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.
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Eliezer Yudkowsky which is not supposed to be publicly available (which includes public statements by Eliezer that have been retracted).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.
Don't know if this has been suggested before, but:
Possibility: Harry's "Father's rock" is the Resurrection Stone. Giving this one low probability, since it has thus far demonstrated no other magical properties, and just seems like a way to get Harry to grind his Transfiguration and mana stats.
Possibility: Harry's "Father's rock" is the Philosopher's Stone. Giving this one even lower probability.
Possibility: The Philosopher's Stone is actually the Resurrection stone, or a similar magical construct. Middling probability; Dumbledore refers to Flamel insisting "the Stone" be kept at Hogwarts, but never mentions the Philosopher's Stone; it seems quite plausible that all of the "Philosopher's Stone" rumors are in fact obfuscations about the true nature of the object, and that Flamel's wealth has more to do with his alchemical talents and his having had six centuries to accumulate capital than an actual ability to transmute base metals into gold.
Harry dismisses the possibility of the Philosopher's Stone far too readily, especially considering he already knows that magic, at least to some degree, works the way you (or the creator of a spell) believe(s) it will work, AND knows that fruit which seems low-hanging to him is obviously not so to the rest of the magical world. This smells a little bit idiot-ball-ish to me, even if he is correct.
Note that the Philosopher's Stone in MoR is actually supposed to transmute base metals into silver, not gold. I can't help but think that this difference is suggestive; if it was purely the result of a happy death spiral, gold would make more sense.
Dumbledore (who has used Transfiguration in combat and lived) gave Harry his father's rock the day after Quirrell publicly accused Harry of always thinking purely of killing and novel ways to do it. I don't know if D wanted to encourage H in this, or to provide an alternative to some more dangerous action. (Maybe D has considered the possibility that Q has some dark reason for wanting Harry to learn the Killing Curse?) But I feel very sure that he was thinking of the use H did in fact make of it, and we don't need to imagine another purpose.
If anything, Dumbledore would want to keep the Philosopher's Stone more directly under his control, eg hidden under the lampshade in his office.
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 96. The previous thread is at almost 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, 21, 22, 23, 24, .
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: