- Monocled Falcon
- Oct 30, 2011
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People were getting mugged in a middle class suburb and people weren't completely losing their minds?
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Mar 4, 2015 18:39
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May 2, 2024 21:53
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- Monocled Falcon
- Oct 30, 2011
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This chapter doesn't seem to have anything to do any "Methods of Rationality". The first chapters read a bit like an episode of the magic school bus about social science, but this weird game and the bullying thing have nothing to do with or even any of the Less Wrongisms I'm aware of.
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Jul 9, 2015 18:28
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- Monocled Falcon
- Oct 30, 2011
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Don't be willfully dense - dealing with bullies is a standard part of the bildungsroman / Ender's game formula. A story which consisted of nothing but "Less Wrongisms" and lectures about them, omitting an actual plot, would be even more insufferable than what we got.
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Mind, the bullying thing goes off into some goddamned stupid directions later on. But still.
I think you misunderstand me. Why does the story suddenly turn into Ender's Game? Wasn't following the plot of the first book, but stopping every chance to smugly lecture the audience the point?
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Jul 10, 2015 00:35
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- Monocled Falcon
- Oct 30, 2011
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So in other news, yudkowsky is trying to write an anime.
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Apr 3, 2016 20:14
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- Monocled Falcon
- Oct 30, 2011
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Yup, that's what a battle scene written by a person with a very limited knowledge of military tactics and no need to be bounded by it's limitations works.
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Feb 27, 2017 03:56
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- Monocled Falcon
- Oct 30, 2011
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Of course, 'make the other two sides think you've been defeated by playing dead' is far too impractical to work. Though a lot of writers rely on this kind of elaborate deception scheme to have the heroes win small unit battles.
I wonder what would happen in a Fan fiction written by a West Point graduate.
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Feb 28, 2017 04:22
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- Monocled Falcon
- Oct 30, 2011
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Even in a laser tag war between children?
Of course, real children would immediately be complaining to the adult who organised it that lying down when you haven't been hit is unfair and shouldn't be allowed rather than congratulating the winner on their excellent strategy.
One kid, playing dead til some other players pass him so he can shoot them in the back is one thing. But two entire groups of kids all falling down without really being hit, with no one finding it odd, and all of them staying completely still for an extended period. And all of the kids trusting each other despite never fighting together before?
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Mar 1, 2017 03:03
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- Monocled Falcon
- Oct 30, 2011
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No. No they do not. That people think that this is the case is probably the number one thing Fanfiction Gets Wrong About Harry Potter Canon once you get past the obvious junk. This is, of course, why MoR includes it because if you've gotten all of your HP knowledge from fanfiction then of course you'll think that wizards have Magical Power Levels and MP gauges and whatnot.
If you take even the briefest look at the books, you'll find that a wizard/witch's ability is expressed purely in terms of skill and knowledge. Voldemort is scary not because he's some magical prodigy who can unleash Ninth Level Spells Four Times Per Day, but because he's really good at reliably casting a whole bunch of scary rear end crap. This also includes him being good at scary rear end crap that your average person is less familiar with, which just adds to the terror he creates. The other half of Voldemort being goddamned scary is his charisma. Voldemort is bad enough, but he was able to convince a whole lot of awful people willing to hurt, torture, and kill in his name.
Dumbledore has all of that on the protagnist's side, which is why Dumbledore's The Only One He Ever Feared (tm). This is borne out when you look at plot points. Harry wins the day through courage, spirit, love, and knowledge. Not because he's A Chosen One With +5 in Casting, but because he doesn't back down and keeps fighting.
The only two "exceptions" to this aren't even that. Wands are stated to have an aptitude for various disciplines, but this is both not really quantified or even qualified, and also no different from someone having a more logical/creative/whatever mind that inclines them towards certain subjects. I mean, the canon example of this are Harry's parents. The extent of James Potter's Transfiguration achievements is learning to be an Animagus. That's rare and difficult, sure, but also kinda explicitly doesn't require a wand. Lily Evans, meanwhile, is noted as being excellent at Potions, despite her wand being best suited for Charms.
The other exception is magic that requires emotion, but even then that's shown to be a matter of emotional control than anything else. Sure, you need a happy memory for the Patronus Charm. You also need the ability to understand what a truly happy memory with associated feelings strong enough to conjure an actual corporeal protector is. You also need the ability to calmly and quickly summon up that memory and feeling at need--and when you most need it is when your emotions are most under attack.
All of that speaks to the Patronus, properly cast, requiring an incredibly high degree of mental control and focus as opposed to some Power Level. Harry's not exceptional because oh he's so strong that he can make a corporeal patronus at age thirteen. He's exceptional because he can demonstrate that degree of of focus and control as a freaking teenager.
The Unforgivables work the same way. One needs to absolutely and completely desire the outcome of the curse to pull it off. Crouch/Moody states in GoF something along the lines of "even if all of you cast [the Killing Curse] at me right here at once, you wouldn't give me more than a nosebleed", while Bellatrix mocks Harry because righteous anger seeking justice isn't the emotion you need to cast the Cruciatus, it's an extreme desire to make the target suffer. All of that, again, requires a high degree of mental focus to pull off on call. It's also what makes the Death Eaters so terrifying: they're evil and amoral enough to actually do these things reliably.
Interestingly enough, we see this same sort of emotional intent magic back in the first book. Harry gets the Stone from the mirror when Quirrel/Voldemort doesn't because he just wants the Stone out of the Mirror of Erised. He doesn't want gold or the Elixir of Life or anything. There's a very clear specific result he's intending in order to pull that off. Voldemort, meanwhile, just wants the effects of the Stone so he can't get it. It turns out that this is a theme for the whole drat series, with Harry seeking an outcome as opposed to simply the means to accomplish that outcome.
By the way, all of the above? Nothing about using magic exhausts the user or has any sort of physical effect on them beyond what waving your arm and saying words would do. No one runs out of strength and needs to hide behind cover so they can fire another spell or anything. People get tired, sure, but that's because they're running around and being under stress, not because they didn't pack enough Ethers to last the dungeon or whatever.
All of this crap speaks to Harry Potter magic being a learned discipline where someone needs practice, focus, and dedication in order to accomplish great things. Not innate power or whatnot, but by simply being a dedicated student always looking to improve. Naturally, MoR completely misses this aspect of it, choosing to concentrate on the wacky and random aspects of the world (and overdoing it). Like, the world as is in the books is already ripe for a rational, scientific mind to excel for good or for ill. Rather than make a fanfic based off of that world, instead we have an author making fanfic based off of people who didn't understand that aspect of the series and resulting in...this.
Regarding the MP Points thing, casting magic does take focus and concentration (practice helps with that) and you'll wear out and have trouble keeping it after a while of casting and being in a chaotic situation and having to continuously context-switch your mental state for one spell or another, but that's in a natural, human manner. If Harellizer hadn't been able to cast because he had to take a moment to recenter himself or just clear his mind, that would've been totally consistent with a relatively inexperienced Harry Potter wizard.
Man, Hogwarts should teach meditation.
That's a pretty cool idea and while it's not a shame that Rowling didn't give it more attention, it's sad no one seems to have created some door stopper fanfiction longer than war and peace about what it would really be like to live with such a magical system.
No offense, but magic is something Hogwarts students do "schoolwork" at, leaving them feeling exactly like a normal British school student, because it's the people and the experiences that they go through that matters.
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Mar 4, 2017 02:56
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May 2, 2024 21:53
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- Monocled Falcon
- Oct 30, 2011
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The point of space whale science is to find a way to reverse entropy. Killing each other is an edge case - space whale 1 and space whale 2 are stated to have run into space whale 3 on their way into Earth whalespace and done some peaceful trading during the encounter.
I'm guessing it's supposed to make them feel more vast and alien. They're concerned about the eventual heat-death of the universe because they can realistically expect to live long enough on an individual basis that it becomes a problem.
I think the impression I got from reading Worm was pretty cool.
They're space crocodiles that evolved trans-dimensional warping before farming or tool use. They went through massive population collapses because of eating all the prey and that became worrying about the heat death of the universe because one of the really big crocodiles realized it would happen eventually.
But since they're not conscious, thinking beings they can't approach the problem directly, they can only amass information and iterate on their 'shards' via an evolutionary design process.
it's never going to work because the information gathered is never going to be useful but it's all they can conceive of.
I think of them as being like the vampires from blindsight.
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Aug 30, 2019 18:46
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Mar 4, 2015 18:39
