HPMOR: What could've been done better?

Since 27/Jan Fanfiction.net disabled every single html link from the user profile page -- which means all those fanarts, etc, the links to the ePub and MOBI versions and so forth.

Once again fanfiction.net screws its members.

Was anyone prudent enough to save all those links? We must figure out some other location to gather them all.

To start with.... I'd recommend raising every character's age by a few years. (I think this is a 'love-it-or-hate-it' idea, but I have no clue how prevalent either of these viewpoints are... How many people think that the first-years really act like eleven-year-olds? And I'm not just talking about Harry...)

And, consequently, Hogwarts now has only four years.

Also, I'm clueless about the math, but... I seem to remember reading in a discussion thread that 1000 students in Hogwarts implies a total wizarding population the size of a small town. So I'd cram in 4000 students into the 4 years of Hogwarts. (We're gonna need TAs now, but that doesn't change anything fundamental.) Unless... The population is still too small, in which case... I suppose you could keep the 1000 students and have other wizarding schools.

And I'd suggest compressing the first four chapters into one.

ETA: Also, partial transfiguration. Harry shouldn't get it right that quickly.

I think it's somewhat premature to talk about what could be done better before the story is complete. For starters, I'm not sure it psychologically counts as positive reinforcement of the writer writing more quickly, if one criticizes too much while still it's being written...

• That having been said, I'd like to say that I found chapter 19 (where Harry is made to "lose") very unbelievable.
• The relationship between battles, Quirrel points, and the wish Quirrel offered to the person out of all 7 years who'd have the highest number of Quirrel points could also have been done a bit better, I think. Right now, though the determinator is supposed to be the Quirrel points everyone was acting as if the sole determinator were the battles, and the battles of only the first year for that matter.

Lastly, I'd like to say, in order to partially counteract the opinion offered by others, that I found the Hermione-SPHEW chapters the best arc in the whole story -- far better than the Azkaban arc, far better than the armies arc.

Draco seemed far too easily convinced by the evidence that the decline in magic wasn't caused by muggle interbreeding, especially since the largest piece of evidence presented was based on muggle knowledge of genetics that Draco was nearly completely ignorant of. You're not going to be convinced that everything you know is wrong just because an 11-year old tells you that a bunch of allegedly smart people figured out some things which conflict with what you know, in the judgment of said 11-year-old.

At the beginning of Chapter 25, Eliezer writes about the evidence that convinced Draco:

everything Harry presents as strong evidence is in fact strong evidence - the other possibilities are improbable

This is true... but only from Harry's perspective. Harry assigns extremely high confidence to everything that muggle geneticists have figured out, and also believes that he understands the theory well enough to have high confidence in the predictions he makes using that theory. For Draco to find the same evidence equally convincing, he would also have to assign high confidence to the theory that Harry claims muggle geneticists figured out, and high confidence to Harry's ability to use the theory correctly to make predictions.

I am probably modeling Draco as way more Bayesian than he actually is in this analysis. But my interactions with individuals with other strongly held beliefs also lead to the same conclusion, that Draco should have resisted more.

Issues of how I think Draco would have acted aside, I would have liked to see more interaction between the two of them on this question, more investigations. Maybe Draco would want to perform some of the experiments testing Granger's parentage that Harry suggested, rather than immediately predicting the same results as Harry would have? I would have enjoyed seeing more of how a budding experimentalist copes when confronted with not just one but a series of experimental results leading inexorably to a chilling (to Draco) conclusion.

Things that I would like to see coming along with the MoRverse:

Snippets of the world-as-it-is outside of Harry's story, like Alicorn's "Flashes" after Radiance. In particular, I'd really like to see more of Cedric Diggory, Draco and Luna's childhoods, the Weasley twins' first years, and the Marauders adventures as history, as well as redeemed Slytherin house and technical magical research after real engineers get their hands on it.

These could also make the Self-Awareness arc a bit less weird by personifying the bullying infrastructure.

I like the way Eliezer handles dementors as a metaphor for death, but as I consider Rowling's intentions for them as metaphors for depression, I'm realizing that that might be even more beautiful, even if Eliezer doesn't have as much to say about it.

There's a TVTropes discussion on this: Harry Potter Headscratchers

I might as well repeat the ones I put on there.

Shouldn't it be Harry Potter-Evans-Verres and the Methods of Rationality?

Why is Harry so death averse? He claims to be a preference utilitarian, but the sorting hat had no desire to live, yet Harry didn't want it to die.

Why does Harry reject the idea of Horcruxes? You can't save more than half the population, so it's hardly a permanent solution, but you could kill half of the people right before they die, and save the other half. This would work as a hold-over until Harry becomes God. Given my understanding of canon, this wouldn't actually work, but Harry wouldn't have no that yet.

In what way can a crime that hinges on an eleven-year-old boy be considered "the perfect crime"?

According to Wikipedia, timeless physics was discovered in 1999. If this takes place in 1991-1992, how does Harry know about it? Did he work it out himself?

Edit : contains spoilers

I was a bit disappointed about the Harry-Ginny fake marriage contract story (chapter 25-26). The global plot of Harry hiring the Weasley teens to make Rita Skeeter publish something ridiculous but wrong so Rita would be fired was nice and totally in-character for all of them, but the final story was a bit "due ?" to me. I don't see how the fake marriage contract was such a big deal, enough to get Rita fired, and the length they had to go to make it sounded totally disproportionate compared to the story they ended up with. I would have expected something much more shocking and deep in political consequences than an arranged marriage.

Why do wizards speak English?

Rather, why do wizards speak English that's so similar to Muggle English?

The wizard and muggle societies have been more or less isolated from each other for several centuries now (since 1692 in Rowling's canon, probably longer in Eliezer's). You'd expect a significant amount of linguistic drift to have taken place. I don't think a small trickle of Muggle-borns is enough to counter-act that.

I don't feel comfortable trying to pick apart Eliezer's handling of the story when I do not know where he's trying to go with it. If I do not know what a persons' goals are, how can I possibly know if they are accomplishing them optimally?

Most of the things I would complain about are things that seem irrelevant to the main story plot, but I don't yet know that they aren't relevant.

I'd have updated more frequently... [/wistful]

No, seriously. I might have dropped the Self-Actualisation arc, but then again for all I know it's setting up something Awesome later, so maybe it's necessary.

I am going to be terribly unoriginal and say that the whole Hermione bullying plot was boring to read, and should have been removed.

In chapter 2, people don't leave a room to laugh the way Harry's parents do.

Also chapter, 2, McGonagall's final statement while amusing isn't something she should have sufficient data on to say yet.

The entire SPEW thing took way too long. Moreover, it actually comes across as accidentally anti-feminist. Harry is dealing with the terrible atrocity that is Azkaban and Hermione's equivalent is fighting school bullies? And even that requires assistance from Harry?

For readers that don't know what a horcrux is since they haven't read the original books (which at this point is probably quite a few), what Voldemort did to the Pioneer plaque that is much harder to figure out. At least some minimal explanation would have been good. This can probably still get remedied. But I'm really worried that their existence is going to come across later as some sort of diabolus ex machina.

The first time I read it, which was before I had been introduced to any of the LW memes (or really, just transhumanism) I found the section on Askaban to be really... forced.

()

Specifically, I remember thinking that the idea that dementors were death was a bit cheesy. Taking a metaphor and making it corporeal seems to be a bit much to me. After I reread it a second time, I didn't have nearly as much objection to the passage, since I actually understood what he was getting at. But it still probably remains my least favorite section. But that's not really saying much.

()

So I think that section either needs more or less transhumanism, so that his point is either clear to everyone or doesn't confuse unfamiliar people.

I had great hopes. GREAT hopes.

A book of Narrative that exemplifies values makes for a religion. What I've come to realize/believe, is that you don't have to believe The Narrative is literally true for The Narrative to serve the positive purposes of a religion.

While all the rationality homilies are fine and dandy, I thought HPMOR could have been more. HPMOR was so close to a transvaluation of values.

• Mum and Dad, Hermione's friendship and Draco's journey, Neville and Seamus and Lavender and Dean, the blue sky and brilliant Sun and all bright things, the Earth, the stars, the promise, everything humanity was and everything it would become...
• And someday when the descendants of humanity have spread from star to star, they won’t tell the children about the history of Ancient Earth until they’re old enough to bear it; and when they learn they’ll weep to hear that such a thing as Death had ever once existed!
• You are not invincible, and someday the human species will end you. I will end you if I can, by the power of mind and magic and science. I won’t cower in fear of Death, not while I have a chance of winning. I won’t let Death touch me, I won’t let Death touch the ones I love. And even if you do end me before I end you, Another will take my place, and another, Until the wound in the world is healed at last…

A Rejection of Death as part of the Natural Order. Time Binding. Humanity as the Glass Half Full. Now that's a transvaluation of values. 

That's what I wish the Narrative had turned on. The moral issue. Values. Transvaluation of values in Voldemort. Isn't that Harry's dream? That we can all be saved? That we are all worth saving? And that people can come to understand that?

If Harry could understand that, why not Voldemort, the guy with the same brain?

That's the argument to win. That's the case to be made. That's the story to be told.

Instead, the climax was an Encyclopedia Brown Beats the Bad Guy by solving a cognitive puzzle. Harry won because Voldemort didn't know all that Harry was capable of. Sure. You get a win that way. But what was learned? That it's good to have powers the enemy doesn't know about? Well, yeah, but that's neither news nor uplifting.

And "having people to save gives you cognitive superpowers" just isn't true. Maybe it motivates you to work diligently. But it doesn't turn your brain up to 11 when faced with dozens of enemies about to kill you.

I want to echo the comment that with a good editor, the book could easily rival some of the best fiction in quality. The main character is a bit of a Mary Sue, but that can be forgiven since most hero fiction has an element of Mary-Sueness to it.

I find it a bit weird just how many students at Hogwarts are scions of Noble and Most Ancient Houses. It seems to me as if Eliezer has equated "pure blood" from the original books with "noble house," and the resulting prevalence strikes me as demographically improbable.

Occasionally the writing and sentence structure can feel a little hurried, especially at the beginning of chapters. It's as if Eliezer starts writing at the beginning of a chapter but takes a while to fully get into his rhythm. There have also probably been a few too many tangents from the main plot, but Eliezer's latest author note seems to acknowledge this.

My meta-comment is that you should have posted this in whatever the current HPMoR discussion thread is. It's an established community norm that talk of the fanfic should be kept there. Downvoted for that reason.

My regular comment:

I would have had Eliezer spend way less time on the "Hermione fights an endless supply of bullies" subplot. I wouldn't be averse to just removing it entirely.

I would also have all these damn hints and suggestions and leads and such be made explicit or way less subtle. I'm stupid and busy; I'm not going to get them on the first read, and I'm not going to read twice.

It's a bit long, sorry.

Let me bore y'all with a bit of my puzzle-solving MoR.

Near the end of 2010 I came up with a theory (which I codenamed NBT), some far-out thing that explained a few observations, and removed a good deal of confusion. As an aside it also led me to predict the existence of a certain clue - more on that later. Also, I think it may be endgame-relevant.

Since this theory was kinda subtle, I felt I needed more data on it, so I filed it away and waited. Somewhere along the way I realized that it explained even more things than I thought, thus raising my confidence in it (retrograde prediction? - my surprise about it is evidence to me, even if it wouldn't convince anyone else), though of course it could still be subject to positive bias, as I was well aware.

Enter the final batch of SA arc, late August and early September (2011). It contained an unlikely event, one I would have bet against seeing, without NBT. With it, it was just the kind of thing I would expect. So I marked NBT confirmed. Shortly afterwards a random re-reading of an older part led me to discover the clue I predicted earlier, an innocent little sentence I completely missed before, one that contains a hint connected to the nature of magic. As it happens, this clue also explains how the Interdict of Merlin was made - the mechanism.

Thus feeling my theory NBT strongly confirmed I confronted the one part I was still confused about, and within ten minutes I moved from 'a bit tricky but possible' to 'simple, elegant, neat'. I didn't need any knowledge that wasn't available when I came up with NBT, so I could have had that answer a lot earlier - I'll call the crucial bit of understanding V-factor.

(Also, Self Actualization confirmed one more prediction of mine. I suppose for others that particular bit of noticing-your-confusion could be a hint for a difference-from-canon mystery that didn't lead anywhere; for me, it was evidence I was right all along about one more thing. This theory was required for later, but I'm sure I wouldn't have needed the confirmation; I was pretty sure of this one. Just mentioning that to show why I'm glad SA happened.)

All this reminded me of the moral of That Alien Message, specifically how limiting it is to think 'we need more information' and do nothing, instead of actually sitting down, and confronting the mystery. On one hand I saw things most would say can't possibly be seen, on the other hand I failed to find out things fast enough because I didn't think I could possibly have seen them.

Because I'm not perfect (yet), I didn't update on everything immediately; to be more precise, it wasn't until January of 2012 that I applied the V-factor to my previous theories of the nature of MoR magic, but when I did, I became unconfused. The First Cause of Verresverse Magic became clear. Looking back, and seeing that I could have had the whole thing a year earlier if I tried - not hindsight, the conclusions that led to it are clearly traceable - really drove the point home.

My point with all this? Methods of Rationality is full of subtle puzzles, reasons beneath the obvious, as others have pointed out in much less word, and also plenty of ways to practice and test your rationality skills. Noticing confusion, generating alternative hypotheses, countering positive bias, above all. And yes, these are well constructed puzzles, not like the messy reality, but the point is to have the grooves worn into the mind.

Nitpicking the story, complaining about things we wouldn't even notice from other authors, holding Eliezer to higher standards, because 'Hey, we're rational(ists)!' while failing to notice that these may well be deliberate hints of something deeper ... it's ... well ... kinda stupid, ain't it? Like how sophisticated fan-fiction readers might pattern-match Harry of early chapters as Mary Sue, while failing to notice all the clues about his coldness, concluding it is a sign of incompetent author, when it is in fact a hint of something more going on. A useful lesson about how noticing confusion and generating an alternative hypothesis might be needed, at best.

Also, if you have been reading LW for a while and have been passionate about improving your rationality, yet you failed to notice so far how good an opportunity MoR is ... I just spoiled it for you; it was a test, and you failed it. Sorry.