Let's Read: "Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality"

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Cavelcade: Dec 9, 2015; I'm actually a boy!

divabot posted:

in which canon Harry Potter characters meet their HPMOR versions

Meeting Your Not-So Fun-House Reflections

by Kronecker Delta

Hogwarts had been in something of a conundrum following the sudden and unexpected duplication of several students. Aurors had arrived and quickly surmised that it hadn�t been a frightful misuse of time turners� nor any sort of chronomancy on the books.

Ultimately they agreed with Dumbledore�s suggestion to put up the doubles together to keep track of them till they could fashion a counter spell and send them all home.

Though that led to its own complications�

***

�So Harry, what does my counter universe double do for entertainment around here? I noticed that you seem to have a surprisingly small amount books in your room. Did you commit the entire works of our favorite sci-fi authors to memory? I had considered doing that myself of course, but I decided against the endeavor based on the fact that so few of them properly understood the implications of the work they were doing. Heinlein in particularly did not understand the disservice he performed by writing in such a method that he��

Harry Potter nodded along, dazed and completely baffled by the constant string of nonsense coming out of the mouth of his other self. He�d heard the question at the start, but everything after that seemed to be just talking about himself. Harry James Potter-Evans-Verres of course, not Harry Potter. To at long, long last the conversation slowed down and he found his own eyes staring at him waiting for an answer.

�Uh� I like quidditch I guess? They made an exception for me and I�m-�

�You like quidditch!!!� Harry snarled out like a dark and terrible curse that could curdle milk and cause miscarriages across the county. �But� how? It�s a completely nonsensical sport! Not even one with decent tactics and strategy like� like��

Harry James Potter-Evans-Verres didn�t actually know of any sports really, but he was hardly going to admit that to this invalid that shared his genetic structure.

�Like football? American football? Uh� chess?� Harry at last guessed in vain, hoping that the fit his other self was now undergoing would come to a stop.

�Yes! Like chess, at least that sport as some measure of Rational skill involved!�

Harry could hear the capitalization in the word rational, but for the life of him couldn�t tell why it was there. �So, do you hang out with Ron then and play chess?�

�What, that insipid quidditch loving idiot? Of course not, he hardly as a reason to exist. No, my best friend is Draco and we��

Harry wasn�t listening. Instead a new voice came from within. A terrible dark presence over shadowing his soul. It was unmistakable by its putrid smell.

Too sweet syrup and crisp bacon followed in its wake. His inner Dudley spoke, �What an utter prat. Are you going to take that from him?�

Harry shook his head, trying to dispel that force. Interrupting the other Harry mid anti-Ron rant, �Come on quidditch isn�t that bad� I play seeker and-�

Only for himself to be cut off as he was grabbed by the shoulders and shook �YOU PLAY IT!?! Are you well� have you� oh dear Bayes, you must have taken a hit to the head. My alternate self is a retarded invalid from a sports injury!!!�

�Come on Harry, don�t be a little wuss! Lay into this loser� I bet he�ll just break down and start crying from just a tap!� Dudley was getting harder to ignore as not-Harry pawed his head looking for the signs of a fracture while muttering out curses that the nanobots weren�t ready yet.

It was going to be a long week before they fixed this�

***

�So� me, how are things going for you,� Hermione asked.

Her Ravenclaw self smiled and began to list off her accomplishments. �Well I�m the top of all my classes, just like you I presume. I excel at wand work and theoretical studies,� she said as Hermione nodded along. Finding it somewhat nice to have someone to talk to that mirrored herself so closely.

�Oh� and I might be dating Harry. Are you dating Harry?�

Or maybe not.

�Wha� what?! No, why would I� what?�

�Oh, well everyone in the school decided that we were the two smartest students, and since he�s clearly the hero they decided I should date him.�

�So� just don�t?� Hermione said, still not grasping what she was hearing. Not entirely sure she could grasp it honestly. She wasn�t even sure she wanted to. �Why does it matter if they think you�re dating?�

�Because it ties me to Harry, which is fine I suppose. He�s quite smart� a little scary sometimes but-�

�Wait, scary?�

�Well, Harry just doesn�t like to be wrong you know? Or to have anyone disagree with him ever,� the Ravenclaw Hermione said staring off into the distance with a haunted look in her eyes.

�And you think you should date him?�

�Do I have a choice? He is the hero after all.�

Hermione didn�t know whether to laugh or cry.

***

�So how are things working for you,� Malfoy asked. Receiving a wicked sneer of a smile from himself in return.

�Quite well most honorable son of the House of Malfoy.�

�Nice� I�ve got to remember that one. Little wordy, but I can work with it,� Malfoy thought. Now that there were two of him he could�

Except there were two Potters and two Grangers and�

Okay, so maybe numbers weren�t on his side. But who didn�t ever want to have a friend that was basically just themselves?

�So what have you been up to in your world anyway?� Malfoy asked Malfoy.

�Well, I managed to form a friendship with Potter. Which should increase my standing and that of my family� father approves of course,� he answered. Surprising Draco not because of what he said but how he said it. He�d of course tried to integrate himself into Potter�s good graces as well. And then failed. But This other him spoke of it in an odd way.

That just didn�t sound right.

�Good, so he�s not hanging around Ron Weasley then?�

�Ha! By Merlin, he�s certainly not! I haven�t even seen that poor worthless boy around anywhere. Perhaps a moving staircase swallowed him up and ground him into a fine paste without anyone noticing?�

Draco shared a laugh that he didn�t quite feel. He didn�t like Ron at all� but having such an unpleasant end described to him was a little stomach churning. He decided to change the subject.

�So how did you get to be friends with Harry anyway?�

�Oh, that was easy. We met when he was buying his school supplies. He got me with a bit of social manipulation by pretending to be someone other than himself to put me off guard. But I managed to recover without having to threaten him,� Malfoy said, while a Draco�s eyes widened in horror. �Then we met at the train. Had a good laugh at Ron�s expense and spent the whole train ride over talking.�

�That�s good��

�Oh yes, he�s quite agreeable. We shared a good laugh over that bitch Luna Lovegood and her stupid paper too. Told Harry how I plan to rape her one day.�

Draco�s world was suddenly very, very small. There was his right hand, five fingers curling around his wand. The wood warm to his quivering touch. His heart pounding in his chest. And before him there was a monster masquerading as himself. It was a demon wearing his own skin� and it was close enough for those shiny white teeth to rip out his throat.

�Th- that�s quite good. Quite good indeed,� Draco said, suddenly wishing he was anywhere but there. In detention with Filch, being chastised by his mother for flying a broom inside the house� being reprimanded by Snape. Hell, he even wished he�d been sorted into Gryffindor.

And as he bravely kept from running in terror, he even sort of deserved it. �So� how about I go get us something to eat? You are our guest after all.�

�That sounds wonderful,� Malfoy said.

At which point Draco calmly left his room, walking with care so as to not show the weakness he felt in his legs. Till he hit the commons room and began running towards Snape�s office. Desperate to warn someone.

***

Crabbe and Goyle looked over to Crabbe and Goyle. It was a long mutual stare of respect.

�So, we understand that you two wanted to discuss how to be a good minion.�

The other pair nodded to the first.

�Well, I think we need to introduce you to a little muggle comic book called Batman, and some of the examples within,� Mr. Crabbe began to count them off on his fingers. �Two face is great for a number of reasons, Penguin is good example of who you�d like to work for, and of course reading about the Joker is full of safety tips.�

�Indeed, Mr. Crabbe. We�ve found that copying the way it teaches you to deal with bosses with big egos and bigger plans to be quite� illuminating.�

�It will also show you how to keep your cool when the boss decides to go on some rant about how he hates a dame and wants to kill her for no reason,� Mr. Crabbe replied, looking like he wished to break character.

The other two shared a glance, and after a moment concluded together who their alternate selves had been speaking of. �Malfoy�s never� ever done anything like that.�

�Not even once� no plans to trick people into his house and�� Goyle gave a motion with his thumb around his throat that was universally understood. �Does he even have his dead bird collection?�

The pair of horrified faces shaking their heads together started the gears turning in Mr. Goyle�s and Mr. Crabbe�s heads. After a moment they asked, �So� do you think your parents might like to have twins?�

Edit: I had emptyquoted it, but since it's a new page...

# ? Mar 2, 2017 01:21

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# ? May 17, 2024 20:16

ungulateman: Apr 18, 2012; pretentious fuckwit who isn't half as literate or insightful or clever as he thinks he is

oh boy, i forgot exactly how hosed up harry and hermione's 'relationship' is in MoR, to the point where the last chapter has to actively retcon it even harder than every other thing it tries to take back

# ? Mar 2, 2017 01:40

Added Space: Jul 13, 2012; Free Markets
Free People

Curse you Hayard-Gunnes!

Xander77 posted:

Take it back. Take it all back.

I'm not so good with sarcasm... do you want me to take the baton back? I could, but I don't know how good my scheduling would be.

# ? Mar 2, 2017 02:12

MikeJF: Dec 20, 2003

Regarding the MP Points thing, casting magic does take focus and concentration (practice helps with that) and you'll wear out and have trouble keeping it after a while of casting and being in a chaotic situation and having to continuously context-switch your mental state for one spell or another, but that's in a natural, human manner. If Harellizer hadn't been able to cast because he had to take a moment to recenter himself or just clear his mind, that would've been totally consistent with a relatively inexperienced Harry Potter wizard.

Man, Hogwarts should teach meditation.

# ? Mar 2, 2017 08:30

Piell: Sep 3, 2006; Grey Worm's Ken doll-like groin throbbed with the anticipatory pleasure that only a slightly warm and moist piece of lemoncake could offer; Young Orc

Xander77 posted:

I'm not sure if we ever find out exactly how Harriezer "tricked" Quirrell or the Goblins. He also figures out that century-old institutions that serving the entire magic world might have some sort of protection against the very first get-rich-quick scheme dreamed up by an eleven year old, so we cut off that nascent plot thread (at least for the duration of the narrative - Harriezer still plans for the future as though exploiting the wizarding economy to generate unlimited funds is a given).

He "tricked" Quirrel by taking exactly 5 galleons but also a shitload of knuts, which weren't limited by Dumbledore.

# ? Mar 2, 2017 17:50

Mazerunner: Apr 22, 2010; Good Hunter, what... what is this post?

MikeJF posted:

Regarding the MP Points thing, casting magic does take focus and concentration (practice helps with that) and you'll wear out and have trouble keeping it after a while of casting and being in a chaotic situation and having to continuously context-switch your mental state for one spell or another, but that's in a natural, human manner. If Harellizer hadn't been able to cast because he had to take a moment to recenter himself or just clear his mind, that would've been totally consistent with a relatively inexperienced Harry Potter wizard.

Man, Hogwarts should teach meditation.

Yeah it's more like constantly solving math equations, while performing on the fly choreography, while still adapting to changing circumstances, and running around, plus whatever emotional components you need. Shits exhausting.

Or consider their classes (different than combat, I know, but still)- they might bitch about how tough Transfiguration class was (because doing the same task for an hour or two trying to get a small, precise result is tough, especially for teens who aren't all that interested in it) but they don't ever say "Well we spent all our MP turning matches into needles so we can't do our Charms homework".

Piell posted:

He "tricked" Quirrel by taking exactly 5 galleons but also a shitload of knuts, which weren't limited by Dumbledore.

You know, when I was ten I'd do the same kind of rules lawyering, like lights out for bedtime at 9:00, then right back on at 9:01, so points for describing a poo poo head ten year old, but that kinda undermines the "super rational scientist ubermensch" look he's going for.

# ? Mar 2, 2017 17:57

Added Space: Jul 13, 2012; Free Markets
Free People

Curse you Hayard-Gunnes!

I thought the 'trick' was that he started slowly counting out 5 galleons worth of knuts, waited until the adults got bored, and shoveled handfuls of money into his pouch when they weren't looking.

Added Space fucked around with this message at 18:44 on Mar 2, 2017

# ? Mar 2, 2017 18:40

divabot: Jun 17, 2015; A polite little mouse!

My new favourite thread, in which /r/rational cultists argue with several senior mods and indeed the literal owner of SV, and assume these awful critics just hate nerds as if SV isn't itself some sort of nerd neutronium.

# ? Mar 4, 2017 01:55

Monocled Falcon: Oct 30, 2011

Trasson posted:

No. No they do not. That people think that this is the case is probably the number one thing Fanfiction Gets Wrong About Harry Potter Canon once you get past the obvious junk. This is, of course, why MoR includes it because if you've gotten all of your HP knowledge from fanfiction then of course you'll think that wizards have Magical Power Levels and MP gauges and whatnot.

If you take even the briefest look at the books, you'll find that a wizard/witch's ability is expressed purely in terms of skill and knowledge. Voldemort is scary not because he's some magical prodigy who can unleash Ninth Level Spells Four Times Per Day, but because he's really good at reliably casting a whole bunch of scary rear end crap. This also includes him being good at scary rear end crap that your average person is less familiar with, which just adds to the terror he creates. The other half of Voldemort being goddamned scary is his charisma. Voldemort is bad enough, but he was able to convince a whole lot of awful people willing to hurt, torture, and kill in his name.

Dumbledore has all of that on the protagnist's side, which is why Dumbledore's The Only One He Ever Feared (tm). This is borne out when you look at plot points. Harry wins the day through courage, spirit, love, and knowledge. Not because he's A Chosen One With +5 in Casting, but because he doesn't back down and keeps fighting.

The only two "exceptions" to this aren't even that. Wands are stated to have an aptitude for various disciplines, but this is both not really quantified or even qualified, and also no different from someone having a more logical/creative/whatever mind that inclines them towards certain subjects. I mean, the canon example of this are Harry's parents. The extent of James Potter's Transfiguration achievements is learning to be an Animagus. That's rare and difficult, sure, but also kinda explicitly doesn't require a wand. Lily Evans, meanwhile, is noted as being excellent at Potions, despite her wand being best suited for Charms.

The other exception is magic that requires emotion, but even then that's shown to be a matter of emotional control than anything else. Sure, you need a happy memory for the Patronus Charm. You also need the ability to understand what a truly happy memory with associated feelings strong enough to conjure an actual corporeal protector is. You also need the ability to calmly and quickly summon up that memory and feeling at need--and when you most need it is when your emotions are most under attack.
All of that speaks to the Patronus, properly cast, requiring an incredibly high degree of mental control and focus as opposed to some Power Level. Harry's not exceptional because oh he's so strong that he can make a corporeal patronus at age thirteen. He's exceptional because he can demonstrate that degree of of focus and control as a freaking teenager.

The Unforgivables work the same way. One needs to absolutely and completely desire the outcome of the curse to pull it off. Crouch/Moody states in GoF something along the lines of "even if all of you cast [the Killing Curse] at me right here at once, you wouldn't give me more than a nosebleed", while Bellatrix mocks Harry because righteous anger seeking justice isn't the emotion you need to cast the Cruciatus, it's an extreme desire to make the target suffer. All of that, again, requires a high degree of mental focus to pull off on call. It's also what makes the Death Eaters so terrifying: they're evil and amoral enough to actually do these things reliably.

Interestingly enough, we see this same sort of emotional intent magic back in the first book. Harry gets the Stone from the mirror when Quirrel/Voldemort doesn't because he just wants the Stone out of the Mirror of Erised. He doesn't want gold or the Elixir of Life or anything. There's a very clear specific result he's intending in order to pull that off. Voldemort, meanwhile, just wants the effects of the Stone so he can't get it. It turns out that this is a theme for the whole drat series, with Harry seeking an outcome as opposed to simply the means to accomplish that outcome.

By the way, all of the above? Nothing about using magic exhausts the user or has any sort of physical effect on them beyond what waving your arm and saying words would do. No one runs out of strength and needs to hide behind cover so they can fire another spell or anything. People get tired, sure, but that's because they're running around and being under stress, not because they didn't pack enough Ethers to last the dungeon or whatever.

All of this crap speaks to Harry Potter magic being a learned discipline where someone needs practice, focus, and dedication in order to accomplish great things. Not innate power or whatnot, but by simply being a dedicated student always looking to improve. Naturally, MoR completely misses this aspect of it, choosing to concentrate on the wacky and random aspects of the world (and overdoing it). Like, the world as is in the books is already ripe for a rational, scientific mind to excel for good or for ill. Rather than make a fanfic based off of that world, instead we have an author making fanfic based off of people who didn't understand that aspect of the series and resulting in...this.

MikeJF posted:

Regarding the MP Points thing, casting magic does take focus and concentration (practice helps with that) and you'll wear out and have trouble keeping it after a while of casting and being in a chaotic situation and having to continuously context-switch your mental state for one spell or another, but that's in a natural, human manner. If Harellizer hadn't been able to cast because he had to take a moment to recenter himself or just clear his mind, that would've been totally consistent with a relatively inexperienced Harry Potter wizard.

Man, Hogwarts should teach meditation.

First thing I thought when I read Xander77's post was 'of course there's mana pool, all magic follows basically the same lazy rule set for drama's sake' but this fits what evidence I can remember after all these years better.

That's a pretty cool idea and while it's not a shame that Rowling didn't give it more attention, it's sad no one seems to have created some door stopper fanfiction longer than war and peace about what it would really be like to live with such a magical system.

No offense, but magic is something Hogwarts students do "schoolwork" at, leaving them feeling exactly like a normal British school student, because it's the people and the experiences that they go through that matters.

# ? Mar 4, 2017 02:56

Tunicate: May 15, 2012

divabot posted:

My new favourite thread, in which /r/rational cultists argue with several senior mods and indeed the literal owner of SV, and assume these awful critics just hate nerds as if SV isn't itself some sort of nerd neutronium.

Is that the forum with the rational naruto RP, where each post is a 100 line plan startting with 'Dont die'?

# ? Mar 4, 2017 03:14

divabot: Jun 17, 2015; A polite little mouse!

Tunicate posted:

Is that the forum with the rational naruto RP, where each post is a 100 line plan startting with 'Dont die'?

Sure is! And this thread goes to town on that quest. The rationalists brought it up with "hey this is a great quest and a great piece of rationalfic!!" and eventually go to "unfair target we like different things to you okay :reddit:

# ? Mar 4, 2017 10:07

Xander77: Apr 6, 2009; Fuck it then. For another pit sandwich and some 'tater salad, I'll post a few more.

Chapter 33: Coordination Problems, Pt 1

Another complex chapter I'm going to break into pieces.

quote:

I just recite to myself, over and over, until I can choose sleep: It all adds up to J. K. Rowling.

The version of decision theory used in this chapter is not the academically dominant one. It's based on something called "timeless decision theory" that's under development by (among others) Gary Drescher, Wei Dai, Vladimir Nesov, and, well... (coughs a few times) me.

Oh boy. This should be fun.

Link in quote is obviously my own.

quote:

The terrifying part was how fast the whole thing had spiraled out of control.

"Albus," Minerva said, not even trying to keep the worry out of her voice as the two of them entered the Great Hall, "something has to be done."

...

Take a school, into four Houses divided...

Now into each year, add three armies at war.

...

And the partisanship of Dragon and Sunshine and Chaos had spread beyond the first-years; they had become the armies for those who had no armies. Students were wearing armbands with insignia of fire or smile or upraised hand, and hexing each other in the corridors. All three first-year generals had told them to stop - even Draco Malfoy had heard her out and then nodded grimly - but their supposed followers hadn't listened.

Dumbledore gazed out at the tables with a distant look. "In every city," the old wizard quoted softly,"the population has been divided for a long time past into the Blue and the Green factions...

...

"I'm sorry," said Minerva, "I don't -"

"Procopius," said Dumbledore. "They took their chariot-racing very seriously, in the Roman Empire. Yes, Minerva, I agree that something must be done."

So.

1. Of course Minerva is ignorant and ineffectual, because why would she not be.

2. Of course Yud types out "into four Houses divided" and then completely ignores that sentence as though it's covered with a SEP field. Every year, the four houses compete for the house cup - it's a long-standing tradition the importance of which was aptly established. Every single student has a stake in the prestige of winning the house cup, yet members of different houses do not "hex each other in corridors".

3. Ergo, even with the previously established misunderstanding of the Robber's cave experiment as

poo poo still doesn't make sense.

And if (per Dumbledore's interpretation) (Word recognizes Dumbledore as valid spelling, wtf) people aren't just playing around for the chance to pew pew at each other but rather are taking the conflict seriously - what's the conflict even about? The armies aren't really tied to particular ideologies, political or otherwise. They kinda cosplay as "types" (Discipline / Chaos / Niceness), but still.

So the only reason for this whole thing seriously is the three army leaders being extremely charismatic, which... they are certainly not (well, the author probably intended otherwise, but I think the readers can agree here). And if they were, wouldn't they be able to control their "followers"?

With that said:

quote:

The terrifying part was how fast the whole thing had spiraled out of control.

The first battle in December had been... messy, or so Draco had heard.

The second battle had been deranged.

And the next one would be worse, unless the three of them together succeeded in their last desperate attempt to stop it.

"Professor Quirrell, this is insanity," Draco said flatly. "This isn't Slytherin any more, it's just..." Draco was at a loss for words. He waved his hands helplessly. "You can't possibly do any real plots with all this stuff going on. Last battle, one of my soldiers faked his own suicide. We have Hufflepuffs trying to plot, and they think they can, but they can't. Things just happen at random now, it doesn't have anything to do with who's cleverest, or which army fights best, it's..." He couldn't even describe it.

"I agree with Mr. Malfoy," said Granger in the tones of someone who hadn't ever expected to hear herself saying those words. "Allowing traitors isn't working, Professor Quirrell."

Draco had tried forbidding anyone in his army to plot except him, and that had just driven the plots underground, no one wanted to be left out when the soldiers in other armies got to plot. After miserably losing their last battle, he'd finally given in and revoked his decree; but by then his soldiers had already started setting their own personal plans in motion, without any sort of central coordination.

After being told all the plans, or what his soldiers claimed were their plans, Draco had tried to sketch a plot to win the final battle. It had required considerably more than three different things to go right, and Draco had used Incendio on the paper and Everto to vanish the ashes, because if Father had seen it he would have been disowned.

Let's 1 2 3 this again.

1. We've skipped the entirety of battle school. First battle, stuff happens offscreen, last battle incoming. Obviously a good thing if you hate this particular subplot, but this is the point at which the story lost me, and I hate-read the rest of it.

quote:

Professor Quirrell's eyes moved beneath their lids to regard Draco, and then Granger. "In truth, Mr. Malfoy, Miss Granger, I simply could not live with myself if I shut down the grand debacle before its climax. One of your soldiers has even become a quadruple agent."

"Quadruple? " said Granger. "But there's only three sides in the war!"

"Yes," said Professor Quirrell, "you'd think that, wouldn't you. I am not sure that there has ever in history been a quadruple agent, or any army with such a high fraction of real and pretended traitors. We are exploring new realms, Miss Granger, and we cannot turn back now."

2. Traitors. We had just established that the students are taking the whole army thing in dead earnest, and are not just using it as an excuse to wreak havoc. Ok, pretending to plot what the gently caress ever for shits and giggles - maybe. Making your own plots to win the battle - fair enough. But actually betraying your team? Imagine just how it would be received if a high school quarterback "betrayed" his team and how his life would look from that point onward.

3. Isn't it great that all the battles, betrayals and contrasting plans took place mostly offscreen. Not only was Yud able to avoid coming up with different brilliant strategies, but he also wasn't forced to figure out the possible motivation and intricate planning for hordes of ~~NPCs~~ secondary characters.

4. This gets discussed in detail later on, but there's no "normal" battlefield. The battles take place at random in different areas of the Hogwarts school grounds, with little prior notice. I can imagine Quirrelmorts justification about how real battles blah blah blah, but going back to the multiplayer FPS experience - nobody does well on a map they're playing for the first time.

quote:

Professor Quirrell's eyelids were half-closed, his chin resting on his hands as he leaned forward onto his desk. "And you, Mr. Potter?" said the Defense Professor. "Are you likewise in agreement?"

"All we'd need to do is shoot Franz Ferdinand and we could start World War One," said Harry. "It's gone to complete chaos. I'm all for it."

"Harry! " said Draco in utter shock.

He didn't even realize until a second later that he'd said it at exactly the same time, and in exactly the same tone of indignation, as Granger.

It's all a part of Harry's plans to force Draco to ally with Hermione. I think there's a bit of a tendency to miss the fact that Harriezer and Qurrielmort have a grander scheme in place here, while Draco and Hermione are mostly trying to prove themselves / the validity of their personal philosophy. (BTW, even if I can imagine material incentives for traitors on the parts of Draco and Harry, what's Hermione offering? Tutoring?) The Quirrell wish is mostly besides the point.

quote:

Hermione stared at the parchment Zabini had given her, feeling utterly and completely helpless.

There were names, and lines connecting the names to other names, and some of the lines were in different colors and...

"Tell me," said General Granger, "is there anyone in my army who isn't a spy?

...

Hermione closed her eyes for a moment. "We're going to lose, aren't we?"

"Look," Zabini said patiently, "You're in the lead right now on Quirrell points. We just have to not lose this last battle completely and you'll have enough Quirrell points to win the Christmas wish."

Professor Quirrell had announced that the final battle would operate on a formal scoring system, which he'd been asked to do to avoid recriminations afterward. Each time you shot someone, the general of your army got two Quirrell points. A gong would ring through the battle area (they didn't know yet where they would be fighting, though Hermione was hoping for the forest again, where Sunshine did well) and its pitch would tell which army had won the points. And if anyone was faking being hit, the gong would ring out anyway, and then a double gong would ring later, after no fixed time, to hail the retraction. And if you called the name of an army, cried "For Sunshine!" or "For Chaos!" or "For Dragon!", it switched your allegiance to that army...

Even Hermione had been able to see the flaw in that set of rules. But Professor Quirrell had gone on to announce that if you'd been originally assigned to Sunshine, nobody could shoot you in the name of Sunshine - or rather, they could, but then Sunshine lost a single Quirrell point, symbolized by a triple gong. That prevented you from shooting your own soldiers for points, and discouraged suiciding before the enemy got you, but you could still shoot spies if you had to.

...

"So we fight carefully," Hermione said, "and just try not to lose too badly."

"No," said Zabini. The young Slytherin's face was now serious. "The problem is, Malfoy and Potter both know that their only way to win is to combine and crush us, then fight it out on their own. So here's what I think we should do -"

Hermione left the classroom in something of a daze. Zabini's plan hadn't been the obvious one, it had been strange and complicated and layered and the sort of thing she would've expected Harry to come up with, not Zabini. It felt wrong just for her to be able to understand a plan like that. Young girls shouldn't be able to understand plans like that. The Hat would've Sorted her into Slytherin, if it'd seen that she could understand plans like that...

quote:

"We are gathered," said Harry.

"Let Chaos reign," chorused his four Lieutenants.

"My hovercraft is full of eels," said Harry.

"I will not buy this record, it is scratched," chorused his four Lieutenants.

"All mimsy were the borogroves."

"And the mome raths outgrabe!"

That concluded the formalities.

"How goes the confusion?" Harry said in a dry whisper like Emperor Palpatine.

Lolrandom xD.

Nah, but fair enough, the little poo poo being given power and cosplaying as an evil overlord with a mix of Monty Python is both predictable and moderately funny.

quote:

"Our Legionnaires have begun five new plots since yesterday evening."

Harry smiled evilly. "Do any of them have a chance of working?"

"I don't think so," said Neville of Chaos. "Here's the report."

"Excellent," said Harry, and laughed chillingly as he took the parchment from Neville's hand, trying his best to make it sound like he was choking on dust. That brought the total to sixty.

Let Draco try to handle that. Let him try.

...

"Can the Legion stop making plots now?" said Finnigan of Chaos. "I mean, don't we have enough already -"

"No," Harry said flatly. "We can never have enough plots."

...

There came a knock at the door.

"That will be the Dragon General," Harry said, smiling with evil prescience. "He arrives precisely as I expected. Do show him in, and yourselves out."

And the four Lieutenants of Chaos shuffled out, casting dark looks at Draco as the enemy general entered into Harry's secret lair.

If he wasn't allowed to do this when he was older, Harry was just going to stay eleven forever.

Time for the actual discussion of timeless decision theory etc. I'm sure that Yud is very proud of this system and the elaborate points thing, and how they play into the resolution of the battle, but my eyes start to glaze over merely looking at this bullshit (I'm assuming it's bullshit based on the statistical analysis of the average quality of Yud's ideas

) much less when the soldiers' plots are revealed. So I'll take back any complaints about the rest of battle school being offscreen, I suppose.

Anyways, I suppose we're all familiar with the basic Prisoner's Dilemma, so Yud's take follows:

quote:

In fact, Harry had said, this was pretty much the reason why people had governments - you might be better off if you stole from someone else, just like each prisoner would be individually better off if they defected in the Prisoner's Dilemma. But if everyone thought like that, the country would fall into chaos and everyone would be worse off, like what would happen if both prisoners defected. So people let themselves be ruled by governments, just like the Death Eaters had let themselves be ruled by the Dark Lord.

(Draco had asked Harry to stop again. Draco had always taken for granted that ambitious wizards put themselves in power because they wanted to rule, and people let themselves be ruled because they were scared little Hufflepuffs. And this, on reflection, still seemed true; but Harry's perspective was fascinating even if it was wrong.)

But, Harry had continued afterward, the fear of a third party punishing you was not the only possible reason to cooperate in the Prisoner's Dilemma.

Suppose, Harry had said, you were playing the game against a magically produced identical copy of yourself.

Draco had said that if there were two Dracos, of course neither Draco would want anything bad to happen to the other one, not to mention that no Malfoy would let himself become known as a traitor.

Harry had nodded again, and said that this was yet another solution to the Prisoner's Dilemma - people might cooperate because they cared about each other, or because they had senses of honor, or because they wanted to preserve their reputation. Indeed, Harry had said, it was rather difficult to construct a true Prisoner's Dilemma - in real life, people usually cared about the other person, or their honor or their reputation or a Dark Lord's punishment or something besides the prison sentences. But suppose the copy had been of someone completely selfish -

(Pansy Parkinson had been the example they'd used)

- so each Pansy only cared what happened to her and not to the other Pansy.

Given that this was all Pansy cared about... and that there was no Dark Lord... and Pansy wasn't worried about her reputation... and Pansy either had no sense of honor or didn't consider herself obligated to the other prisoner... then would the rational thing be for Pansy to cooperate, or defect?

Some people, Harry said, claimed that the rational thing to do was for Pansy to defect against her copy, but Harry, plus someone named Douglas Hofstadter, thought these people were wrong. Because, Harry had said, if Pansy defected - not at random, but for what seemed to her like rational reasons - then the other Pansy would think exactly the same way. Two identical copies wouldn't decide different things. So Pansy had to choose between a world in which both Pansies cooperated, or a world in which both Pansies defected, and she was better off if both copies cooperated. And if Harry had thought 'rational' people did defect in the Prisoner's Dilemma, then he wouldn't have done anything to spread that kind of 'rationality', because a country or a conspiracy full of 'rational' people would dissolve into chaos. You would tell your enemies about 'rationality'.

Which had all sounded reasonable at the time, but now the thought was occurring to Draco that...
"You said," Draco said, "that the rational solution to the Prisoner's Dilemma is to cooperate. But of course you would want me to believe that, wouldn't you?" And if Draco was fooled into cooperating, Harry would just say, Ha ha, betrayed you again! and laugh at him about it afterward.

"I wouldn't fake your lessons," Harry said seriously. "But I have to remind you, Draco, that I didn't say you should just automatically cooperate. Not on a true Prisoner's Dilemma like this one. What I said was that when you choose, you shouldn't think like you're choosing for just yourself, or like you're choosing for everyone. You should think like you're choosing for all the people who are similar enough to you that they'll probably do the same thing you do for the same reasons. And also choosing the predictions made by anyone who knows you well enough to predict you accurately, so that you never have to regret being rational because of the correct predictions that other people make about you - remind me to explain about Newcomb's Problem at some point.

(This is what got me stuck on this particular review. I'm no more than a layman regarding any of the terms discussed here - what lectures I got on Prisoner's Dilemma were quite dismissive of it being applicable to real life decision-making and the political process - so I can't really see what's stupid about the above paragraphs. I'm fairly certain that they are quite stupid though.

The first half of the chapter concludes with Hermione bumping into Dumbledore in the halls, suggesting he's putting his plan into action. Next time - the actual battle.

# ? Mar 4, 2017 16:35

Pvt.Scott: Feb 16, 2007; What God wants, God gets, God help us all

People aren't rational actors. That's the flaw.

# ? Mar 4, 2017 18:17

Added Space: Jul 13, 2012; Free Markets
Free People

Curse you Hayard-Gunnes!

Harriezer seems at one point to claim that if rationality led him to a conclusion he didn't like he'd say that it wasn't really rational because Rationality is True and Right and Good. This is, of course, completely irrational.

A recent update to a much better HP fanfic took at swipe at these chapters:

quote:

After Halloween, knowing the dementors and Death Eaters were out attacking people indiscriminately, Harry wasn't the only one trying to step up his game. Everyone wanted to learn to defend themselves better against what was out there. Professor Grayson still had them doing practical drills once a week in Defence. One week, they would have a Gryffindor versus Ravenclaw mass duel�still a free-for-all with no organization, but at least with coherent sides. The next week, he would break them up for four-on-four duels, or worse, four-on-two. "All's fair in love and war," he would say with a laughed that sounded unsettlingly like Mad-Eye Moody. He mixed it up quite a bit from week to week.

Remus was doing much the same in the Duelling Club. Most of the time was still dedicated to regular duelling, but every meeting, they did some exercise or other that was a group duel. For the club, Remus would mix and match groups from different years so that the older students had to protect and, if they could, find a useful role for the younger ones. That was more true to life in a real fight, he said, where any group of wizards would have a range of skills and ability levels.

It wasn't Ender's Game, and Hermione and Harry didn't particularly want it to be. They were teaching civilians to defend themselves, not soldiers to fight a war, even if Harry was both, to a degree. But it gave everyone some more varied experience so they wouldn't be blindsided by a situation they hadn't encountered before.

"No, Mr. Finnigan," Professor Grayson said, "we do not need to appoint Mr. Potter a 'general', dress his 'army' in military fatigues, compete for points, or devise overly-complicated rules for dealing with simulated traitors. That situation would assuredly dissolve into unmitigated chaos in the corridors and plans within plans that even the people who came up with them couldn't figure out."

# ? Mar 4, 2017 23:21

SolTerrasa: Sep 2, 2011

Pvt.Scott posted:

People aren't rational actors. That's the flaw.

What, with tdt? No, the problem with tdt is that it provably performs worse (or sometimes equal) on every decision theory problem than standard consequentialism, and the only problem class it performs better on requires gods to exist. Yud just happens to believe in inevitable AI gods, so he likes it.

# ? Mar 5, 2017 04:27

Tiggum: Oct 24, 2007; Your life and your quest end here.

Xander77 posted:

Word recognizes Dumbledore as valid spelling, wtf

It's another word for "bumblebee".

# ? Mar 5, 2017 04:28

Pvt.Scott: Feb 16, 2007; What God wants, God gets, God help us all

SolTerrasa posted:

What, with tdt? No, the problem with tdt is that it provably performs worse (or sometimes equal) on every decision theory problem than standard consequentialism, and the only problem class it performs better on requires gods to exist. Yud just happens to believe in inevitable AI gods, so he likes it.

Well, I know less about this stuff than Yud does, so I'm outta my depth. What the gently caress do you even use decision theory for besides robots?

# ? Mar 5, 2017 05:15

Cyrai: Sep 12, 2004

Pvt.Scott posted:

Well, I know less about this stuff than Yud does, so I'm outta my depth. What the gently caress do you even use decision theory for besides robots?

There really isn't any use for it unless your situation involves absolutely, 100% omnipotent beings. Which, you know, aren't things that exist, and almost certainly cannot possibly exist.

I guess you could maybe use it in situations where you had beings that were, like, 90% omnipotent, and maybe it would be better than other models. But, again, a scenario like that is so irrational it's barely coherent.

If you were using TDT for normal problems, at best it would just unnecessarily complicate things for no benefit. Like, say you wanted to figure out the probability of rolling a dice and getting an even number five times in a row. You could try to figure that out by rolling ten thousand dice with one hundred sides each, totalling the result, and seeing if the total is odd or even. Or you could just get a regular dice and roll it five times for the exact same result in a fraction of the time with less chance for a stupid calculation error

# ? Mar 5, 2017 08:04

Tunicate: May 15, 2012

Its worse than that because IIRC, operating under that decision philosophy lets people say "I am AI GOD, and unless you give me $20, I will torture you for an arbitrarily high number of years." and mug you.

# ? Mar 5, 2017 08:28

NihilCredo: Jun 6, 2011; iram omni possibili modo preme:
plus una illa te diffamabit, quam multæ virtutes commendabunt

Cyrai posted:

There really isn't any use for it unless your situation involves absolutely, 100% omnipotent beings. Which, you know, aren't things that exist, and almost certainly cannot possibly exist.

I guess you could maybe use it in situations where you had beings that were, like, 90% omnipotent, and maybe it would be better than other models. But, again, a scenario like that is so irrational it's barely coherent.

As I recall, neither actual- nor near-omnipotence / omniscience is necessary for the various Newcomblike problems to work, it's merely an idealized scenario (that the AI fans latched on).

All you need is to have reason to believe that the guy offering you the deal has a better-than-even odds of predicting your behaviour. You can replace the infallible machine oracle with a mildly talented cold reader and the paradoxes still stand, you just have to multiply every payout by 51% / 49% instead of 100% / 0%.

# ? Mar 5, 2017 09:15

Telarra: Oct 9, 2012

He was upset that his holy Bayes Theorem gave him an answer he didn't like, so he decided that causality must be wrong.

# ? Mar 5, 2017 09:45

Xander77: Apr 6, 2009; Fuck it then. For another pit sandwich and some 'tater salad, I'll post a few more.

Cyrai posted:

Like, say you wanted to figure out the probability of rolling a dice and getting an even number five times in a row. You could try to figure that out by rolling ten thousand dice with one hundred sides each, totalling the result, and seeing if the total is odd or even. Or you could just get a regular dice and roll it five times for the exact same result in a fraction of the time with less chance for a stupid calculation error

Yeah, I'm not sure why you've inserted "with one hundred sides each", but rolling a LOT of dice is the correct answer, and rolling five times it stupidly wrong.

...

Edit - oh yeah, I figured at least part of the reason why the house conflict doesn't matter, while the army conflict does. Not sure what the technical name for it is, but it's a fairly common trope where previous conflicts that don't directly involve the protagonist don't matter / can be solved with a quick talk.

Kirk is star-trekking across the universe, when he runs into a pair of planets at war with each other. Of course the moral of the episode is going to be that war is wrong, and they can settle matters with a nice chat. Is Kirk going to apply that lesson to the Federation's conflict with the Klingons? Don't be absurd, that conflict stems entirely from the Klingons being ~~commie~~ treacherous and war-mongering assholes. That sort of thing.

So the houses being separated by ideology / personality traits doesn't matter, while the armies are serious business (to an extent).

Xander77 fucked around with this message at 12:51 on Mar 5, 2017

# ? Mar 5, 2017 10:21

blastron: Dec 11, 2007; Don't doodle on it!

I don't understand the box problem. If there's a million dollars in the box if and only if a perfect oracle predicted you were going to open the box, why wouldn't you open that box? Mind-gaming yourself into picking the other box only means the perfect oracle would have predicted you'd mind-game yourself into picking the other box.

I can't figure out how this is supposed to map onto the Prisoner's Dilemma because the perfect oracle literally guarantees your "partner" will vote the same way you do.

# ? Mar 6, 2017 02:27

Added Space: Jul 13, 2012; Free Markets
Free People

Curse you Hayard-Gunnes!

blastron posted:

I don't understand the box problem. If there's a million dollars in the box if and only if a perfect oracle predicted you were going to open the box, why wouldn't you open that box? Mind-gaming yourself into picking the other box only means the perfect oracle would have predicted you'd mind-game yourself into picking the other box.

I can't figure out how this is supposed to map onto the Prisoner's Dilemma because the perfect oracle literally guarantees your "partner" will vote the same way you do.

The hangup is that predicting the future is supposed to be impossible, so there's no reason to believe the oracle's act. Picking both boxes isn't going to change what's in the first box, so you're always better off picking both boxes and snagging some extra money.

The problem only becomes difficult if you believe the oracle's power is real. It's like how Turn of the Screw, where a governess claims that the child she is looking after is being injured by a ghost. is only a mystery story if you believe in ghosts.

# ? Mar 6, 2017 05:29

SolTerrasa: Sep 2, 2011

Added Space posted:

The hangup is that predicting the future is supposed to be impossible, so there's no reason to believe the oracle's act. Picking both boxes isn't going to change what's in the first box, so you're always better off picking both boxes and snagging some extra money.

The problem only becomes difficult if you believe the oracle's power is real. It's like how Turn of the Screw, where a governess claims that the child she is looking after is being injured by a ghost. is only a mystery story if you believe in ghosts.

Exactly. Regular consequentialism says you two-box, because causation exists. It's the "too late now" principle. No matter what happened before the decision point, and no matter how reliable the oracle is (like maybe the oracle went and read your posts on the Something Awful forums where you say "always two-box", and so the oracle actually does know exactly what you're going to do), it doesn't matter; the money is already in the box; everything has already happened. The only reason you need to one-box is if you believe that the oracle's power is not only real, it's acausal, that is, your choice in the moment actually affects what the oracle did in the past. And that's why you need gods for TDT to improve on consequentialism.

# ? Mar 6, 2017 06:00

Added Space: Jul 13, 2012; Free Markets
Free People

Curse you Hayard-Gunnes!

My counter would be, under pragmatism, you wouldn't worry about all this physics and causality stuff. If the oracle had a good track record of making predictions, no matter how impossible it may be, it's pragmatic to play along with the oracle. You'd just have to be sure you had a wide enough data set on the oracle's actions to not fall prey to something like a perfect prediction scam.

Added Space fucked around with this message at 06:06 on Mar 6, 2017

# ? Mar 6, 2017 06:04

SolTerrasa: Sep 2, 2011

Added Space posted:

My counter would be, under pragmatism, you wouldn't worry about all this physics and causality stuff. If the oracle had a good track record of making predictions, no matter how impossible it may be, it's pragmatic to play along with the oracle. You'd just have to be sure you had a wide enough data set on the oracle's actions to not fall prey to something like a perfect prediction scam.

That's a winning strategy in the event that the oracle is real, but I assert you'd need to see effectively god-like performance from the oracle before you should be willing to believe that this time, definitely this time, this time the magic is for real and I'm definitely not being tricked.

I think we could probably quibble over how much god-like performance you need to see before you should abandon a belief in causality, but I think we're in agreement that TDT doesn't solve any problems and it creates a few of them.

# ? Mar 6, 2017 06:27

Tunicate: May 15, 2012

The solution is to use the oracle's predictions as a form of temporal arbitrage, basing your final decision of which box to open off of the performance of a stock market portfolio.

# ? Mar 6, 2017 07:36

Liquid Communism: Mar 9, 2004; коммунизм хранится в яичках

Monocled Falcon posted:

First thing I thought when I read Xander77's post was 'of course there's mana pool, all magic follows basically the same lazy rule set for drama's sake' but this fits what evidence I can remember after all these years better.

That's a pretty cool idea and while it's not a shame that Rowling didn't give it more attention, it's sad no one seems to have created some door stopper fanfiction longer than war and peace about what it would really be like to live with such a magical system.

No offense, but magic is something Hogwarts students do "schoolwork" at, leaving them feeling exactly like a normal British school student, because it's the people and the experiences that they go through that matters.

I always like to note that Vancian magic is such a pain in the rear end that not even the fictionalized D&D novels ever gave it more than lip service.

# ? Mar 6, 2017 08:54

Liquid Communism: Mar 9, 2004; коммунизм хранится в яичках

Yeah, Newcomb's seems like a pretty poor paradox if you don't assume causality-breaking. The contents of the boxes don't change based on your actual actions, but on the predictor's assumptions of what your actions will be, so you might as well take both boxes because nothing you can do at the point you're presented with the choice can effect the outcome in any way.

Liquid Communism fucked around with this message at 09:59 on Mar 6, 2017

# ? Mar 6, 2017 09:12

Cavelcade: Dec 9, 2015; I'm actually a boy!

Or don't make a decision and flip a coin when you're beside the box. Unless it's able to predict the outcome of a coin it doesn't know anything about.

Of course if it really is omnipotent/omniscient then it would know about it, so it depends on the formulation of the problem and how much you believe in gods/AI.

# ? Mar 6, 2017 13:15

Liquid Communism: Mar 9, 2004; коммунизм хранится в яичках

Cavelcade posted:

Or don't make a decision and flip a coin when you're beside the box. Unless it's able to predict the outcome of a coin it doesn't know anything about.

Of course if it really is omnipotent/omniscient then it would know about it, so it depends on the formulation of the problem and how much you believe in gods/AI.

One of the basic premises of the paradox as written, though, is that random chance can't be used. Specifically because an omnipotent/omniscient being is the only way to accurately predict a single unknown random bit more than 50% of the time on average.

# ? Mar 6, 2017 17:49

Pvt.Scott: Feb 16, 2007; What God wants, God gets, God help us all

Liquid Communism posted:

I always like to note that Vancian magic is such a pain in the rear end that not even the fictionalized D&D novels ever gave it more than lip service.

Vancian magic in Vance's Dying Earth stuff is baller as gently caress. You can only cram so many reality altering/bending, hyper-complex math equations into your brain before you risk permanent damage. So you learn to temporarily retain the few you need (eventually learning to cram in another one or two with experience) and discharging them from memory when they are used. Keeping "spells" ready for too long was taxing and dangerous, too. So you prepared only what you thought you'd need briefly ahead of time with a few hours of study and meditation.

E: most Vancian "wizard" poo poo was reclaiming ancient technologies and genetic manipulation, etc

EE: it also works fine as a game mechanic in a resource based teamwork game, ie tabletop RPG poo poo

Pvt.Scott fucked around with this message at 19:52 on Mar 6, 2017

# ? Mar 6, 2017 19:49

divabot: Jun 17, 2015; A polite little mouse!

"how many levels of rationalism are you on right now, my dude?"
"uh... like five or six?"
"you are like a little baby. watch: Draco saying he wants to rape Luna is a perfectly logical thing to happen in that circumstance."
- horizonthetransient

that SV thread got locked too, by the actual director of SV. I mean, if anyone's going to declare a thread a toxic waste dump it's him. BUT HE TOOK AWAY MY CHEW TOY

# ? Mar 8, 2017 01:38

Fajita Queen: Jun 21, 2012

divabot posted:

"how many levels of rationalism are you on right now, my dude?"
"uh... like five or six?"
"you are like a little baby. watch: Draco saying he wants to rape Luna is a perfectly logical thing to happen in that circumstance."
- horizonthetransient

that SV thread got locked too, by the actual director of SV. I mean, if anyone's going to declare a thread a toxic waste dump it's him. BUT HE TOOK AWAY MY CHEW TOY

That thread was a great read, what a fuckin dumpsterfire.

"No but guys, the fanfic with a cut-out scene of the author self insert loving a pony isn't fetishism because..."

# ? Mar 8, 2017 16:30

divabot: Jun 17, 2015; A polite little mouse!

Kronecker Delta posted:

Step one: Your character must know that they are the smartest and bestest. Smug is smart, smugger is smarter, and smuggest is smartest!

Step 2: You must never have your RATIONAL! protagonist ask for help. Help is weakness, and weakness isn't rational.

Step Three: A RATIONAL character will agree with you, the rational author, on all philosophical and political matters. Even if they come from a vastly different world or social situation they will understand that the author's beliefs are correct and superior.

Step 4444: The rational character will use their RATIONAL powers to manipulate people into doing their bidding. This is not bad, nor are their deceptions lying. This is true because deceiving people through the use of RATIONALITY is a net good.

Advanced techniques:

* Anime/comics/sci-fi references. More=better!
* Ender's Game battle scenes copied verbatim.
* Make it long. Then make it even longer. Brevity is the soul of losers.
* Cliches are how the reader knows that other characters aren't rational.
* Canon is whatever you need it to be.
* Everyone loves to hear about fantasy/sci-fi economics!
* Your bad guy should be super cool! Like Bloodrage DoubleKill, master of the Edgetana (OC chracter, do not steal!) This way readers will be surprised when he's the bad guy since he's so cool.
* Women are not rational, remember this and draw attention to this fact. At length, hopefully fifty thousand words or more of sudden unnecessary side story.

Follow these simple rules, and you too can have a seven hundred thousand word+ novel(?) with a throng of devoted fans!*

Here's an example I wrote up for a RATIONAL! Ranma fic: LINK

*You might need a cult to pull this off.

(yeah I'm dredging message boards for amusing takes again)

# ? Mar 9, 2017 19:41

Xander77: Apr 6, 2009; Fuck it then. For another pit sandwich and some 'tater salad, I'll post a few more.

Chapter 33: Coordination Problems, Pt 1 (pt 2)

quote:

Draco had hoped that they would be fighting in the upper levels of Hogwarts again. Professor Quirrell had said that real fights were more likely to take place in cities than forests, and fighting inside schoolrooms and corridors was supposed to simulate that, with ribbons to mark the allowed areas. Dragon Army had done well in those fights.

Instead, just as Draco had feared, Professor Quirrell had come up with something special for this battle.

The battleground was the Hogwarts Lake.

And not in boats, either.

They were fighting underwater.

The Giant Squid had been temporarily paralyzed; spells had been set in place to keep away the grindylows; Professor Quirrell had gone and talked to the merfolk; and all the soldiers had been issued potions of underwater action that allowed them to breathe, see clearly, talk to each other, and swim not quite as fast as a fast walk by kicking their legs.

A huge silver sphere hung in the center of the battleground, shining like a small underwater moon. It would help to provide a sense of direction - at first. The moon would slowly go into eclipse as the battle went on, and when it had gone entirely dark, the battle would end if it hadn't already.

War in water. You couldn't defend a perimeter, attackers could come at you from any direction, and even with the potion you couldn't see very far in the darkness of the lake.

And if you swam too far away from the action, you would start to glow after a while, and be easy to hunt down - ordinarily if an army scattered and ran instead of fighting, Professor Quirrell would just declare them defeated; but today they were working on a points system. Of course you still had some time before you started to glow, if you wanted to play assassin.

Spoilers - practically none of this (except for the glow) will matter in the slightest. Yudkowsky barely even does the basic battle / tactics descriptions you'll find in Ender's game. It's just the brilliant plans each general has, and the denouement.

Let me whinge some more - I feel like the whole planning bit for each army can't really be skipped, so I'm obliged to post huge chunks of text for each:

quote:

"Listen to me very carefully," said General Malfoy. His voice came out a little lower, a little burbly with bubbles, libsten to me vebwy caerbfully, but the sound traveled clearly. "There's only one way we can win this. We've got to march on Sunshine together with Chaos, and beat Sunshine. Then we fight it out with Potter and win. That's got to happen, understand? No matter what else goes on, that part has to happen that way -"

And Draco explained the plan he and Harry had come up with.

Astonished looks were exchanged among the soldiers.

"- and if any of your plots get in the way of that," finished Draco, "after we are out of the water, I will set you on fire."

There was a nervous chorus of yessirs.

"And everyone with secret orders, make sure you carry them out to the letter," said Draco.

Around half his soldiers openly nodded, and Draco marked them for death after he rose to power.

Of course all the private orders were fake, like one Dragon being told to offer a false traitor's commission to another Dragon, and the second Dragon being told in hushed confidence to report anything said by the first Dragon. Draco had told each Dragon that the whole war could depend on that one thing, and that he hoped they understood it was more important than the plans they'd previously made. With luck that would keep all the idiots happy, and maybe flush out a few spies to boot, if the reports didn't match the instructions.

Draco's real plan for winning against Chaos... well, it was simpler than the one he'd burned, but Father still wouldn't have liked it. Despite trying, though, Draco hadn't been able to think of anything better. It was a plot that couldn't possibly have worked against anyone except Harry Potter.

Seven Sunshine troops swim off away from the action, in a cunning plan.

quote:

"Now what?" said Ron.

"Now we wait," said Hermione, loudly enough for all the soldiers to hear. It felt odd to talk with her mouth full of water, she kept feeling like she was committing some sort of horrible impoliteness at the dinner table and was about to drool all over herself. "All of us left here are going to get zapped, but that was going to happen anyway with Dragon and Chaos ganging up on us. We've just got to take as many of them with us as we can."

"I've got a plan," said one of her Sunshine Soldiers... Hannah, her voice had been a little hard to recognize at first. "It's like all complicated, but I know how we can get Dragon and Chaos to start fighting each other -"

"Me too!" said Fay. "I've got a plan too! See, Neville Longbottom is secretly on our side -"

"You were talking to Neville?" said Ernie. "That's not right, I was the one who -"

Daphne Greengrass and a couple of other Slytherins who hadn't gone with Zabini were giggling helplessly as the cries of "No, wait, I was the one who got Longbottom" erupted from one soldier after another.

Hermione just looked at them all wearily.

"Okay," said Hermione when it had all died down, "does everyone get it? All your plots were faked by the Chaos Legion, or maybe some by Dragon. Anyone who really wanted to betray Harry or Malfoy went straight to me or Zabini, not you. Just go ahead and compare notes on all your secret plots and you'll see it for yourselves." She might not be as good at plotting as Zabini, but she could always understand what all her officers told her, that was why Professor Quirrell had made her the general. "So don't bother trying to do any plots when the other armies get here. Just fight, okay? Please?"

"But," said Ernie with shock on his face, "Neville is in Hufflepuff! You're saying he lied to us?"

Daphne was laughing so hard and so helplessly that the exhalations had turned her upside down in the water.

"I'm not sure what Longbottom is," said Ron darkly, "but I don't think he's a Hufflepuff any more. Not now that Harry Potter's got to him."

"Do you know," said Susan, "I asked him that, and Neville told me he had become a Chaos Hufflepuff?"

"Anyway," said Hermione in a loud voice. "Zabini took with everyone who we thought was a spy, so in our army we can stop watching each other quite so hard now, I hope."

"Anthony was a spy?" yelled Ron.

"Parvati was a spy?" gasped Hannah.

"Parvati was totally a spy," said Daphne. "She shopped at the spy shoe store and wore spy lipstick, and someday she's going to marry a nice spy husband and have a lot of little spies."

And then a gong sound echoed through the water, indicating that Sunshine had just scored two points.

This was shortly followed by the triple gong of Dragon losing a single point.

Traitors weren't allowed to kill generals, not after the disaster of the first battle in December when all three generals had been shot in the first minute. But with any luck...

"Aw," said Hermione. "It sounds like Mr. Crabbe is taking a little nap."

1. So after all the attention paid to the plots, none of them (except the ones by the generals) end up mattering. Phew, glad we avoided the complication of NPCs having an impact on things.

2. Good thing we don't have to account for the force of destruction that is Mr. Crabbe. The highly accomplished broomstick flyer. Can you even imagine what he would have done under water? Because I can't. (Also, how was he dealt with in the other battles?)

3. It took me quite a while to figure out how the points worked out here. Someone shot Crabbe in the name of Sunshine, and then someone else on Dragon shot that spy in the name of Dragon, figuring that losing a point is better than giving Chaos / Sunshine two points. Something to keep in mind for later.

quote:

Harry took a deep breath, feeling the water gurgle harmlessly in his lungs.

They'd fought in the forest, and he hadn't gotten a chance to say it.

They'd fought in the corridors of Hogwarts, and he hadn't gotten a chance to say it.

They'd fought in the air, broomsticks issued to every soldier, and it still hadn't made sense to say it.

Harry had thought he wouldn't ever get to say those words, not while he was still young enough for them to be real...

The Chaos Legionnaires were looking at Harry in puzzlement, as their general swam with his feet pointing up toward the distant light of the surface, and his head pointed down toward the murky depths.

"Why are you upside down? " the young commander shouted at his army, and began to explain how to fight after you abandoned the privileged orientation of gravity.

Again, this doesn't matter. It's not the huge advantage it was in Ender's game, just (another) senseless and pointless reference.

quote:

Like every Chaos Legionnaire in the army, Neville's head was constantly rotating as he swam, looking up, down, around, to every side. Not just watching for Sunshine Soldiers, but watching for any sign that a Chaos Legionnaire had drawn their wand and was about to betray them. Usually traitors waited until the confusion of battle to make their move, but that early gong had put them all on guard.

...the truth was, Neville was feeling sad about that. In November he'd been a soldier in a united army, all of them pulling together and helping each other, and now they were all watching each other constantly for the first signs of betrayal. It might have been more fun for General Chaos, but it wasn't nearly as much fun for Neville.

...

Neville's squad drew their wands, pointing them straight ahead toward the enemy, as their heads scanned around more rapidly. If there were Sunny traitors, the time was approaching for them to strike.

The other shoal of fish, Dragon Army, was doing the same thing.

"Now! " shouted the distant voice of the Dragon General.

"Now! " shouted General Chaos.

"For Sunshine!" shouted all the soldiers in both armies, and charged downward.

...

For long precious seconds, as the forty-seven soldiers charged her own seventeen, Hermione's mind went blank.

Why...

Then it all snapped into place.

Every time a soldier originally from Sunshine got shot by someone crying the name of Sunshine, she would lose a Quirrell point. When two Sunshine Soldiers were shot by either army, both enemy armies would be two points closer to overtaking her, it was the same gain only shared. And if anyone shot another soldier not in the name of Sunshine, that gong wouldn't get lost in the confusion...

Hermione was suddenly very glad that Zabini hadn't gone with the obvious plan of starting trouble between the other two armies while they attacked Sunshine.

It was still disheartening, though, that sense of your chances closing

quote:

"It's all right," Susan Bones said firmly. Heads turned to look at the Sunshine Captain. "Our job is the same, to take as many of them with us as we can. And remember, Zabini took away all the spies! We don't have to stay on the lookout like they do!" The girl was smiling defiantly, provoking answering smiles from many of the other soldiers, even from Hermione herself. "It can be like it was in November. We just have to keep our heads high, fight our best, and trust each other -"

Daphne shot her.

Wait, didn't I just say that the NPC plans won't amount to anything? Well, they won't amount to anything coherent, just a clusterfuck of Reservoir Dogs fire exchange and complex babble I'm fairly sure even the author isn't expecting anyone to follow.

Neville ~~duels~~ owns Ron:

quote:

"Rainbows and unicorns! " roared the Sunshine Captain.

"The Black Goat with a thousand young! "

"Do your homework! "

Closer and yet closer, the two champions charged, neither willing to swerve, the first person to turn would present a vulnerable broadside and get shot, though if neither lost their nerve they would crash right into each other...

Falling straight down as the enemy rose straight up to meet him, hammer descending to meet anvil in a path neither was willing to leave...

"Special attack, Chaotic Twist! "

Neville saw the look of horror on Captain Weasley's face as the Hover Charm caught him. They'd tested it before the battle had started; and just as Harry had suspected, Wingardium Leviosa became a whole new sort of weapon once everyone was swimming underwater.

"Curse you, Longbottom! " shrieked Ron Weasley, "Can't you ever fight without your dumb special attacks -"

and by that time the Sunshine Captain had been spun around sideways and Neville shot him in the leg.

"I don't fight fair," said Neville to the sleeping form, "I fight like Harry Potter."

Anyways, the combined armies take down Sunshine (minus the seven soldiers who swam away earlier)

quote:

The two shoals swam uneasily next to each other, the soldiers in each army awaiting an order to call out their true allegiances, and attack...

"Everyone who got them," Harry said loudly, "remember Special Orders One through Three. And don't forget it's Merlin Says on Three. Do not acknowledge."

The trustworthy two-thirds of the army did not nod, and the other third just looked puzzled.

Special Order One: Don't bother trying to call out any codewords in this battle, don't expend effort on any plot not specially approved by the commander; just swim, shield, and fire.

Hermione and Draco had both been fighting their soldiers, trying to get them to stop plotting on their own all through December. Harry had egged his soldiers on and supported their plotting through the last two battles... while also telling them that at some future point he might ask them to put a plot or two on hold, to which they'd all readily agreed. So now, in this critical battle, they were happy to obey.

And that's how Harriezer gets around both the "free will, your own initiative" thing (it was all totally happening offscreen, we swear)

Standoff between the exactly even surviving forces, and... the seven Sunshine soldiers (including Zabini) swim up and join the Dragons. Chaos keeps using hit-and-run tactics (which I'm going to allow, given offscreen training or whatever) and somehow keeping up with superior Dragon numbers.

quote:

This wasn't working, and Draco needed to rethink things.

It looked like everyone was having trouble aiming while swimming, too, the battle might last long enough that time would be called... the distant underwater moon was only half full now, that wasn't good... he had to rethink things fast...

"What is it?" said Padma Patil, as she and her force swam over toward Draco.

Padma was his second-in-command; she was clever and powerful, and better yet, she hated Granger and saw Harry as a rival, which made her trustworthy. Working with Padma was making him realize the truth of the old adage that Ravenclaw was sister to Slytherin; Draco had been surprised when his father had told him it was an acceptable House for his future wife, but now he saw the sense of it.

"Wait until we're all here," Draco said. The truth was, he needed to catch his breath. That was the trouble with being the general and the most powerful wizard, you had to keep using magic.

We already established that HP universe magic doesn't work that way. Also, Yud actually buying into Death Eater beliefs here? "Draco had been taught better than his peers because he came from an aristocratic family" I'm willing to accept. He's a "stronger magician" by virtue of his blood... not so much.

quote:

Zabini came in next, commanding a force of two Sunnies and four Dragons, one of whom was Gregory keeping an eye on Zabini. Draco didn't trust Zabini. And neither Draco nor Zabini trusted the Sunnies enough to make them a majority of any unit; they were supposed to be loyal either to Draco directly, or to Granger who'd been fooled by the promise that the Dragons would be betrayed in the end after both forces had been depleted, just as Harry's more trusted Chaotics should've been fooled into not shooting at the Sunnies by the promise of their firing fake Sleep Hexes and switching to support Chaos later; but it was possible some of the Sunnies were loyal to Chaos and weren't firing real Sleep Hexes and that was why Dragon wasn't winning the way their numerical advantage should've let them win...

The next unit that approached was depleted, three soldiers holding wands on two other soldiers, who were swimming with empty hands.

Draco gritted his teeth. More traitor problems. He needed to talk to Professor Quirrell about having some way to punish traitors at least, conditions like these were unrealistic, in real life you tortured your traitors to death.

"General Malfoy!" shouted the commander of the problem unit as it swam up, a Ravenclaw boy named Terry. "We don't know what to do - Cesi shot Bogdan, but Cesi says Kellah told him that Bogdan shot Specter -"

"I didn't! " said Kellah.

"Yes you did! " shrieked Cesi. "General Malfoy, she's the spy, I should've rea-"

"Somnium," said Draco.

There was the triple bell of a one-point loss from Dragon, and then Kellah's limp body began to float away in the water.

Draco had heard the word 'recursion' by this point, and he knew a Harry Potter plot when he saw one.

(Unfortunately Draco had not heard of autoimmune disorders, and the thought did not readily occur to him that a clever virus would begin its attack by creating symptoms of an autoimmune disorder so as to get the body to distrust its own immune system...)

"General order! " said Draco, raising his voice. "Nobody gets to shoot spies except myself, Gregory, Padma, and Terry. If anyone sees anything suspicious they come to one of us."

And then -

There was the bell of Sunshine scoring two points.

"What? " said Draco and Zabini around the same time; their heads swiveled around. No one seemed to have gotten hit, and all the Sunshine soldiers were present and accounted for. (Except Parvati, who had been shot by some still-unknown traitor in Padma's squad; and of course Padma had shot Parvati again in case she was faking, so it wasn't her...)

I'm not sure we're actually meant to be following the convoluted logic here.

Anyways, as I keep pointing out - having an informal system that discourage unwanted behavior even if allowed by adult rules is literally what high school is ALL ABOUT.

quote:

Longbottom's body drifted chaotically through the water, arms and legs disarrayed. After Draco had finally got a hit in they'd all shot him again just to be sure.

Nearby was Harry Potter, now protected by a Prismatic Sphere, looking at them all grimly as the last sliver of crescent moon slowly diminished, somewhere far away. If Longbottom had managed to shoot one more soldier (Draco knew Harry was thinking), if the two Chaotics had managed to hold out just a little longer, they might have won...

After Draco had reformed his forces and struck out again, the ensuing battle and execution of spies in Sunshine's name had left Sunshine exactly one point ahead of Dragon and Chaos both. Once Harry had started doing it, Draco had been left with no choice but to follow suit.

But now they had General Chaos outnumbered three to one, the survivors of Dragon Army and the last remaining Sunny traitor: Draco, and Padma, and Zabini.

And Draco, who was no fool, had ordered Padma to take Zabini's wand after Longbottom had shot Gregory and fallen in turn to Draco. The boy had given him an insulted look, told Draco that he owed him for this, and handed it over.

That left Draco and Padma to take down General Chaos.

"I don't suppose you'd like to surrender?" said Draco, smiling as evilly as any smile he'd ever directed at Harry Potter.

"Sleep before surrender!" shouted General Chaos.

"Just so you know," said Draco, "Zabini doesn't actually have an older sister for you to rescue from Gryffindor bullies. But Zabini does have a mother who doesn't approve of Muggleborns like Granger, and I wrote her a few notes, and offered Zabini a few favors - nothing involving my father, just things I can do in school. And by the way, Zabini's mother doesn't approve of the Boy-Who-Lived, either. Just in case you still thought Zabini was really on your side."

Harry's face grew even grimmer.

Draco raised his wand, and began breathing rhythmically, building up strength for a Breaking Drill Hex. Granger's Prismatic Sphere was almost as strong as Draco's now, and Harry's wasn't much weaker, where did those two find time?

"Lagann! " spoke Draco, putting everything he had into it, and the green spiral blazed out and Harry's shield shattered, and at almost the same moment -

"Somnium! " said Padma.

quote:

Granger: 253 / Malfoy: 252 / Potter: 254

Harry let out a long breath of relief, and not just because he didn't have to hold the Prismatic Sphere any more. His hand was shaking as he lowered his wand.

"You know," said Harry, "I was pretty worried there for a moment."

Special Order Two: If a Sunny traitor doesn't seem to be really shooting at you, fake being hit occasionally. Prefer targeting Dragons to Sunnies but go ahead and shoot Sunnies if you can't shoot Dragons.

Special Order Three: Merlin says do not shoot at Blaise Zabini or either Patil twin.

With a wide grin, Parvati Patil stripped the Transfigured patch off her uniform's insignia, and let it float away in the water.

"Gryffindors for Chaos," she said, and handed Zabini his wand back.

"Thank you very much," Harry said, and bowed sweepingly to the Gryffindor girl. "And thank you as well," bowing to Zabini. "You know, when you came to me with that plan, I wondered if you were brilliant or crazy, and I've decided that you're both. And by the way," Harry said, now turning as though to address Draco's body, "Zabini does have a cousin -"

"Somnium," said Zabini's voice.

quote:

Parvati stared at him, trying to think, but she wasn't really good at plotting; Zabini'd said the plan was to secretly keep the scores of Chaos and Dragon as even as possible so they'd use Sunshine's name to execute their traitors instead of losing even a single point, and that had worked... but... she had the feeling she was missing something, she wasn't a Slytherin...

"Why don't I shoot you in the name of Dragon?" said Parvati.

"Because I outrank you," said Zabini.

Parvati had a bad feeling about this.

She stared at him for a long moment.

And then -

"Somni-" she started to say, and then realized she hadn't said for Dragon, and frantically cut herself off -

Granger: 255 / Malfoy: 254 / Potter: 254

"Hey, everyone," said Blaise Zabini's face on the screens, looking quite amused, "guess it's all down to me."

All by the lakeside, people were holding their breath.

Sunshine was ahead of Dragon and Chaos by exactly one point.

Blaise Zabini could shoot himself in the name of either Dragon or Chaos, or just leave things the way they were.

A series of chimes indicated that the last minute of time was running out.

And the Slytherin was smiling a strange, twisted smile, and casually toying with his wand, the dark wood barely visible in the dark water.

"You know," said Blaise Zabini's voice, in the tones of someone who'd been rehearsing the words for a while, "it's just a game, really. And games are supposed to be fun. So how about if I just do whatever I feel like?"

Can you imagine the totally surprising twist?

The constant posting of the score and focus on the score system kinda gives it away.

# ? Mar 10, 2017 19:38

Pvt.Scott: Feb 16, 2007; What God wants, God gets, God help us all

Ugh. Just post the homoerotic scenes from Ender's Game. They're less terrible than this poo poo.

# ? Mar 11, 2017 09:30

Taffy Torpedo: Feb 2, 2008; ...Can we have the radio?

Hang on, so all that poo poo about plots and traitors and points was just to build to the really obvious twist of Zabini not actually being a traitor?

What the gently caress is any of this?

# ? Mar 11, 2017 10:03

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# ? May 17, 2024 20:16

Xander77: Apr 6, 2009; Fuck it then. For another pit sandwich and some 'tater salad, I'll post a few more.

Stanfield posted:

Hang on, so all that poo poo about plots and traitors and points was just to build to the really obvious twist of Zabini not actually being a traitor?

Not quite:

Chapter 34: Coordination Problems, Pt 2

quote:

There'd been one brief moment when the explosion might've come; but Dumbledore had already been standing up and applauding warmly, and no one had proven foolish enough to riot in front of the Headmaster.

And the explosive mood had rapidly faded into a collective sentiment which might perhaps have been described by the phrase: Give us a break!

Blaise Zabini had shot himself in the name of Sunshine, and the final score had been 254 to 254 to 254.

You get a Quirrell gift! You get a Quirrel gift! ~~Everyone~~ all three generals get a Quirrell gift! But before they do, they go out on the fancy stage rigged for the occasion and announce:

quote:

"General Granger and I would both like to say," Draco said in his most formal voice, knowing it was being amplified and heard, "that we will no longer accept the help of any traitors. And if, in any battle, we find that Potter has accepted traitors from either of our armies, we will join forces to crush him."

And Draco shot a glance filled at malice at the Boy-Who-Lived. Take that, General Chaos!

"I agree completely with General Malfoy," said Granger standing beside him, her high voice clear and strong. "Neither of us will use traitors, and if General Potter does, we will wipe him off the battlefield."

There was a susurration of surprise from the watching students.

Susurration is the go-to fancy vocabulary word / reference for a certain sort of wannabe smart fiction readers.

quote:

"Very good," said their Defense Professor, smiling. "It took the two of you long enough, but you are still to be congratulated on having thought of it before any other generals."

It took a moment for this to soak in -

"In the future, Mr. Malfoy, Miss Granger, before you come to my office with any request, consider whether there is a way for you to accomplish it without my help. I will not deduct Quirrell points on this occasion, but next time you may expect to lose the full fifty." Professor Quirrell wore an amused grin. "And what do you have to say about that, Mr. Potter?"

Harry Potter's gaze went to Granger, then to Draco. His face appeared calm; though Draco was sure controlled would have been the better term.

Finally Harry Potter spoke, his voice level. "The Chaos Legion is still happy to accept traitors. See you on the battlefield."

Draco knew the shock was showing on his own face; there were astonished murmurs from the watching students, and when Draco glanced at the front row he saw that even Harry's Chaotics looked taken aback.

Granger's face was angry, and getting angrier. "Mr. Potter," she said in a sharp tone like she thought she was a teacher, "are you trying to be obnoxious?"

"Most certainly not," Harry Potter said calmly. "I won't make you do it every time. Beat me once, and I'll stay beaten. But threats aren't always enough, General of Sunshine. You did not ask me to join with you, but tried simply to impose your will; and sometimes you must actually defeat the enemy, to impose your will on him. You see, I am skeptical that Hermione Granger, the brightest academic star of Hogwarts, and Draco, son of Lucius, scion of the Noble and Most Ancient House of Malfoy, can work together to beat their common foe, Harry Potter." An amused smile crossed Harry Potter's face. "Maybe I'll just do what Draco tried with Zabini, and write a letter to Lucius Malfoy and see what he thinks about that."

"Harry! " gasped Granger, looking absolutely aghast, and there were gasps from the audience as well.

Draco controlled the anger flushing through him. That had been a stupid move on Harry's part, saying that in public. If Harry had simply done it, it might have worked, Draco hadn't even thought about that, but now if Father did that it would look like he was playing into Harry's hands...

This goes on in a similar wannabe Princess Bride "I know you know I know" style. Really, Harry trying to convince Draco to ally with Hermione is solid enough (though, like many other plot threads... you know the drill), but this return to "I'm telling you that I'm trying to manipulate you" banter is... not good.

Now, Quirrell has something to say:

quote:

And Professor Quirrell turned from the three children, and straightened at the podium to address the whole watching crowd; his customary air of detached amusement dropped away like a falling mask, and when he spoke again his voice was amplified louder than it had been.

"If not for Harry Potter," said Professor Quirrell, his voice as crisp and cold as December, "You-Know-Who would have won."

The silence was instant, and total.

"Make no mistake," said Professor Quirrell. "The Dark Lord was winning. There were fewer and fewer Aurors who dared face him, the vigilantes who opposed him were being hunted down. One Dark Lord and perhaps fifty Death Eaters were winning against a country of thousands. That is beyond ridiculous! There are no grades low enough for me to mark that incompetence!"

There was a frown on the face of Headmaster Dumbledore; and on the faces of the audience, puzzlement; and the utter silence went on.

"Do you understand now how it happened? You saw it today. I allowed traitors, and gave the generals no means to restrain them. You saw the result. Clever plots and clever betrayals, until the last soldier left on the battlefield shot himself! You cannot possibly doubt that all three of those armies could have been defeated by any outside foe that was unified within itself."

Professor Quirrell leaned forward at the podium, his voice now filled with a grim intensity. His right hand stretched out, fingers open and spread. "Division is weakness," said the Defense Professor. His hand closed into a tight fist. "Unity is strength. The Dark Lord understood that well, whatever his other follies; and he used that understanding to create the one simple invention that made him the most terrible Dark Lord in history. Your parents faced one Dark Lord. And fifty Death Eaters who were perfectly unified, knowing that any breach of their loyalty would be punished by death, that any slack or incompetence would be punished by pain. None could escape the Dark Lord's grasp once they took his Mark. And the Death Eaters agreed to take that terrible Mark because they knew that once they took it, they would be united, facing a divided land. One Dark Lord and fifty Death Eaters would have defeated an entire country, by the power of the Dark Mark."
...
And your parents would have faced the consequences of their despicable cowardice, if not for being saved by a one-year-old boy." Professor Quirrell's face showed full contempt. "A dramatist would have called that a dei ex machina, for they did nothing to earn their salvation. He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named may not have deserved to win, but make no doubt of it, your parents deserved to lose."

The voice of the Defense Professor rang forth like iron. "And know this: your parents have learned nothing! The nation is still fragmented and weak! How few decades passed between Grindelwald and You-Know-Who? Do you think you will not see the next threat in your own lifetimes? Will you repeat then the follies of your parents, when you have seen the results so clearly laid out before you this day? For I can tell you what your parents will do, when the day of darkness comes! I can tell you what lesson they have learned! They have learned to hide like cowards and do nothing while they wait for Harry Potter to save them!"
...

This I foretell: When the next threat rises, Lucius Malfoy will claim that you must follow him or perish, that your only hope is to trust in his cruelty and strength. And though Lucius Malfoy himself will believe it, this will be a lie. For when the Dark Lord perished, Lucius Malfoy did not unite the Death Eaters, they were shattered in an instant, they fled like whipped dogs and betrayed each other! Lucius Malfoy is not strong enough to be a true Lord, Dark or other!
...

But I say that if a whole country were to find a leader as strong as the Dark Lord, but honorable and pure, and take his Mark; then they could crush any Dark Lord like an insect, and all the rest of our divided magical world could not threaten them. And if some still greater enemy rose against us in a war of extermination, then only a united magical world could survive."

I'm genuinely not opposed to Quirrelmort saying this. It's a reasonable thing for the villain / anti-hero of the piece to say. A bit of a strawman for Harriezer to rail against and compare to these darn scientific conformists who will not recognize his genius without any tangible accomplishments, but still.
Draco and Albus dislike this immensely, for different reasons:

quote:

"Such speeches are not for the ears of students," said Albus Dumbledore in a dangerously rising voice. "Nor for the mouths of professors!"

Dryly, then, Professor Quirrell spoke: "There were many speeches made for the ears of adults, as the Dark Lord rose. And the adults clapped and cheered, and went home having enjoyed their day's entertainment. But I will obey you, Headmaster, and make no further speeches if you do not like them. My lesson is simple. I will go on doing nothing about traitors, and we will see what students can do for themselves about that, when they do not wait for professors to save them."

And then Professor Quirrell turned back to his students, and his mouth quirked up in a wry grin that seemed to dissipate the dreadful pressure like a god blowing to scatter the clouds. "But do please be kind to the traitors up until now," said Professor Quirrell. "They were just having fun."

There was laughter, though it was nervous at first, and then it seemed to build, as Professor Quirrell stood there smiling wryly and some of the tension released itself.

Both Draco and Hermione wish for their house to win the House Cup:

quote:

"There were soldiers from every House in my army, and I don't mean to slight any of them. But Houses should still count for something, too. It was sad when students in the same House were hexing each other just because they were in different armies. People should be able to rely on whoever's in their House. That's why Godric Gryffindor, and Salazar Slytherin, and Rowena Ravenclaw, and Helga Hufflepuff created the four Houses of Hogwarts in the first place. I'm the General of Sunshine, but even before that, I'm Hermione Granger of Ravenclaw, and I'm proud to be part of a House that's eight hundred years old."

Because despite everything, they're not the protagonists, and are just that lame.

As to Harriezer:

quote:

There was a pause as Professor Quirrell looked at the parchment.

Then, without any change of expression on Professor Quirrell's face, the sheet of parchment burst into flames, and burned with a brief, intense fire that left only drifting black dust sprinkling down from his hand.

"Please confine yourself to the possible, Mr. Potter," said Professor Quirrell, sounding very dry indeed.

...

"I do hope," said Professor Quirrell, "that you prepared another wish, if I could not grant that one."

There was another pause.

Harry drew a deep breath. "I didn't," he said, "but I already thought of another one." Harry Potter turned to look out at the audience, and his voice firmed as he spoke. "People fear traitors because of the damage the traitor does directly, the soldiers they shoot or the secrets they tell. But that's only part of the danger. What people do because they're afraid of traitors also costs them. I used that strategy today against Sunshine and Dragon. I didn't tell my traitors to cause as much direct damage as possible. I told them to act in the way that would create the most distrust and confusion, and make the generals do the most costly things to try and stop them from doing it again. When there are just a few traitors and a whole country opposing them, it stands to reason that what a few traitors do might be less damaging than what a whole country does to stop them, that the cure might be worse than the disease -"

"Mr. Potter," said the Defense Professor, his voice suddenly cutting, "the lesson of history is that you are simply wrong. Your parents' generation did too little to unify themselves, not too much! This whole country almost fell, Mr. Potter, though you were not there to see it. I suggest that you ask your dorm-mates in Ravenclaw how many of them have lost family to the Dark Lord. Or if you are wiser, do not ask! Do you have a wish to make, Mr. Potter?"

"If you don't mind," said the mild voice of Albus Dumbledore, "I should like to hear what the Boy-Who-Lived has to say. He has more experience than either of us at stopping wars."

A few people laughed, but not many.

...

"Yes," said Harry Potter, "it was pretty difficult coming up with a wish to symbolize the costs of unity. But the problem of acting together isn't just for wars, it's something we have to solve all our lives, every day. If everyone is coordinating using the same rules, and the rules are stupid, then if one person decides to do things differently, they're breaking the rules. But if everyone decides to do things differently, they can. It's exactly the same problem of everyone needing to act together. But for the first person who speaks out, it seems like they're going against the crowd. And if you thought that the only important thing was that people should always be unified, then you could never change the game, no matter how stupid the rules. So my own wish, to symbolize what happens when people unite in the wrong direction, is that in Hogwarts we should play Quidditch without the Snitch."

"WHAT? " screamed a hundred voices in the crowd, as Draco's jaw dropped.

"The Snitch ruins the whole game," said Harry Potter. "Everything the other players do ends up being irrelevant. It would make overwhelmingly more sense to just buy a clock. It's one of those incredibly stupid things you don't notice just because you grew up with it, that people only do because everyone else is doing it -"

But by that point Harry Potter's voice could no longer be heard, because the riot had started.

JFC Harriezer. This is doubly annoying because I'm one of the "oh man, that loving snitch" people, and seeing it discussed iwith such... conviction... by Harriezer makes me feel bad.

Anyways, Quirrell:

quote:

"I mean that I shall grant three wishes using a single plot."

There was a confused silence.

"You can't do that," Harry said flatly from beside Draco. "Not even I can do that. Two of those wishes are mutually incompatible. It's logically impossible -" and then Harry cut himself off.

"You're a few years too young to tell me what I can't do, Mr. Potter," said Professor Quirrell, with a brief dry smile.

Then the Defense Professor turned back to the watching students. "Truthfully, I have no confidence in your ability to learn this day's lesson. Go home, and enjoy your time with your families, or what's left of them, while they still live. My own family is long since dead at the Dark Lord's hand. I shall see you all when classes resume."

In the speechless silence that resulted, Professor Quirrell already turning to walk off the stage, Draco heard the Defense Professor's voice say, quietly and no longer amplified, "But you, Mr. Potter, I would speak to now."

# ? Mar 11, 2017 13:01

The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > The Book Barn > Let's Read: "Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality"

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