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

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

Liquid Communism posted:

Given that Yud has never had an original thought in his life, why would yet another poorly understood ripoff of another work be a surprise?

Because as an atheist post-Judaic cult leader, referencing Christian apologia would render him powerless?

Then again, nobody in LW would process it that way, so maybe it cancels out.

e: i need to stop loving sniping these pages

# ? Feb 16, 2018 05:38

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# ? Jun 1, 2024 14:10

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

Curse you Hayard-Gunnes!

TheGreatEvilKing posted:

Ugh, Dumbledore burning Narcissa alive is just taking a giant poo poo on that character.

Narcissa is alive; Dumby just gave her amnesia and stuck her in a care facility. Still a dick move, but he was fighting a war against Magic Pol Pot.

# ? Feb 16, 2018 09:24

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

Added Space posted:

Narcissa is alive; Dumby just gave her amnesia and stuck her in a care facility. Still a dick move, but he was fighting a war against Magic Pol Pot.

Ok. What about the 10 years after Voldy was "defeated", with that lie being the main thing fueling his animosity with Lucius? Never mind what it does to Draco and Narcissa?

# ? Feb 16, 2018 18:05

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

Xander77 posted:

Ok. What about the 10 years after Voldy was "defeated", with that lie being the main thing fueling his animosity with Lucius? Never mind what it does to Draco and Narcissa?

I assume Yud's explanation is either 'Dumbledore knew all along' or 'She deserved eternal torture for not helping defeat him faster'.

# ? Feb 17, 2018 07:18

Fajita Queen: Jun 21, 2012

A prophecy made him do it

# ? Feb 17, 2018 07:39

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

Chapter 83: Taboo Tradeoffs, Aftermath 1

quote:

Rumor said that the Aurors had discovered that the Defense Professor had Polyjuiced as Granger to fool Malfoy.

Rumor said that Hermione had been bound by the Unbreakable Vow to be Draco Malfoy's slave.

Rumor said that Hermione had gotten the Dementor's Kiss.

But if that were true, Harry Potter wouldn't be sitting there, he would be -

Padma didn't know what General Potter would do. Her mind went blank, trying to think about it.

...

"Today, children," began the calm professional voice of the Transfiguration Professor, just as though nothing out of the ordinary had happened that week, "we shall learn how much effort it takes to sustain a Transfiguration, and why, at your age, you should not even try. The original Form is not gone, only suppressed; and to maintain that suppression -"

"Excuse me," said Padma Patil. She knew her voice was shaking, she knew that she was trembling visibly, but she had to ask. "Excuse me, Professor, what happened with Miss Granger?"

...

"There's too many rumors," said Padma. "I don't know what's true."

Morag MacDougal raised her hand, then said without waiting to be called, "I told you, Padma, what's true is that the Wizengamot found Granger guilty and ordered her to get the Dementor's Kiss and they brought in the Dementor and Harry Potter glued it to the ceiling and wouldn't let it down until -"

...

Kevin Entwhistle spoke. "And General Malfoy? When's he getting back from St. Mungo's?"

The Transfiguration Professor paused in her drawing.

She turned around again, more slowly, this time.

"I am sorry, Mr. Entwhistle," said Professor McGonagall. Her face looked a little more lined than when she had entered the room. "Mr. Malfoy's health is in no danger, I am given to understand. Unfortunately, I have received an owl from Mr. Malfoy's father withdrawing him from Hogwarts. I am afraid he is not coming back."

Short chapter. Good. Too busy for long recaps.

# ? Feb 22, 2018 19:06

teacup: Dec 20, 2006; = M I L K E R S =

So I stopped following this thread when it took so long to actually go through it and started reading the fic itself as some sort of weird hate reading. It�s cute enough to have the concept of harry dismantling the wizard Ong world with logic but I feel it could have sustained a short story at best at a decent level of quality. That said I�m still reading it so what the gently caress do I know.

I was on chapter 22 and what the gently caress is the line about padma patel doing well as she is from a non English background so her parents believe in education, and someone Goldstein is from a �tiny ethnic group that gets 25% of the worlds nobel prizes�

Surely people weren�t happy with this- is that why there is a note at the start saying it�s not his opinion just that of the character? It�s such a pointless addition.

# ? Mar 11, 2018 01:14

Darth Walrus: Feb 13, 2012

teacup posted:

So I stopped following this thread when it took so long to actually go through it and started reading the fic itself as some sort of weird hate reading. It�s cute enough to have the concept of harry dismantling the wizard Ong world with logic but I feel it could have sustained a short story at best at a decent level of quality. That said I�m still reading it so what the gently caress do I know.

I was on chapter 22 and what the gently caress is the line about padma patel doing well as she is from a non English background so her parents believe in education, and someone Goldstein is from a �tiny ethnic group that gets 25% of the worlds nobel prizes�

Surely people weren�t happy with this- is that why there is a note at the start saying it�s not his opinion just that of the character? It�s such a pointless addition.

As an uncritical embrace of the Enlightenment, HPMOR includes more than a few weird racist bits. See my post history in this thread for a couple more.

# ? Mar 11, 2018 14:49

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

teacup posted:

...and someone Goldstein is from a �tiny ethnic group that gets 25% of the worlds nobel prizes�

Surely people weren�t happy with this- is that why there is a note at the start saying it�s not his opinion just that of the character? It�s such a pointless addition.

That�s a thing, though. What causes it is open to research and debate. Why it was included in the text? :iiam:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashkenazi_Jewish_intelligence

E: even a small difference in average intelligence creates huge differences in outliers.

# ? Mar 11, 2018 20:44

Epicurius: Apr 10, 2010; College Slice

Pvt.Scott posted:

That�s a thing, though. What causes it is open to research and debate. Why it was included in the text?

I figured it was just Yud doing a little bit of an ethnic brag there.

# ? Mar 12, 2018 11:44

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

Epicurius posted:

I figured it was just Yud doing a little bit of an ethnic brag there.

The rationalist subculture tends to a variant on white nationalism which includes Ashkenazi Jews, which both EY and Scott Alexander happen to be.

(and /r/slatestarcodex is the sort of place where white nationalists get very upset if you call them white supremacists, where "race realism" isn't necessarily racist, and one of the mods calls himself an "ethno-utilitarian")

# ? Mar 12, 2018 17:16

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

divabot posted:

The rationalist subculture tends to a variant on white nationalism which includes Ashkenazi Jews, which both EY and Scott Alexander happen to be.

I found it weird that he kept bringing them up but that actually explains a lot.

# ? Mar 12, 2018 18:14

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

Chapter 84: Taboo Tradeoffs, Aftermath 2

quote:

"Surely you don't believe it?" said Professor McGonagall. "Miss Granger, you cannot believe of yourself that you would turn to murder!"

"But I -" Her excellent memory helpfully replayed it for the thousandth time, Draco Malfoy telling her with a sneer that she'd never beat him when he wasn't tired, and then proceeding to prove just that, dancing like a duelist between the warded trophies while she frantically scrambled, and dealing the ending blow with a hex that sent her crashing against the wall and drew blood from her cheek - and then - then she'd -

"But you remember doing it," said the older witch, who was watching over her with kindly understanding. "Miss Granger, there is no need for a twelve-year-old girl to bear such dreadful memories. Say the word and I shall be happy to lock them away for you."

It was like a glass of warm water thrown into her face. "What?"

Professor McGonagall took out her wand, a gesture so practiced and quick that it seemed like pointing a finger. "I can't offer to rid you of the memories entirely, Miss Granger," the Transfiguration Professor said with her customary precision. "There may be important facts buried there. But there is a form of the Memory Charm which is reversible, and I shall be happy to cast that on you."

Hermione stared at the wand, feeling the stirrings of hope for the first time in almost two days.

Make it didn't happen... she'd wished that over and over again, for the hands of time to turn back and erase the horrible choice that could never, ever be undone. And if erasing the memory wasn't that, it was still a kind of release...

She looked back at Professor McGonagall's kindly face.

"You really don't think I did it?" Hermione said, her voice trembling.

"I am quite certain you would never do such a thing of your own will."

Beneath her blankets, Hermione's hands clutched at the sheets. "Harry doesn't think I did it?"

"Mr. Potter is of the opinion that your memories are entire fabrications. I can rather see his point."

Then Hermione's clutching fingers let go of the sheet, and she slumped back into the bed, from which she'd partially risen.

No.

She hadn't said anything.

She'd woken up and remembered what had happened last night, and it had been like - like - she couldn't find words even in her own thoughts for what it had been like. But she'd known that Draco Malfoy was already dead, and she hadn't said anything, hadn't gone to Professor Flitwick and confessed. She'd just dressed herself and gone down to breakfast and tried to act normal so that nobody would ever know, and she'd known it was wrong and Wrong and horribly horribly WRONG but she'd been so, so scared -

Even if Harry Potter was right, even if the duel with Draco Malfoy was a lie, she'd made that choice all by herself. She didn't deserve to forget that, or be forgiven for it.

And if she had done the right thing, gone straight to Professor Flitwick, maybe that would've - helped, somehow, maybe everyone would've seen then that she regretted it, and Harry wouldn't have had to give away all his money to save her -

Hermione shut her eyes, squeezed them shut really tight, she couldn't bear to start crying again. "I'm a horrible person," she said in a wavering voice. "I'm awful, I'm not heroic at all -"

If we were talking to a better author, I'd be questioning why the sidekick is having the crisis of self-confidence that the hero is supposed to overcome, particularly when the hero is a horribly obnoxious twerp that could really use one. But of course, we already know that rational heroes show no weakness.

quote:

"I should - I should've -"

"Gone to Azkaban of your own will?" Dumbledore said. "Miss Granger, that is more than I would ever ask anyone to take upon themselves."

"But -" Hermione swallowed. She couldn't help but notice the loophole, anyone who wanted to get through the portrait-door to the Ravenclaw dorm quickly learned to pay attention to exact wordings. "But it's not more than you'd take on yourself."

"Hermione -" the old wizard began.

"Why?" said Hermione's voice, it seemed to be running on without her mind, now. "Why couldn't I be braver? I was going to run in front of the Dementor - for Harry - before, I mean, in January - so why - why - why couldn't I -" Why had the thought of being sent to Azkaban just completely unglued her, why had she forgotten everything about being Good -

...

"When you have been exhausted for many hours, when pain and death is not a passing fear but a certainty, then it is harder to be a hero. If I must speak the truth - then today, yes, I would not waver in the face of Azkaban. But when I was a first-year in Hogwarts - I would have fled from the Dementor that you confronted, for my father had died in Azkaban, and I feared them. Know this! The evil that struck at you could have broken anyone, even myself. Only Harry Potter has it within him to face that horror, when he has come fully into his power."

JFC. Why are we STILL establishing Harriezer as the greatest thing since self-fellatio 84 chapters in? Your readers have either bought into it or hate that little piece of poo poo with a passion by now. More characters sucking his dick are utterly redundant. Anyways, Hermione is depressed regardless of Dumby's affirmations. Obviously, only approval from the protagonist can bring her back from the depths of despair after having cost him his $$$.

quote:

She wasn't awed by the list of precautions. Impressed with the cleverness, but not awed; she was a Transfiguration Mistress, after all. But it still sent shivers of disquiet through her, that Harry Potter now thought Hogwarts as dangerous as spell research.

"The Department of Mysteries is not lightly defied," said Albus. "But for the rest -" The old wizard seemed to slump in on himself slightly. "We may as well give the boy what he wishes. And I will ward Neville also, and write Augusta to say that he should stay here over holiday."

"And finally," she said, "Mr. Potter says - this is a direct quote, Albus - whatever kind of Dark Wizard attractant the Headmaster is keeping here, he needs to get it out of this school, now." She couldn't stop the edge in her own voice, that time.

"I asked as much of Flamel," Albus said, the pain clear in his voice. "But Master Flamel has said - that even he can no longer keep safe the Stone - that he believes Voldemort has means of finding it wherever it is hidden - and that he does not consent for it to be guarded anywhere but Hogwarts. Minerva, I am sorry, but it must be done - must! "

"Very well," said Professor McGonagall. "But for myself, I think that Mr. Potter is right on every single count."

That's the trouble with metaphorical dicks - no amount of overtly fawning slobbering can actually leave them unable or unwilling to take any more.

quote:

"So you did not." Albus's eyes were saddened. "No, Minerva, you must not apologize. It is well. For what you have seen of me this day - if your first loyalty is now to Harry Potter, and not to me, then that is right and proper." She opened her lips to protest, but Albus went on before she could say a word. "Indeed - indeed - that will be necessary and more than necessary, if the Dark Lord that Harry must defeat to come into his power is not Voldemort after all -"

"Not this again!" Minerva said. "Albus, it was You-Know-Who, not you, who marked Harry as his equal. There is no possible way that the prophecy could be talking about you!"

The old wizard nodded, but his eyes still seemed distant, fixed only on the road ahead.

If the main conflict in HPMOR was actually between Harriezer and Dumby, between the rational hero and the "deathist", between someone who is actually trying to revolutionize the wizarding world and destroy every institution within (instead of constantly posturing and threatening to do so one day) and the person who dedicated his life to protecting the aforementioned, that could have been quite interesting. Even a metaphorical conflict about the correct way of dealing with Voldy and making sure his likes are never a real threat again could have been good. But, you know what HPMOR does with seemingly interesting ideas.

quote:

Let us repeat this for emphasis:

The Defense Professor.

Was being detained.

In a cell.

The Defense Professor was staring at the watching Auror and humming.

The Defense Professor has not spoken a single word since he arrived in this particular cell. He has only been humming.

The humming started as a simple children's lullaby, the one that in Muggle Britain begins, Lullaby, and goodnight...

This tune was hummed, without variation, over and over, for seven minutes, to establish the underlying pattern.

Then began the elaborations upon the theme. Phrases hummed too slow, with long pauses in between, so that the listener's mind helplessly waits and waits for the next note, the next phrase. And then, when that next phrase comes, it is so out of key, so unbelievably awfully out of key, not just out of key for the previous phrases but sung at a pitch which does not correspond to any key, that you would have to believe this person had spent hours deliberately practicing their humming just to acquire such perfect anti-pitch.

It bears the same semblance to music as the awful dead voice of a Dementor bears to human speech.

And this horrible, horrible humming is impossible to ignore. It is similar to a known lullaby, but it departs from that pattern unpredictably. It sets up expectations and then violates them, never in any constant pattern that would permit the humming to fade into the background. The listener's brain cannot prevent itself from expecting the anti-musical phrases to complete, nor prevent itself from noticing the surprises.

The only possible explanation for how this mode of humming came to exist is that it was deliberately designed by some unspeakably cruel genius who woke up one day, feeling bored with ordinary torture, who decided to handicap himself and find out whether he could break someone's sanity just by humming at them.

Having stolen Vetinari's off-beat clock, Yud proceeds to utterly ignore the power-relationships in question, and the thousand perfectly legal ways you can make someone's life in custody that much worse than it already is.

Slobber slobber on another knob.

quote:

From his belt, the Auror took a mirror, tapped it once, and then said, "This is Junior Auror Arjun Altunay, I'm calling in code RJ-L20 on cell three."

"Code RJ-L20?" the mirror said in surprised tones. There was a sound of pages being flipped, then, "You want to be relieved because a prisoner is attempting psychological warfare and succeeding?"

(Amelia Bones really is quite intelligent.)

"What'd the prisoner say to you?" said the mirror.

(This question is not part of procedure RJ-L20, but unfortunately Amelia Bones has failed to include an explicit instruction that the commanding officer should not ask.)

"He's -" said the Auror, and glanced back at the cell. The Defense Professor was now leaning in back in his chair, looking quite relaxed. "He was staring at me! And humming! "

There was a pause.

The mirror spoke again. "And you're calling in an RJ-L20 over that? You're sure you're not just trying to get out of watching him?"

(Amelia Bones is surrounded by idiots.)

"You don't understand!" yelled Auror Altunay. "It's really awful humming!"

The mirror transmitted a sound of muffled laughter in the background, sounding like it was coming from more than one person. Then speech again. "Mr. Altunay, if you don't want to be busted to Junior Auror Second Class, I suggest you buckle down and get back to work -"

"Strike that," a crisp voice said, sounding slightly remote due to its distance from the mirror.

(Which is why Amelia Bones often sits in on a coordination center of the D.M.L.E. while doing her Ministry-required paperwork.)

quote:

"I shall not name any names," said the old witch. "But I shall tell a story, and see if it sounds familiar." Amelia Bones looked back down, turning to the next parchment. "Born 1927, entered Hogwarts in 1938, sorted into Slytherin, graduated 1945. Went on a graduation tour abroad and disappeared while visiting Albania. Presumed dead until 1970, when he returned to magical Britain just as suddenly, without any explanation for the missing twenty-five years. He remained estranged from his family and friends, living in isolation. In 1971, while visiting Diagon Alley, he fended off an attempt by Bellatrix Black to kidnap the daughter of the Minister of Magic, and used the Killing Curse to slay two of the three Death Eaters accompanying her. Beyond this all Britain knows the story; need I continue it?" The old witch looked up from her folder again. "Very well. There was a trial in the Wizengamot, during which this young man was exonerated for his use of the Killing Curse, not least due to the efforts of his grandmother, the Lady of his House. He was reconciled with his family, and they held a House gathering to welcome his return. The guest of honor arrived at that gathering to find his entire family slain by Death Eaters, even to the house elves; and that he himself, of cadet line, was now the last remaining scion of a Most Ancient House."

The Defense Professor had not reacted at all to any of this, except that his eyes had half-closed, as though in weariness.

"The young man took up his family's seat in the Wizengamot, becoming among the most steadfast voices against You-Know-Who. Several times he led forces against the Death Eaters, fighting with skillful tactics and extraordinary power. People began to speak of him as the next Dumbledore, it was thought that he might become Minister of Magic after the Dark Lord fell. On the third of July, 1973, he failed to appear at a key Wizengamot vote, and was never heard from again. We assumed You-Know-Who had killed him. It was a grave blow to all of us, and matters went much the worse from that day on." The old witch's gaze was questioning. "I mourned you myself. What happened?"

...

"You seem to - rest, sometimes, in a peculiar manner. This has also been reported. And you seem to be resting more and more frequently, as time goes on." The old witch's fingers tapped the leather folder again. "I cannot recall reading of such a symptom, but when one hears of such a thing, one imagines... Dark Wizards fought, and terrible curses received..."

The Defense Professor remained expressionless.

"Do you require a healer's help?" said Amelia Bones. Her own mask had slipped, clearly showing the pain in her eyes. "Is there anything at all that can be done for you?"

"I agreed to teach Defense at Hogwarts," the man in the cell said flatly. "Draw your own conclusions, Madam. And I am missing my classes, of which there are not many left. I would return to Hogwarts, now."

I don't even remember this, though it would seem like a major twist of some sorts. And ever more precious specialness is added to the mix.

quote:

She looked at the green eyes of the Boy-Who-Lived, the mess of hair that didn't quite obscure the scar on his forehead; she looked upon the face of the boy who'd given all his money to save her without a second thought. There were feelings inside her - guilt, shame, embarrassment, other things as well - but no words. There was nothing she knew how to say.

"So," Harry said abruptly, "I did a quick skim through my psychology books to see what they said about post-traumatic stress disorder. The old books said you should talk about the experience immediately afterward with a counselor. The newer research says that when they actually ran experiments, it turned out that talking about it immediately afterward made it worse. Apparently what you really ought to do is run with your mind's natural impulse to repress the memories and just not think about it for a while."

It was so normal for the way she and Harry usually talked that she felt a sudden burning in her throat.

We don't have to talk about it. That was what Harry had just said, more or less. It felt like cheating, maybe even like a lie. Nothing was normal. Everything wrong was still horribly wrong, everything left unsaid still needed to be said...

...

"I gave the Chaos Legion anti-conformity training, you know. I had each Legionnaire stand in the middle and say 'Twice two is four!' or 'Grass is green!' while everyone else in the Chaos Legion called them idiots or sneered at them - Allen Flint did really good sneers - or even just gave them blank looks and then walked away. The thing you've got to remember is, only the Chaos Legion has ever practiced anything like that. Nobody else in Hogwarts even knows what conformity is."

"Harry!" Her voice was wobbling. "How bad is it?"

Harry gave another sad-looking shrug. "Everyone in the second year and above, since they don't know you. Everyone in Dragon Army. All of Slytherin, of course. And, well, most of the rest of magical Britain too, I think. Remember, Lucius Malfoy controls the Daily Prophet."

...

The whole Ravenclaw dorm went silent as the two of them walked in.

Staring at them.

Staring at her.

(She'd had nightmares like this.)

And then, one by one, people looked away from her.

quote:

The man stood within that doorway, saying nothing; and she couldn't see his eyes. What was he even doing there in the first place -

"Are you here to kill me?" said Hermione Granger.

Professor Quirrell's head tilted at that.

Then the Defense Professor started toward her, the dark silhouette raising one hand slowly and deliberately, as though to push her off the Ravenclaw tower -

"Stupefy! "

The burst of adrenaline overrode everything, she drew her wand without thinking, her lips formed the word of their own accord, the stunbolt leapt out of her wand and -

- slowed to a stop in front of Professor Quirrell's raised hand, rippling in midair like it was still trying to fly and making a slight hissing sound.

The red glow illuminated Professor Quirrell's face for the first time, showing a strange fond smile.

"Better," said Professor Quirrell. "Miss Granger, you are still a student in my Defense class. As such, if you consider me a threat, I do not expect you to just look at me sadly and ask if I am there to kill you. Minus two Quirrell points."

She was entirely unable to form words.

See, that's the sort of derivative but entertaining pulp writing that would have been a lot more ~~palpable~~ palatable if it wasn't surrounded by... everything else.

quote:

"I was going to be a hero, once," said Professor Quirrell, still looking upward. "Can you believe that, Miss Granger?"

"No."

"Thank you again, Miss Granger. It is true nonetheless. Long ago, long before your time or Harry Potter's, there was a man who was hailed as a savior. The destined scion, such a one as anyone would recognize from tales, wielding justice and vengeance like twin wands against his dreadful nemesis." Professor Quirrell gave a soft, bitter laugh, looking up at the night sky. "Do you know, Miss Granger, at that time I thought myself already cynical, and yet... well."

The silence stretched, in the cold and the night.

"In all honesty," said Professor Quirrell, looking up at the stars, "I still don't understand it. They should have known that their lives depended on that man's success. And yet it was as if they tried to do everything they could to make his life unpleasant. To throw every possible obstacle into his way. I was not naive, Miss Granger, I did not expect the power-holders to align themselves with me so quickly - not without something in it for themselves. But their power, too, was threatened; and so I was shocked how they seemed content to step back, and leave to that man all burdens of responsibility. They sneered at his performance, remarking among themselves how they would do better in his place, though they did not condescend to step forward." Professor Quirrell shook his head as though in bemusement. "And it was the strangest thing - the Dark Wizard, that man's dread nemesis - why, those who served him leapt eagerly to their tasks. The Dark Wizard grew crueler toward his followers, and they followed him all the more. Men fought for the chance to serve him, even as those whose lives depended on that other man made free to render his life difficult... I could not understand it, Miss Granger." Professor Quirrell's face was in shadow, as he looked upward. "Perhaps, by taking on himself the curse of action, that man removed it from all others? Was that why they felt free to hinder his battle against the Dark Wizard who would have enslaved them all? Believing men would act in their own interest was not cynicism, it turned out, but sheerest optimism; in reality men do not meet so high a standard. And so in time that one realized he might do better fighting the Dark Wizard alone, than with such followers at his back."

"So -" Hermione's voice sounded strange in the night. "You left your friends behind where they'd be safe, and tried to attack the Dark Wizard all by yourself?"

"Why, no," said Professor Quirrell. "I stopped trying to be a hero, and went off to do something else I found more pleasant."

"What? " said Hermione without thinking at all. "That's horrible! "

The Defense Professor turned his head down from the sky to regard her; and she saw, in the light of the doorway, that he was smiling - or at least half his face was smiling. "Are you going to tell me, Miss Granger, that I am an awful person? Well, perhaps I am. But then are people who never even try to be heroes still worse? If I had never done anything at all, like them, would you have thought better of me?"

Hermione opened her mouth and then found that, once again, she didn't have anything to say. It wasn't right to walk away from being a hero, you couldn't just do that, but she didn't want to say that everyone who wasn't a hero was nothing, that was Quirrell-thinking...

The smile, or half-smile, had disappeared. "You were foolish," the Defense Professor said quietly, "to expect any lasting gratitude from those you tried to protect, once you named yourself a heroine. Just as you expected that man to go on being a hero, and called him horrible for stopping, when a thousand others never lifted a finger. It was only expected that you should fight bullies. It was a tax you owed, and they accepted it like princes, with a sneer for the lateness of your payment. And you have already witnessed, I wager, that their fondness vanished like dust in the wind once it was no longer in their interest to associate with you..."

Another note for discussion later - hero spurned by the common crowd and the reaction of said hero is one of the few themes that HPMOR actually draws to a conclusion of sorts.

quote:

"But you can, Miss Granger." Now the pale blue eyes watched her intently. "Whatever you wish to make of your life, you cannot attain it at Hogwarts, not anymore. This place is ruined for you now, even leaving aside all other threats. Simply ask Harry Potter to command you to go to Beauxbatons and live out your life in peace. If you stay here, he is your master in the eyes of Britain and its laws!"

She hadn't even been thinking about that, it paled so much in comparison to being eaten by Dementors; it had been important to her before, but now it all seemed childish, unimportant, pointless, so why were her eyes burning?

"And if that fails to move you, Miss Granger, consider also that Mr. Potter has, just today at lunchtime, threatened Lucius Malfoy, Albus Dumbledore, and the entire Wizengamot because he cannot think sensibly when something threatens to take you from him. Are you not frightened of what he will do next?"

It made sense. Terrible sense. Dreadful awful sense.

It made too much sense -

She couldn't have described it in words, what triggered the realization, unless it was the sheer pressure that the Defense Professor was exerting on her.

That if the Defense Professor was behind this whole thing - then Professor Quirrell had done it all just to get her out of the way of his plans for Harry.

Xander77 fucked around with this message at 11:40 on Mar 19, 2018

# ? Mar 12, 2018 18:19

devildragon777: May 17, 2014; They'd be a lot more scary if they were more than an inch tall each.

Xander77 posted:

HPMOR

...Even with the entirety of the story bending over backwards to paint Harriezer as the smartest, most brilliantly creative person to ever exist :eng99:

, and the plot reeking of :biotruths:

, Hermione still manages to the smartest (and best?) character.

# ? Mar 19, 2018 02:22

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

Chapter 85: Taboo Tradeoffs, Aftermath 3, Distance

quote:

Harry had seen Hermione safely off to bed.

He had lingered in the Ravenclaw common room long enough to collect a few signatures that might be useful to Hermione later. Not many students had signed; wizards hadn't been trained to think in the put-up-or-shut-up, stick-your-neck-out-and-make-a-prediction-or-stop-pretending-to-believe-in-your-theory rules of Muggle science. Most of them hadn't seen anything incongruent about being too nervous to sign an agreement saying that Hermione got to hold it over them for the rest of their lives if they were wrong, while acting outwardly confident that she was guilty.

Definitely something no one besides scientists does in a professional capacity AND something scientists would be happy to do in a non-professional capacity.

quote:

After that Harry had left the common room quickly, because all the kindly forgiving sentiments he'd reasoned out were getting harder and harder to remember. Sometimes Harry thought the deepest split in his personality wasn't anything to do with his dark side; rather it was the divide between the altruistic and forgiving Abstract Reasoning Harry, versus the frustrated and angry Harry In The Moment.

rear end in a top hat vs bigger rear end in a top hat vs incompetent rear end in a top hat. Whoever wins, we all lose.

quote:

Two nights ago his war had begun, and Harry didn't know with who.

Dumbledore thought it was Lord Voldemort, returned from the dead, making his first move against the boy who had defeated him last time.

Professor Quirrell had put detection wards on Draco, fearing that Hogwarts's mad Headmaster would try to frame Harry for the death of Lucius's son.

Or Professor Quirrell had set up the entire thing, and that was how he'd known where to find Draco. Severus Snape thought the Hogwarts Defense Professor was an obvious suspect, even the obvious suspect.

And Severus Snape himself might or might not be even remotely trustworthy.

Someone had declared war against Harry, their first strike had been meant to take out Draco and Hermione both, and it was only by the barest of margins that Harry had saved Hermione.

Don't worry about (hai Mark), I'm sure we'll figure it out via rationalist deduction that is only slightly believable than the word association in the 70's Batman show.

That, or the bad guy will outright reveal himself and they will monologue endlessly at each other until Voldy bows down to the sheer heights of assholishness display by Harriezer. One or the other.

quote:

At least his dark side hadn't asked anything of him in exchange for saving Hermione. Maybe because his dark side wasn't an imaginary voice like Hufflepuff; Harry might imagine his Hufflepuff part as wanting different things from himself, but his dark side wasn't like that. His "dark side", so far as Harry could tell, was a different way that Harry sometimes was. Right now, Harry wasn't angry; and trying to ask what "dark Harry" wanted was a phone ringing unanswered. The thought even seemed a little strange; could you owe something to a different way you sometimes were?

It's amazing just how much the narrative manages to miss that Dark!Harriezer is an utter retard.

quote:

And then there was that promise Harry had sworn.

Draco to help Harry reform Slytherin House. And Harry to take as an enemy whomever Harry believed, in his best judgment as a rationalist, to have killed Narcissa Malfoy. If Narcissa had never gotten her own hands dirty, if indeed she'd been burned alive, if the killer hadn't been tricked - those were all the conditions Harry could remember making. He probably should've written it down, or better yet, never made a promise requiring that many caveats in the first place.

There were plausible outs, for the sort of person who'd let themselves rationalize an out. Dumbledore hadn't actually confessed. He hadn't come right out and said he'd done it. There were plausible reasons for an actually-guilty Dumbledore to behave that way. But it was also what you'd expect to see, if someone else had burned Narcissa, and Dumbledore had taken credit.

...

You have to expect reputational effects on how other people treat you, said Hufflepuff. If you decide there's sufficient reason to burn a woman alive, one of the predictable side effects is that good people decide you've crossed the line and have to be stopped. Dumbledore should've expected that. He's got no right to complain.

Or maybe he expects us to be smarter, said Slytherin. Now that we know this much of the truth - no matter the exact details of the full story - can we really believe that Dumbledore is a terrible, terrible person who ought to be our enemy? In the middle of a horrible bloody war, Dumbledore set one enemy civilian on fire? That's only bad by the standards of comic books, not by any sort of realistic historical standard.

Good point to make, if we were still discussing the whole "thinking of life as a narrative" perspective that Dumby was strawmanning for, but probably utterly irrelevant in the actual story.

quote:

The Nazis had tried to ship the deuterium already refined to Germany, aboard a civilian Norwegian ferry, the SS Hydro.

Knut Haukelid and his assistants had been discovered by the night watchman of the civilian ferry while they were sneaking on board to sabotage it. Haukelid had told the watchman that they were escaping the Gestapo, and the watchman had let them go. Haukelid had considered warning the night watchman, but that would have endangered the mission, so Haukelid had only shaken his hand. And the civilian ship had sunk in the deepest part of the lake, with eight dead Germans, seven dead crew, and three dead civilian bystanders. Some of the Norwegian rescuers of the ship had thought the German soldiers present should be left to drown, but this view had not prevailed, and the German survivors had been rescued. And that had been the end of the Nazi nuclear weapons program.

Which was to say that Knut Haukelid had killed innocent people. One of whom, the night watchman of the ship, had been a good person. Someone who'd gone out of his way to help Haukelid, at risk to himself; from the kindness of his heart, for the highest moral reasons; and been sent to drown in turn. Afterward, in the cold light of history, it had looked like the Nazis had never been close to getting nuclear weapons after all.

And Harry had never read anything suggesting that Haukelid had acted wrongly.

Man, I really neglect those aspects of this readthrough that would have focused on Harriezer's actual history / science and show how wrong it is. Most of my proper education is in humanities, and I imagine Yud can wiki this stuff just as well as me. Though if anyone has thoughts on how much HPMOR misunderstands the Asch Conformity Experiment or something, feel free to pitch in. If anyone has an archived version of the tumblr that deconstructed HPMOR science, that would be even better.

quote:

Even in the world of comic books, the only reason a superhero like Batman even looks successful is that the comic-book readers only notice when Important Named Characters die, not when the Joker shoots some random nameless bystander to show off his villainy. Batman is a murderer no less than the Joker, for all the lives the Joker took that Batman could've saved by killing him.

Why am I so unsurprised Yud advocates that particular hot take?

quote:

What were the ultimate possibilities of invention, if the underlying laws of the universe permitted an eleven-year-old with a stick to violate almost every constraint in the Muggle version of physics?

Like a hunter-gatherer trying to look up at the Sun, and guess that the universe had to be shaped in a way that allowed for nuclear energy...

...

Harry shook his head slightly, tilting the stars a little in his vision, as he lay on the stone floor looking upward and outward and forward in time. Even if Dumbledore was right, and the true enemy was utterly mad and evil... in a hundred million years the organic lifeform known as Lord Voldemort probably wouldn't seem much different from all the other bewildered children of Ancient Earth. Whatever Lord Voldemort had done to himself, whatever Dark rituals seemed so horribly irrevocable on a merely human scale, it wouldn't be beyond curing with the technology of a hundred million years. Killing him, even if you had to do it to save the lives of others, would be just one more death for future sentient beings to be sad about. How could you look up at the stars, and believe anything else?

Harry stared up at the twinkling lights of Eternity and wondered what the children's children's children would think of what Dumbledore had maybe-done to Narcissa.

But even if you tried framing the question that way, asking what humanity's descendants would think, it still drew only on your own knowledge, not theirs. The answer still came from inside yourself, and it could still be mistaken. If you didn't know the hundredth decimal digit of pi yourself, then you didn't know how the children's children's children would calculate it, for all that the fact was trivial.

Another could-have-been shoulda-been interesting idea about the nature of morality as contrasted with the tempora and mores is tossed in and tossed aside.

quote:

If Hermione had been put in Azkaban, Harry would have called the phoenix and gone there and burned away every last Dementor and it wouldn't have made a single difference how crazy it was or what else he'd wanted to do with his life. That was just - that was - that was just how it was.

And the woman who was behind that door - wasn't there someone, somewhere, to whom she too was precious? Wasn't it only Harry's distance from her life that was preventing his brain from being driven to Azkaban to save her no matter what? What would it have taken to compel him? Would he have needed to know her face? Her name? Her favorite color? Would he have been driven to Azkaban to save Tracey Davis? Would he have been compelled there to save Professor McGonagall? Mum and Dad - there wasn't even any question. And that woman had said she was someone's mother. How many people had wished for the power to break Azkaban? How many prisoners of Azkaban dreamed nightly of such a miraculous rescue?

None. It's a happy thought.

Maybe he should harrow Azkaban. All he had to do was find Fawkes and tell him it was time. Visualize the center of the Dementor's pit as he'd seen it from the broomstick, and let the phoenix take him there. Cast the True Patronus Charm at point-blank range and to hell with what came after.

All he had to do was go find Fawkes.

It might be as simple as thinking of the flame, calling for the fire-bird in his heart -

A star flashed in the night.

By the time Harry's eyes had jumped with a reflex action trained on meteor showers, another part of him was surprised that the astronomical phenomenon was still there; a faint star whose brightness was slowly visibly waxing. There was a startled moment when Harry wondered whether he was seeing, not a meteor, but a nova or supernova - could you see them getting brighter like that? Was the first stage of a nova supposed to be that yellow-orange color?

Then the new star moved again, and seemed to grow as well as brightening. It looked closer suddenly, no longer so far away that distance became moot. Like what you thought was a star, turning out to be an airplane, a lighted form whose shape you could actually see...

...no, not a plane...

The realization seemed to spread out from Harry's chest in a wave of prickling, sweat preparing to break out.

...a bird.

A piercing cry split the night, echoing from the rooftops of Hogwarts.

The approaching creature trailed fire as it flew, shedding golden flames like sparks from its feathers as the mighty wings beat and beat again. Even as it swooped up in a great curve to hover a few paces away from Harry, even as the flames surrounding its passage diminished, the creature seemed no dimmer, no less bright; as though some unseen Sun shone upon it and illuminated it.

Great shining wings red like a sunset, and eyes like incandescent pearls, blazing with golden fire and determination.

The phoenix's beak opened, and let out a great caw that Harry understood as though it had been a spoken word:

COME!

Not even realizing, the boy stumbled back from the edge of the rooftop, eyes still locked on the phoenix, his whole body trembling and tensed, his fists clutching and releasing at his side; stepping back, stepping away.

The phoenix cawed again, a desperate, pleading, sound. It didn't come through in words, this time, but it came through in feelings, an echo of everything that Harry had ever felt about Azkaban and every temptation to action, to just do something about it, the desperate need to do something now and not delay any longer, all spoken in the cry of a bird.

Let's go. It's time. The voice that spoke came from inside Harry, not from the phoenix; from so deep inside it couldn't be given a separate name like 'Gryffindor'.

All he had to do was step forward and touch the phoenix's talons, and it would take him where he needed to be, where he kept thinking he ought to be, down into the central pit of Azkaban. Harry could see the image in his mind, shining with unbearable clarity, the image of himself suddenly smiling with joyous release as he threw all his fears away and chose -

"But I -" Harry whispered, not even aware of what he was saying. Harry lifted his shaking hands to wipe at his eyes from which tears had sprung, as the phoenix hovered before him with great wing-sweeps. "But I - there's other people I also have to save, other things I have to do -"

The fire-bird let out a piercing scream, and the boy flinched back as though from a blow. It wasn't a command, it wasn't an objection, it was the knowledge -

The corridors lit by dim orange light.

It felt like a tightening compulsion in Harry's chest, the desire to just do it and get it over with. He might die, but if he didn't die he could feel clean again. Have principles that were more than excuses for inaction. It was his life. His to spend, if he chose. He could do it any time he wanted...

...if he wasn't a good person.

......

The old wizard walked across the top of the Ravenclaw tower to where a boy stood rooted in dawning horror, in dawning and utter horror.

In my duel with Grindelwald I could not win, only fight him for long hours until he collapsed in exhaustion; and I would have died of it afterward, if not for Fawkes -

Harry didn't even know he was speaking, until the whisper had escaped him -

"Then I could have -"

"Could you have?" said the ancient wizard, his voice sounding far older than his normal tones. "Three times, now, a phoenix has come for my student. One did send hers away, and the grief of it broke her, I think. And the last was cousin to your young friend Lavender Brown, and he -" The old wizard's voice cracked. "He did not return, did poor John, and he saved none of those he meant to save. It is said, among the few scholars of phoenix-lore, that not one in four returns from their ordeal. And even if you did survive - for the life you must lead, Harry James Potter-Evans-Verres - the choices you must make and the path you must walk - to always hear the phoenix's cries - who is to say it would not have driven you mad?" The old wizard raised his sleeve again, drawing it once more across his face. "I had more joy of Fawkes's companionship, in the days before I fought Voldemort."

# ? Mar 19, 2018 12:27

Epicurius: Apr 10, 2010; College Slice

Is it just me, or is Dumbledore the best written character in this story?

# ? Mar 19, 2018 12:50

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

The forums have trouble with long posts right now. Let's see if I can break this up a bit:

Chapter 86: Multiple Hypothesis Testing

quote:

Toronto Magical Tribune:

ENTIRE BRITISH WIZENGAMOT
REPORTS SEEING 'BOY-WHO-LIVED'
FRIGHTEN A DEMENTOR

EXPERT ON MAGICAL CREATURES:
"NOW YOU'RE JUST LYING"

FRANCE, GERMANY ACCUSE BRITAIN
OF MAKING THE WHOLE THING UP

New Zealand Spellcrafter's Diurnal Notice:

WHAT DROVE BRITISH LEGISLATURE INSANE?
COULD OUR GOVERNMENT BE NEXT?

EXPERTS LIST TOP 28 REASONS
TO BELIEVE IT'S ALREADY HAPPENED

Hah.

quote:

"Prophecies are strange things," said Albus Dumbledore. The old wizard's eyes were half-lidded, as though in weariness. "Vague, unclear, meaning escaping like water held between loose fingers. Prophecy is ever a burden, for there are no answers there, only questions."

Harry Potter was sitting tensely. "Headmaster Dumbledore," said the boy with soft precision, "my friends are being targeted. Hermione Granger almost went to Azkaban. The war has begun, as you put it. Professor Trelawney's prophecy is key information for weighing up the balance of my hypotheses about what's going on. Not to mention how silly it is - and dangerous - that the Dark Lord knows the prophecy and I don't."

...

"Voldemort, seeking to avert that very prophecy, went to his defeat at your hands," the old wizard said then. "His knowledge brought him only harm. Ponder that carefully, Harry Potter."

"Yes, Headmaster, I do understand that. My home culture also has a literary tradition of self-fulfilling and misinterpreted prophecies. I'll interpret with caution, rest assured. But I've already guessed quite a bit. Is it safer for me to work from partial guesses?"

Gonna have to agree with Harriezer on this one. Any sort of "you're being kept ignorant for your own good" excuse is equally suspect in fiction and real life (though for different reasons). Keeping your last best hope ignorant while his life is in danger is just dumb.

quote:

The one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord approaches... born to those who have thrice defied him, born as the seventh month dies..."

"And the Dark Lord shall mark him as his equal," came Severus's voice, making her jump within her chair. The Potions Master loomed tall by the fireplace. "But he shall have power the Dark Lord knows not... and either must destroy all but a remnant of the other, for those two different spirits cannot exist in the same world."

The HP ending is "And either must die at the hand of the other for neither can live while the other survives ..."

It remains to be seen whether HPMOR complicates the final phrase out of sheer fetish for needless obfuscation, or it will actually matter in some way.

quote:

. "Then there's the power the Dark Lord knows not, which probably refers to my scientific background -"

"No," said Severus.

Harry looked at the Potions Master in surprise.

Severus's eyes were closed, his face tightened in concentration. "The Dark Lord could obtain that power by studying the same books as you, Potter. But the prophecy did not say, power the Dark Lord has not. Nor even, power the Dark Lord cannot have. She spoke of power the Dark Lord knows not... it will be something stranger to him than Muggle artifacts. Something perhaps that he cannot comprehend at all, even having seen it..."

"Science is not a bag of technological tricks," Harry said. "It's not just the Muggle version of a wand. It's not even knowledge like memorizing the periodic table. It's a different way of thinking."

"Perhaps..." the Potions Master murmured, but his voice was skeptical.

"It is hazardous," Albus said, "to read too far into a prophecy, even if you have heard it yourself. They are things of exceeding frustration."

You know what - boo. Booo. If the whole point of this series isn't an updated version of the Yankee of Camelot, a showdown between the "attitudes" or "worldviews" of science and sorcery, what is even the point.

(Obviously, this question was answered a few times - welcome to HPMOR, where the plot lurches randomly and the themes don't matter - but it's worth reiterating)

Anyways, there's some really pointless "so is Voldy back from the dead?" discussion that should have been resolved like 30 chapters ago:

quote:

Odds of a hundred to one, times a likelihood ratio of one to five, equals odds of twenty to one that the Dark Lord is dead -

"Where are you getting all these numbers, Potter?"

"That is the admitted weakness of the method," Harry said readily.

JFC. He doesn't even let that stop him

quote:

"But what I'm qualitatively getting at is why the observation, 'The Dark Mark has not faded', is not adequate support for the hypothesis, 'The Dark Lord is immortal.' The evidence isn't as extraordinary as the claim."

quote:

"Could it be," Minerva said falteringly, "that You-Know-Who - that Voldemort - transferred some of his own powers to Mr. Potter, the night he gave him that scar? Not something he intended to do, surely. Still... I don't see how Mr. Potter could be his equal, if he had any less magic than the Dark Lord himself..."

"Meh," said Harry, still looking meditatively at his wand.

And we completely skip (what should have been) the obvious "so what did happen that night / is Harry a Hocrux?" discussion.

quote:

"And after that, like I said, any behavioral difference between spies and nonspies can be used to identify spies. Once you've identified at least one magically censored secret of the Dark Mark, you can test someone for the Dark Mark by seeing if they can reveal that secret to somebody who doesn't already know it -"

"Thank you, Mr. Potter."

Everyone looked at Severus. The Potions Master was straightening, his teeth bared in a grimace of angry triumph. "Headmaster, I can now speak freely of the Mark. If we know we are caught for a Death Eater, before others who have not yet seen our bare arms, our Mark reveals itself whether we will it or no. But if they have already seen our arms bare, it does not reveal itself; nor if we are only being tested from suspicion. Thus the Dark Mark seems to identify Death Eaters - but only those already found, you perceive."

"Ah..." Albus said. "Thank you, Severus." He closed his eyes briefly. "That would indeed explain why Black escaped even Peter's notice... ah, well. And Harry's proposed test?"

The Potions Master shook his head. "The Dark Lord was no fool, despite Potter's delusions. The moment such a test is suspected, the Mark ceases to bind our tongues. Yet I could not hint at the possibility, but only wait for another to deduce it."

Spoiler alert - it's impossible to explain away all the dumb bullshit Voldy came up with as "no, it was secretly brilliant all along), and HPMOR doesn't really try. No idea why the Dark Mark gets that treatment, because I don't believe "is Voldy secretly spying on us?" ever becomes a major plot point, for obvious reasons.

quote:

And the true and honest reason Harry knew the Dark Lord couldn't have been that smart... well... there wasn't any tactful way to say it, but...

...

If you were completely unrestrained by ethics, armed with the ancient secrets of Salazar Slytherin, had dozens of powerful followers including Lucius Malfoy, and it took you more than ten years to fail to overthrow the government of magical Britain, it meant you were stupid.

"How can I put this..." Harry said. "Look, Headmaster, you've got ethics, there's a lot of battle tactics you don't use because you're not evil. And you fought the Dark Lord, a tremendously powerful wizard who wasn't so restrained, and you held him off anyway. If You-Know-Who had been super-smart on top of that, you'd be dead. All of you. You'd have died instantly -"

I wonder how Yud thinks actual fights work IRL. I mean, I'm pretty sure he's someone who believes in intelligence as a single quality / quality type, with no differentiation for application or specialization.

Meanwhile at the Griffyndor table:

quote:

"I, for one, think it perfectly clear that Granger is Potter's moirail, and that Potter was auspisticing between Malfoy and Granger." The witch who'd spoken nodded with the self-satisfaction of someone who has just precisely nailed down a complicated issue.

"Those aren't even words," objected a young wizard. "You're just making them up as you go."

"Sometimes you can't describe a thing using real words."

"It's so sad," said Sherice Ngaserin, who actually had tears in her eyes. "They were just - they were just so obviously meant to be together!"

"You mean Potter and Malfoy?" said a second-year named Colleen Johnson. "I know - their families hated each other so much, there's no way they couldn't fall in love -"

"No, I mean all three of them," said Sherice.

This produced a brief pause in the huddled conversation. Dean Thomas was quietly choking on his lemonade, trying not to make any sounds as it trickled out of his mouth and soaked into his shirt.

Moirail is apparently a HomeStuck term.

quote:

There was a blur of motion as the resolving figure snapped up a wand, smoothly spinning with the Floo's momentum like a ballet dance step, so that his firing arc covered the entire 360-degree arc of the room; and then just as abruptly, the figure stopped in place.

...

"There are only friends here," Dumbledore said.

The man's head jerked toward Harry. "That include him? "

"If Harry Potter is not our friend," Dumbledore said gravely, "then we are all certainly doomed; so we may as well assume that he is."

The man's wand stayed level, not quite pointing at Harry. "Boy almost drew on me just then."

"Er..." Harry said. He noticed that his hand was still tightly holding the wand, and consciously relaxed his hand and dropped it back to his side. "Sorry about that, you looked a bit... combat-ready."

The scarred man's wand moved slightly away from where it had almost pointed at Harry, though it didn't lower, and the man let out a short bark of laughter. "Constant vigilance, eh, lad?" said the man.

"It's not paranoia if they really are out to get you," Harry recited the proverb.

The man turned fully toward Harry; and insofar as Harry could read any expression on the scarred face, the man now looked interested.

Yud really wants MEM to be properly crazy-prepared and battle-ready for the HPMOR universe. It's his chance to show us what kind of crazy smart tricks a rational wizard guided by Yud's overwhelming ~~asspulls~~ intelligence could accomplish.

quote:

I have a lead on a recent host of Voldie's. You're certain his shade is in Hogwarts now?"

"Not certain -" Dumbledore began.

"Say what? " Harry interrupted. After having nearly concluded that the Dark Lord didn't exist, it was a shock to hear it being discussed that matter-of-factly.

"Voldie's host," Moody said shortly. "The one he possessed before he took over Granger."

...

Honestly - look, if we knew for certain he was a willing host for You-Know-Who, that's one thing, but if we're not sure and you're heading off to kill him -"

"Kill?" Mad-Eye Moody snorted. "It's what's locked up in his head," Moody tapped his forehead, "that we need from him, boy. If we're lucky, Voldie can't wipe the sucker's memories as easy as in his living days, and Lockhart will remember what the horcrux looked like."

Harry mentally noted down the word horcrux for future research, and said, "I'm just worried that someone innocent - what sounds like a pretty decent person, if he did do all that himself - might be about to get hurt."

...

"He's a liability. Naive. Doesn't know a bloody thing about what war's like. I want him out of here and all his memories of the Order wiped before one of Voldie's servants plucks them straight out of his mind -"

"I'm an Occlumens, actually."

Mad-Eye Moody directed a narrow look at the Headmaster, who nodded.

And then the scarred man turned to face Harry, their gazes meeting.

The sudden fury of the Legilimency attack almost made Harry fall off his chair, as a blade of white-hot steel cut into the imaginary person at the forefront of his mind. Harry hadn't had a chance to practice since Mr. Bester's training, and Harry very nearly lost his grip on the imaginary person the back-of-his-mind was pretending to be, as that person's world turned into searing lava and a furious probe of questions. Harry almost lost his grip on only pretending to hallucinate, only pretending to be the imaginary person that was screaming in shock and pain as the Legilimency tore apart his sanity and reshaped him to believe that he was on fire -

...

"All right," Mad-Eye Moody said softly. A strange, thin grin twisted up the lips within the scarred face. "I'll make you the same offer I'd make to any trainee Auror. Land one touch on me, boy - one hit, one spell - and I'll concede your right to talk back to me."

"Alastor!" exclaimed Professor McGonagall's voice. "Surely that's an unreasonable test! Mr. Potter, whatever his other merits, does not have a hundred years of fighting experience!"

Harry's eyes made a lightning dart around the room, passing over the peculiar devices, glancing past Dumbledore and Severus and the Sorting Hat, settling briefly here and there. Harry couldn't see Professor McGonagall from where he was, but that didn't matter. There was only one device he'd really wanted to look at, and the point of all the other glances had just been to conceal which one.

# ? Apr 5, 2018 15:56

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

quote:

Harry opened his eyes, his head feeling like it had been stuffed with cotton wool.

Everyone else was gone from the Headmaster's office, the Floo-Fire dimmed; only Dumbledore still waited behind the desk.

"Hello, Harry," the Headmaster said quietly.

"I didn't even see him move," Harry marvelled, muscles creaking as he sat up.

"You were standing two paces away from Alastor Moody," said Dumbledore, "and you took your eye off his wand."

Harry nodded, as he took the Cloak of Invisibility out of his pouch. "I mean - I was taking the dueling stance so that he'd think I was a standard idiot and underestimate me - but I have to admit, that was impressive."

"So you planned it all along, Harry?" Dumbledore said.

"Of course," Harry said. "Note how I'm doing this as soon as I wake up, rather than pausing to think of it."

Harry drew the hood of the Cloak over his head, and glanced back up at the wall clock he'd surreptitiously glanced at earlier.

It had then shown around twenty-three minutes after eight, and now it was five minutes after nine.

Three guesses, first two don't count. I'm not actually sure how using the time turner to attack MEM several times in the same instance is any more reasonable than making several attempts to attack him in a row (which... is exactly what that is), but... sure.

quote:

"That eye," said Harry Potter. There was a strange fierce light in the boy's eyes. "That isn't any ordinary device. It can see right through my invisibility cloak. You dodged my Transfigured taser as soon as I started raising it, even though I didn't speak any incantations. And now that I've watched it again - you spotted all my Time-Turned selves the moment you Flooed into this room, didn't you?"

Mad-Eye Moody was smiling, the same teeth-bared grin she'd seen him wear as they'd faced off against Voldemort himself. "Spend a hundred years hunting Dark wizards, and you see everything," said Moody. "I once arrested a young Japanese who tried a similar trick. He found out the hard way that his shadow replica technique was no match for this eye of mine."

"You see in all directions," Harry Potter said, that strange fierce light still in his gaze. "No matter where that eye is pointing, it sees everything around you."

Moody's tiger-grin grew wider. "There's no more of you in this room, now," Mad-Eye said. "Think that's because you'll give up after this time, or because you'll win? Any bets, boy?"

"It's my final attempt because I decided to stake my last three hours on one shot," said Harry Potter. "As for whether I win -"

He does.

quote:

Moody frowned. "Son, nobody gains power that fast without being up to something."

"Then leave it for the ordinary Aurors, if and when they find evidence the ordinary way. Please, Mr. Moody. Call it a quirk of my Muggle upbringing, but if it's not about the war I don't want us to be the evil police who break into people's houses in the middle of the night, rummage through their minds and send them off to Azkaban."

Ok.
I think there's a lot to unpack here about how "the good guys" of HPMOR apparently operate without Harriezer there to restrain them and what it means... eh. Leaving that aside for now on the off chance that the story returns to that theme.

Brief interlude - Quirremort and Harriezer ponder who could have messed with Hermione:

quote:

"I can think of one other suspect," Harry said. "Someone you didn't put on your list at all. Would you analyze him to me, Professor?"

There was another of those moments of silence that was almost a sound in itself.

"As for that suspect," the Defense Professor said softly, "I think you shall prosecute him on your own, Mr. Potter, without help from me. I have heard such requests before, and experience leads me to refuse. Either I will do too good a job of prosecuting myself, and convince you that I am guilty - or else you will decide that my prosecution was too half-hearted, and that I am guilty. I will remark only this in my defense - that I would have needed a very good reason indeed to jeopardize your fragile alliance with the heir to House Malfoy."

quote:

And then there were the various still-breathing bodies of Harry Potter he'd stashed in one quiet corner, cleaning up a mess that was his own in more ways than one. (Only one body wasn't inside a copy of the Invisibility Cloak; but then it merely took a small effort of concentration for Harry to perceive his other selves beneath the Cloak of which he was master - an effort which Harry had carefully not put forth earlier, to avoid getting advance temporal information he wanted to determine by his own decision.)

Is that a thing in the source material? I don't think it is.

Back to MEM, and the ostensible reason he even came here:

quote:

"eight years of complete horror after Monroe disappeared and Regulus Black - he was Monroe's private source in the Death Eaters, we're pretty sure - was executed by Voldie. Like a dam breaking and gore flooding out, drowning the whole country. Albus bloody Dumbledore himself had to step into Monroe's shoes, and that was barely enough for us to survive."

Harry listened with an odd sense of unreality. Some of it felt right, matched up with observation - especially with the speech Professor Quirrell had made before Christmas - and yet...

This was Professor Quirrell they were talking about.

"So that's who the Department thinks is your Defense Professor," Mad-Eye Moody finished up his account. "Now what do you think, son?"

"Well..." Harry said slowly. It is also possible to have a mask behind the mask. "The obvious next thought is that this 'David Monroe' person died in the war after all, and this is just someone else pretending to be David Monroe pretending to be Quirinus Quirrell."

...

"Naive," Moody said flatly. "I suppose you all haven't wondered if your Defense Professor set up the whole House of Monroe to be wiped out?"

"What? " cried Professor McGonagall.

"Our mystery wizard hears about a missing kid from a Most Ancient House of Britain," Moody said. "Steps into the shoes of 'David Monroe', but stays away from the real Monroe family. But eventually the House is bound to notice something wrong. So this imposter somehow prods Voldie into wiping them all out - maybe leaked a password they'd given him for their wards - and then he was a Lord of the Wizengamot!"

There seemed to be a fight going on inside Harry's mind between Hufflepuff One, who'd never trusted the Defense Professor in the first place; and Hufflepuff Two, who was far too loyal to Harry's friend, Professor Quirrell, to believe something like that just because Moody said so.

It is kind of obvious, though, observed his Slytherin part. I mean, do you actually believe that under natural circumstances, anyone would end up as the last heir to a Most Ancient House AND Lord Voldemort killed his family AND he has to avenge his martial arts sensei? If anything I'd say he went too far over the top in setting up his new identity as the ideal literary hero. That sort of thing doesn't happen in real life.

This from an orphan who was raised unaware of his heritage, commented Harry's Inner Critic. With a prophecy about him. You know, I don't think we've ever read a story about two equally destined heroes competing to see who's cliched enough to take down the villain -

quote:

"And to answer your question, boy, there's two reasons why that spell's in the blackest book. The first is that the Killing Curse strikes directly at the soul, and it'll just keep going until it hits one. Straight through shields. Straight through walls. There's a reason why even Aurors fighting Death Eaters weren't allowed to use it before the Monroe Act."

"Ah," said Harry. "That does seem like an excellent reason to ban -"

"I'm not finished, son. The second reason is that the Killing Curse doesn't just take a powerful bit of magic. You've got to mean it. You've got to want someone dead, and not for the greater good, either. Killing Grice didn't bring back Blair Roche, or Nathan Rehfuss, or David Capito. It wasn't for justice, or to stop him doing it again. I wanted him dead. You understand now, lad? You don't have to be a Dark Wizard to use that spell - but you can't be Albus Dumbledore, either. And if you're arrested for killing with it, there's no possible defense."

Apparently the killing curse Quirrelmort cast in Azbakan should have went right through a bunch of walls, possibly alerting someone. Oh, and you don't really cast killing curses to force someone to dodge.

Harriezer doesn't note that. He just decides he's going to ask Quirrelmort some things only the original David would know to resolve the matter.

quote:

"Yes," Harry said, "that's exactly what I need to ask you about. In front of the Wizengamot, when Lucius Malfoy was saying that Hermione was no part of House Potter and that he wouldn't take the money, you told Hermione how to swear that oath. I want to know, if something like that comes up again, if your first duty is to the Hogwarts student Hermione Granger, or to the head of the Order of the Phoenix, Albus Dumbledore."

Professor McGonagall looked like someone had hit her in the face with a cast-iron frying-pan, a few minutes earlier, and now she'd been told that somebody was about to do it again, and not to flinch.

...

"Oh, Mr. Potter," Professor McGonagall said with a low exhalation. "I... wish you wouldn't ask me such questions... oh, Harry, I wasn't thinking then, not at all. I only saw a chance to help Miss Granger and... I was Sorted into Gryffindor, after all."

"You've got a chance to think now," Harry said. It was all coming out wrong, but he had to say it anyway, because - "I'm not asking you to be loyal to me. But if you do know - if you are sure - what you'll do if it comes down to an innocent Hogwarts student versus the Order of the Phoenix a second time..."

But Professor McGonagall shook her head. "I'm not sure," the Transfiguration Professor whispered. "I don't know if it was the right choice even then. I'm sorry. I can't decide such awful things!"

"But you'll do something if it happens again," Harry said. "Indecision is also a choice. You can't just imagine having to make an immediate decision?"

"No," Professor McGonagall said, sounding a little stronger; and Harry realized that he'd accidentally offered a way out. The Professor's next words confirmed Harry's fears. "Such a dreadful choice as that, Mr. Potter - I think I should not make it until I must."

gently caress. You. Yud.

# ? Apr 5, 2018 15:58

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

quote:

"In any case, Mr. Potter, Severus has always been entirely indifferent to the stares of those young girls. But now -" Professor McGonagall seemed to realize something, and hastily said, her hands rising in warding, "Please don't mistake me, Professor Snape certainly has not taken advantage of any young witches! Absolutely not! He has never even so much as smiled at one, not that I ever heard. He has told the young girls to stop gaping at him. And if they stare at him regardless, he looks away. That I have seen with my own eyes."

"Er..." Harry said. "Sorry, but just because I've read those books doesn't mean I understood them. What does all that mean? "

"That he is noticing," Professor McGonagall said in a low voice. "It is a subtle thing, but now that I have seen it, I am certain. And that means... I am very much afraid... that the bond which held Severus to Albus's cause... may have weakened, or even broken."

2 + 2 = ...

"Snape and Dumbledore? " Then Harry heard the words that had just come out of his mouth, and hastily added, "Not that there's anything wrong with that -"

"No!" said Professor McGonagall. "Oh, for pity's sake - I can't explain it to you, Mr. Potter!"

The other shoe finally dropped.

He was still in love with my mother?

This seemed somewhere between beautifully sad, and pathetic, for around five seconds before the third shoe dropped.

Of course, that was before I gave him my helpful relationship advice.

That's actually kinda cute. We even get a follow up in the same chapter (before Yud has a chance to abandon the theme and move on to something else):

quote:

When the Potions Master was done, he spoke again. "I... do not know how to broach this topic, Mr. Potter, so I will simply say it... before the Dementor, you recovered your memory of the night your parents died?"

Harry silently nodded.

"If... I know it must not be a pleasant memory, but... if you could tell me what happened...?"

"Why?" Harry said. His voice was solemn, definitely not mocking the pleading look that Harry had never expected to see from that person. "I wouldn't think that would be a pleasant thing for you to hear either, Professor -"

The Potions Master's voice was almost a whisper. "I have imagined it every night these last ten years."

You know, said Harry's Slytherin side, it might not be such a good idea to give him closure, if his guilt-based loyalties are already wavering -

Shut up. Overruled.

Harriezer trades it for the story of Snape discovering the prophecy. Doesn't much differ from the source, as far as I can tell:

quote:

"The Dark Lord seized my mind and saw the mystification there, even if he could not seize the mystery, and so he knew the prophecy had been true. The Dark Lord could have killed me then, having taken what he wanted - I was a fool indeed to go to him - but he saw something in me I do not know, and took me into the Death Eaters, though on his terms rather than mine. That is how I brought it about, brought it all about, from beginning to end, always my own doing." Severus's voice had gone rather hoarse, and his face was filled with naked pain. "Now tell me, please, how did Lily die?"

Harry swallowed twice, and began his recounting.

"James Potter shouted for Lily to run away with me, that he would hold off You-Know-Who."

"You-Know-Who said -" Harry stopped, the chills going all over his own skin, his own muscles tightening as if in preparing for a seizure. The memory was returning strongly, now, accompanied by cold and darkness in association. "He used... the Killing Curse... and then he came upstairs somehow, I think he must have flown, I don't remember any footsteps on stairs or anything like that... and then my mother said, 'No, not Harry, please not Harry!' or something like that. And the Dark Lord - his voice was so high, like water whistling out of a teakettle only cold - the Dark Lord said -"

Stand aside, woman! For you I am not come, only the boy.

The words were very clear in Harry's memory.

"- he told my mother to get out of his way, that he was only there for me, and my mother begged him to have mercy, and the Dark Lord said -"

I give you this rare chance to flee.

"- that he was being generous and giving her a chance to run, but he wouldn't bother fighting her, and even if she died, she couldn't save me -" Harry's voice was unsteady, "- and so she ought to get out of his way. And that was when my mother begged the Dark Lord to take her life instead of mine - and the Dark Lord - the Dark Lord said to her - and his voice was lower this time, like he was dropping a pose -"

Very well, I accept the bargain.

"- he said that he accepted her offer, and that she should drop her wand so he could kill her. And then the Dark Lord waited, just waited. I, I don't know what Lily Potter was thinking, it hadn't even made sense in the first place, what she said, it wasn't like the Dark Lord would kill her and then just leave, when he'd come there for me. Lily Potter didn't say anything, and then the Dark Lord started laughing at her and it was horrible and - and she finally tried the only thing left that wasn't abandoning me or just giving up and dying. I don't know if she even could've, if the spell would've worked for her, but when you think about, she had to try. The last thing my mother said was 'Avada Ke-' but the Dark Lord started his own curse as soon as she said 'Av' and he said it in less than half a second and there was a flash of green light and then - and then - and then -"

"That's enough."

Slowly, like a body floating to the surface of water, Harry returned from wherever he'd been.

"That's enough," the Potions Master said hoarsely. "She died... Lily died without pain, then? The Dark Lord... did not do anything to her, before she died?"

She died thinking that she'd failed, and that the Dark Lord was going to kill her baby next. That's pain.

"He - the Dark Lord didn't torture her -" Harry said. "If that's what you're asking."

Behind Harry, the door unlocked itself and swung open.

Harry left.

That's actually good. Like, good writing, as far as that goes.

# ? Apr 5, 2018 16:00

TheGreatEvilKing: Mar 28, 2016

It's pretty clear that Yud didn't read the whole series because the theme of "good guys abusing government powers and becoming what they hate" is pretty much Barty Crouch and later the Ministry.

# ? Apr 6, 2018 01:17

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

TheGreatEvilKing posted:

It's pretty clear that Yud didn't read the whole series because ~~the theme of "good guys abusing government powers and becoming what they hate" is pretty much Barty Crouch and later the Ministry.~~he admitted it outright.

He just doesn't think it matters.

# ? Apr 6, 2018 18:35

Cardiovorax: Jun 5, 2011; I mean, if you're a successful actress and you go out of the house in a skirt and without underwear, knowing that paparazzi are just waiting for opportunities like this and that it has happened many times before, then there's really nobody you can blame for it but yourself.

quote:

Harry lifted his glasses and rubbed his eyes, briefly. "Fine. How do we get Hermione off the hook, exactly? I suppose it's too much to hope that with all the lawyers gone, the judges understand the concept of 'common sense' and 'prior probability' well enough to realize that twelve-year-old girls basically never commit cold-blooded murders?"

The most hilarious thing about this part is that it's basically suggesting that we should put social and sexual profiling over what the actual evidence and perpetrator statement indicate has actually happened... and that this is also what Yudkowsky's pathetic miscomprehension of Bayesian decision theory really says is what people should be doing. The "prior probability" of twelve year old girls murdering someone is substantially more important than personally seeing a twelve year old girl murdering someone in his worldview.

# ? Apr 6, 2018 20:14

PetraCore: Jul 20, 2017; 👁️🔥👁️👁️👁️BE NOT👄AFRAID👁️👁️👁️🔥👁️

Cardiovorax posted:

The most hilarious thing about this part is that it's basically suggesting that we should put social and sexual profiling over what the actual evidence and perpetrator statement indicate has actually happened... and that this is also what Yudkowsky's pathetic miscomprehension of Bayesian decision theory really says is what people should be doing. The "prior probability" of twelve year old girls murdering someone is substantially more important than personally seeing a twelve year old girl murdering someone in his worldview.

Wasn't the Slenderman attempted murder carried out by two twelve year old girls? Or were they eleven?

# ? Apr 7, 2018 02:54

SolTerrasa: Sep 2, 2011

Cardiovorax posted:

The most hilarious thing about this part is that it's basically suggesting that we should put social and sexual profiling over what the actual evidence and perpetrator statement indicate has actually happened... and that this is also what Yudkowsky's pathetic miscomprehension of Bayesian decision theory really says is what people should be doing. The "prior probability" of twelve year old girls murdering someone is substantially more important than personally seeing a twelve year old girl murdering someone in his worldview.

He absolutely does believe that. He and his followers are mostly, uh, "race realists", for instance.

# ? Apr 7, 2018 04:03

Tunicate: May 15, 2012

Cardiovorax posted:

The most hilarious thing about this part is that it's basically suggesting that we should put social and sexual profiling over what the actual evidence and perpetrator statement indicate has actually happened... and that this is also what Yudkowsky's pathetic miscomprehension of Bayesian decision theory really says is what people should be doing. The "prior probability" of twelve year old girls murdering someone is substantially more important than personally seeing a twelve year old girl murdering someone in his worldview.

who do you believe, profiling, or your own lying eyes?

# ? Apr 7, 2018 04:35

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

Remember, Yud is such a loving idiot that he believes that there's a chance that not bringing about the Singularity fast enough will drat you to having identical copies of you tortured forever.

He is not a person who is at home with sense.

# ? Apr 7, 2018 06:57

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

Roko's Basilisk is the best thing :allears:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DR7rurcamNo
(Also the TF2 machinima version for anyone who hasn't seen it!)

You don't exactly sign an actual contract in blood that is enforced by the literal Robot Devil to get trapped in Rationalist Robot Hell (in New Jersey!), sure. The contract is instead written in your own strength of conviction in the Singularity� and enforced by your own concomitant abject terror of Rationalist Robot Hell.

It's pretty poetic in a way.

# ? Apr 7, 2018 16:07

DACK FAYDEN: Feb 25, 2013; Bear Witness

was this the part where Harry figured out he should distract Mad-Eye Moody with a spell that makes a bunch of invisible lights because he can still see them with his magic eye

that was an actually clever bit of logic that I enjoyed

# ? Apr 12, 2018 17:11

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

Curse you Hayard-Gunnes!

No, he hit him with Stuperfy, a stunning spell with a bit of tracking. He learned it from Flitwick, a champion duelist. On the one hand this is kind of clever. On the other, it adds a plot hole for why this superior version isn't the standard.

# ? Apr 12, 2018 18:24

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

He did the lights thing first, to prime him for the stunner.

The stunner isn't the world standard because it's explicitly a little secret trick of Flitwick's that he came up with himself.

Honestly, sometimes I despair in y'all's extremely basic ability to follow a meandering 2500-page transhumanist nerdwank fanfiction serial.

NihilCredo fucked around with this message at 18:51 on Apr 12, 2018

# ? Apr 12, 2018 18:48

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

Grace Baiting posted:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DR7rurcamNo
(Also the TF2 machinima version for anyone who hasn't seen it!)

Why is the machinima version better animated than a fully budgeted and critically acclaimed animation series?

...

Also, wizards apparenty lack scientific curiosity and understanding about how magic actually works - except coming up with new spells or improvements upon standard spells isn't even particularly remarkable. Welp.

Xander77 fucked around with this message at 10:09 on Apr 17, 2018

# ? Apr 12, 2018 19:49

Roadie: Jun 30, 2013

Grace Baiting posted:

Roko's Basilisk is the best thing
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DR7rurcamNo
(Also the TF2 machinima version for anyone who hasn't seen it!)

You don't exactly sign an actual contract in blood that is enforced by the literal Robot Devil to get trapped in Rationalist Robot Hell (in New Jersey!), sure. The contract is instead written in your own strength of conviction in the Singularity� and enforced by your own concomitant abject terror of Rationalist Robot Hell.

It's pretty poetic in a way.

It's basically Pascal's Wager, except way more hosed-up, and since singularitarians don't believe that anything exists unless they invent it themselves nobody's thought about the Marcus Aurelius quote on the same subject or Michael Martin's extension of the subject across "believer" and "non-believer" categories.

# ? Apr 16, 2018 23:05

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

Chapter 87: Hedonic Awareness

quote:

And ever since she'd been wondering what Harry thought of her now - if he hated her for having lost all his money - or if he really was in love with her and that's why he'd done it - or if he'd given up on her keeping pace with him because she couldn't frighten Dementors - she couldn't face him now, she just couldn't, she spent sleepless nights worrying what Harry thought of her now, and she was afraid, and she'd been avoiding the boy who'd spent all his money to save her, and she was a horrible ungrateful wretch, and a terrible person and -

Then her eyes glanced down to see that Harry was reaching into the red-velvet pouch and taking out a heart-shaped red-foil-wrapped sweet, and her brain melted down like chocolate left out in the sun.

"I was going to give you more space," said Harry Potter, "only I was reading up on Critch's theories about hedonics and how to train your inner pigeon and how small immediate positive and negative feedbacks secretly control most of what we actually do, and it occurred to me that you might be avoiding me because seeing me made you think of things that felt like negative associations, and I really didn't want to let that run any longer without doing something about it, so I got ahold of a bag of chocolates from the Weasley twins and I'm just going to give you one every time you see me as a positive reinforcement if that's all right with you -"

"Breathe, Harry," Hermione said without thinking about it.

It was the first word she'd spoken to him since the day of the trial.

The two of them stared at each other.

The books stared at them from the surrounding shelves.

They stared some more at each other.

"You're supposed to eat the chocolate," Harry said, holding out the heart-shaped sweet like a Valentine. "Unless just being given a chocolate feels good enough to count as a positive reinforcement, in which case you probably need to put it in your pocket or something."

She knew that if she tried speaking again she'd fail, so she didn't try.

Babbling in romantic confusion is only endearing when coming from a non-rear end in a top hat.

Anyways, Hermione is focused on coming up with a way to repay Harry's debt. Now that we're forced to come up with some get rich scheme that doesn't rely on the wizarding world being idiots, it's a lot harder. Oh, and the Philosopher's stone is unrealistic, obviously.

quote:

the Philosopher's Stone gives you unlimited gold and eternal life, not because there's a single magical discovery that would produce both of those effects, but because someone made up a story about a super happy thingy."

"Harry, there's a lot of things in magic that aren't sensible," she said.

"Granted," said Harry. "But Hermione, problem two is that not even wizards are crazy enough to casually overlook the implications of this. Everyone would be trying to rediscover the formula for the Philosopher's Stone, whole countries would be trying to capture the immortal wizard and get the secret out of him -"

"It's not a secret." Hermione flipped the page, showing Harry the diagrams. "The instructions are right on the next page. It's just so difficult that only Nicholas Flamel's done it."

"So entire countries would be trying to kidnap Flamel and force him to make more Stones. Come on, Hermione, even wizards wouldn't hear about immortality and, and," Harry Potter paused, his eloquence apparently failing him, "and just keep going. Humans are crazy, but they're not that crazy!"

"Not everyone thinks the same way you do, Harry." He did have a point, but... how many different references had she come across to Nicholas Flamel? Besides World's Wealthiest Wizards and Rise and Fall of the Dark Arts, there'd also been Stories of Moderately Ancient Times and Biographies of the Justly Famous...

"All right then, Professor Quirrell would've kidnapped this Flamel guy. It's what an evil person or a good person or just a selfish person would do if they had any sense. The Defense Professor knows a lot of secrets and he wouldn't miss that one."

Harriezer is doing the "find out who framed Hermione" quest right now.

quote:

"Okay, I guess," Hermione said leadenly. "Fine. You do everything. You gather all the clues and talk to all the suspects while I just sit here in the library. Let me know after it turns out that it was Professor Quirrell who did it."

"Hermione..." Harry said. "Why is it so important who does what? Shouldn't it be more important to get everything solved, than who solves it?"

"I guess you're right," Hermione said. She lifted her hands to press up at her eyes. "I guess it doesn't matter any more. Everyone's going to think - I know it's not your fault, Harry, you were - you were being Good, you were a perfect gentleman - but no matter what I do now, they'll all think that I'm just - someone for you to rescue." She paused, and said, with her voice quivering, "And maybe they're right, Harry."

"Whoa, whoa, hold on there a second -"

"I can't scare Dementors. I can get Outstandings in Charms class, but I can't scare Dementors."

Harry is willing to acknowledge is pure sueishness at the moment, and turn it elsewhere, just to give Hermione a chance to shine with her canon smartness. Isn't that nice of him? Also, is Dracon a pure loving rear end in a top hat?

quote:

"If you believe that," she said with her voice unsteady, "if you can believe that, then you're evil. People are always responsible for what they do. It doesn't matter what anyone tells you to do, you're the one who does it. Everyone knows that -"

"No they don't! You grew up in a post-World-War-Two society where 'I vas only followink orders' is something everyone knows the bad guys said. In the fifteenth century they would've called it honourable fealty." Harry's voice was rising. "Do you think you're, you're just genetically better than everyone who lived back then? Like if you'd been transported back to fifteenth-century London as a baby, you'd realize all on your own that burning cats was wrong, witch-burning was wrong, slavery was wrong, that every sentient being ought to be in your circle of concern? Do you think you'd finish realizing all that by the first day you got to Hogwarts? Nobody ever told Draco he was personally responsible for becoming more ethical than the society he grew up in. And despite that, it only took him four months to get to the point where he'd grab a Muggleborn falling off a building." Harry's eyes were as fierce as she'd ever seen him. "I'm not finished corrupting Draco Malfoy, but I think he's done pretty well so far."

I'd say that the discussion regarding how much of our moral compass is actually ingrained might be an interesting one, but I can't help but feel that once you drop "this cost-benefit calculation of the costs of morals seems intuitively wrong, I best recheck it", you end with endless dust motes in someone's eye or some such.

quote:

"You were doing SCIENCE with him? "

"Well -"

"You were doing SCIENCE with him? You were supposed to be doing science with ME! "

Ugh. That is a deeply UGH implication, because this works only as a very specific metaphor. For prepubescents.

quote:

"Well..." she said in a rather high-pitched voice, "it's... oh, I don't know, Harry! Is it just a metaphor? When a boy spends a hundred thousand Galleons to save a girl from certain doom, she's entitled to wonder, don't you think? It's like being bought flowers, only, you see, rather more so -"

Harry shoved himself up from the table and took a staggering step back, even as he brought up his arms to wave frantically. "That's not why I did it! I did it because we're friends! "

"Just friends?"

Harry Potter's breathing was starting to scale up toward hyperventilation. "Very good friends! Extra-special friends, even! Best friends forever, possibly! But not that kind of friends!"

...

"But even with all that weird magical stuff letting me be more adult than I should be, I haven't gone through puberty yet and there's no hormones in my bloodstream and my brain is physically incapable of falling in love with anyone. So I'm not in love with you! I couldn't possibly be in love with you! For all I know at this point, six months from now my brain is going to wake up and decide to fall in love with Professor Snape! Er, can I take it from this that you have been through puberty?"

quote:

Tano Wolfe, of fifth-year Ravenclaw, slowly stood up from his library desk, from which vantage point he'd just watched Granger flee the library, sobbing. He hadn't been able to hear the argument, but it had clearly been one of those.

Slowly and with his knees trembling, Tano approached the Boy-Who-Lived, who was staring in the direction of the library doors, still vibrating from the force of how they'd been slammed.

Tano didn't particularly want to do this, but Harry Potter had been Sorted into Ravenclaw. The Boy-Who-Lived was, technically, his fellow Ravenclaw. And that meant there was a Code.

The Boy-Who-Lived didn't say anything as Tano approached him, but his gaze wasn't friendly.

Tano swallowed, laid a hand on Harry Potter's shoulder, and recited, his voice cracking only slightly, "Witches! Go figure, huh?"

"Remove your hand before I cast it into the outer darkness."

The library doors slammed open again in the wake of another departure.

I generally don't mind this particular style of comedy in HPMOR, but... still ugh.

Xander77 fucked around with this message at 21:09 on Apr 20, 2018

# ? Apr 17, 2018 11:42

Fajita Queen: Jun 21, 2012

Xander77 posted:

but... still ugh.

I feel like this is an apt summary for large swathes of this book tbh.

# ? Apr 17, 2018 16:10

90s Cringe Rock: Nov 29, 2006

Always Someone Better: Harry realizes Hermione's ability to rapidly assimilate information and do academic work better, as well as having unwavering morality, is superior to him. Hermione, in contrast, recognizes that Harry is a Chessmaster whom she frankly cannot outplot no matter what she tries, and that he's far less naive than her. Both of them are jealous of the other's better points.

# ? Apr 17, 2018 17:03

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

Xander77 posted:

Chapter 87: Hedonic Awareness

What the even gently caress is hedonic awareness? Jizzing in your pants because you�re just so smart and observant? I guess Stephen King was right; write what you know.

# ? Apr 18, 2018 17:19

DACK FAYDEN: Feb 25, 2013; Bear Witness

Pvt.Scott posted:

What the even gently caress is hedonic awareness? Jizzing in your pants because you�re just so smart and observant? I guess Stephen King was right; write what you know.

gotta remember it's Big Yud Gibberish(tm)

it's probably being aware of the things that modify your hedonic levels, i.e. figuring out what is making you happy/unhappy and why

# ? Apr 18, 2018 22:38

Roadie: Jun 30, 2013

DACK FAYDEN posted:

gotta remember it's Big Yud Gibberish(tm)

it's probably being aware of the things that modify your hedonic levels, i.e. figuring out what is making you happy/unhappy and why

So... reinventing sati?

# ? Apr 18, 2018 23:44

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

Pvt.Scott posted:

What the even gently caress is hedonic awareness? Jizzing in your pants because you�re just so smart and observant? I guess Stephen King was right; write what you know.

Someone mentioned the hedonic treadmill to Yud and he went off on a dumbass tangent, I'm sure.

# ? Apr 19, 2018 02:52

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# ? Jun 1, 2024 14:10

Stroth: Mar 31, 2007; All Problems Solved

Roadie posted:

So... reinventing sati?

Sati is part of a religion and therefore ~~retarded~~ not rational.

This is obviously totally different because Yud said so.

# ? Apr 19, 2018 04:19

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

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