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

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Pieuvre: Sep 19, 2010

Tiggum posted:

It's clearly something he wanted Harry to be super good at, but it's really easy in the books so he had to modify it so that in his version of the story it works completely differently. But it's one of the things where he changes something but doesn't think it through. In the books, transfiguration is a simple trick they teach to kids. Here, it's an incredibly difficult and super dangerous thing that... they still teach to kids for some reason? I think his justification was that if you didn't learn it early then you'd never be any good at it, but I don't think there's really anything that works that way? Anything you can learn as a child you can also learn as an adult, and as long as you practice enough you'll be able to do it just as well.

That's a weird belief that seems to crop up a lot with this kind of crowd, that is, if you don't start early enough you'll NEVER be any good at X thing, and you shouldn't even bother trying. Never figured out why that is. I mean, becoming an Olympic athlete at age 30 is probably not gonna happen barring some extremely fortunate and unlikely circumstances, but becoming proficient at a variety of skills isn't a big deal as long as you have the time to put into it.

# ? Jul 9, 2017 20:00

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# ? Jun 7, 2024 00:32

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

Jazerus posted:

Eliezarry's "power" is knowing that any subdivision of an object is, in an abstract mathematical sense, an "object" in itself.

Since "object" is a rather vague term which applies to both a flawless diamond, which is virtually identical throughout its composition, and a log, which is not at all homogeneous, and yet transfiguration works identically on both, the magic must choose what exactly to transfigure based on the user's intent, not any objective standard of what an object is. So, by thinking of part of the step as a separate collection of atoms from the rest, he can transfigure it separately. Non-science-literate wizards can do this, but only if they think of the parts of the object as separate things, so it's relatively intuitive to transfigure an arm separately from the overall human, or a doorknob rather than the whole door, but hard to do what Eliezarry is doing.

It is a neat idea in its implications; Eliezarry uses it for trivial purposes because he's an unimaginative little poo poo, but in principle it could be used for precision transfiguration on a microscopic scale by a sufficiently knowledgeable wizard.

I seem to recall someone mentioning a story earlier in the thread that has a math prodigy Hermione doing something similar and experimenting with nano-scale transfiguration to prove that you can't create fissile materials because the idea that you could terrified her.

# ? Jul 9, 2017 20:51

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

Liquid Communism posted:

I seem to recall someone mentioning a story earlier in the thread that has a math prodigy Hermione doing something similar and experimenting with nano-scale transfiguration to prove that you can't create fissile materials because the idea that you could terrified her.

Yeah in the Arithmancer.

I can't remember all the details but it worked because a) it was a long-term experiment that she did with a partner and a professor's help, not just some super special power she willed herself to have by thinking real hard one afternoon, and b) I don't think she was actually doing micro-scale transfiguration although I might be wrong, but more like trying to transfigure stuff into radioactive material, or transfigure radioactive material into other stuff and back, etc. Like "this clump of dirt has trace amounts of radioactive material, can we duplicate it? what happens if we transfigure it into glass, is it still radioactive? when we transfigure it back? can we conjure up a sample just like it?"

So more like actual science and less like the dumb pseudo-intellectualism jack-off that is HPMoR

# ? Jul 9, 2017 23:12

inflatablefish: Oct 24, 2010

Pieuvre posted:

That's a weird belief that seems to crop up a lot with this kind of crowd, that is, if you don't start early enough you'll NEVER be any good at X thing, and you shouldn't even bother trying. Never figured out why that is. I mean, becoming an Olympic athlete at age 30 is probably not gonna happen barring some extremely fortunate and unlikely circumstances, but becoming proficient at a variety of skills isn't a big deal as long as you have the time to put into it.

It's a lot easier to tell yourself that you could totally have been a contender than it is to put any effort into trying.

# ? Jul 10, 2017 00:36

Jazerus: May 24, 2011

Mazerunner posted:

Yeah in the Arithmancer.

I can't remember all the details but it worked because a) it was a long-term experiment that she did with a partner and a professor's help, not just some super special power she willed herself to have by thinking real hard one afternoon, and b) I don't think she was actually doing micro-scale transfiguration although I might be wrong, but more like trying to transfigure stuff into radioactive material, or transfigure radioactive material into other stuff and back, etc. Like "this clump of dirt has trace amounts of radioactive material, can we duplicate it? what happens if we transfigure it into glass, is it still radioactive? when we transfigure it back? can we conjure up a sample just like it?"

So more like actual science and less like the dumb pseudo-intellectualism jack-off that is HPMoR

Hermione in the Arithmancer can do nano-scale transfiguration, though as you say it wasn't part of the radioactivity experiment; it's her most potent weapon by far. She can, for example, transfigure air into NO2 to knock people out in an enclosed area, or make carbon nanotube razorwires to cut through stuff from any carbon source.

It's an infinitely better exploration of science-magic than Yud could ever write! Partially because magic in that universe (and the basic HP universe) obeys laws, unlike MoR magic which is all visualization and bullshit.

# ? Jul 10, 2017 00:46

The Iron Rose: May 12, 2012; Cat Army

Jazerus posted:

Hermione in the Arithmancer can do nano-scale transfiguration, though as you say it wasn't part of the radioactivity experiment; it's her most potent weapon by far. She can, for example, transfigure air into NO2 to knock people out in an enclosed area, or make carbon nanotube razorwires to cut through stuff from any carbon source.

It's an infinitely better exploration of science-magic than Yud could ever write! Partially because magic in that universe (and the basic HP universe) obeys laws, unlike MoR magic which is all visualization and bullshit.

Jazerus posted:

Hermione in the Arithmancer can do nano-scale transfiguration, though as you say it wasn't part of the radioactivity experiment; it's her most potent weapon by far. She can, for example, transfigure air into NO2 to knock people out in an enclosed area, or make carbon nanotube razorwires to cut through stuff from any carbon source.

It's an infinitely better exploration of science-magic than Yud could ever write! Partially because magic in that universe (and the basic HP universe) obeys laws, unlike MoR magic which is all visualization and bullshit.

hahahahahaha oh just you wait

# ? Jul 10, 2017 00:52

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

Jazerus posted:

Hermione in the Arithmancer can do nano-scale transfiguration, though as you say it wasn't part of the radioactivity experiment; it's her most potent weapon by far. She can, for example, transfigure air into NO2 to knock people out in an enclosed area, or make carbon nanotube razorwires to cut through stuff from any carbon source.

It's an infinitely better exploration of science-magic than Yud could ever write! Partially because magic in that universe (and the basic HP universe) obeys laws, unlike MoR magic which is all visualization and bullshit.

oh, I don't remember any of that. Does that show up in the sequel? I had caught up on that early on and stopped reading to give it time to update.

# ? Jul 10, 2017 01:35

Jazerus: May 24, 2011

Mazerunner posted:

oh, I don't remember any of that. Does that show up in the sequel? I had caught up on that early on and stopped reading to give it time to update.

She starts messing with it in the first story when she invents the spell to extract and ignite soil magnesium, but not as much as in the sequel.

# ? Jul 10, 2017 03:50

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

That sounds like a much more interesting story than this one. I may have to go look it up.

# ? Jul 10, 2017 04:20

Jazerus: May 24, 2011

It's worth expounding on something I said, I think, because it really exposes how shaky MoR's foundations are.

Magic in Harry Potter has rules. Scientific laws. They're only there in the background, and shape the narrative only insofar as they disallow things that would destroy the story Rowling wanted to tell (such as the exceptions to Gamp's Law, which disallow various types of transfiguration that would make wizards a little too godly or which would break the economy), but they exist. This is something good fanfiction uses to its advantage, and bad fanfiction ignores. That's why you can tell that in preparing to write MoR, not only did Yud not read the books (something we already know), but he exclusively read terrible wish-fulfillment stories about Harry being a very special boy whose magic has no practical restrictions, just because. That's what he thinks Harry Potter is.

# ? Jul 10, 2017 04:36

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

Liquid Communism posted:

That sounds like a much more interesting story than this one. I may have to go look it up.

It's certainly better than this one, but it's still fanfic - basically meaning that it could really use the attention of an editor and it requires a fair degree of familiarity with the source material. I don't regret reading it or anything, but it's nothing special. Certainly not up to the standards of Harry Potter and the Most Electrifying Man.

# ? Jul 10, 2017 05:08

Jazerus: May 24, 2011

Tiggum posted:

It's certainly better than this one, but it's still fanfic - basically meaning that it could really use the attention of an editor and it requires a fair degree of familiarity with the source material. I don't regret reading it or anything, but it's nothing special.

Familiarity with the source material is always required, it's why any fanfic is actually interesting - so that it can alter the premises, characters, situations, focus, tone, philosophical outlook, or any other part of the source and by doing so, explore facets of the setting or characters that the original work did not. A fanfic that tried to stand alone from the source might even be lessened by doing so, because fundamentally fanfiction is a response to the original work. Some of the interest is in how the consequences of the changes to the scenario play out. This metafictional quality is something many wholly original works don't have, or engage in at the margins in how they contrast with other stories of the same genre, while for fanfiction it's almost the whole point.

I totally get why fanfiction has the reputation for poor quality that it does (99.9999999% of fanfiction is terrible, probably even more than that), but folks often misunderstand the inherent properties of the genre as inherent deficiencies even when they are used interestingly.

quote:

Certainly not up to the standards of Harry Potter and the Most Electrifying Man.

I'll just leave off with Harry Potter Becomes A Communist

Jazerus fucked around with this message at 07:15 on Jul 10, 2017

# ? Jul 10, 2017 05:37

Tunicate: May 15, 2012

Pretending Harry Potter actually has rules for the magic and then exploring those rules is another thing that Potter Who does better.

quote:

"Well, the wand move's simple enough � " Flamel ran through it slowly � "but it's a little tricky�" he tapped his wand on his head � "on the inside. What if you were to point your wand up and do accio sun?"

"Sounds dangerous," said Harry

"It doesn't work. Personally I tried it thinking I'd be dragged into the sky because relative masses, but no, nothing. You can't accio things you don't conceptualise correctly, you can't accio things that you can't fundamentally have. Consensus, I think we agreed to call it. Who'd respect your right to own the sun? Who'd believe you if you claimed it? The moon, mountains, same thing. Once you get down to things like bridges it gets a bit iffy � you might be able to vandalise a bridge if you were puissant enough." He looked around at the largely empty room, and settled on the fireplace. "If you want a challenge, try accio smoke. Smoke, it's like the sun but it's a little different, see if you can imagine your way into possession of smoke."

Harry waved the motion a few times, and made a few corrections to the shape, and then waved it a few more times, and then waved it again �

"Accio smoke, " said Harry.

Nothing happened, and then happened again the second time.

Harry paused, twirling the wand between his fingers. There was a long pause, and then he said, "Oh. �Accio smoke!"

#

Total success was not in fact such a wonderful thing on the whole, and they had to rather quickly fall back into the other room, and Flamel had to toss off a couple of evanescos � the second for the ash all over the floor � and then a few more charms on account of the smell and the (surprisingly not immediately obvious) fact that the carpet was on fire, as were the drapes.

All the drapes.

"Not bad," coughed Flamel, after the last reparo. "Wasn't expecting you to succeed, really, not without advice � how'd you manage it?"

"I thought about filtered cigarettes."

"Never smoke, my boy, never smoke," said Flamel. "At least not until you've learnt to forestall the drawbacks. Right, well, let's go see the Philosopher's Stone, I could use a drink..."

It's a fine line because there ends up being a reasonable explanation for lots of the setting details, but the author also manages to keep things from losing their whimsy.

# ? Jul 10, 2017 06:19

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

Jazerus posted:

Familiarity with the source material is always required, it's why any fanfic is actually interesting

I just meant in the way that plot details are glossed over because it's assumed that you'll remember it from the original book. What you're talking about is fine, but I think you still need to tell the whole story rather than just assuming that your audience will remember the original and fill in the blanks.

# ? Jul 10, 2017 07:04

Fajita Queen: Jun 21, 2012

The Arithmancer and Lady Archimedes (the sequel after year 4 ends) have a lot of interesting ideas and are generally entertaining to read, but they fall face-first into the bad fanfiction trap of the main character "fixing" everything that the author thinks went wrong in canon, and it the way it's done here comes off as really unrealistic. Hermione does the "I'm really good at this one intellectual discipline, therefore I'm smart about absolutely everything" thing that we've criticized Yudkowsky types for in this very thread, and she's almost never wrong. Then, to make it worse, the few times she is wrong get turned into an immediate eureka moment for her to figure out a bunch of other things that immediately solve whatever problem is put in front of her. There's rarely ever any conflict involving adults not buying what she says, like there was a lot of in the books, she just convinces everyone that she knows things, and is always right about them because she had the script handed to her by the author.

It takes a lot of suspension of disbelief to read, and is pretty basic wish fulfillment stuff, but is really good if you can get over that.

# ? Jul 10, 2017 12:58

Malah: May 18, 2015

I stumbled on HPMOR when I was in college and thought it was an interesting read the first time through, though primarily because it was the first fic I'd read with that level of ambition. I thought something about Big Yud and his rationality boner was rather off but haha - that rabbit hole went so much deeper than I could have imagined! :shepface:

Thanks for stepping up to the plate, Xander77 (and for a greatly improved reading experience), and to the rest of the thread for dragging out the turd behind the curtain. Oh, and the reading recs - they were a pleasure.

Particularly glad to find TA/LA as a far superior version of the "let's take science to HP and really break poo poo" approach. I'll agree it jumps right in that trap, but it wasn't offensive enough to be an issue while I read the story. That sin is so ubiquitous with that degree of departure from canon that it registers more as a trade-off to me, anyway.

The Iron Rose posted:

hahahahahaha oh just you wait

Oh, god dammit I thought I'd managed to successfully repress those memories.

# ? Jul 11, 2017 20:18

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

Chapter 54: The Stanford Prison Experiment, Pt 4 part 2

quote:

Bahry stared, a chill running down his spine.

The man's wand had moved so fast that it was like it had Apparated into place, and Bahry's stunner was currently sparkling tamely at the end of it, not blocked, not countered, not deflected, caught like a fly in honey.

"My offer has gone back down to five hundred Galleons," said the man in a colder, more formal voice. He smiled dryly, and the smile looked wrong on that bearded face. "And you shall need to accept a Memory Charm."

Bahry had already swapped the harmonics on his shields so that his own stunner couldn't pass back through, already tilted his wand back into a defensive position, already raised his hardened artificial hand into position to block anything blockable, and was already thinking wordless spells to put more layers on his shields -

I'm fairly convinced that "shield harmonics" is Star Trek rather than HP. More to the point - you'd figure that Yud would love the worst bits of technobabble. Enough to drag them into his own writing.

quote:

The man wasn't looking at Bahry. Instead he was poking curiously at Bahry's stunner where it still wavered on the end of his wand, drawing out red sparks and flicking them away with his fingers, slowly disassembling the hex like a child's rod puzzle.

The man hadn't raised any shields of his own.

"Tell me," the man said in a disinterested voice that didn't seem to quite fit the rough throat - Polyjuice, Bahry would have called it, if he'd thought that anyone could possibly do magic that delicate from inside someone else's body - "what did you do in the last war? Put yourself in harm's way, or stay out of trouble?"

"Harm's way," said Bahry. His voice kept the iron calm of an Auror with nearly a hundred full years on the force, seven months short of mandatory retirement, Mad-Eye Moody couldn't have said it with any more hardness.

"Fight any Death Eaters?"

Now a grim smile graced Bahry's own face. "Two at once." Two of You-Know-Who's own warrior-assassins, personally trained by their dark master. Two Death Eaters at once against Bahry alone. It had been the toughest fight of Bahry's life, but he'd stood his ground, and walked away with only the loss of his left hand.

"Did you kill them?" The man sounded idly curious, and he continued to draw threads of fire out of the much-diminished stunbolt still captive on the end of his wand, his fingers now weaving small patterns of Bahry's own magic before flicking to disperse them.

Sweat broke out on Bahry's skin beneath his robes. His metal hand flashed downward, ripped the mirror from his belt - "Bahry to Mike, I need backup!"

There was a pause, and silence.

"Bahry to Mike!"

The mirror lay dull and lifeless in his hand. Slowly, Bahry put it back on his belt.

...

quote:

Harry could hardly see it, could hardly make out anything amid the lights and flashes, his mirror's curve was perfect (they'd practiced that tactic before in the Chaos Legion) but the scene was still too small, and Harry had the feeling he wouldn't be able to understand even if he was watching from a meter away, it was all happening too fast, red blasts deflecting from blue shields, green bars of light clashing together, shadowy forms appearing and vanishing, he couldn't even tell who was casting what, except that the Auror was shouting incantation after incantation and frantically dodging while Professor Quirrell's Polyjuiced form stood in one place and flicked his wand, mostly silently, but now and then pronouncing words in unrecognizable languages that would white out the whole mirror and show half the Auror's shielding torn away as he staggered back.

Harry had seen exhibition duels between the strongest seventh-year students, and this was so far above it that Harry's mind felt numbed, looking at how far he had left to go. There wasn't a single seventh-year student who could have lasted half a minute against the Auror, all three seventh-year armies put together might not be able to scratch the Defense Professor...

The Auror had fallen to the ground, one knee and one hand supporting himself as the other hand gestured frantically and his mouth shouted desperate words, the few incantations that Harry recognized were all shield spells, as a flock of shadows spun around the Auror like a whirlwind of razors.

And Harry saw Professor Quirrell's Polyjuiced form deliberately point his wand at where the Auror kneeled and fought the last moments of his battle.

"Surrender," said the gravelly voice.

The Auror spat something unspeakable.

"In that case," said the voice, "Avada -"

Time seemed to move very slowly, like there was time to hear the individual syllables, Ke, and Da, and Vra, time to watch the Auror starting to throw himself desperately aside; and even though it was all happening so slowly, somehow there wasn't time to do anything, no time for Harry to open his lips and scream NO, no time to move, maybe even not any time to think.

Only time for one desperate wish that an innocent man should not die -

And a blazing silver figure stood before the Auror.

Stood there just a fraction of a second before the green light struck home.

I'm going to crib from Red Letter Media here. Wizarding duels in HP are generally fairly slow, not terribly kinetic (so that the reader / viewer can easily follow the action) and most importantly, conducted between people who give a poo poo about each other, one way or the other. Nobody cares about the good guys dueling Death Eater n#34, so such fights are concluded instantly. Even if Death Eater 56 manages to kill an actual character, the point of the scene is the death, rather than the fight that lead up to it. A bit like the original Star Wars.

This totally frentic and highly fight between Quirrelmort and Auror n#5 is taken directly from the prequels.

quote:

Bahry hit the ground, falling from his own frantic lunge, and his dislocated left shoulder and broken rib screamed in protest. Bahry ignored the pain, managed to scramble back to his knees, brought up his wand to stun his opponent, he didn't understand what was happening but he knew that this was his only chance.

"Stupefy! "

The red bolt struck out toward the man's falling body, and was torn apart in midair and dissipated - and not by any shield. Bahry could see it, the wavering in the air that surrounded his fallen and screaming opponent.

Bahry could feel it like a deadly pressure on his skin, the flux of magic building and building and building toward some terrible breaking point. His instincts screamed at him to run before the explosion came, this was no Charm, no Curse, this was wizardry run wild, but before Bahry could even finish getting to his feet -

The man threw his wand away from himself (he threw away his wand!) and a second later, his form blurred and vanished entirely.

A green snake lay motionless on the ground, unmoving even before Bahry's next stunner spell, fired in sheer reflex, hit it without resistance.

As the dreadful flux and pressure began to dissipate, as the wild wizardry died back down, Bahry's dazed mind noticed that the scream was continuing. Only it sounded different, like the scream of a young boy, coming from the stairs leading down to the next lower level.

That scream choked off too, and then there was silence except for Bahry's frantic panting.

His thoughts were slow, confused, disarrayed. His opponent had been insanely powerful, that hadn't been a duel, it had been like his first year as a trainee Auror trying to fight Madam Tarma. The Death-Eaters hadn't been a tenth that good, Mad-Eye Moody wasn't that good... and who, what, how in the name of Merlin's balls had anyone blocked a Killing Curse?

quote:

Bahry breathed deeply, heavily, steadied his breath as much as he could before he spoke.

"You," Bahry said. "Whoever you are. Come out."

There was silence, and it occurred to Bahry that whoever it was might be unconscious. He didn't understand what had just happened, but he'd heard the scream...

Well, there was one way to test that.

"Come out," said Bahry, making his voice harder, "or I start using area-effect curses." He probably couldn't have managed one if he'd tried.

"Wait," said a boy's voice, a young boy's voice, high and thin and wavering, like someone was holding back exhaustion or tears. The voice now seemed to be coming from closer to hand. "Please wait. I'm - coming out -"

"Drop the invisibility," growled Bahry. He was too tired to bother with anti-Disillusionment Charms.

A moment later, a young boy's face emerged from within an unfolding invisibility cloak, and Bahry saw the black hair, the green eyes, the glasses, and the angry red lightning-bolt scar.

If he'd had twenty fewer years of experience under his belt he might have blinked. Instead he just spat something that he probably shouldn't ought to say in front of the Boy-Who-Lived.

"He, he," the boy's wavering voice said, his young face looked frightened and exhausted and tears were still trickling down his cheeks, "he kidnapped me, to make me cast my Patronus... he said he'd kill me if I didn't... only I couldn't let him just kill you..."

Bahry's mind was still dazed, but things were slowly starting to click into place.

Harry Potter, the only wizard ever to survive a Killing Curse. Bahry might have been able to dodge the green death, he'd certainly been trying, but if the matter came up before the Wizengamot, they'd rule it was a life debt to a Noble House.

"I see," Bahry said in a much gentler growl. He started to walk toward the boy. "Son, I'm sorry for what you've been through, but I need you to drop the cloak and drop your wand."

The rest of Harry Potter emerged from invisibility, showing the sweat-soaked blue-trimmed Hogwarts robes, and his right hand clutching an eleven-inch holly wand so hard his knuckles were white.

"Your wand," Bahry repeated.

"Sorry," whispered the eleven-year-old boy, "here," and he held out the wand toward Bahry.

Bahry barely stopped himself from snarling at the traumatized boy who'd just saved his life. Instead he overrode the impulse with a sigh, and just stretched out a hand to take the wand. "Look, son, you're really not supposed to point a wand at -"

The wand's end twisted lightly beneath Bahry's hand just as the boy whispered, "Somnium."

Shouldn't HPMOR's far more rational and prepared Aurors just blast whoever else was present with a stun spell (since those are easy to cast and have no ill effects), then sort things out when help arrives, specifically to prevent this type of scenario?

quote:

He turned to stare at the Auror, who had seen the Boy-Who-Lived, who knew.

The full magnitude of the disaster crushed in on Harry like a thousand hundred-ton weights, he'd managed to stun the Auror but now there was nothing left to do, no way to recover, the mission had failed, everything had failed, he had failed.

Shocked, dismayed, despairing, he didn't think of it, didn't see the obvious, didn't remember where the hopeless feelings were coming from, didn't realize that he still needed to recast the True Patronus Charm.

(And then it was already too late.)

Auror Li and Auror McCusker had rearranged their chairs around the table, and so they both saw it at the same time, the naked, skeletally thin horror rising up to hover outside the window, the headache already hitting them from seeing it.

They both heard the voice, like a long-dead corpse had spoken words and those words themselves had aged and died.

The Dementor's speech hurt their ears as it said, "Bellatrix Black is out of her cell."

There was a split second of horrified silence, and then Li tore out of his chair, heading for the communicator to call in reinforcements from the Ministry, even as McCusker grabbed his mirror and started frantically trying to raise the three Aurors who'd gone on patrol.

# ? Jul 14, 2017 10:34

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

Chapter 55: The Stanford Prison Experiment, Pt 5 pt1

quote:

He had failed.

Harry looked at the crumpled body of the police officer he'd stunned, the already-drying blood from the minor cuts and slashes, the burned places on the intricately embroidered red robes.

He'd been stupid. He shouldn't have stunned the police officer, should have just stayed with his original story about being kidnapped by Professor Quirrell...

It might not be too late, whispered a voice inside him. You might still be able to fix your mistake. The Auror saw you, he remembers that you stunned him... but if he were dead, if Professor Quirrell were dead, if Bellatrix were dead, there would be no one to contradict your story.

Slowly, Harry's hand started to rise, pointing his wand at the police officer and -

Harry's hand halted.

He had a distant sense he was behaving uncharacteristically of himself, somehow. Like there was something he'd forgotten, something important, but he was having trouble remembering what it was, exactly.

Oh. That was right. He was someone who believed in the value of human life.

A sense of puzzlement accompanied the thought, he couldn't quite remember why other people's lives had seemed valuable...

All right, said the logical part of him, why has my mind changed between then and now?

Because he was in Azkaban...

And he'd forgotten to recast the Patronus Charm...

The problem with Harry's "Dark Side" is that it's so goddamned stupid. Now, let's be fair - "there's something intrinsically suspect and possibly evil about intelligence" is an overtly common and stupid trope, that's well worth analyzing and dismissing.

But the point of an alluring dark side is that it's offering solutions that would work at a lower practical cost than the "proper" way, if at the cost of ethical issues. When the dark side solutions are amazingly stupid and inept, that kinda ruins the whole premise.

(Never mind that Harriezer himself is more than evil enough from the reader's perspective)

quote:

His body was shivering, Azkaban hadn't seemed so cold before, and it seemed to be getting colder even as he thought. It was too late for him, he'd already sunk too far, he'd never be able to cast the Patronus Charm now -

That may be the Dementation talking rather than an accurate estimate, observed the logical part of himself, habits that had been encoded into sheer reflex, requiring no energy to activate. Think of the Dementors' fear as a cognitive bias, and try to overcome it the way you would overcome any other cognitive bias. Your hopeless feelings may not indicate that the situation is actually hopeless. It may only indicate that you are in the presence of Dementors. All negative emotions and pessimistic estimates must now be considered suspect, fallacious until proven valid.

(If you'd been watching the boy as he thought, you would have seen a distant, abstract, puzzled frown move across his face, below the glasses and the lightning-bolt scar. His hand stayed in the starting position for the Patronus Charm, and did not move.)

The presence of Dementors interferes with the part of you that processes happiness. If you cannot retrieve your happy thought by mnemonic association on the key of happiness, perhaps you can get at the memory some other way instead. When was the last time you talked to someone about the Patronus Charm?

Harry couldn't seem to remember that either.

A crushing wave of despair swept over him, and was dismissed by the logical part of himself as untrustworthy, external, not-Harry, the dull weight still pressed him down but his mind went on thinking, it didn't take much effort to think...

When was the last time you talked to someone about Dementors?

Professor Quirrell had said that he was already able to feel the presence of Dementors, and Harry had said to Professor Quirrell... he'd told Professor Quirrell...

...to hold to the memory of the stars, of falling bodilessly through space, like an Occlumency barrier across his entire mind.

His second Defense class of the year, on Friday, that was when Professor Quirrell had shown him the stars, and again on Christmas.

It didn't take much effort to remember them, the searing points of white against perfect blackness.

So he casts a Patronus charm and:

quote:

Harry took a deep breath. All right. It was time to reconsider the situation now that his thoughts were no longer being artificially darkened by Dementors.

Harry reviewed the situation.

...still looked pretty hopeless, actually.

It wasn't the crushing despair of before, but Harry still felt wobbly, to put it mildly. He didn't dare go dark and it was his dark side that had the ability to take this level of problem in stride. It was his dark side that would have laughed scornfully at the very concept of giving up just because he'd lost Professor Quirrell and was marooned in the depths of Azkaban and had been seen by a police officer. The ordinary Harry was not able to take that sort of thing in stride.

See above. His dark side was just suggesting "let's murder everyone" - which is its usual, and utterly inept, reaction to most situations.

quote:

Professor Quirrell could have repaired it easily enough, if he'd...

The sense of betrayal struck Harry with full force, then.

Why... why did he... why...

Because he's evil, said Gryffindor and Hufflepuff, quietly and sadly. We told you so.

No! thought Harry desperately. No, it doesn't make sense, we were going to commit the perfect crime, the Auror could have been Obliviated, the corridor repaired, it wasn't too late but it would have BEEN too late if he'd died!

But Professor Quirrell was never really planning to commit the perfect crime, said the grim voice of Slytherin. He wanted the crime to be noticed. He wanted everyone to know that someone had killed an Auror and broken Bellatrix Black out of Azkaban. He would have prepared some kind of evidence, some proof he could reveal of your involvement, to use as blackmail against you; and you would have been bound to him forever.

Harry's Patronus almost went out, then.

No... Harry thought.

Yes, said the other three parts of him sadly.

No. It still doesn't make sense. Professor Quirrell had to know I would turn against him the instant I saw him kill an Auror. That I might very well go ahead and confess to Dumbledore, hoping to plead the true fact that I was tricked. And... in terms of blackmail, does his killing an Auror against my will, really add all that much to breaking Bellatrix out of Azkaban with my willing help? It would have been more cunning to keep the evidence of my involvement with the basic crime, but still pretend to be my ally for as long as he could, saving the blackmail to use only if it became necessary...

Rationalization, said Slytherin. So why did Professor Quirrell do it, then?

And Harry thought with a tinge of desperation - knowing, even as he thought it, that he was motivated in part by a desire to reject reality, and that wasn't how the technique was meant to be wielded - I notice that I am confused.

quote:

And Harry continued to take stock of the moderately hopeless-looking situation.

Did Harry need to re-evaluate the probability that Bellatrix was evil?

...not in any mission-relevant sense. It was a given that Bellatrix was currently evil. Whether she was an innocent who'd been made that way by torture and Legilimency and unspeakable rituals, or whether she'd chosen it of her own will, didn't have much bearing on the current situation. The key fact was that while Bellatrix thought Harry was the Dark Lord, she would obey him.

That was one resource, then. But Bellatrix was starved and nine-tenths dead...

'Oh, I feel a little better now, how strange...'

Bellatrix had said that, in her shattered voice, after Harry's Patronus had blazed out of control.

Harry thought, and he couldn't have quite said why he thought this, it might have just been his own mind making things up, but... it seemed likely that what the Dementors had taken from you long ago was lost forever. But what the Dementors had taken from you recently, the True Patronus Charm might give back. Like the difference between emptying a cup, and the unused cup fading away. Bellatrix, then, might have got back what she'd lost in just the last week or so. Not any happy memories, those would have been eaten years ago. But whatever strength and magic had been drained from her in just the last week, she might have regained. Like the equivalent of getting a week of rest, a week to build up her magic again...

Harry looked at Professor Quirrell's snake form.

...maybe enough for an Innervate.

If awakening Professor Quirrell was, in fact, a smart thing to do.

Some of the despair came back to Harry, then. He couldn't trust Professor Quirrell, couldn't trust that reviving him would be wise, not after what had just happened.

Steady, Harry thought to himself, and looked at the crumpled form of the Auror.

Bellatrix might also be able to manage a Memory Charm.

quote:

...and would it be all that hard to get out of Azkaban? If they could get to the top of Azkaban quickly enough, before the Auror was supposed to report back in, before anyone noticed him missing, then they could just fly out through the hole Professor Quirrell had made, and get far enough away from Azkaban to activate the portkey Harry already had in his possession. (Both Professor Quirrell and Harry had portkeys, and both were powerful enough to transport two humans, plus or minus a snake. As with their doubly-concealed departure from Mary's Room, Professor Quirrell had put enough safety margin in his plans to impress even Harry.)

See my notes above about how amazingly stupid it is to have a prison that you can easily get it into and have direct contact with the prisoners.

quote:

The main problem Harry saw, as he quickly ran the whole process forward in his imagination, would come when they reached the roof. Professor Quirrell had been supposed to sneak around invisibly and Confund the monitors that would notice visitors in the aerial surroundings of Azkaban, causing them to see a repeating loop of scenery for a few minutes. Professor Quirrell had said that he couldn't Disillusion Harry's Patronus; and if they switched off the Patronus, the Dementors would notice Bellatrix was missing, and alert the Aurors...

Harry's train of thought stumbled.

There were times when 'Aw, crap' just didn't seem to cover it.

# ? Jul 21, 2017 11:14

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

Yudkowsky posted:

His body was shivering, Azkaban hadn't seemed so cold before, and it seemed to be getting colder even as he thought. It was too late for him, he'd already sunk too far, he'd never be able to cast the Patronus Charm now -

That may be the Dementation talking rather than an accurate estimate, observed the logical part of himself, habits that had been encoded into sheer reflex, requiring no energy to activate. Think of the Dementors' fear as a cognitive bias, and try to overcome it the way you would overcome any other cognitive bias. Your hopeless feelings may not indicate that the situation is actually hopeless. It may only indicate that you are in the presence of Dementors. All negative emotions and pessimistic estimates must now be considered suspect, fallacious until proven valid.

(If you'd been watching the boy as he thought, you would have seen a distant, abstract, puzzled frown move across his face, below the glasses and the lightning-bolt scar. His hand stayed in the starting position for the Patronus Charm, and did not move.)

The presence of Dementors interferes with the part of you that processes happiness. If you cannot retrieve your happy thought by mnemonic association on the key of happiness, perhaps you can get at the memory some other way instead. When was the last time you talked to someone about the Patronus Charm?

Harry couldn't seem to remember that either.

A crushing wave of despair swept over him, and was dismissed by the logical part of himself as untrustworthy, external, not-Harry, the dull weight still pressed him down but his mind went on thinking, it didn't take much effort to think...

When was the last time you talked to someone about Dementors?

Professor Quirrell had said that he was already able to feel the presence of Dementors, and Harry had said to Professor Quirrell... he'd told Professor Quirrell...

...to hold to the memory of the stars, of falling bodilessly through space, like an Occlumency barrier across his entire mind.

His second Defense class of the year, on Friday, that was when Professor Quirrell had shown him the stars, and again on Christmas.

It didn't take much effort to remember them, the searing points of white against perfect blackness.

How convenient that he's able to just reason away negative emotions. For most of us, knowing that feeling bad about something is unhelpful or counter-productive doesn't actually make us feel better, but I guess that's because we're just not rational enough. :rolleyes:

# ? Jul 22, 2017 03:10

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

Tiggum posted:

How convenient that he's able to just reason away negative emotions. For most of us, knowing that feeling bad about something is unhelpful or counter-productive doesn't actually make us feel better, but I guess that's because we're just not rational enough.

As someone who has dealt extensively with their own sadbrains bullshit, let me tell you that forcing yourself to rationally think things through is actually a legit way to break you out of a depressive death spiral. If these dementors were still a depression metaphor, then adding deliberate thinking to the list of things that work against them would be pretty apt.

The bullshit here is that Harrieizer is able to do this effortlessly. It's a learned skill that takes years of therapy to get right. The character is ostensibly 11 years old, yet he's possessed with a great deal of mental maturity and self-awareness that many adults don't actually have.

# ? Jul 22, 2017 08:55

Hate Fibration: Apr 8, 2013; FLÃSHYN!

blastron posted:

As someone who has dealt extensively with their own sadbrains bullshit, let me tell you that forcing yourself to rationally think things through is actually a legit way to break you out of a depressive death spiral. If these dementors were still a depression metaphor, then adding deliberate thinking to the list of things that work against them would be pretty apt.

The bullshit here is that Harrieizer is able to do this effortlessly. It's a learned skill that takes years of therapy to get right. The character is ostensibly 11 years old, yet he's possessed with a great deal of mental maturity and self-awareness that many adults don't actually have.

More to the point, he is doing it wrong.

What someone reasoning through a depressive episode does is they employ a specific and robust analytical framework. Going through things step by step. Even when you are experienced, the process still happens, and it is still conscious.

This little mistake actually belies something fairly profound on Eliezer's world-view, and I'd like to zoom in on it because I find it fascinating:

quote:

A crushing wave of despair swept over him, and was dismissed by the logical part of himself as untrustworthy

Rationality isn't a collection of skills, a quality a philosophy or hypothesis has, or even just the idea of using "reason" to be correct as often as possible in Eliezer's world. It is, more than anything else, a feeling of confidence in his intelligence.

# ? Jul 22, 2017 11:31

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

Also, randomly and instantly dismissing your perceptions as untrustworthy without any evidence isn't logic or rationality, it's schizophrenia.

# ? Jul 22, 2017 18:13

reignonyourparade: Nov 15, 2012

It's not without any evidence, the evidence is "there's a shitload of dementors around." That honestly even kind of gets played around with as once he gets the patronus off he goes "nope depressed me was basically right, I'm screwed."

# ? Jul 22, 2017 21:28

Grace Baiting: Jul 20, 2012; Audi famam illius;
Cucurrit quaeque
Tetigit destruens.

Well the Dementors are actually death personified, hence the utter lack of scythes or ever actually killing anyone directly. Real personifications of death don't instill hugely adrenal fight-or-flight instincts, nor a sense of peace, nor panic, nor any other documented experiences that people go through during a brush with death or when actually dying -- no, they instill depressive thoughts, and Hariezer instantly believes they are Evil�. Fortunately Hariezer's magically genius brain is purpose-built to Defeat Death With Human-Patronus so he can instinctually think his way right out of the acute depression that being near literal essence of death causes (again note that they are related to depression only tangentially at BEST). QED, perfectly logical, done.

Honestly though if you say "Dementors are death not depression" in your Harry Potter meta-fanfic propagandvertisement, there should be a lot of room to do interesting things with this specific departure from canon. What would Azkaban be like if the prisoners were afflicted with e.g. unreasoning panic at nearly all times? Or like some Five Stages of Grief poo poo? Some prisoners resolutely deny being imprisoned, some attempt constant bargaining to the exclusion of all else, some are blindly furious, some (only some, not all!) suffer depression, and some attain a deep peace by accepting the truth of their mortality. Or any number of other ways you could run with "Dementors are Death".

But nope. When you consider the blatant depression-elemental Dementors in Harry Potter canon versus the assuredly-they're-death Dementors of Hariezer Yudotter, the most salient points are:

Hariezer knows they're Death, he just KNOWS it, okay
oh they're also bogarts btw except you can't laugh at them (Death is no laughing matter!)
entropy on their surroundings instead of frozen mists
Hariezer kills one with his super special awesome Web 2.0 Patronus spell because he just wants to kill death that badly, like, SUPER badly
...they still inflict acute depression on those around them!!!

In conclusion, what the hell.

# ? Jul 24, 2017 04:58

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

Chapter 55: The Stanford Prison Experiment, Pt 5

quote:

Li's hands were sure despite the adrenaline, as he unlocked the bars on the Vanishing Cabinet that linked Azkaban to a well-guarded room in the interior of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement. (A one-way Vanishing Cabinet, of course. The wards permitted a few fast ways into Azkaban, all of them highly restricted, and no fast ways out.)

Uh... no? We just saw that that is not the case. You can't retcon "hey, this is actually a terribly secure prison run by totally rational and effective people" when we saw how easy it is to get in not a chapter ago.

Anyways, time to engage in a display of rational seriousness: (but not Siriusness, sadly)

quote:

The door of the Cabinet burst open with a bang, and into the room strode a heavy-set, square-jawed witch with greyed hair cropped close around her head. She wore no rank signs as she wore no jewelry or other ornamentation, it was only an ordinary Auror's robes that she deemed fit to grace herself: Director Amelia Bones, head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement and said to be the only witch in the DMLE who could take Mad-Eye Moody in a fair fight (not that either of those two were the sort to fight fairly). Li had heard rumors that Amelia could Apparate within the bounds of the DMLE, and this was the sort of thing that gave rise to rumors like that, he'd called in the alarm not fifty seconds ago.

"Get into the air, now!" Amelia barked over her shoulder at the female Auror trio following behind her with police broomsticks, they must have all been crushed in there, waiting for Li to activate the Cabinet. "I want more aerial coverage on this place! And make sure you keep up your anti-Disillusionment Charms!" Then her head turned toward him. "Report, Auror Li! Do we know how they got in yet?"

Another Auror trio holding broomsticks materialized in the Vanishing Cabinet and strode out after them even as Li began talking.

They were followed by a trio of Hit Wizards in full battle gear.

Then another trio of Hit Wizards.

Then another broomstick team.

Our heroes sure are in trouble now. Whatever will they do?

Well, their biggest resource is "rationality" or "intelligence". Let's imagine for a second what a genius or "genius" character like Miles Vorkosigan or Andrew Wiggin would do in this situation. Seriously, "what if Harriezer was ACTUALLY smarter than everyone he meets, rather than just the author's favorite" makes for a very illuminating examination of all the things wrong with Yud's writing.

Ender would rely upon his enemies being stupid and slow to react, identify an obvious weak spot in their patterns and use it to escape.

Miles would use his unique gift for sowing chaos and confusion to create an opportunity to escape.

Harriezer is going to say "well, Yud's stupid-rear end interpretation of the laws of magic states that wizard patrol teams can only ever look left, but my superior rationality is going to allow me to sneak by... on their right! Haha, I'm so smart!"

That's or the equivalent of Star Trek technobabble, but with magic-babble.

Just guessing, btw. I could be totally wrong.

quote:

Amelia strode into the duty room, Auror Li and his silver badger following behind her. She'd spun her Time-Turner the moment she'd heard the alarm, and then spent a tense hour preparing her forces for entry. You couldn't loop time within Azkaban itself, Azkaban's future couldn't interact with its past, so she hadn't been able to arrive before the DMLE had gotten the message, but she should have arrived in time...

Oh hey. What do you know.

Ok, I already said that the Time-Turned needs to be ditched / restricted / literally be the only focal point of the story.

But this offhanded "yeah, your special powers don't work here, special boy, best come up with another bit of bullshit" is just lazy.

quote:

Bellatrix pointed the wand at the snake, and said, her voice precise though it was still a whisper, "Innervate."

The snake did not stir.

"Shall I try again, my Lord?" she whispered.

"No," Harry said. He swallowed the sick feeling. Harry had decided to say the hell with it and try to revive Professor Quirrell after he'd realized that the Dementors had probably alerted the Aurors by now. His high, cold voice went on, unperturbed, "Do you think you are able to perform a Memory Charm, dear Bella?"

Bellatrix paused, and then said, hesitantly, "I think so, my Lord."

"Eliminate that Auror's last half-hour of memory," Harry commanded. He'd thought a bit about whether he wanted to provide any justification for that, what he would say if Bellatrix asked why they weren't just killing him, in which case Harry would explain that they were pretending to be a different power group and then tell her to shut up -

But Bellatrix simply pointed her wand at the Auror, stood silently for a time, and finally whispered, "Obliviate."

She swayed, then, but did not fall.

"Very good, my dear Bella," Harry said, and chuckled thinly. "And I will ask you to carry that snake."

Again, the woman said nothing, demanded no explanations, didn't ask why Harry or the apparently-invisible Patronus caster couldn't do it. She only staggered to where the long snake lay, slowly bent over, picked it up, draped it over her shoulder.

(A tiny little part of Harry observed that it was very relaxing to have a minion that would just follow orders so unquestioningly, and even got as far as thinking that he could totally get used to having a minion like Bellatrix, before that mind-fraction was screamed into silence by his mortally offended remainder.)

...

quote:

Amelia looked at where Ora was fiddling with Auror McCusker's mirror. "Specialist Weinbach," she barked, causing the young witch to start. "Any response from One-Hand's mirror?"

"None," Ora said nervously, "it's... I mean it has to be jammed, not dead, carefully jammed because it didn't set off the alarms, but the line is so blank the mirror might as well be broken..."

Amelia didn't let her expression change, though the part of her that was already mourning One-Hand got a little sadder and a lot more angry. Seven months, he'd had seven months left until his retirement after a full century of service. She remembered him as an eager young Auror, so very long ago, and his whole career he'd served the DMLE with perfect loyalty, at least when it came to anything really important...

Someone would burn for this.

I'm pretty sure meant to say "days". He only had seven days until his retirement.

quote:

"We found a hole in the roof over C spiral!" someone shouted from the doorway. "Still open, ward circumventions still active!"

Amelia's lips peeled back in a smile like a wolf opening its jaws to eat.

Bellatrix Black was still in Azkaban.

And in Azkaban, Bellatrix Black would remain forever.

She took a stride toward the window, ignoring the Dementor now, and looked up at the sky above, to check with her own eyes the patrolling broomsticks. She couldn't see the whole sky from here, but she saw ten brooms go past on a patrol pattern and that already ought to be enough to catch anyone, though she fully meant to put every broom she could in the air. Her Aurors were equipped with the fastest racing broom currently on the market, the Nimbus 2000; no unsuccessful chases for her people.

Amelia turned back from the window, and frowned. The room was getting ridiculously crowded, and two thirds of these people didn't need to be here, they just wanted to be close to the center of the action. If there was one thing Amelia couldn't tolerate, it was people who did what they wanted instead of what was needed.

"All right, you lot!" Amelia bellowed at them. "Stop hanging around here and start securing the top level of each spiral! That's right," she said to the looks of surprise, "all three! They could tunnel through a floor or a ceiling to go between them, in case you hadn't worked that out! We're going down level by level until we catch them! I'll take C spiral, Scrimgeour, you're on B..." She paused, then, remembering that Mad-Eye had retired last year, who could she... "Shacklebolt, you're on the A spiral, take with the strongest other fighters! Check every set of cells you pass, look under blankets, do the full set of detection Charms in every corridor! Nobody leaves Azkaban until the criminals are caught, nobody! And..." People looked at Amelia in surprise as her voice trailed off.

The criminals had invented some way to prevent the Dementors from finding Bellatrix Black.

That ought to have been impossible.

It chilled her blood, contemplating that. It was like...

Amelia took a deep breath, and spoke once more, in a voice of steel command. "And when you catch them, make bloody sure they're the real criminals and not our own people forced to take Polyjuice. Anyone behaves oddly, check them for the Imperius Curse. Keep each other in sight at all times. Don't assume an Auror uniform is friendly if you don't recognize the face." She turned to the communications specialist. "Tell the broomsticks. If one of the brooms peels off for no reason, half of them are to hunt it down while the rest keep patrolling. And change the harmonics on everything changeable, they may have stolen our keys." Then back to the rest of the room. "No Auror is above suspicion unless they have no family left to threaten."

She saw it, the cold looks that came over the older faces, saw some of the younger Aurors flinch, and knew that they understood.

But she said it out loud, just to be sure.

"We're fighting the old Wizarding War today, everyone. Just because You-Know-Who is dead doesn't mean the Death Eaters have forgotten his tricks. Now go! "

Oh no, how will our heroes get out of this one etc etc.

Seriously - in the guise of flashing back and forth between the two scenes, we're actually mostly reduced to regurgitating the same information the reader had already processed. I've skipped several scenes completely, and you didn't notice because they were just repeating information you already had. Some more.

All this "Bones isn't here to joke around, and here are her security arrangements, can you spot how our heroes are going to go through them (of course you can't, because it's going to be based on arbitrary bullshit pulled directly out of their rear end)" stuff should have been established in a single scene.

quote:

Harry hadn't been able to think of any way out.

Until Harry had said to himself, well, if it was just a war game, what would General Chaos do?

From which an answer had followed instantly.

And then Harry had thought, but if it's that easy, why hasn't anyone broken out of Azkaban before?

And after he'd realized the possible problem: Fine, what would General Chaos do about that?

Whereupon General Chaos had come up with an amendment to his first plan.

It was...

It was the most insanely Gryffindor thing Harry had ever...

So now he was trying to think of a better plan, and not having much luck.

Picky picky picky, said Gryffindor. Who was complaining about not having any plan one minute earlier? You should be glad we came up with anything at all, Mister Now-We're-Doomed.

"My Lord," Bellatrix whispered haltingly, as she navigated the next flight of stairs downward, "am I going back to my cell, my Lord?"

Harry's brain was distracted, so it took him that long to process the words, and then another moment to process the horror, while Bellatrix continued speaking.

"I would... please, my Lord, I would very much rather die," her voice said. And then, in a smaller voice, a whisper that was barely there, "but I will go back if you ask it of me, my Lord..."

"We are not going back to your cell," hissed Harry's voice.

As an aside, really? I sure am glad that it wasn't his ears or his nose. Terrible stuff, toe-hissing.

...

quote:

Then his brain knew who he was hearing, and in almost the same moment, figured out what he was hearing.

Because Professor Quirrell wasn't there to keep the silence any more, and Azkaban was not, in fact, silent.

Faint the woman's voice, repeating:

"No, I didn't mean it, please don't die!"

"No, I didn't mean it, please don't die!"

It got louder with every step Harry took, he could hear the emotion in the words now, the horror, the remorse, the desperation of...

"No, I didn't mean it, please don't die!"

...the woman's worst memory, rehearsing over and over again...

"No, I didn't mean it, please don't die!"

...the murder that had sent her to Azkaban...

"No, I didn't mean it, please don't die!"

...where she was sentenced by the Dementors to watch whoever she'd killed, die and die and die in an infinite repeating loop. Though she must have been put in Azkaban recently, from the amount of life left in her voice.

The thought came to Harry, then, that Professor Quirrell had passed those doors, heard those sounds, and given not the slightest sign of disturbance; and Harry would have called it a positive proof of evil, if Harry's own lips hadn't remained silent in the presence of Bellatrix, his breathing regular, while something inside him screamed and screamed and screamed.

Does wizarding Britain have a prison OTHER than Azbakan? Because that seems to be actually in line with the books.

quote:

The Patronus brightened, not out of control, but it brightened, with every step Harry took forward.

It brightened further as Harry and Bellatrix descended the stairs, she stumbled and Harry offered her his left arm thrust outside the Cloak, braving the sense of doom from being that close to the snake draped around her neck. There was a surprised look on her face, but she accepted it, and said nothing.

It helped Harry, being able to help Bellatrix, but it wasn't enough.

Not when he saw the huge metal door in the center of that level's corridor.

Not when they came closer, and the woman's voice fell silent, because there was a Patronus near her now, and she wasn't reliving her worst memory any more.

Good, said a voice inside him. That was step one.

Harry's steps carried him inevitably forward toward the metal door.

And...

Now unlock the door -

...Harry kept walking...

What do you think you're doing? Go back and get her out of there!

...kept walking...

Save her! What are you doing? She's hurting YOU HAVE TO SAVE HER!

The portkey Harry was carrying could transport two humans, only two, plus or minus a snake. If they'd had Professor Quirrell's portkey too... but they didn't, Professor Quirrell's human form was carrying that, there was no way to get it... Harry could only save one person today, and there was only one person on the lowest level of Azkaban, in the most desperate need...

"DON'T GO!" The voice came in a scream from behind the metal door. "No, no, no, don't go, don't take it away, don't don't don't -"

There was a light in the corridor and it grew brighter.

"Please," sobbed the woman's voice, "please, I can't remember my children's names any more -"

"Sit down, Bella," Harry's voice said, somehow he kept his voice in a cold whisper, "I must deal with this," the Hover Charm diminishing and switching off even as Bella obediently sat down, her skeletal form dark against the brightening air.

I'll die, thought Harry.

The air went on brightening.

After all, it wasn't a certainty that Harry would die.

It was just a probability of death, and weren't some things worth a probability of dying?

The air went on brightening, the greater Patronus was beginning to form around him, the brilliant human shape was becoming indistinct within the burning air, as Harry's life went to feed the fire.

If I wipe out the Dementors, then even if I live, they'll know it was me, that I was the one who did this... I'll lose my support, lose the war...

Yeah? said the inner voice that was urging him on. After you destroy all the Dementors in Azkaban? I'd think that'd tend to prove your credentials as a Light Lord, actually, so SAVE HER SAVE HER YOU HAVE TO SAVE HER -

The humanoid shape could no longer be seen as a separate entity.

The corridor couldn't be seen.

Harry's own body was invisible within the Cloak.

There was only a bodiless viewpoint within an infinite expanse of silver light.

Harry could feel the life leaving him, fueling the spell; far away, he could feel the shadows of Death begin to fray.

I meant to accomplish more with my life than this... I was going to fight the Dark Lord, I was going to merge the wizarding and Muggle worlds...

Lofty goals seemed very distant, very abstract, compared to one woman begging him for help, it wasn't certain that Harry would ever do anything more important than this one thing, this one thing that he could do now and here.

And with what might have been his last breath, Harry thought:

There are other Dementors, probably other Azkabans... if I'm going to do this, I should do it when I'm closer to the central pit, it will take less of my life that way, which increases the probability that I'll survive to destroy other Dementors... even assuming this is the optimal thing to do, if there's a right time and place to do this, it isn't now and here, IT ISN'T NOW AND HERE!

What? said the other part of him indignantly, as it searched for a counterargument that didn't exist -

Slowly the light died back down, as Harry concentrated on that one indisputable fact, the one obvious truth that they weren't in the optimal place, the time couldn't be now...

Slowly the light died back down.

Part of Harry's life flowed back into him.

Part had been lost as radiation.

But Harry had enough left to stay on his feet, and keep the silver human shape bright; and when his wand arm raised and his voice whispered "Wingardium Leviosa", the magic flowed obediently out of him and helped Bellatrix to her feet. (For it wasn't his magic he had expended, it had never been his magic that fueled the Patronus Charm.)

I swear, Harry thought, breathing as regularly as he could in Bellatrix's presence, while tears streamed down his invisible cheeks, I swear upon my life and my magic and my art as a rationalist, I swear by everything I hold sacred and all my happy memories, I give my oath that someday I will end this place, please, please may I be forgiven...

And the two of them walked on, as a murderess's voice screamed and begged someone to come back and save her.

There should have been more time, there should have been a ceremony, for Harry's sacrifice of that piece of himself, but Bellatrix was beside him and so Harry just had to keep on walking without a pause, saying nothing, breathing evenly.

So Harry walked on, leaving a piece of himself behind. It would dwell in this place and time forever, he knew. Even after Harry came back someday with a company of other True Patronus casters and they destroyed all the Dementors here. Even if he melted the triangular building and burned the island low enough that the sea would wash over it, leaving no trace that such a place as this had ever once existed. Even then he wouldn't get it back.

That wasn't bad, actually. As ever "but Harriezer was meant for greater things" isn't the most convincing of arguments, but still.

Meanwhile, with the Aurors:

quote:

Emmeline wavered for a while, probably too long, and then finally decided. The hell with it, she thought. We're all on the same side, we need to stick together whether Director Bones likes it or not.

At a thought, her silver sparrow fluttered onto her shoulder.

"Drop behind us to guard our rear," Emmeline murmured softly, almost without moving her lips, "wait until no one is looking directly at you, then go to Albus Dumbledore. If he is not already by himself, wait until he is. And tell him this: Bellatrix Black is breaking out of Azkaban, and the Dementors cannot find her."

# ? Jul 24, 2017 07:56

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

Chapter 56: TSPE, Constrained Optimization, Pt 6

quote:

I'm not sure I can do this, Harry thought, and he couldn't blame the despairing thought on the Dementors either. It would be better to be lower, safer to be lower, his plan would take time to implement and the Aurors were probably already working their way down. But if Harry had to pass any more of those metal doors while staying silent and keeping his breathing perfectly regular, he might go mad; if he had to leave a piece of himself behind at each one, soon there wouldn't be anything left of him -

A luminous moonlit cat leaped into existence and landed in front of Harry's Patronus. Harry almost screamed, which wouldn't have helped his image with Bellatrix.

"Harry!" said the voice of Professor McGonagall, sounding as alarmed as Harry had ever heard from her. "Where are you? Are you all right? This is my Patronus, answer me!"

With a convulsive effort, Harry cleared his mind, repurposed his throat, forced calm, swapped in a different personality like an Occlumency barrier. It took a few seconds and he hoped like hell that Professor McGonagall didn't notice a problem with that thanks to the communications delay, just as he hoped like hell that Patronuses didn't report on their surroundings.

A young boy's innocent voice said, "I'm in Mary's Place, Professor, in Diagon Alley. Going to the restroom actually. What's wrong?"

The cat leaped away, and Bellatrix began to chuckle softly, dusty appreciative laughter, but she cut herself off abruptly at a hiss from Harry.

...

It shouldn't have mattered, and it didn't really, it didn't compare to the suffering of a single prisoner in Azkaban, and yet Harry still found himself feeling very aware that if his plan didn't end with him being picked up from Mary's Place just like he'd never left, and the Defense Professor looking completely innocent of any and all wrongdoing, Professor McGonagall was going to kill him.

...

quote:

Amelia heard the familiar crack of fire and knew what she would see as she turned.

A third of her Aurors were spinning around and leveling their wands on the old wizard in half-moon glasses and a long silver beard who had appeared directly within their midst, a bright red-golden phoenix on his shoulder.

"Hold your fire!" Polyjuice made it easy to forge the face, but faking the phoenix travel would have been rather more difficult - the wards permitted it as one of the fast ways into Azkaban, though there were no fast ways out.

The old witch and the old wizard stared at each other for a long moment.

(Amelia wondered, in the back of her mind, which of her Aurors had sent the word, there were several former members of the Order of the Phoenix with her; she tried to remember, in the back of her mind, if she'd seen Emmeline's sparrow or Andy's cat missing from the flock of bright creatures; but she knew that it was futile. It might not even be any of her people, for the old meddler often knew things he had no way at all of knowing.)

Albus Dumbledore inclined his head to Amelia in a courteous gesture. "I hope I am not unwelcome here," the wizard said calmly. "We are all on the same side, are we not?"

"That depends," Amelia said in a hard voice. "Are you here to help us catch criminals, or to protect them from the consequences of their actions?" Are you going to try to stop the killer of my brother from getting her well-deserved Kiss, old meddler? From what Amelia heard, Dumbledore had gotten smarter toward the end of the war, mostly due to Mad-Eye's nonstop nagging; but had relapsed into his foolish mercies the instant Voldemort's body was found.

A dozen small points of white and silver, reflections of the shining animals, gleamed off the old wizard's half-moon glasses as he spoke. "Even less than you would I see Bellatrix Black freed," the old wizard said. "She must not leave this prison alive, Amelia."

I suppose we're supposed to wonder whether Dumbledore is the big bad of the fanfic at this stage, since Voldermort is acting as Harry's mentor. I'm not sure which level of twist / untwist would be the most clich� here.

quote:

Before Amelia could speak again, even to express her surprised gratification, the old wizard gestured with his long black wand and a blazing silver phoenix sprang into existence, brighter perhaps than all their other Patronuses put together. It was the first time she'd seen that spell cast wordlessly. "Order all your Aurors to cancel their Patronus Charms for ten seconds," said the old wizard. "What darkness cannot find, the light may."

Amelia snapped off the order to the communications officer, who would notify all Aurors through their mirrors, commanding Dumbledore's will to be done.

That took a few moments, and it became a period of awful silence, none of the Aurors daring to speak, while Amelia tried to weigh her own thoughts. She must not leave this prison alive... Albus Dumbledore wouldn't turn into Bartemius Crouch without a strong reason. If he'd meant to tell her why, he already would have; but it certainly wasn't a positive sign.

Still, it was good to know they'd be able to work together on this one.

"Now," said a chorus of mirrors, and all the Patronus Charms winked out except that blazing silver phoenix.

"Is there another Patronus still present?" the old wizard said clearly to the bright creature.

The bright creature dipped its head in a nod.

"Can you find it?"

The silver head nodded again.

"Will you remember it, should it depart and come again?"

A final nod from the blazing phoenix.

"It is done," Dumbledore said.

"Over," said all the mirrors a moment later, and Amelia raised her wand and began recasting her own Patronus. (Though it took some extra concentration, with that wolfish smile already on her face, to think of the first time Susan had kissed her cheek, instead of dwelling on the looming fate of Bellatrix Black. That other Kiss was a happy thought indeed, but not quite the right kind for the Patronus Charm.)

Oh hey, and its time for some ~~technobabble~~ magic babble. The dumbest loving way to raise tension or resolve it, since the writer sets the terms of the conflict and the rules of how poo poo like Patronuses finding each other works in the exact same scene in which he (spoilers) devises a way for Harriezer to avoid detection.

quote:

This isn't fair, isn't fair, isn't fair! There's a limit to how many constraints you can add to a problem before it really is impossible!

Harry blocked off the useless thoughts, ignored the fatigue he was feeling, and forced his mind to confront the new requirements, he had to think fast, use the adrenaline on following the chains of logic quickly and without hesitation, instead of wasting it on despair.

For the mission to succeed,

(1) Harry would have to dispel his Patronus.

(2) Bellatrix needed to be hidden from the Dementors after the Patronus was dispelled.

(3) Harry needed to resist the Dementors' drain after his Patronus was dispelled.

...

If I solve this one, said Harry's brain, I want a cookie afterward, and if you make the problem any more difficult than this, I mean the slightest bit more difficult, I am climbing out of your skull and heading for Tahiti.

Harry and his brain considered the problem.

Azkaban had stood invincible for centuries, relying upon the impossibility of evading the Dementors' gaze. So if Harry found another way to hide Bellatrix from the Dementors, it would rely on either his scientific knowledge or his realization that the Dementors were Death.

He uses the cloak. That's actually kinda sorta semi-clever, since the cloak was in fact established as a way to stay hidden from death.

But before he does:

quote:

How can I protect myself from the Dementors without a Patronus Charm?

The Headmaster had been repeatedly exposed to a Dementor from a few steps away, over and over throughout a whole day, and had come out of it looking merely tired. How had the Headmaster done that? Could Harry do it too?

It could just be some random genetic thing, in which case Harry was screwed. But assuming the problem was solvable...

Then the obvious answer was that Dumbledore wasn't afraid of death.

Dumbledore really wasn't afraid of death. Dumbledore honestly, truly believed that death was the next great adventure. Believed it in his core, not just as convenient words used to suppress cognitive dissonance, not just pretending to be wise. Dumbledore had decided that death was the natural and normative order, and whatever tiny lingering fear was still in him, it had taken a long time and repeated exposures for the Dementor to drain him through that small flaw.

That avenue was closed to Harry.

And then Harry thought of the flip side, the obvious inverse question:

Why am I so much more vulnerable than average? Other students didn't fall over when they faced the Dementor.

Harry meant to destroy Death, to end it if he could. He meant to live forever, if he could; he had hope of it, the thought of Death brought him no sense of despair or inevitability. He was not blindly attached to his own life; indeed it had taken an effort not to burn away all his life on the need to protect others from Death. Why did the shadows of Death have such power over Harry? He would not have thought himself so afraid.

Was it Harry, all along, who'd been rationalizing? Who was secretly so afraid of death that it was twisting his own thoughts, as Harry had accused Dumbledore?

Of course not. Yud is utterly rationally terrified of death, and none of his obsessions are illogical.

quote:

Oh, I understand now.

The one who is afraid, is...

Harry asked his dark side what it thought of death.

And Harry's Patronus wavered, dimmed, almost went out upon the instant, for that desperate, sobbing, screaming terror, an unutterable fear that would do anything not to die, throw everything aside not to die, that couldn't think straight or feel straight in the presence of that absolute horror, that couldn't look into the abyss of nonexistence any more than it could have stared straight into the Sun, a blind terrified thing that only wanted to find a dark corner and hide and not have to think about it any more -

The silver figure had darkened to moonlight, was flickering like a failing candle -

It's all right, thought Harry, it's all right.

Visualizing himself cradling his dark side like a frightened child in his arms.

It's right and proper to be horrified, because death is horrible. You don't have to hide your horror, you don't have to feel ashamed of it, you can wear it as a badge of honor, openly in the Sun.

It was strange, to feel himself split in two like this, the track of his thoughts that gave the comfort, the track of his thoughts that followed his dark side's incomprehension at the alienness of the ordinary Harry's thoughts; of all the things that his dark side associated with its own fear of death, the one thing it had never expected or imagined that it might find, was acceptance and praise and help...

You don't have to fight alone, Harry said silently to his dark side. The rest of me will back you up on this. I won't let myself die, and I won't let my friends die either. Not you/I, not Hermione, not Mum or Dad, not Neville or Draco or anyone, this is the will to protect... Visualizing wings of sunlight, like the wings of the Patronus he had spread, to give shelter to that frightened child.

The Patronus brightened again, the world spun around Harry or it was his own mind that was spinning?

Take my hand, Harry thought and visualized, come with me, and we will do this thing together...

quote:

For Bellatrix Black and the snake draped around her shoulders were concealed by the Cloak of Invisibility, one of the three Deathly Hallows and reputed to hide its wearer from the gaze of Death himself. The riddle whose answer had been lost, and which Harry had found anew.

And Harry knew, now, that the concealment of the Cloak was more than the mere transparency of Disillusionment, that the Cloak kept you hidden and not just invisible, as unseeable as were Thestrals to the unknowing. And Harry also knew that it was Thestral blood which painted the symbol of the Deathly Hallows on the inside of the Cloak, binding into the Cloak that portion of Death's power, enabling the Cloak to confront the Dementors on their own level and block them. It had felt like guessing, and yet a certain guess, the knowledge coming to him in the instant of solving the riddle.

quote:

The old wizard strode back into the midst of the Aurors, the silver and the red-golden phoenixes now following behind.

"You -" Amelia began to bellow.

"They have dismissed their Patronus," said Dumbledore. The old wizard didn't seem to raise his voice but his calm words somehow overrode her own. "I cannot find them now."

Amelia gritted her teeth, and put a number of scathing remarks on hold, and turned to the communications officer. "Tell the duty room to ask the Dementors again if they can sense Bellatrix Black."

The communications specialist spoke to her mirror for a moment, and a few seconds later, looked up, surprised. "No -"

Amelia was already cursing violently in her mind.

"- but they can see someone else on the lower levels who isn't a prisoner."

"Fine!" snapped Amelia. "Tell the Dementor that a dozen of its kind are authorized to enter Azkaban and seize whoever that is and anyone in their company! And if they see Bellatrix Black, they're to Kiss her immediately!"

Amelia turned and glared toward Dumbledore, then, daring him to argue; but the old wizard only looked at her a bit sadly, and held his peace.

Hoardes of Dementors descend upon Azbakan. Since patronuses in the HPMOR universe are being cast from HP / Stamina for some reason, we are (ostensibly) worried as to whether Harriezer is capable of Patronusing the whole lot of them. I wonder if he will have yet another at-will psychological breakthrough that will give him the necessary willpower.

# ? Jul 27, 2017 12:30

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

Xander77 posted:

He uses the cloak. That's actually kinda sorta semi-clever, since the cloak was in fact established as a way to stay hidden from death.

I forget, how does he know the cloak is a deathly hallow? Or that deathly hallows are even a thing?

Also, I can't tell if his split personality and sudden insights are meant to be clues to a later revelation or if it's just bad writing.

# ? Jul 27, 2017 12:44

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

Tiggum posted:

I forget, how does he know the cloak is a deathly hallow? Or that deathly hallows are even a thing?

The person who gave him the cloak (Dumbledore) told him.

# ? Jul 27, 2017 12:56

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

Xander77 posted:

Chapter 56: TSPE, Constrained Optimization, Pt 6
I suppose we're supposed to wonder whether Dumbledore is the big bad of the fanfic at this stage, since Voldermort is acting as Harry's mentor. I'm not sure which level of twist / untwist would be the most clich� here.

Hitlermort did nothing wrong.

# ? Jul 30, 2017 00:19

PupsOfWar: Dec 6, 2013

what did you all do that was bad enough that you felt obligated to punish yourselves this way

# ? Jul 30, 2017 00:24

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

PupsOfWar posted:

what did you all do that was bad enough that you felt obligated to punish yourselves this way

Too many things to list in this limited format, personally.

# ? Jul 30, 2017 00:29

inflatablefish: Oct 24, 2010

PupsOfWar posted:

what did you all do that was bad enough that you felt obligated to punish yourselves this way

But we feel rationally obligated, that's the important thing.

quote:

It had felt like guessing, and yet a certain guess, the knowledge coming to him in the instant of solving the riddle.

This one sentence sums up pretty much everything about Yud's idea of science.

# ? Jul 30, 2017 11:46

Stroth: Mar 31, 2007; All Problems Solved

Xander77 posted:

Shouldn't HPMOR's far more rational and prepared Aurors just blast whoever else was present with a stun spell (since those are easy to cast and have no ill effects)

They do cause damage actually. Not much, but McGonagall took half a dozen at once in one of the books and ended up in the hospital, with people honestly surprised that it hadn't killed her outright.

# ? Jul 31, 2017 10:58

Dalris Othaine: Oct 14, 2013; I think, therefore I am inevitable.

PupsOfWar posted:

what did you all do that was bad enough that you felt obligated to punish yourselves this way

I kicked a nun

# ? Aug 1, 2017 04:44

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

Dalris Othaine posted:

I kicked a nun

I kicked a wicked nun habit.

# ? Aug 1, 2017 07:34

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

Chapter 57: TSPE, Constrained Cognition, Pt 7

quote:

Harry had hoped that he'd just achieved fusion with his mysterious dark side and would be enabled to draw on all of its benefits with none of its drawbacks, call up the crystal clarity and indomitable will on demand, without needing to go cold or angry.

Once again, he'd overestimated how much progress he'd made. Something had happened, but Harry still had a mysterious dark side, it was still separate from him, and his ordinary self was still domitable. And despite the repair work he'd done on his dark side's fear of death, he didn't dare go dark while unshielded in Azkaban, that was tempting fate way too much.

Which was unfortunate, because a bit of nondomitability would have sure come in handy about now.

We already established Harry's dark side is hella stupid and no use, but I guess we can't move his personality forward in a meaningful way even now.

Anyways, here's a quick reasoning for why the Auror's give Harriezer time to make his stupid plans and deal with the Dementors on his own:

quote:

"We have a fix!" shouted Ora, holding up her magic mirror as though in triumph. "The Dementor outside the inner wall pointed to level seven, C spiral, that's where they are!"

Her Aurors were looking at her expectantly.

"No," Amelia said in a level voice. "That's where one of them is. The Dementors still can't find Bellatrix Black. We are not running down there and letting her through in the confusion, and we are not dividing our forces to be ambushed. So long as we move with caution, we can't lose. Tell Scrimgeour and Shacklebolt to keep going down level by level, same as before -"

The old wizard was already striding forward. Amelia didn't even bother cursing him, this time, as once again their carefully constructed shields parted like water and rippled gently in his wake.

quote:

New requirement, Harry told his brain. Find a way of defeating Dementors that doesn't invoke my Patronus Charm. Alternatively, find yet another way of hiding someone from Dementors, besides the Cloak of Invisibility -

I quit, said his brain. Find yourself another piece of computing substrate to solve your ridiculously overconstrained problems.

I mean it, thought Harry.

So do I, said his brain. Put up your Patronus Charm and wait for the Aurors to find you. Be sensible. It's over.

Give up...

The sucking emptiness seemed to pull harder, as he thought it; and Harry realized what was happening, concentrated more intensely on the stars, turned his mind away from the despair -

You know, observed the logical side of him, if you're not allowed to think any negative thoughts because that will open your mind to the Dementors, that's a cognitive bias too, how would you know if it actually was time to give up?

quote:

Harry's eyes were fixed on the far end of the corridor, next to the stairs that led downward. Not in his mind now, but in true reality, the light in the corridor had dimmed, the temperature had fallen. The fear thundered over him and around him like a sea whipped by hurricane winds, and the sucking emptiness had become a howling draw toward some approaching black hole.

Up the stairs at the far end, floating smoothly through the dying air, came the voids, the absences, the wounds in the world.

And Harry expected them to stop.

With all the will and focus he could muster, Harry expected them to stop.

Anticipated their stopping.

Believed they would stop.

...that was the idea, anyway...

Harry shut down the dangerous stray thought, and expected the Dementors to halt. They had no intelligence of their own, they were just wounds in the world, their form and structure was borrowed from others' expectations. People had been able to negotiate with them, offer them victims in exchange for cooperation, only because they believed Dementors would bargain. So if Harry believed hard enough that the voids would turn and go, they would turn and go.

FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFuck you so much Yud. This is exactly, EXACTLY the opposite of scientific process. I know "rationalism" as Yud defines it is actually opposed to proper science, but do you really have to be so blatant about it? Data, consensus, previous investigations all don't matter as long as a sufficiently ~~brilliant~~ arrogant rationalist posits otherwise.

quote:

The shadows of Death stopped.

Behind Harry, Bellatrix gave a strangled gasp, like it was being torn out of her.

Harry gestured to her, the signal he had set up in advance which meant, repeat what you heard the Dementors say.

"They say," Bellatrix said, her voice was shaking, "they said, 'Bellatrix Black was promised us. Tell us where she hides, and you will be spared.'"

"Bellatrix?" Harry said, making his voice sound amused. "She escaped a while ago."

A moment later, Harry realized that he should have said that Bellatrix was among the Aurors in the top level, that would have caused more confusion -

No, it was wrong to think of the Dementors as trickable, they were merely things, they were controlled only by expectations -

"They say," Bellatrix said in a cracked voice, "they say they know you're lying."

The voids began to move forward again.

Her anticipations are more solidly believed than mine; she is controlling them, unwittingly -

"Don't resist," Harry said, pointing his wand behind him.

"I, I love you, farewell, my Lord -"

"Somnium."

It had helped, strangely enough, hearing those particular awful words, understanding Bellatrix's mistake; it reminded Harry why he was fighting.

"Stop," Harry said again. Bellatrix was asleep; now only his own will, his own expectations rather, should control those spheres of annihilation -

But they kept on gliding forward, and Harry couldn't stop himself from worrying that the previous experience had damaged his confidence, which meant that he wouldn't be able to stop them, and as he noticed himself thinking that, he doubted even more - he needed more time to prepare, really ought to practice controlling just one Dementor in a cage first -

There was only a quarter of corridor now between Harry and the shadows of death, the empty winds were so strong that Harry could feel the erosion beginning in the cracks of himself.

And the thought came to Harry that maybe he was wrong, maybe Dementors did have their own desires and planning capability. Or maybe they were controlled by how everyone thought they worked, not just whoever was closest to them. And in either case -

Harry drew up his wand into the starting position for the Patronus Charm, and spoke.

"One of your number went to Hogwarts and did not return. It no longer exists; that Death is dead."

The Dementors halted, a dozen wounds in the world stood motionless, while the emptiness screamed around them like a deadly wind to nowhere.

"Turn and go and do not speak of this to anyone, little shadows, or I will destroy you as well."

quote:

And the voids retreated back as smoothly as they came, the winds of nothingness lessening with each meter they traversed, as they slid back down the stairs, and departed.

Whether they truly had their own pseudo-intelligence, or whether Harry had finally succeeded in expecting them to go... that, Harry didn't know.

But they were gone.

Glad we didn't actually establish Harriezer is wrong, and will not need to go back to this ever again.

quote:

The old wizard smoothed his silver beard contemplatively, looking at where Auror Bahry was being carried out of the room by two strong Aurors.

"Do you understand this, Amelia?"

"No," she said simply. She suspected some trap they hadn't yet been able to fathom, which was why Auror Bahry was going to be kept outside the main party and guarded.

"Perhaps," the old wizard said at length, "whichever of their number can cast the Patronus Charm, is more than a simple hostage. Someone who was tricked into this, mayhap? For whatever reason, they left your Auror alive; let us not be the first to wield deadly curses, when we find them -"

"I see," said the old witch in sudden realization, "that was their plan. It costs them nothing to Oblivate him and leave him alive, and makes us hesitate -" Amelia nodded decisively, and said to her people, "We carry on as before."

Uh, no. That's literally not something anyone would ever think, no matter how much of a strawman they're supposed to be. "Whoever infiltrated our prison obviously values human life enough to endanger themselves by using non-lethal means.
Nah, it's probably just as easy to knock someone out, let's make sure we only use lethal force on that unknown person by default".

quote:

Dumbledore turned to the blazing silver phoenix on his shoulder, whose light illuminated the whole corridor, and received a silent headshake in reply. "I cannot detect them either," said Dumbledore. Then he shrugged. "I suppose I shall just walk the whole spiral from top to bottom and see if anything turns up, shall I?"

Amelia would have ordered him not to do it, if she thought that would have made the tiniest difference.

"Albus," said Amelia as the old wizard turned to depart, "even you can be ambushed."

"Nonsense, my dear," the old wizard said cheerfully as he strode off yet again, waving as though in admonition his fifteen-inch wand of unidentifiable dark-grey wood, "I'm invincible."

There was a pause.

("He didn't just really say that -" whispered the newest Auror present, a still-prim young lady by the name of Noelle Curry, to the senior member of her trio, Auror Brooks. "Did he?")

("He can get away with it," Isabel whispered back to her, "he's Dumbledore, not even Fate takes him seriously anymore.")

That's actually good.

quote:

Harry said a word to his pouch, and began drawing forth the magical device that he would mate to the product of his hour's labor. Then, when that was drawn forth, another word brought forth a tube of industrial-strength glue; before using it, Harry cast the Bubble-Head Charm on himself and Bellatrix, and had Bellatrix cast the same Charm on the snake, so that the glue fumes in the enclosed cell would not harm them.

When the glue had begun to set, binding technology to magic, Harry laid it down upon the bed, and sat down on the floor, resting his magic and will for a moment before essaying the next Transfiguration.

"My Lord..." Bellatrix said hesitantly.

"Yes?" said the dry voice.

"What is that device you made?"

Harry thought rapidly. It seemed like a good chance to check his plans with her, under the guise of leading questions.

"Consider, my dear Bella," said Harry smoothly. "How difficult is it for a powerful wizard to cut the walls of Azkaban?"

There was a pause, and then Bellatrix's voice came, slow and puzzled, "Not difficult at all, my Lord...?"

"Indeed," said the dry, high voice of Bella's master. "Suppose one were to do this, and fly through the hole on a broomstick, and soar up and away. Rescuing a prisoner from Azkaban would seem easy then, would it not?"

"But my Lord..." said Bella. "The Aurors would - they have their own broomsticks, my Lord, fast ones -"

Harry listened, it was as he had thought. The Dark Lord replied, again in tones of smoothly Socratic inquiry, and Bellatrix asked a further question, which Harry had not expected, but Harry's own counterquestion showed that it should not matter in the end. And in response to Bellatrix's last question, the Dark Lord only smiled, and said that it was time for him to resume his work.

And then Harry got up from the floor of the cell, went to the far end of the cells, and touched his wand to the hard surface of the wall - the wall of Azkaban, the solid metal that separated them from direct exposure to the Dementors' pit.

And Harry began a partial Transfiguration.

1. Isn't it great that we can handwave "Azbakan is actually really really secure, despite seeming like it's easily escapable" entirely off-page?

2. Ffffffffffffffuck transfiguration. As other posters have mentioned, it's not that difficult, it's not that dangerous, it's literally something they teach to children in the HPverse.

HP is one of the relatively few modern fictional universes that have some basic rules to their magic, yet freely allow magic to create and permanently alter things with no universe-shattering repercussions. Yud importing that restriction into it and then making getting around it his protagonist's special power is just... I don't know, sheer goddamn stupidity even by his standards? A result of having not read the books?

Whatever the case, transfiguration wank is the dullest part of a deathly dull fic.

quote:

On the long bench that served as a prison bed, where Harry had set down the Transfigured technological device and the mated magic item for the glue to dry, tiny letters in golden script gleamed on the Muggle artifact. Harry hadn't really planned for them to be there, but they'd kept running through the back of his mind, and so seemed to have become part of the Transfigured form.

There were many different things Harry could have said before using this particular triumph of technological ingenuity. Any number of things that would be, in one sense or another, appropriate. Or at least things that Harry could have said, would have said, if Bellatrix had not been there.

But there was only one thing to say, that Harry would only get the chance to say just this once, and probably never get a better chance to say ever again. (Or think, anyway, if he couldn't say it.) He hadn't seen the actual movie, but he'd seen a preview, and for some reason the phrase had stuck in his mind.

The tiny golden letters upon the Muggle device said,

All right, you primitive screwheads! Listen up!

It's been done.

# ? Aug 1, 2017 17:29

reignonyourparade: Nov 15, 2012

Xander77 posted:

2. Ffffffffffffffuck transfiguration. As other posters have mentioned, it's not that difficult, it's not that dangerous, it's literally something they teach to children in the HPverse.

Other posters are wrong.
"Transfiguration is some of the most complex and dangerous magic you will learn at Hogwarts. Anyone messing around in my class will leave and not come back. You have been warned."

# ? Aug 2, 2017 00:55

Jazerus: May 24, 2011

eliezarry's "special" transfiguration method is actually something most HP wizards can't do, and enabled by scientific understanding of the atomic nature of matter. the descriptions might be dull, but it's probably the least grating part of the fic to me because it shows a spark of a good idea and is the only advantage eliezarry gains through genuine factual knowledge instead of rationalist philosophizing

now, transfiguration being so extraordinarily dangerous that it's practically always unsafe for students to use unsupervised is a dumb yud invention, yeah

Jazerus fucked around with this message at 05:36 on Aug 2, 2017

# ? Aug 2, 2017 05:33

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

Xander77 posted:

It's been done.

They're both aping loving Army of Darkness, a vastly better story despite the protagonist being an idiot.

# ? Aug 2, 2017 05:51

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# ? Jun 7, 2024 00:32

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

Yudkowsky posted:

All right, you primitive screwheads! Listen up!

What is this a reference to?

reignonyourparade posted:

Other posters are wrong.
"Transfiguration is some of the most complex and dangerous magic you will learn at Hogwarts. Anyone messing around in my class will leave and not come back. You have been warned."

It's not dangerous to the same extreme as in this version though. Not even close. It's more like "hey kids, be careful or you could hurt yourself" than Yudkowsky's "hey kids, we shouldn't even be teaching you this because if you make a single dumb mistake your could immediately die and so could everyone around you". In the original books it's more like the equivalent of wood/metal/plastic/food class - don't gently caress around with hot, sharp or spinning things because you could hurt yourself.

Jazerus posted:

eliezarry's "special" transfiguration method is actually something most HP wizards can't do

Again though, it's way exaggerated here. It might be difficult in HP, but in MoR it's a unique skill that no one else has. Which also illustrates another major difference between the two, which is that in the original there are really difficult things that only extremely skilled wizards can do and which are beyond the abilities of the protagonists (but might be used by their friends or enemies). In MoR there are really difficult things that literally only Harry can do because he's always got to be better than everyone else at everything.

# ? Aug 2, 2017 08:25

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

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