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

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

«‹›100 »

Violet_Sky: Dec 5, 2011; Fun Shoe

Harry Potter and the Methods of :spergin:

# ? Feb 22, 2015 18:34

Adbot: ADBOT LOVES YOU

# ? Apr 26, 2024 02:04

Darth Walrus: Feb 13, 2012

Captain Mog posted:

Yeah, it's the same way with me. If anything, reading a good fantasy novel with great world-building challenges me to come up with my own even more. I remember back in the day when the big thing were all those stories which somehow made Cloud and Sephiroth into lovers, and I thought it was pretty odd back then, too. I was under the impression that fanfiction was mainly a late 90s/00s thing but I guess it's still going strong?

I guess I can see the appeal with this. Aren't there some now-famous authors who got their start writing fanfic? It'd certainly make signing a book deal easier if you can approach the publisher and say "My Buffy fanfiction has like 30,000 followers and they're all excited to read my own story".

Louis McMaster Bujold, a moderately successful and acclaimed sci-fi author, got her start this way - the first book of her Vorkosigan Saga, Shards of Honor, was reskinned Star Trek fanfic, and you can still sort of tell.

# ? Feb 22, 2015 18:36

Bobbin Threadbare: Jan 2, 2009; I'm looking for a flock of urbanmechs.

Religious tract fanfiction has a storied history as old as Pilgrim's Progress. In the introduction to the second part, the author mentions that after releasing the original work there were numerous knockoffs and unofficial sequels, something which was actually a real problem before nations started to stiffen up intellectual property laws. So fanfiction is in no way new; what's new is the fact that you can use the internet to distribute fanfiction without getting into trouble with current IP laws.

# ? Feb 22, 2015 18:50

JosephWongKS: Apr 4, 2009; by Nyc_Tattoo

Chapter 2: Everything I Believe Is False

quote:

#include "stddisclaimer.h"

______________________________________________

"Of course it was my fault. There's no one else here who could be responsible for anything."
______________________________________________

"Now, just to be clear," Harry said, "if the professor does levitate you, Dad, when you know you haven't been attached to any wires, that's going to be sufficient evidence. You're not going to turn around and say that it's a magician's trick. That wouldn't be fair play. If you feel that way, you should say so now, and we can figure out a different experiment instead."

Harry's father, Professor Michael Verres-Evans, rolled his eyes. "Yes, Harry."

Is there a need to repeat Harry's dad's full name and title at this point? We've just had multiple mentions of said name and title one chapter ago. Wouldn't "Harry's father rolled his eyes" be sufficient?

quote:

"And you, Mum, your theory says that the professor should be able to do this, and if that doesn't happen, you'll admit you're mistaken. Nothing about how magic doesn't work when people are sceptical of it, or anything like that."

Deputy Headmistress Minerva McGonagall was watching Harry with a bemused expression. She looked quite witchy in her black robes and pointed hat, but when she spoke she sounded formal and Scottish, which didn't go together with the look at all. At first glance she looked like someone who ought to cackle and put babies into cauldrons, but the whole effect was ruined as soon as she opened her mouth. "Is that sufficient, Mr. Potter?" she said. "Shall I go ahead and demonstrate?"

"Sufficient? Probably not," Harry said. "But at least it will help. Go ahead, Deputy Headmistress."

"Just Professor will do," said she, and then, "Wingardium Leviosa."

Harry looked at his father.

"Huh," Harry said.

His father looked back at him. "Huh," his father echoed.

Then Professor Verres-Evans looked back at Professor McGonagall. "All right, you can put me down now."

His father was lowered carefully to the ground.

Harry ruffled a hand through his own hair. Maybe it was just that strange part of him which had already been convinced, but... "That's a bit of an anticlimax," Harry said. "You'd think there'd be some kind of more dramatic mental event associated with updating on an observation of infinitesimal probability -" Harry stopped himself. Mum, the witch, and even his Dad were giving him that look again. "I mean, with finding out that everything I believe is false."

Lampshading (Harry's unchildlike language and thought processes) doesn't make it any better. If the author is aware of this and isn't writing Harry like that for comedic effect, why not just write differently?

quote:

Seriously, it should have been more dramatic. His brain ought to have been flushing its entire current stock of hypotheses about the universe, none of which allowed this to happen. But instead his brain just seemed to be going, All right, I saw the Hogwarts Professor wave her wand and make your father rise into the air, now what?

The witch-lady was smiling benevolently upon them, looking quite amused. "Would you like a further demonstration, Mr. Potter?"

"You don't have to," Harry said. "We've performed a definitive experiment. But..." Harry hesitated. He couldn't help himself. Actually, under the circumstances, he shouldn't be helping himself. It was right and proper to be curious. "What else can you do?"

Professor McGonagall turned into a cat.

Harry scrambled back unthinkingly, backpedalling so fast that he tripped over a stray stack of books and landed hard on his bottom with a thwack. His hands came down to catch himself without quite reaching properly, and there was a warning twinge in his shoulder as the weight came down unbraced.

At once the small tabby cat morphed back up into a robed woman. "I'm sorry, Mr. Potter," said the witch, sounding sincere, though the corners of her lips were twitching upwards. "I should have warned you."

Harry was breathing in short gasps. His voice came out choked. "You can't DO that!"

"It's only a Transfiguration," said Professor McGonagall. "An Animagus transformation, to be exact."

"You turned into a cat! A SMALL cat! You violated Conservation of Energy! That's not just an arbitrary rule, it's implied by the form of the quantum Hamiltonian! Rejecting it destroys unitarity and then you get FTL signalling! And cats are COMPLICATED! A human mind can't just visualise a whole cat's anatomy and, and all the cat biochemistry, and what about the neurology? How can you go on thinking using a cat-sized brain?"

That's not very rational, is it? If evidence contradicts a theory, you shouldn't reject the evidence, you should revise the theory.

quote:

Professor McGonagall's lips were twitching harder now. "Magic."

"Magic isn't enough to do that! You'd have to be a god!"

That's not a very "rational" statement either. Harry doesn't yet know enough about "magic" to say what "magic" is or is not capable of doing.

quote:

Professor McGonagall blinked. "That's the first time I've ever been called that."

A blur was coming over Harry's vision, as his brain started to comprehend what had just broken. The whole idea of a unified universe with mathematically regular laws, that was what had been flushed down the toilet; the whole notion of physics. Three thousand years of resolving big complicated things into smaller pieces, discovering that the music of the planets was the same tune as a falling apple, finding that the true laws were perfectly universal and had no exceptions anywhere and took the form of simple maths governing the smallest parts, not to mention that the mind was the brain and the brain was made of neurons, a brain was what a person was -

If you saw a person turning into a cat right in front of you, you'd be thinking "WOW!" or "HOLY poo poo!" I defy you to find anyone, anyone, who'd be thinking "The whole idea of a unified universe with mathematically regular laws, that was what had been flushed down the toilet; the whole notion of physics", let alone a 10-year old child. If living with his adoptive parents has scrubbed out his sense of wonder to such an extent, I'd say that qualifies as child abuse.

quote:

And then a woman turned into a cat, so much for all that.

A hundred questions fought for priority over Harry's lips and the winner poured out: "And, and what kind of incantation is Wingardium Leviosa? Who invents the words to these spells, nursery schoolers?"

Man is this incarnation of Harry an insufferable brat.

quote:

"That will do, Mr. Potter," Professor McGonagall said crisply, though her eyes shone with suppressed amusement. "If you wish to learn about magic, I suggest that we finalise the paperwork so that you can go to Hogwarts."

"Right," Harry said, somewhat dazed. He pulled his thoughts together. The March of Reason would just have to start over, that was all; they still had the experimental method and that was the important thing. "How do I get to Hogwarts, then?"

A choked laugh escaped Professor McGonagall, as if extracted from her by tweezers.

"Hold on a moment, Harry," his father said. "Remember why you haven't been going to school up until now? What about your condition?"

Professor McGonagall spun to face Michael. "His condition? What's this?"

"I don't sleep right," Harry said. He waved his hands helplessly. "My sleep cycle is twenty-six hours long, I always go to sleep two hours later, every day. I can't fall asleep any earlier than that, and then the next day I go to sleep two hours later than that. 10PM, 12AM, 2AM, 4AM, until it goes around the clock. Even if I try to wake up early, it makes no difference and I'm a wreck that whole day. That's why I haven't been going to a normal school up until now."

That is indeed a rather terrible condition to suffer. Is this an actual thing that exists in the real world?

quote:

"One of the reasons," said his mother. Harry shot her a glare.

McGonagall gave a long hmmmmm. "I can't recall hearing about such a condition before..." she said slowly. "I'll check with Madam Pomfrey to see if she knows any remedies." Then her face brightened. "No, I'm sure this won't be a problem - I'll find a solution in time. Now," and her gaze sharpened again, "what are these other reasons?"

Harry sent his parents a glare. "I am a conscientious objector to child conscription, on grounds that I should not have to suffer for a disintegrating school system's failure to provide teachers or study materials of even minimally adequate quality."

:facepalm:

I mean, I can sympathise with a child who doesn't fit into a standardised school system, but the obnoxious way that Harry talks rapidly erodes any sympathy I might have for him.

quote:

Both of Harry's parents howled with laughter at that, like they thought it was all a big joke. "Oh," said Harry's father, eyes bright, "is that why you bit a maths teacher in third year."

"She didn't know what a logarithm was! "

"Of course," seconded Harry's mother. "Biting her was a very mature response to that."

Harry's father nodded. "A well-considered policy for addressing the problem of teachers who don't understand logarithms."

"I was seven years old! How long are you going to keep on bringing that up?"

"I know," said his mother sympathetically, "you bite one maths teacher and they never let you forget it, do they?"

Harry turned to Professor McGonagall. "There! You see what I have to deal with?"

"Excuse me," said Petunia, and fled through the backdoor into the garden, from which her screams of laughter were clearly audible.

For a pair of parents who "don't have any respect for Harry", they sure do talk to him like he was an adult peer instead of a child under their guardianship.

quote:

"There, ah, there," Professor McGonagall seemed to be having trouble speaking for some reason, "there is to be no biting of teachers at Hogwarts, is that quite clear, Mr. Potter?"

Harry scowled at her. "Fine, I won't bite anyone who doesn't bite me first."

Professor Michael Verres-Evans also had to leave the room briefly upon hearing that.

"Well," Professor McGonagall sighed, after Harry's parents had composed themselves and returned. "Well. I think, under the circumstances, that I should avoid taking you to purchase your study materials until a day or two before school begins."

"What? Why? The other children already know magic, don't they? I have to start catching up right away!"

"Rest assured, Mr. Potter," replied Professor McGonagall, "Hogwarts is quite capable of teaching the basics. And I suspect, Mr. Potter, that if I leave you alone for two months with your schoolbooks, even without a wand, I will return to this house only to find a crater billowing purple smoke, a depopulated city surrounding it and a plague of flaming zebras terrorising what remains of England."

Harry's mother and father nodded in perfect unison.

"Mum! Dad! "

Welp, that went downhill pretty fast. What seemed to be a tolerably amusing quirk of Harry in Chapter 1 has rapidly turned just downright obnoxious and insufferable in Chapter 2. How many more chapters of this are there? I hadn't checked.

JosephWongKS fucked around with this message at 18:56 on Feb 22, 2015

# ? Feb 22, 2015 18:52

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

Curse you Hayard-Gunnes!

The author has stated there will be 120 chapters total. The story currently stands at 600k words. :getin:

gently caress it, spoiler for the central twist of the story:

:siren:

Harry Potter? You think a baby actually managed to kill an experienced adult wizard? That's story book logic. Harry Potter is dead. We're seeing Tom Riddle, an imperfect clone/memory copy of Lord Voldemort. Mentally, this person is a sociopathic adult in their mid-30s.

Added Space fucked around with this message at 19:19 on Feb 22, 2015

# ? Feb 22, 2015 19:05

anilEhilated: Feb 17, 2014; But I say fuck the rain.; Grimey Drawer

Magic can't do that, you'd have to be a god!
Ever the rationalist.

# ? Feb 22, 2015 19:10

Scintilla: Aug 24, 2010; I BEAT HIGHFORT
and all I got was this
jackass monkey

Added Space posted:

The author has stated there will be 120 chapters total. The story currently stands at 600k words.

In other words its a bloated mess about one and a half times longer than a Wheel of Time entry, or ten times the size of an average novel. Fun times are ahead! :allears:

# ? Feb 22, 2015 19:22

CestMoi: Sep 16, 2011

YOu're really tearin gthis thing to shreds. THis is brutal, I can't watch, it's too sick.

# ? Feb 22, 2015 20:37

SolTerrasa: Sep 2, 2011

JosephWongKS posted:

That's not very rational, is it? If evidence contradicts a theory, you shouldn't reject the evidence, you should revise the theory.

Hi, I'm that AI goon who was quoted on the first page. I know way too much about Yudkowsky, but I'll keep the :words:

posts to a minimum in this thread. Maybe. Dang, this one is longer than I figured when I started typing.

Yudkowsky actually doesn't believe what you've posted above. He has a blog post and a few follow-ups about the rationalist technique called "defying the data". Basically it means sticking your fingers in your ears and saying lalalalalaICan'tHearYou when presented with evidence against a theory you consider foundational. The whole LW thing is all about loving with the numbers until they match whatever you wanted to believe in the first place.

Here's how he does it in this case. Bayes' Law says P(X|E) = P(X) P(E|X) / P(E). X is "the thing you believe", like "people can't turn into cats". E is "the evidence", like "I saw someone turn into a cat". The output of the equation is "the likelihood of X, after I've seen E". You can see how such an equation would be handy: it is a good and clever way to teach robots how to change what they believe about the world based on what they see.

However, P(X) is just "prior probability", which basically means "whatever I used to believe before I saw E". If you go ahead and plug in 1.0, dead perfect certainty, then the only possible output of the equation is 1.0. P(E|X) reduces to P(E), which cancels with the denominator and there you are. For 0.0 the same thing happens.

And if you don't want to use that trick, well, it's all subjective anyway. All those probabilities come from estimates. So when you want to ignore otherwise earth shattering evidence, you make sure to inflate P(E|X) and P(E), by including the likelihood of alternate explanations like "I was hallucinating" or "my parents are gaslighting me because I'm Harry Potter Evans Verres and I deserve it."

This isn't new, of course, it's not the first time a religious cult has deluded themselves by being choosy about what counts as evidence. It might be the first time they did it with math, but I'm an AI guy, not a historian.

# ? Feb 22, 2015 21:16

pwnyXpress: Mar 28, 2007

The author's okcupid profile was posted recently:

http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3699788&pagenumber=20&perpage=40#post441811924

I legitimately enjoyed the Azkaban sequence in the story. Hated Hermione's death, since the story goes quickly downhill without her. I've listened to the whole thing so far via podcast. This thread will never survive long enough.

# ? Feb 22, 2015 21:17

metricchip: Jul 16, 2014

Added Space posted:

The author has stated there will be 120 chapters total. The story currently stands at 600k words.

Doesn't beat ye-olde Smash Bros fanfic which is apparently the longest written work known to man at 3,500,000+ words.

# ? Feb 22, 2015 21:19

Tunicate: May 15, 2012

JosephWongKS posted:

That's not very rational, is it? If evidence contradicts a theory, you shouldn't reject the evidence, you should revise the theory.

You clearly don't understand rationality.

Yudowsky posted:

One of the great weaknesses of Science is this mistaken idea that if an experiment contradicts the dominant theory, we should throw out the theory instead of the experiment.

# ? Feb 22, 2015 21:20

Seraphic Neoman: Jul 19, 2011

Scintilla posted:

In other words its a bloated mess about one and a half times longer than a Wheel of Time entry, or ten times the size of an average novel. Fun times are ahead!

This is Highfort in :spergin:

novel form.

# ? Feb 22, 2015 21:59

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

Curse you Hayard-Gunnes!

SolTerrasa posted:

Yudkowsky actually doesn't believe what you've posted above. He has a blog post and a few follow-ups about the rationalist technique called "defying the data". Basically it means sticking your fingers in your ears and saying lalalalalaICan'tHearYou when presented with evidence against a theory you consider foundational. The whole LW thing is all about loving with the numbers until they match whatever you wanted to believe in the first place.

Too be fair, what he's saying is that you can't overturn established theory based on a single result. This is correct, results need to be duplicated. However, this is what scientist already do. So in effect he's just blowing hot air.

The proper response to what Harry has just seen would be to start documenting - get a camera and start recording. He would probably be stopped at this point.

Added Space fucked around with this message at 22:21 on Feb 22, 2015

# ? Feb 22, 2015 22:19

Mercury Hat: May 28, 2006; SharkTales!
Woo-oo!

Bobbin Threadbare posted:

Religious tract fanfiction has a storied history as old as Pilgrim's Progress. In the introduction to the second part, the author mentions that after releasing the original work there were numerous knockoffs and unofficial sequels, something which was actually a real problem before nations started to stiffen up intellectual property laws. So fanfiction is in no way new; what's new is the fact that you can use the internet to distribute fanfiction without getting into trouble with current IP laws.

Don't forget about that loser Dante Alighieri, whose self-insert fanfiction the Divine Comedy--where he pals around with Virgil and looks for a hot babe he barely met in person--is still taught in schools today.

# ? Feb 22, 2015 23:02

Sighence: Aug 26, 2009

I was all set to go on an OKC safari by searching that keyword they mention, but apparently nobody uses it.

I'm alright with that, really.

e: Oh, I was wrong. It's nobody within 25 miles of me. Yeah, there might be some gold here.

Sighence fucked around with this message at 00:20 on Feb 23, 2015

# ? Feb 23, 2015 00:17

Violet_Sky: Dec 5, 2011; Fun Shoe

Mercury Hat posted:

Don't forget about that loser Dante Alighieri, whose self-insert fanfiction the Divine Comedy--where he pals around with Virgil and looks for a hot babe he barely met in person--is still taught in schools today.

Why is it called Dante's Inferno instead of The Divine Comedy?

# ? Feb 23, 2015 00:19

computer parts: Nov 18, 2010; PLEASE CLAP

Violet_Sky posted:

Why is it called Dante's Inferno instead of The Divine Comedy?

Because Inferno is the first volume, there's also Purgatorio and Paradiso.

# ? Feb 23, 2015 00:21

sniper4625: Sep 26, 2009; Loyal to the hEnd

I don't think this was posted, but even if it was, it deserves to be reposted:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nXARrMadTKk

# ? Feb 23, 2015 00:58

Davros1: Jul 19, 2007; You've got to admit, you are kind of implausible

So does this thing stick with the plots of each book, or does it go about on its own thing?

# ? Feb 23, 2015 01:27

Telarra: Oct 9, 2012

Yud is cramming his whole story into just the first year, so a few events from The Philosopher's Stone show up, but nothing beyond that.

# ? Feb 23, 2015 01:45

Davros1: Jul 19, 2007; You've got to admit, you are kind of implausible

Moddington posted:

Yud is cramming his whole story into just the first year, so a few events from The Philosopher's Stone show up, but nothing beyond that.

Because I was wondering how he deals with creatures that can't exist, like Centaurs, Hippogriffs, House Elves, Giant Spiders, and Dementors. Then see him try to Port Keys, and Voldemorts resurrection.

And Horcruxes.

# ? Feb 23, 2015 01:48

Darth Walrus: Feb 13, 2012

Davros1 posted:

Because I was wondering how he deals with creatures that can't exist, like Centaurs, Hippogriffs, House Elves, Giant Spiders, and Dementors. Then see him try to Port Keys, and Voldemorts resurrection.

And Horcruxes.

Oh, you are going to love what this story does with Dementors.

# ? Feb 23, 2015 02:06

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

Curse you Hayard-Gunnes!

Davros1 posted:

Because I was wondering how he deals with creatures that can't exist, like Centaurs, Hippogriffs, House Elves, Giant Spiders, and Dementors. Then see him try to Port Keys, and Voldemorts resurrection.

And Horcruxes.

Anything that can speak (Centaurs, goblins, house elves, etc.) is a magically created subspecies of human. Centaurs were created to isolate and maintain their genetic predisposition towards prophecy, which they project as astrology. Harry says of house elves that whoever created them was a moral monster, but all you can do now is be kind and respectful to them. Goblins show up pretty soon, and Dementors and Horcruxes form more-or-less the basis of the plot. Any physically impossible creature is explained the same way the books do, magic breaks physics.

# ? Feb 23, 2015 02:24

Telarra: Oct 9, 2012

When Yud!Harry finds out about Parseltongue/talking to animals, he is aghast that he might accidentally eat a sentient creature.

When he finds out about unicorn blood, he is aghast that no one is breeding and slaughtering these sentient creatures to prolong human lives.

# ? Feb 23, 2015 02:37

DACK FAYDEN: Feb 25, 2013; Bear Witness

Saw thread, was inspired to go back, apparently he's actually posting the final arc.

Yet another case of "reasonable concept Yud hosed up" - the Voldemort/Harry prophecy bit is kind of cool, in that Voldemort hosed up trying to overwrite Harry with Tom Riddle's personality, like the diary Horcrux, to kill him, and so the Marauder's Map shows them both as "Tom M. Riddle" and that's what's up with Harry's brain and poo poo... but, you know, handled incredibly poorly.

But then it's more jacking off, I think. I skipped a bunch. Some kind of exposition where they all tell each other how smart they are and poo poo. I really want all the time I spent actually reading this poo poo to pay off and I'm certain it won't

# ? Feb 23, 2015 02:38

Bobbin Threadbare: Jan 2, 2009; I'm looking for a flock of urbanmechs.

You think Harry would bring up Conservation of Energy when he first sees someone levitate without wires or any sort of major power source. I mean, turning someone into a cat is even crazier what with the immense amounts of energy needed to violate the Conservation of Matter like that, but still.

Hell, that's a pretty good object lesson in a scientific response to an amazing discovery. After radioactivity, fusion, fission, and special relativity were explored, "Conservation of Matter," a principle going back to the 18th century, was updated to "Conservation of Mass and Energy." A true scientist should not object to an outrageous but verifiable and repeatable phenomena, he or she should object to the theories which cannot account for such phenomena.

Bobbin Threadbare fucked around with this message at 02:56 on Feb 23, 2015

# ? Feb 23, 2015 02:53

The Unholy Ghost: Feb 19, 2011

I guess I'll be that guy who likes HPMoR...

I get that Yudkowsky is an egotistical fool, and that it's dumb he put all of his writing talent (go ahead and quote this with "lol") into writing a fanfiction, but I still legitimately find HPMoR entertaining to read� and with interesting ideas. Yes, sure, some of them are wrong, but many of them are intriguing at least in a philosophical sense.

The sort-of "hacking the Harry Potter world" concept is fun too, and even if most of the character's actual personalities were replaced, I honestly believe that Yud is able to write characters and interactions pretty well.

I guess to summarize, I doubt any of you would be desperate to hate this story so much if the author didn't have such a big head.

Well, anyway, continue with the mocking. It's entertaining and points out some interesting things, even if I can't agree with the sentiment.

# ? Feb 23, 2015 02:54

Darth Walrus: Feb 13, 2012

The Unholy Ghost posted:

I guess I'll be that guy who likes HPMoR...

I get that Yudkowsky is an egotistical fool, and that it's dumb he put all of his writing talent (go ahead and quote this with "lol") into writing a fanfiction, but I still legitimately find HPMoR entertaining to read� and with interesting ideas. Yes, sure, some of them are wrong, but many of them are intriguing at least in a philosophical sense.

The sort-of "hacking the Harry Potter world" concept is fun too, and even if most of the character's actual personalities were replaced, I honestly believe that Yud is able to write characters and interactions pretty well.

I guess to summarize, I doubt any of you would be desperate to hate this story so much if the author didn't have such a big head.

Well, anyway, continue with the mocking. It's entertaining and points out some interesting things, even if I can't agree with the sentiment.

Counterpoint: Chapter Seven. Also, as a general comment, the tone and pacing is all over the place, to the point where I absolutely disagree that this is published-novel quality. Any editor worth his salt would have taken a chainsaw to this thing.

# ? Feb 23, 2015 03:13

Telarra: Oct 9, 2012

The Unholy Ghost posted:

I guess to summarize, I doubt any of you would be desperate to hate this story so much if the author didn't have such a big head.

This is correct. There's so much bad writing out there that if Yud wasn't head of a rationality ~~cult~~ phyg, HP:MoR would've just fallen through the cracks.

# ? Feb 23, 2015 03:15

BravestOfTheLamps: Oct 12, 2012; by FactsAreUseless; Lipstick Apathy

Darth Walrus posted:

Counterpoint: Chapter Seven.

Well this applies to everything, doesn't it?

# ? Feb 23, 2015 03:16

icantfindaname: Jul 1, 2008

Captain Mog posted:

Yeah, it's the same way with me. If anything, reading a good fantasy novel with great world-building challenges me to come up with my own even more. I remember back in the day when the big thing were all those stories which somehow made Cloud and Sephiroth into lovers, and I thought it was pretty odd back then, too. I was under the impression that fanfiction was mainly a late 90s/00s thing but I guess it's still going strong?

It never went away, you just stopped paying attention to it for a decade or so.

# ? Feb 23, 2015 05:19

Peel: Dec 3, 2007

If it is not already the case that more fanfiction has been written in the 21st century than narrative literature of any kind in all prior human history, it will be soon.

# ? Feb 23, 2015 05:24

Calef: Aug 21, 2007

Wrote a short script. Average Harry Potter fan fictions look to be about 30,000 words. With 25 fics per page on fanfiction.net and ... 21895 pages, that's ...

That's 16.42 billion words.

Which, according to WolframAlpha is only 1% the library of congress.

Some back-of-the-enveloping suggests that this accounts for something like 10-20% of the total fanfiction on the site. So 5% of the library of congress could be taken up with work from FanFiction.net

#nationaltreasure

I also enjoy(ed) HPMOR. Yeah it's a mary sue singulatarian wankfest, but in a way, it's the best possible mary sue singulatarian wankfest, and I respect that.

Calef fucked around with this message at 07:42 on Feb 23, 2015

# ? Feb 23, 2015 07:40

JosephWongKS: Apr 4, 2009; by Nyc_Tattoo

Chapter 3: Comparing Reality To Its Alternatives

quote:

If J. K. Rowling asks you about this story, you know nothing.

________________________________________________________

"But then the question is - who?"

________________________________________________________

"Good Lord," said the barman, peering at Harry, "is this - can this be -?"

Harry leaned towards the bar of the Leaky Cauldron as best he could, though it came up to somewhere around the tips of his eyebrows. A question like that deserved his very best.

"Am I - could I be - maybe - you never know - if I'm not - but then the question is - who? "

"Bless my soul," whispered the old barman. "Harry Potter... what an honour."

Harry blinked, then rallied. "Well, yes, you're quite perceptive; most people don't realise that so quickly -"

"That's enough," Professor McGonagall said. Her hand tightened on Harry's shoulder. "Don't pester the boy, Tom, he's new to all this."

"But it is him?" quavered an old woman. "It's Harry Potter?" With a scraping sound, she got up from her chair.

"Doris -" McGonagall said warningly. The glare she shot around the room should have been enough to intimidate anyone.

"I only want to shake his hand," the woman whispered. She bent low and stuck out a wrinkled hand, which Harry, feeling confused and more uncomfortable than he ever had in his life, carefully shook. Tears fell from the woman's eyes onto their clasped hands. "My granson was an Auror," she whispered to him. "Died in seventy-nine. Thank you, Harry Potter. Thank heavens for you."

"You're welcome," Harry said automatically, and then he turned his head and shot Professor McGonagall a frightened, pleading look.

This feels like a totally different Harry Potter from the one in the first two chapters - actually human and likable. Was this chapter written by a guest author or something?

quote:

Professor McGonagall slammed her foot down just as the general rush was about to start. It made a noise that gave Harry a new referent for the phrase "Crack of Doom", and everyone froze in place.

"We're in a hurry," Professor McGonagall said in a voice that sounded perfectly, utterly normal.

They left the bar without any trouble.

"Professor?" Harry said, once they were in the courtyard. He had meant to ask what was going on, but oddly found himself asking an entirely different question instead. "Who was that pale man, by the corner? The man with the twitching eye?"

"Hm?" said Professor McGonagall, sounding a bit surprised; perhaps she hadn't expected that question either. "That was Professor Quirinus Quirrell. He'll be teaching Defence Against the Dark Arts this year at Hogwarts."

"I had the strangest feeling that I knew him..." Harry rubbed his forehead. "And that I shouldn't ought to shake his hand." Like meeting someone who had been a friend, once, before something went drastically wrong... that wasn't really it at all, but Harry couldn't find words. "And what was... all of that?"

Professor McGonagall was giving him an odd glance. "Mr. Potter... do you know... how much have you been told... about how your parents died?"

Harry returned a steady look. "My parents are alive and well, and they always refused to talk about how my genetic parents died. From which I infer that it wasn't good."

"An admirable loyalty," said Professor McGonagall. Her voice went low. "Though it hurts a little to hear you say it like that. Lily and James were friends of mine."

Harry looked away, suddenly ashamed. "I'm sorry," he said in a small voice. "But I have a Mum and Dad. And I know that I'd just make myself unhappy by comparing that reality to... something perfect that I built up in my imagination."

Yup, definitely written by a guest author.

quote:

"That is amazingly wise of you," Professor McGonagall said quietly. "But your genetic parents died very well indeed, protecting you."

Protecting me?

Something strange clutched at Harry's heart. "What... did happen?"

Professor McGonagall sighed. Her wand tapped Harry's forehead, and his vision blurred for a moment. "Something of a disguise," she said, "so that this doesn't happen again, not until you're ready." Then her wand licked out again, and tapped three times on a brick wall...

...which hollowed into a hole, and dilated and expanded and shivered into a huge archway, revealing a long row of shops with signs advertising cauldrons and dragon livers.

Harry didn't blink. It wasn't like anyone was turning into a cat.

And they walked forwards, together, into the wizarding world.

There were merchants hawking Bounce Boots ("Made with real Flubber!") and "Knives +3! Forks +2! Spoons with a +4 bonus!" There were goggles that would turn anything you looked at green, and a lineup of comfy armchairs with ejection seats for emergencies.

Harry's head kept rotating, rotating like it was trying to wind itself off his neck. It was like walking through the magical items section of an Advanced Dungeons and Dragons rulebook (he didn't play the game, but he did enjoy reading the rulebooks). Harry desperately didn't want to miss a single item for sale, in case it was one of the three you needed to complete the cycle of infinite wish spells.

Rather gratuitous pandering to D&D fans here. And not even up-to-date pandering either - AD&D was released in 1989, and by the time Eliezer started writing HPMOR in 2010, D&D 4th Edition had already been out for 2 years.

quote:

Then Harry spotted something that made him, entirely without thinking, veer off from the Deputy Headmistress and start heading straight into the shop, a front of blue bricks with bronze-metal trim. He was brought back to reality only when Professor McGonagall stepped right in front of him.

"Mr. Potter?" she said.

Harry blinked, then realised what he'd just done. "I'm sorry! I forgot for a moment that I was with you instead of my family." Harry gestured at the shop window, which displayed fiery letters that shone piercingly bright and yet remote, spelling out Bigbam's Brilliant Books. "When you walk past a bookshop you haven't visited before, you have to go in and look around. That's the family rule."

That doesn't seem like a very "rational" rule. Most bookstores would stock more or less the same books as each other, and if you want to compel your children to explore and expand their horizons, you could just browse randomly through Amazon and save time that way.

quote:

"That is the most Ravenclaw thing I have ever heard."

"What?"

"Nothing. Mr. Potter, our first step is to visit Gringotts, the bank of the wizarding world. Your genetic family vault is there, with the inheritance your genetic parents left you, and you'll need money for school supplies." She sighed. "And, I suppose, a certain amount of spending money for books could be excused as well. Though you might want to hold off for a time. Hogwarts has quite a large library on magical subjects. And the tower in which, I strongly suspect, you will be living, has a more broad-ranging library of its own. Any book you bought now would probably be a duplicate."

Harry nodded, and they walked on.

"Don't get me wrong, it's a great distraction," Harry said as his head kept swivelling, "probably the best distraction anyone has ever tried on me, but don't think I've forgotten about our pending discussion."

Professor McGonagall sighed. "Your parents - or your mother at any rate - may have been very wise not to tell you."

"So you wish that I could continue in blissful ignorance? There is a certain flaw in that plan, Professor McGonagall."

"I suppose it would be rather pointless," the witch said tightly, "when anyone on the street could tell you the story. Very well."

And she told him of He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named, the Dark Lord, Voldemort.

"Voldemort?" Harry whispered. It should have been funny, but it wasn't. The name burned with a cold feeling, ruthlessness, diamond clarity, a hammer of pure titanium descending upon an anvil of yielding flesh. A chill swept over Harry even as he pronounced the word, and he resolved then and there to use safer terms like You-Know-Who.

The Dark Lord had raged upon wizarding Britain like a wilding wolf, tearing and rending at the fabric of their everyday lives. Other countries had wrung their hands but hesitated to intervene, whether out of apathetic selfishness or simple fear, for whichever was first among them to oppose the Dark Lord, their peace would be the next target of his terror.

(The bystander effect, thought Harry, thinking of Latane and Darley's experiment which had shown that you were more likely to get help if you had an epileptic fit in front of one person than in front of three. Diffusion of responsibility, everyone hoping that someone else would go first.)

A return to the all-knowing 10-year old polymath Harry, though it comes off a little less jarring here given his display of humanity in the earlier part of this chapter.

quote:

The Death Eaters had followed in the Dark Lord's wake and in his vanguard, carrion vultures to pick at wounds, or snakes to bite and weaken. The Death Eaters were not as terrible as the Dark Lord, but they were terrible, and they were many. And the Death Eaters wielded more than wands; there was wealth within those masked ranks, and political power, and secrets held in blackmail, to paralyse a society trying to protect itself.

An old and respected journalist, Yermy Wibble, called for increased taxes and conscription. He shouted that it was absurd for the many to cower in fear of the few. His skin, only his skin, had been found nailed to the newsroom wall that next morning, next to the skins of his wife and two daughters. Everyone wished for something more to be done, and no one dared take the lead to propose it. Whoever stood out the most became the next example.

Until the names of James and Lily Potter rose to the top of that list.

And those two might have died with their wands in their hands and not regretted their choices, for they were heroes; but for that they had an infant child, their son, Harry Potter.

Tears were coming into Harry's eyes. He wiped them away in anger or maybe desperation, I didn't know those people, not really, they aren't my parents now, it would be pointless to feel so sad for them -

When Harry was done sobbing into the witch's robes, he looked up, and felt a little bit better to see tears in Professor McGonagall's eyes as well.

"So what happened?" Harry said, his voice trembling.

"The Dark Lord came to Godric's Hollow," Professor McGonagall said in a whisper. "You should have been hidden, but you were betrayed. The Dark Lord killed James, and he killed Lily, and he came in the end to you, to your cot. He cast the Killing Curse at you, and that was where it ended. The Killing Curse is formed of pure hate, and strikes directly at the soul, severing it from the body. It cannot be blocked, and whomever it strikes, they die. But you survived. You are the only person ever to survive. The Killing Curse rebounded and struck the Dark Lord, leaving only the burnt hulk of his body and a scar upon your forehead. That was the end of the terror, and we were free. That, Harry Potter, is why people want to see the scar on your forehead, and why they want to shake your hand."

The storm of weeping that had washed through Harry had used up all his tears; he could not cry again, he was done.

(And somewhere in the back of his mind was a small, small note of confusion, a sense of something wrong about that story; and it should have been a part of Harry's art to notice that tiny note, but he was distracted. For it is a sad rule that whenever you are most in need of your art as a rationalist, that is when you are most likely to forget it.)

Harry detached himself from Professor McGonagall's side. "I'll - have to think about this," he said, trying to keep his voice under control. He stared at his shoes. "Um. You can go ahead and call them my parents, if you want, you don't have to say 'genetic parents' or anything. I guess there's no reason I can't have two mothers and two fathers."

There was no sound from Professor McGonagall.

And they walked together in silence, until they came before a great white building with vast bronze doors, and carven words above saying Gringotts Bank.

Not too much commentary from me on this chapter. This chapter was actually pretty decent, thanks to the guest author's much more human and much less obnoxious portrayal of Harry. I hope the guest author makes regular appearances throughout the remainder of the story.

JosephWongKS fucked around with this message at 16:37 on Feb 23, 2015

# ? Feb 23, 2015 16:28

anilEhilated: Feb 17, 2014; But I say fuck the rain.; Grimey Drawer

quote:

Harry looked away, suddenly ashamed. "I'm sorry," he said in a small voice. "But I have a Mum and Dad. And I know that I'd just make myself unhappy by comparing that reality to... something perfect that I built up in my imagination."

Yup, totally a ten year old.

# ? Feb 23, 2015 16:35

Mugticket: Sep 13, 2011

JosephWongKS posted:

Rather gratuitous pandering to D&D fans here. And not even up-to-date pandering either - AD&D was released in 1989, and by the time Eliezer started writing HPMOR in 2010, D&D 4th Edition had already been out for 2 years.

HP is set in the nineties.

# ? Feb 23, 2015 16:52

JosephWongKS: Apr 4, 2009; by Nyc_Tattoo

Mugticket posted:

HP is set in the nineties.

Ah yes, I'd forgotten that the first HP book was released in 1997. Then that also invalidates my comment about Amazon being the better way to browse for new books.

# ? Feb 23, 2015 16:55

Mugticket: Sep 13, 2011

JosephWongKS posted:

Ah yes, I'd forgotten that the first HP book was released in 1997. Then that also invalidates my comment about Amazon being the better way to browse for new books.

I think the first book is set in the beginning of nineties. Though I have no idea whether Yud knows this if he has not read them.

# ? Feb 23, 2015 16:58

Adbot: ADBOT LOVES YOU

# ? Apr 26, 2024 02:04

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

Fanfic is a grand human tradition stretching back in time before the advent of the written word. Storytellers have always used the ideas and works of others, especially characters, to inspire them and to reach an audience familiar to the original stories. The myths and legends of Coyote and Heracles and Moses that are accepted in modern times as canon are just collated and edited fanfic of the original tales. Some dude didn't just sit down one day and write the myths of the Greek gods as a complete work. Somebody just decided to write down what the countless storytellers and socially stunted hermits were making up. What we're left with is a curated "best fanfic of 387 b.c.e." anthology.

I am so ready for this thread.

E: the modern bible was curated by committee and general consensus, but even today we have the apocrypha that some accept as canon and some do not.

Pvt.Scott fucked around with this message at 18:58 on Feb 23, 2015

# ? Feb 23, 2015 18:48

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

«‹›100 »