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Spirit-Dumbledore claims it in the limbo, and it's certainly implied generally. There is confirmation of the existence of a soul, and given all the other post-death stuff I think it's probably safe to assume there's something. The Department of Mysteries Death Room scientists probably know.
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# ? Nov 26, 2015 22:01 |
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# ? May 19, 2024 03:14 |
MikeJF posted:Spirit-Dumbledore claims it in the limbo, and it's certainly implied generally. There is confirmation of the existence of a soul, and given all the other post-death stuff I think it's probably safe to assume there's something. This is clearly a closed ideology with some confirmed landmarks which are beyond questioning. For instance, the idea that death is not just bad, but a massive, unthinkable, unalloyed bad; instead of (perhaps) losing out on a few hundred years of cyber funtimes, death gets measured by the umptillions of years which you will NOT exist. The mere fact of some sort of afterlife does not necessarily change this, and I imagine Harry could easily just slightly adjust the rationalist script - "oh, so I have to live in ghost town, eh? or worship God in heaven, or burn in hell? pfeh! i'd rather be alive here, now!" - but it is better for him if he can simply ignore the entire topic as irrelevant.
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# ? Nov 26, 2015 22:23 |
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MikeJF posted:Spirit-Dumbledore claims it in the limbo, and it's certainly implied generally. There is confirmation of the existence of a soul, and given all the other post-death stuff I think it's probably safe to assume there's something. Ah, yup. Forgot about him. I suppose it's possible to handwave him away as a projection of Harry's mind, but I'd really be reaching at that point I think. Afterlife confirmed!
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# ? Nov 27, 2015 08:06 |
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Chapter 23 He leads himself into a room that he has never entered, just in case they look for him where he usually goes. The room is huge and empty, and Harry's eyes take a while to adjust to the darkness. As they begin to focus, he asks himself, "What could that be way in the back, up against the wall? Is it a king's mirror, a giant's mirror? Why not take a look," thinks our hero. "Why not take a deep, telling look?" The mirror is warm and perfect, the reflection has no warbles, the form stays true when you move. But as Harry gazes, the mirror activates his magic eye to reveal a secret image. "Oh, my God! Could it be? Are those my parents?" Harry asks. Harry knows they are dead, but could Heaven be here in this cold, cold reflection? The parents seem to animate and respond, "This is Heaven's entrance." His mother is beautiful. The guy, he seems pretty cool, too. He reaches out to feel the blue face of his world's perimeter. He wonders what it would be like, what it would have been, if these people would have remained. Harry feels his trapezius along in time with his mother. "This is mine," they both say in scary, scary unison. Next thing you know, Harry is busting into Ronnie the Bear's chamber, disturbing him out of a beautiful slumber. If this is indeed the Gate to Heaven, he and his champion must enter it together. They swiftly navigate the castle's hallways and cast away the invisibility cloak once in the room of mirrors. When Ron the Mighty is stood in front of the Gate of Heaven he begins straightaway to denounce it. He cries, "Heaven is for those too scared of nothingness! I will go no further than my mortal flesh will carry. This mirror is the sick bed of Heaven, Harry! The eternity of pansy lives!" Ronnie will have nothing to do with the mirror. He is only concerned with the flesh and the blood of the now. This destroys Harry. Ron leaves him to contemplate the design of the cosmos versus the terminal beauty of being a wizard. For forty-three days straight Harry sits in front of the Gate of Heaven, waiting for either God to appear, or for Ronnie to come back and apologise. But to Harry's surprise, neither show up. Only the Near-Dead Dumbledore stumbles upon the vigil. Harry is considerably weakened, and is actually taken surprised by Dumbledore's presence. Dumbledore starts in. "Don't you want some cocoa or soup, Harry? Come away from the light of Heaven's easy life. We need such a valiant, beautiful warrior such as yourself here to live and to hack the serpents of evil in two. Hell, into twos? Into threes and fours! Your life will be the very envy of Heaven and its slobbery inhabitants. No, Harry. You were meant to stride with us, the living! To course with us and our blood. You are meant to end when your share of that blood turns brown upon the rocks of glory! You and I shall drink tonight, Harry. We shall drink to life's confines, to life's pearly end, which is the nothingness of death, not the perpetual pansiness of Heaven!" Dumbledore is shaking with passion. He is beckoning Harry to enter into the sphere of manhood. Harry is all but wrapped in a buffalo skin, dancing and shaking a bow and arrow around a ceremonial fire. His rite of passage is here, now. He's like a young Native American, preparing to answer the question of life. Dumbledore is all aquiver, awaiting Harry's answer, and Harry answers... "Yes."
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# ? Nov 27, 2015 08:19 |
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Hyper Crab Tank posted:The greatest tragedy of HPMOR is easily that Yudkowsky is, at the end of the day, not the worst writer of prose out there and all that overflowing enthusiasm could, if he had been more inclined to it and less insane, been channelled into something of actual acceptable quality, and I don't even think he would have to compromise on the science stuff if he really wanted to. Would help if it was more accurate and less, y'know, mad futurist. Yud's science is absolutely terrible. Abysmally, utterly awful. He just has the nerve to claim 'all science method is standard science', and doesn't bother to fix anything ever. At last count through chapter 14, Yud was batting 7/27 in general science references, and managed to get every single hard science reference wrong. I think Yud got one right in chapter 15 and then decides to stop making science references for a long time.
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# ? Nov 27, 2015 10:40 |
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Again, that's the point... it needs to be more accurate and not whatever the hell this is right now.
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# ? Nov 27, 2015 12:12 |
Hyper Crab Tank posted:Again, that's the point... it needs to be more accurate and not whatever the hell this is right now. e: Well, actually I'm sure it's pretty much an accident and he just meanders, but it would be entirely consistent with the philosophy of Elizierry so far
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# ? Nov 29, 2015 11:29 |
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Chapter 17 – Locating the Hypothesis Part Fifteen quote:
Too young to have fully honed his survival instincts. quote:
Reminds me of a passage in Pratchett’s Thief of Time which talked about how, to the God / Avatar of Time in that story, time was merely like a piece of clothing that he put on or put off as the need arose. quote:
It’s so rare to see Eliezarry at a loss for words in this story that it’s actually kind of a pleasant surprise when it does happen.
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# ? Nov 30, 2015 04:16 |
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Dumbledore's characterization is one of the consistently strong points of the HPMOR. He strikes a good balance, much like his canon counterpart, of being whimsical on one hand and terrifyingly powerful and intelligent on the other.
In It For The Tank fucked around with this message at 12:33 on Nov 30, 2015 |
# ? Nov 30, 2015 12:31 |
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In It For The Tank posted:Dumbledore's characterization is one of the consistently strong points of the HPMOR. He strikes a good balance, much like his canon counterpart, of being whimsical on one hand and terrifyingly powerful and intelligent on the other. I recall some bits later on where his character gets seriously distorted to make room for Harry to take the spotlight. Basically, whenever Yudkowsky wants to use Harry to make a point, whatever character is around becomes a straw man for him to debate, and Dumbledore is no exception.
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# ? Nov 30, 2015 15:25 |
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If you're talking about what I think you are (their argument about death), then you're right that Harry thinks Dumbledore is foolish but, unless I'm seriously misremembering it, Dumbledore's stance is true to his character and argued sincerely enough that, even if Yud/Harry clearly disagrees with him, Dumbledore comes across as the more rational one, intentionally or otherwise.
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# ? Nov 30, 2015 18:48 |
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I think they mean the point in MoR at which Dumblydore just starts staring at Harry in awe at how WISE and POWERFUL Harry is. That bit, to me, proved that Yud didn't really get the contrast in Dumbledore and just thought the entire stance Dumbledore takes in the book is dumb. (I mean, if he'd ever read the book.)
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# ? Nov 30, 2015 19:51 |
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Chapter 17 – Locating the Hypothesis Part Sixteen quote:
Everything! Dumbledore has consistently been various blends of sinister, menacing and disturbing in each of his appearances in this story, so much so that my sympathies are fully with Eliezarry at this point, insufferable brat though he may have been. quote:
Why should Eliezarry trust Dumbledore even if Dumbledore said yes and swore a vow that purported to be unbreakable, though? Eliezarry isn’t sufficiently knowledgeable about magic to be able to verify any such claims that Dumbledore may make. quote:
My point exactly. quote:
I wasn’t expecting such a barefaced assertion of power, though. quote:
Dumbledore would be glad to know that we are rediscovering our art in this regard, albeit from a rather different angle.
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# ? Dec 2, 2015 03:32 |
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Dumbledore loving rules
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# ? Dec 2, 2015 18:22 |
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What other Greatest Hits from HP is Yud gonna bring up next? Because these are shout-outs, not plot elements.
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# ? Dec 2, 2015 19:27 |
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Chapter 17 – Locating the Hypothesis Part Seventeen quote:
Because you hire and condone teachers like Quirrell, and you concentrate all the racists and neo-Nazis and bullies among your students into one single group where they can encourage and reinforce each other’s beliefs and behavior and you do nothing to discourage or prevent them from bullying the other students, and you personally act and speak in an unsettling if not outright terrifying manner. quote:
How and when did Dumbledore “[hold] him off long enough”? Dumbledore wasn’t at the scene when Voldemort attacked the Potters. quote:
Gandalf was canonically a manipulative rear end in a top hat in Tolkien’s books, though. Has Eliezer also not read Lord of the Rings in addition to not having read the Harry Potter series? quote:
Why did Eliezarry think that Hermione was a possible candidate for what Dumbledore was talking about? Dumbledore had said “Perhaps even some you call friends”, but there’s been nothing so far in this story to suggest that Eliezarry has considered Hermione to be a friend or even a likable acquaintance. He’s only ever thought of her as a rival.
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# ? Dec 3, 2015 08:37 |
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I think by 'held him off' Dumbledore is referring to leading the fight against Voldemort and trying to defend Britain from his onslaught, not to the literal battle that killed him.
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# ? Dec 3, 2015 08:41 |
Harry has probably correctly identified that only institutional sexism stands between him being Hermione's ally, rather than her being his.
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# ? Dec 3, 2015 21:17 |
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JosephWongKS posted:Gandalf was canonically a manipulative rear end in a top hat in Tolkien’s books, though. Has Eliezer also not read Lord of the Rings in addition to not having read the Harry Potter series? Probably not, but he doesn't need not to have done so to completely misinterpret the character. I haven't read them myself, but if what you say is true, and given Yud's writing of Draco plus his "Rationalism" which permits manipulation to save people from their own feelings, it's entirely possible he misread manipulativeness as intelligence.
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# ? Dec 3, 2015 23:16 |
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Gandalf was also canonically a literal angel sent by the God of Abraham to watch over middle earth. Probably something Yud didn't know or he would have commented on it.
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# ? Dec 4, 2015 02:51 |
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Chapter 17 – Locating the Hypothesis Part Eighteen quote:
Another piece of evidence for why Dumbledore is not trustworthy – he’s aware that Draco is a rotten kid but can’t be bothered to put in any effort to try to reform Draco or anyone else in House Slytherin, despite Dumbledore’s enormous prestige and influence both as the Headmaster of the school that Draco is attending, as well as that derived from Dumbledore’s personal reputation and status as the very bestest wizard in Britain. quote:
I’ll concede that to Dumbledore, though. Eliezarry’s hubris is indeed that funny. quote:
Now that’s just… racist? Ableist? Anyways, why is Harry so surprised that Dumbledore has read Lord of the Rings? There’s no rule stating that wizards can’t read non-wizards’ books, after all.
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# ? Dec 11, 2015 03:40 |
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Ah some Tolkien fanservice.
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# ? Dec 11, 2015 10:32 |
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There's no rule, but wizard society is generally depicted as being unaware of lots of aspects of muggle culture. Things like rubber ducks and soccer are foreign to lots of them. Yud's clunky referencing aside it's not out of character for Dumbledore to have more of an idea than most wizards.
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# ? Dec 11, 2015 10:38 |
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"Theoden, actually"
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# ? Dec 11, 2015 10:58 |
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Not much to mock in this section, sadly. Yud's hubris and insistence for living in a world composed nearly entirely of pop culture references are not new to us.
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# ? Dec 11, 2015 11:42 |
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The incessant pop culture references are actually pretty grating, because there's this greasy sheen of smugness over every single one of them. Why yes, I am indeed familiar with the epos of comedy known as the 1933 film Duck Soup, thank you very much, though I suppose that may be too cult of a thing for you to appreciate.
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# ? Dec 11, 2015 11:53 |
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God I still can't get over how quickly he got accustomed to wizard terminology. That's so grating to me!
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# ? Dec 12, 2015 02:53 |
SSNeoman posted:God I still can't get over how quickly he got accustomed to wizard terminology. That's so grating to me!
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# ? Dec 12, 2015 03:04 |
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Oh gawd, someone created a Wikipedia article for this thing. It probably passes Wikipedia-notability too.
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# ? Dec 23, 2015 15:24 |
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divabot posted:Oh gawd, someone created a Wikipedia article for this thing. It probably passes Wikipedia-notability too. Somebody please dig up a published writer who hated it.
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# ? Dec 23, 2015 16:03 |
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Curvature of Earth posted:Somebody please dig up a published writer who hated it. The catch is most of these were in the first thirty chapters, which are in fact passable and - the nerd catnip - make a great many really cool literary promises ... none of which the finished work comes through on. And there was that big hiatus, when Yudkowsky couldn't be bothered with it either and ended up just having to grind through to the end. So basically the good reviews are of the start, and nobody except the dedicated and foolish has actually ploughed through to chapter 6,666 or whatever. The 2015 mainstream press is mostly bemused.
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# ? Dec 23, 2015 16:11 |
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For the record, I downloaded Yudkowsky's Rationality from AI to Zombies, aka "The Sequences", aka the definitive nonfiction works of Yudkowsky. I just wanted to confirm their legendary length. The sequences are collectively 497,000 words long. For reference, the Lord of the Rings trilogy is 481,000 words, though if you throw in the Hobbit and Silmarillion that shoots up to 707,000 words. (To anyone who actually read the Silmarillion: you have my pity.) For a more relevant comparison, the Harry Potter series is 1,184,000 words long. Yudkowsky's Self-Insert and the Methods of Rationality is 662,000 words long according to FanFiction.Net
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# ? Dec 24, 2015 05:49 |
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divabot posted:The catch is most of these were in the first thirty chapters, which are in fact passable and - the nerd catnip - make a great many really cool literary promises ... none of which the finished work comes through on. And there was that big hiatus, when Yudkowsky couldn't be bothered with it either and ended up just having to grind through to the end. I seem to remember the first few chapters (the few I could stand reading) being amazingly insufferable in and of themselves, with Draco being introduced as having "AWESOMECOOL hair" and Harry dismissing public schooling as "child conscription" and a bunch of other stuff I probably blanked out.
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# ? Dec 24, 2015 07:05 |
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Curvature of Earth posted:(To anyone who actually read the Silmarillion: you have my pity.) The Silmarillion is cool and good.
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# ? Dec 24, 2015 11:19 |
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Curvature of Earth posted:For the record, I downloaded Yudkowsky's Rationality from AI to Zombies, aka "The Sequences", aka the definitive nonfiction works of Yudkowsky. I just wanted to confirm their legendary length. That's not all of them. They left out a lot of the stupider ones (Sparkly Elites, Why You Should Be A Scientific Racist, Why Gould Was Evil To Say You Shouldn't Be A Scientific Racist, the whole quantum physics fuckup) which leaves gaps in the epistemology at the embarrassing bits. Presumably those will come later. (Also, you miss all the comments on the original posts, which frequently skewer whatever BS EY is spouting. He ignored them, of course.) GottaPayDaTrollToll posted:I seem to remember the first few chapters (the few I could stand reading) being amazingly insufferable in and of themselves, with Draco being introduced as having "AWESOMECOOL hair" and Harry dismissing public schooling as "child conscription" and a bunch of other stuff I probably blanked out. yyyyeahhh ymmv. I have posted earlier in this thread about my high personal tolerance for bad fanfic. (Currently busy sewer-diving Panacea Quest, a notorious Worm fanfic which got one of the finest fanfic reviews I've ever seen from the moderator banning the author from Spacebattles. So far, I'm concluding mind-control fetishists are a worse infestation in one's fandom than bronies.) divabot fucked around with this message at 13:46 on Dec 24, 2015 |
# ? Dec 24, 2015 13:39 |
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divabot posted:Panacea Quest
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# ? Dec 24, 2015 18:28 |
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I didn't last until the end of the first page of the archive. Once you know the author is a mind-control This sort of thing is what I mean when I say that HPMOR is pretty good for a fanfic.
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# ? Dec 24, 2015 21:31 |
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divabot posted:I didn't last until the end of the first page of the archive. Once you know the author is a mind-control That's like saying it's the garbage at the top of the bin, that's only a day old and might still technically be edible once you shoo the flies away and cut out the rotted and moldy parts.
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# ? Dec 24, 2015 22:24 |
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GottaPayDaTrollToll posted:That's like saying it's the garbage at the top of the bin, that's only a day old and might still technically be edible once you shoo the flies away and cut out the rotted and moldy parts. This is pretty accurate.
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# ? Dec 25, 2015 12:22 |
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# ? May 19, 2024 03:14 |
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GottaPayDaTrollToll posted:That's like saying it's the garbage at the top of the bin, that's only a day old and might still technically be edible once you shoo the flies away and cut out the rotted and moldy parts. "it's pretty good for a fanfic. the author only mentions rape for one excruciatingly long scene, and i don't think it comes up again in their other work, at least not as far as i've seen"
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# ? Dec 25, 2015 13:13 |