that in the mainstream mentioning slash is on the level of potty humor, when in the world I normally inhabit you're supposed, on pain of being called a narrow-minded Philistine, to appreciate a story's literary value whether or not it's angsty porn in a setting based on dogs' social and reproductive habits where men get pregnant.
Yes there is a simple explanation.
Some relationships (♥ and ♠) involve intense, romantic, sexual passion, whereas others (♦ and ♣) are quieter, more reasonable, and closer to friendships and other platonic relationships. Also, some relationships (♥ and ♦) are based on positive feelings, whereas others (♠ and ♣) are based on negative ones.
♥ (violent positive) is passionate romantic love. ♦ (quiet positive) is deep platonic attachment. ♠ (violent negative) is a love/hate relationship. ♣ (quiet negative) is smoothing things over between a feuding pair.
Given Moody's CONSTANT VIGILANCE I wouldn't be surprised at him randomly dropping false information into conversations, especially with suspiciously skilled young wizards...
Moody drops all sorts of information, true and false, in his conversations and, when meeting that person again, will see if they recall it.
This is one of the ways he tests for Polyjuice users, animagi, and evil twins.
On the other hand, given his preference for not losing the war against Voldemort he might perhaps avoid dropping too much random false information on a suspiciously skilled young wizard who is credibly alleged to be vital for winning that war.
Hmm. So Harry Potter Wikia seems to suggest that Avada is described as unblockable in canon, but what that seems to mean is that it isn't blockable by a shield spell or anything like that. Harry didn't exactly block it in canon; it hit him and he survived anyway because of the Power of Love. I'm updating mildly in the direction of Eliezer tweaking canon because he decided that the instances of Avada being blocked in canon were Rowling cheating.
Oog, now I'm semantically satiated on "block."
Hypothesis (not sure if it has been discussed before): Assuming QuirrelMort wants (only) immortality, at least from now on (since Harry proved his ability to kill dementors) QuirrelMort will go to great lengths to keep Harry alive. Dementors are the only threat to Quirrel's safety which he is unable to deal with himself (being unable to cast any form of the patronus), and which everyone else is only temporarily able to hold back.
So, my rambled thoughts go something like this: QuirrelMort's terminal value is immortality for himself only, he is unable to lov...
On further consideration of the Moody fight - as soon as Harry walked into the office, shouldn't he have seen all his invisible copies as well? Ch. 56 -
Bellatrix was still transparent within the Cloak, but to Harry she was no longer hidden, he knew that she was there, as obvious to him as a Thestral. For Harry had only loaned his Cloak, not given it; and he had comprehended and mastered the Deathly Hallow that had been passed down through the Potter line.
For Harry had only loaned his Cloak, not given it
That seems like it answer your question: his invisible copies aren't borrowing the cloak from him because they are him.
Ch 87:
It seems like Harry is falling prey to the typical mind fallacy in his conviction that it's impossible for anyone who hasn't entered puberty yet to experience romantic attraction.
He can't be an expert on everything, so I wouldn't be particularly surprised by his making what probably feels like a safe assumption, if prepubescent romantic attraction weren't common enough to have a well known colloquial name.
This is a case where human minds vary a lot more than a naive hormone-determinative view might suggest. Simply questioning my own social circle ha...
I'm bothered by Harry's "recovered memory" of Voldemort killing his mother. Firstly we are told, at the time of its first narration, that Harry almost-notices that something is wrong with it. Secondly, the recover-memories-from-before-you-were-verbal thing seems, I don't know, kind of off. It's the sort of thing that would be possible if popular conceptions of how memory is stored were true. And thirdly, while I can see James trying to hold off Voldemort - and incidentally, he can't even dodge the very first AK that Voldemort casts? Isn't he an e...
This has come up before in the tvtropes discussion thread, but personally I operate on the assumption that apparating in a combat situation is simply beyond the skills of most wizards. It requires deliberation, which is probably hard to muster when someone is firing death beams at you, and if you tried it you'd probably get splinched. It's probably doable for really exceptional wizards, like Voldemort or Dumbledore, but not for your average auror, let alone the average joe wizard.
Highly tactically useful feats that are extremely difficult to perform would be one major reason why some wizards can be so much more dangerous in a fight than others when wizards far from the top of the scale are capable of firing death beams.
I think it was implied that the memory wasn't the cause for Harry being able to see Thestrals; Harry seeing Death in the form of a Dementor was. From Chapter 49:
"They are visible only to those who have seen death and comprehended it, a useful defense against most animal predators. Hm. I suppose that the first time you went in front of the Dementor, your worst memory proved to be the night of your encounter with He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named?"
Harry nodded grimly. It was the right guess, even if for the wrong reasons. Those who have seen Death...
Was it supposed to be obvious that David Monroe, Quirrell, and Voldemort are the same person all along? Is that why he was named "David Monroe"?
Two comments on chapter 87.
First, Harry you arrogant git why didn't you ask Hermione how she's so sure Quirrell is the culprit???
(Sadly, the way this was done made it completely believable for Rational!Harry.)
Second, I was laughing hysterically after "You were doing SCIENCE with him? "
..."Well, there must've been some sort of love triangle," said a second-year witch named Samantha Crowley (she never answered when asked if there was any relation). "The question is, which ways was it going before it all went wrong? Who was in love with who - and whether or not that person loved them back - I don't know how many possibilities there are -"
"Sixty-four," said Sarah Varyabil, a blossoming beauty who probably should've been Sorted into Ravenclaw or Hufflepuff instead. "No, wait, that's wrong. I mean, if nobody
Prophesies are good things to read closely:
...for those two different spirits cannot exist in the same world.
Given the large amount of magic-space travel that's been hinted at, I see this as a pretty clear indication of the final outcome of this fic: Voldy and Harry each get their own planets. It could also be the reason Voldemort has deliberately left Harry alive on many occasions (twice Quirrell saves him, on top of deliberately making him into a living horcrux instead of simply killing him. (comment here)
"Those who are spoken of in a prophecy, may listen to that prophecy there. Do you see the implication, Harry?"
Shouldn't Minerva see another implication, that Dumbledore has no reason to wonder whether he is the dark lord of the prophecy?
That seems to apply to actively trying to catch an orb, and succeeding. If you just stand about, any orbs relevant to you will come to you freely, no action required. So Dumbledore can see whether the prophecy speaks of him without having his head explode; but if it doesn't, can't personally check the wording.
If you were completely unrestrained by ethics, armed with the ancient secrets of Salazar Slytherin, had dozens of powerful followers including Lucius Malfoy, and it took you more than ten years to fail to overthrow the government of magical Britain, it meant you were stupid.
I tend to agree with Harry that a smart wizard could do devastating damage to magical Britain far beyond what Voldemort accomplished. Maybe with Time Turners, all bets are off.
But taking that as given, I see two assumptions above that may be false.
Voldemort was failing to overthrow ...
An excuse to stop, or further evidence of the 'teaching them to fight' theory?
Dumbledore's eyes were like stones. "I am told that Voldemort laughed at the news, and proclaimed to his Death Eaters that I had finally grown, and was at last a worthy opponent. Perhaps he was right. After the day I condemned my brother to his death, I began to weigh those who followed me, balancing them one against another, asking who I would risk, and who I would sacrifice, to what end. It was strange how many fewer pieces I lost, once I knew what they were worth."
One hundred Voldemort points to Mr Dumbledore, and twenty points to Gryffindor.
Who thinks that Lockheart was in fact possessed by Voldemort? It seems unlikely given that in canon Lockheart "accomplished" these deeds in a very different way, and there is no reason why he could not have done so here as well. (By the way on Predictionbook I estimated a 15% chance, but that is starting to look to high now that I am thinking it over a bit more.)
Moody going after Lockhart is Moody privileging hypotheses involving Dark Wizards; nobody's a perfect rationalist in this story, and Moody's experience causes him to privilege hypotheses involving Dark Wizards and discount hypotheses involving Huge Wankers.
Well Lockhart sort of IS a dark wizard. From Moody's point of view he's someone obtaining power far faster and more effectively than he should, but even in reality he's someone who's systematically robbing people of their achievements and wiping memories.
The moment such a test is suspected, the Mark ceases to bind our tongues.
They should separately interview each Death Eater (and see if Obliviate works) to get some bits of information out of each of them before they cotton on.
There's a typo: search for "door swung shot"; should be "door swung shut"
Couldn't find a more appropriate place to post, please advise.
Why do Phoenixes only come once? That seems like something that would only happen in a story. Could it not be circumvented by e.g. timetravel? (Go back one hour in time, meet yourself and say: "in X minutes you will be visited by a phoenix, it comes but once, so chose wisely.")
Why hasn't Hagrid tried to kill Harry yet?
No, really. Hagrid is the groundskeeper, so he's the character most likely to have run into a centaur recently (that the centaurs would be willing to talk to). If I read Chapter 1 correctly, the centaurs seem to think Harry will bring about the end of the world somehow. So wouldn't the centaurs at some point have told Hagrid this and possibly asked him to do something about it?
Because he's also the character least likely to kill an innocent child because of some prophecy? Does Hagrid seem like that much of a consequentialist to you?
Well, I don't think Harry is that much of an innocent child anymore. A better argument would be that Hagrid is sympathetic towards monsters. :P
Prediction about a test that will be developed for the Dark Mark: False-Memory-charm someone into believing that they have seen the Dark Mark on [potential Death Eater]. Expose them to [potential Death Eater]. (Alternately, false-memory-charm to believe that they have been caught, depending on Mark's behavior.) If this works, you can catch Death Eaters. If it doesn't work, then you can use it to distinguish between true and false memories. Either way, fairly useful.
(Sorry to resurrect this thread, but I don't think this is relevant to the Ch. 102 discussion.)
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 86. The 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: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 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.