All of EternalStargazer's Comments + Replies

Birth Month Jan: 109, 7.3% Feb: 90, 6.0% Mar: 123, 8.2% Apr: 126, 8.4% Jun: 107, 7.1% .Jul: 109, 7.3% Aug: 120, 8.0% Sep: 94, 6.3% Oct: 111, 7.4% Nov: 102, 6.8% Dec: 106, 7.1%

[Despite my hope of something turning up here, these results don't deviate from chance]

It would appear 0% of lesswrongers were born in May. Which is strange, because I seem to remember being born then, and also taking the survey.

0Meni_Rosenfeld8y
I was born in May, and I approve this message.

If something as simple as this can be considered a cartel, then the entire free market system is a cartel.

The whole point is that companies can only communicate with each other in this manner, and not directly, because that would be collusion.

When I have time, I'll look up the specific legislation, though i suspect it varies by area.

It isn't, but keep in mind that this is still a pseudo feudal system, which still has existent Noble families with laws favoring them on the books. In a feudal system, that is absolutely how a 'police' (private army) force actually works. If you're the Prince, you can command them. In such a system, it wouldn't seem as strange that the daughter of the house is giving the commands. You'll notice they also all announce themselves by House first.

As an aside, if you are Amelia Bones, and you have to give one person preferential treatment, control, and ease of communication with your Aurors (and by extension, yourself), who do you pick from the group of kids who are making the announcement? Which one do you trust most?

7MarkusRamikin10y
You have a point.

Because these are children who have been force-matured by both becoming (kind of fake) child soldiers and death, because the agreement specifically was created by two of said children, because all of the parents have other things to do, because the children are already there, because part of the theme of the first half of this story if you remember was "Children are people too, and not subhuman simply because of their age".

Susan Bones is giving the Aurors orders because it is her Aunt that runs the Auror office. She's basically the stand-in. The kids are the few actually sane people in Hogwarts.

4TobyBartels10y
Did Susan really give the Aurors any real orders, or just notify them that it was their cue to do as her mother had previously instructed?
8MarkusRamikin10y
Oh, sure, I'm not saying the kids aren't capable of performing the actions they did. What I'm wondering about is why the rest of the world is playing along. Even if these children - 11 year olds if I have that right - are the sanest people in Hogwarts, does the Hogwarts faculty recognize this, and the Auror office, and the Board of Governors, and their own parents? Or are all these people magically aware of the story theme that you mentioned, and the title of the last few chapters. I don't think that's how police forces generally work...
2ikrase10y
Also because these children have the initiative and at least three of them are nobles.

Yes, that was my point, it's the True Patronus charm that is the exact opposite of AK, the Patronus Charm 1.0 is really a Dumbledore spell. It avoids fear of death by thinking about something else.

Our direct evidence doesn't completely pan out, because of the uncertainty of the Quirrel reaction, yes. But even without that we have evidence for the underlying theory: ie: AK is Death>Life: the spell and PC2.0 is Life>Death: the spell.

I can post quotes from both of these, in fact, I would argue that the Harry and Moody conversation on Avada Kedavra exists for the sole purpose of including that data in the narrative. Remember, these are Harry's words, a "magically expressed preference for death over life" and the Patronus Charm being cast by "rejecting death as the natural order."

But if say third years can, than ones who got their wands early may be able to. And it isn't all first years either.

Plus, it's more about the mindset than the actual ability.

1somervta10y
It's stated that the reason first-years can't cast it is magical power, not skill, which is age-based, not practice-based.

Even ignoring the rest of the post, the idea of a Green Slytherin based off of Avada Kedavra is interesting for many reasons.

Let's look at some of the implications:

  • Avada Kedavra and the Patronus Charm (2.0) are basically mutually exclusive. In order to cast the first, you must want someone dead for the sake of being dead, and in order to cast the latter you must value all life to the point of denying death altogether.

  • Avada Kedavra and the Patronus Charm (2.0) cancel each other out. We saw this in Azkaban, and at the time we probably assumed it was jus

... (read more)
6ShardPhoenix10y
It seems likely that many adult wizards (eg Snape) can cast both. Can't remember if this is the case in canon or not.
5kilobug10y
I'm still unconvinced about "Avada Kedavra and the Patronus Charm (2.0) cancel each other out". My interpretation of it in Azkaban is more "Harry and Quirrel magic cancel each other when they interact" than anything related specifically for those spells. For the rest, there is a significant difference which, while it doesn't matter much in absolute, matters a lot of HPMOR, is that 11 yo can't cast Avada Kedavra, while they can cast Patronus. So you can have 1st years in Hogwarts who are "Silver Slytherin" because they can cast Patronus, but you can't have "Green Slytherin" that can cast AK in 1st year, because it's too advanced magic for them.

In a previous story, EY posted the penultimate chapter along with an ultimatum: You will earn a Bad Ending by doing nothing, and a Good Ending by guessing, following the internal logic of the story, what the correct solution to this problem is.

The problem could be solved by combining a revelation in the latest chapter with information from an infodump in the first chapter, explaining how space travel worked in universe.

It was in fact solved, and he posted both endings.

This is the danger, that he may do the same thing here, and we must be ready to solve th... (read more)

2PrometheanFaun10y
I think he's never going to do that here. He did that in TWC because if we were able to come up with the winning strategy when pressed, that would indicate that one of the crew members in the story definitely would have, too, proving it would have been unreasonable to write an ending where they did not. In this case our ability to solve the puzzle doesn't really say anything about the plausibility of the work's characters' solving it. Our success would not necessitate theirs, as we're more populous, experienced, and have access to a huge written record. Nor would our failure necessitate theirs, as Harry has magical insights. The groups' capacities say little about each other.
6William_Quixote10y
A fun idea, but I doubt he will do that again here. HPMOR was written as a teaching device and a way of promoting rationalist thinking to a large audience. That is, its not just a fun piece of writing, its a tool and so the ending will be whatever makes it better accomplish the purpose for which it was created. EY won't blunt his tools based on a poll.
0tgb10y
That depends on the nature of the challenge. In TWC, it was merely "have at least one person state this solution as a possibility." If EY wants to make it hard, he can have it be some sort of consensus-gathering executed by a poll, or similar.
0undermind10y
I also doubt it will be an issue. But it will be fun. And I'm wondering if we could try to get a head start...

Well, this chapter is just full of delicious puns, apart from the entire plot advancement thing.

Auxiliary Protective Special Committee.

APSC

Absurdly Powerful Student Council.

Daphne worried that Draco would be skinned and turned into Leather Pants.

Draco returns "at the turn of the tide" wearing white (silver) robes. He's Draco the White.. err.. Silver.

Considering the short length of the chapter, and combined with the call forward to Book V's Ministerial Education Decrees, that's a good number of references.

The real question is where does it go fro... (read more)

Where it goes from here: If the enemy actually wants to defeat this coalition, nothing happens. This is a temporary alliance against an outside threat, and if said threat goes away, the alliance will probably collapse of its own accord. (It may bring some lasting changes to the leadership of Hogwarts, but people will chafe against the strict security, and old and new grudges will emerge, and the coalition will break.)

If the enemy has been breeding Harry/Draco as the future leader of Magical Britain (much more likely), they will continue to attack or otherwise be active, probably conceding many victories to the new Kids' Coalition.

5shminux10y
And its elite SS (Silver Slytherin) troops?

I think the anticlimax comes from the fact that Harry has basically no agency in the story at all. We get 4 lines of internal monologue, but really, this is Quirrelmort's story, not Harry's.

This isn't because he wins, so much as it is because his winning suddenly in this manner basically invalidates the entire rest of the story. While this might be an accurate rendition of events according to characterization, it ignores almost every subplot, begs the question of why this didn't happen at any other earlier event in the story, and doesn't really fit Quirrel... (read more)

... Interesting, if an incredibly anticlimactic ending.

Is this supposed to be a theoretical future?

0Kawoomba10y
Changed the ending, better now?
2Kawoomba10y
An alternate ending: Quirrell taking over Harry as a final host, Quirrell admitting to his true identity: being Monroe more so than Voldemort, and to staging his own death, also tying up a few loose ends. Probably my last prose contribution, judging by the reception. I did have an hour to kill, so I thought why not contribute the above speculation in a more interesting format. What did you find so anticlimactic? Maybe the "Boy-Who-Will-Live-Forever" is easy to accidentally skip over, the last line is a reference to a poem and a chapter ending of Sanderson's The Way of Kings.

To save her in order to use her as Voldemort used Bellatrix, to bind her to him with the bonds of love as Voldemort did, because she was a powerful witch to be used as a tool.

Hence the bloodthirst comment.

[This comment is no longer endorsed by its author]Reply

He does hide it. In the part in the graveyard where he is talking to Snape while they are poisoning Riddle Sr's grave, he keeps spinning around, despite the fact that the eye lets him see 360 degrees regardless of where it is pointing.

If he's escorting Potter around, everyone KNOWS he'd be on high alert, so they expect to see the thing whizzing around. Then they expect that when it isn't whizzing around, it means he can't see behind him.

And when they try to exploit that, that's how he catches them.

6Kindly10y
It's somewhat like the reason the Dark Mark isn't always invisible. People will look for a weakness to exploit, so before they find one you should provide them with a fake one. (If the Dark Mark were invisible and Moody wore an eyepatch, you'd just look for a different avenue of attack.)

I'm an idiot. I'm not sure why I didn't see this before, except that it was 2 am when I first read the chapter.

I've read the other posts below, but I think we are missing something specific here.

Þregen béon Pefearles suna and þrie hira tól þissum Déað béo gewunen.

Three shall be Peverell's sons and three their devices by which Death shall be defeated.

-Spoken in the presence of the three Peverell brothers, in a small tavern on the outskirts of what would later be called Godric's Hollow.

Spoken in the presence of them. Not by them.

It was spoken to them by ... (read more)

-1MugaSofer10y
... damn, nobody else got that? Eliezer might want to change the wording, then.

If you remember Snape's ramblings on prophecy, prophicies are spoken to those with the power to "fulfill or avert them". The thing is, if they are averted, that might just delay it. If Hero 1 fails to take down Dark Lady Example, Hero 2 might try in a decade and succeed. If Hero 1 failed and thereby averted a prophecy he previously heard, does the prophecy latch onto Hero 2? If it does, does the text and memory of the prophecy itself change? Is there just a new prophecy?

This sounds impossible until you realize that we already have proof of atemporal causation in this world.

Neither of them noticed the tall stone worn as though from a thousand years of age, upon it a line within a circle within a triangle glowing ever so faintly silver, like the light which had shone from Harry's wand, invisible at that distance beneath the still-bright Sun.

This is going to be vitally important in the future. Thoughts on what it could be?

Storehouse of lost knowledge from the Peverells is my guess, perhaps their notes or a Slytherin-esque way around the Interdict.

If not, the notes would be enough for Harry to start brainstorming a way around the Interdict.

2UnclGhost10y
Maybe certain other Deathly Hallows symbols will now light up in Harry's presence, especially if there is a lost storehouse of some sort with a similar mark. If it doesn't end up being important, it could just be whatever enchantment is on the Peverell gravestone that makes it recognize someone's anti-Death resolve (possibly only if they're a Peverell descendant) and recite the prophecy, pointed out in the narration so the reader knows where the prophecy was coming from.

I predicted this way back in December. It seemed the most obvious explanation for Dumbledore's refusal to take him there.

The interesting thing is the recognition as Heir of the Peverells might open up even more prophecies, about he family itself instead of just about Harry. I wonder, if a Prophecy fails, does it jump to another person or is it repeated?

1MalcolmOcean10y
What do you mean, if a Prophecy fails?

Near certain prediction:

Va gur snasvpgvba "Sevraqfuvc vf Bcgvzny", juvpu unf orra erpbzzraqrq va Nhgube Abgrf vzcylvat RL unf va snpg ernq vg, nyvpbea cevaprffrf ner gur va-jbeyq ningnef bs genafuhzna fhcrevagryyyvtraprf juvpu nvq gur Negvyrpg NV jub pbagebyf gur havirefr. Xabjvat guvf, cynpvat Uneel va PryrfgNV'f cbfvgvba, Urezvbar jvyy or oebhtug onpx gb freir n fvzvyne ebyr, hfvat uvf gura genafuhzna novyvgl.

My mental model of EY would make exactly this kind of offhand reference. It is the answer to the riddle about the ring you saw once several years ago.

0ChrisHallquist10y
This is relevant information, but I don't think it seems to fit with the joke hypothesis quite well too.

Well, he can get as much time as he wants in 40 minute intervals with no breaks in between. Smelly Harry must have been awake at least 1 hour per mark on his arm, unless he has at some point mastered Polyphasic sleep (which is completely contrary to his aberrant sleep cycles as mentioned previously) he is going to be significantly diminished in terms of mental acuity after a mere 24 or so cycles. He would need to spend a few cycles eating. After subjective days without sleep he should be moving into hallucination territory, barring some kind of magical aid... (read more)

6solipsist10y
I think we can let Harry sleep. For example -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Instead of drawing a tally mark on his arm, Harry punches a hole in a ticket. Original Harry doesn't set up chairs in seats 11-20. Instead, he puts a rolling hospital stretcher where chair 11 would go, and leaves 9 empty spots where chairs 12-20 would go. The rolling stretcher has pillows, an empty sleeping bag, and a slot into which you can place a ticket. When Original Harry moves the trunk to the hallway, he finds 9 stretchers lined up against the wall. Every stretcher has a ticket, and the tickets have 12, 13, 14... 20 hole punches. The stretcher are heavy, like a person is sleeping inside the sleeping bag. Original Harry moves these 9 stretchers into the 9 empty spots he blocked out earlier. Original Harry puts on his conductors hat and waits for passengers. One of the passengers is Tired Harry, whose ticket has 11 punches. Tired Harry places his ticket into the slot on empty stretcher, climbs into the empty sleeping bag, and goes to sleep. Now all 10 stretchers have ticketed Sleeping Harrys. On arrival at 5:00, Conductor Harry adds a punch to the ticket of all 10 stretchers. He removes the 10 stretchers from the trunk, and lines the first 9 up against the wall. The last stretcher, with 21 holes punched in its ticket, Conductor Harry stashes in the Great Hall. At 5:30ish, in the Great Hall, a newly Refreshed Harry wakes up. He gets out of his sleeping bag, picks up his ticket, and continues the day. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------

This is the point that I think is escaping many people in this thread. The options aren't as simple as A/A+B in Newcomb.

The map has been stolen. Everything we know about how Time Travel works in this universe indicates that this is a fixed fact that cannot be altered. Who took the map however is an unknown, and while it cannot be 'altered' either, the Effect can in this case precede the Cause. 'Map has been taken' can happen before 'Harry takes map because someone had to' such that B causes A and A leads to B. If Harry doesn't commit to it, B is still tru... (read more)

1gjm10y
Why would the two be linked?

There is a more interesting implication in that section actually.

Light glinted from the reflection of Albus's half-moon glasses as the old wizard slowly shook his head. "I think that would be unwise," Albus said. "For reasons beyond the obvious. It is dangerous, that place which Merlin made; more dangerous to some people than others."

'To some people than others' implies Harry. Ergo, it would be more dangerous for Harry to go there.

Ergo, there are other things in the Hall of Prophecy which would effect Harry.

Ergo, there are more Prop... (read more)

6drethelin10y
I'm pretty sure this is actually just Albus being well aware of Harry's nature, including his curiositiy and inclination to test things.

He didn't even have to lie. All he had to do was say the thing in italics which he thought, right before the end.

Snape if anyone understands exactly how excruciating emotional pain can be.