Eliezer and I love to talk about writing. We talk about our own current writing projects, how we’d improve the books we’re reading, and what we want to write next. Sometimes along the way I learn some amazing fact about HPMOR or Project Lawful or one of Eliezer’s other works. “Wow, you’re kidding,” I say, “do your fans know this? I think people would really be interested.”

“I can’t remember,” he usually says. “I don’t think I’ve ever explained that bit before, I’m not sure.”

I decided to interview him more formally, collect as many of those tidbits about HPMOR as I could, and share them with you. I hope you enjoy them.

It’s probably obvious, but there will be many, many spoilers for HPMOR in this article, and also very little of it will make sense if you haven’t read the book. So go read Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality before you read any further.

We talk about HPMOR’s characters, including how Eliezer tried to make every single character awesome, and why Hermione gets unicorn horn teeth. We talk about the plot, and learn some secrets about Harry’s sexuality. We talk about the setting, and Eliezer explains the Nested Nerfing Hypothesis of magic in the HPMOR universe. And finally, there’s some news about the epilogues—plural!

While I’m here, I’ll also mention that Eliezer has a non-fiction book coming out on September 16th, 2025 and I personally think it would be excellent if many thousands of people pre-ordered that book.

And now, on with the lore!

Characters

Masks

Gretta: Can you please explain the “dramatic masks” idea that we’ve talked about, and how it applies to HPMOR?

Eliezer: So there's a science fiction and or fantasy author, Stephen R. Donaldson, who made an observation in the afterword to one of his books.^[1] Donaldson says that the difference between drama and melodrama^[2] is that in a drama, the characters change their masks over the course of the story, and in melodrama, they wear the same masks throughout the story.^[3]

And in particular, Donaldson gave an example, which was more influential on me than the underlying statement, of how in one of his stories, it starts out with a victim, a victimizer, and a rescuer. And then by the end of the story, they have all exchanged masks.

Gretta: Okay. So three people, three masks. And they rotate. And I just...

Fiction (Topic)