Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality discussion thread, part 15, chapter 84

That's a really good explanation for how Dumbledore's recollection of the purposeless evil of Voldemort can be reconciled with the clearly purposeful evil of Quirrell.

Right now this post has 53 points. WHY?

The post where put down the theory this grew from only has 2 points. Don't go voting it up just because I mentioned that. I don't want anything 'fixed' I just want an explanation.

This isn't written any better than my other posts, which commonly stay under 3 points and go negative often enough. Those other posts are totally contributions to the conversation. Some of them are even helpful.

I left points hanging. I didn't defend what I was saying. I just told a story. That's what you want?

I'm not even the first to revisit this speculation since my low vote theory post. Chris Hallquist was saying pretty much the same thing and he didn't get over 40 upvotes.

What are you upvoting?

I guess he didn't think the villain didn't need to have any kind of history. Maybe he didn't think the villain would matter much or for long. Voldemort was just there for the hero to strike down. That was a mistake, because he lacked a decoy his enemies were eventually able to discover his identity.

Perhaps not so much. We may believe Voldemort to truly be Tom Riddle for the following few reasons.

• The Order of the Phoenix thinks Voldemort is Tom Riddle.
• Voldemort is Tom Riddle in canon
• In Chapter 70, Quirrell, who we are to understand is Voldemort, talks about a witch taking advantage of a muggle man, which is part of Tom Riddle's tragic backstory in cannon.
• He just can't seem to help himself from punning his damn name, between the references to 'riddles' and his godawful anagram.

But canon doesn't count, this fic diverges strongly in places.

And knowledgeable, otherwise competent characters are wrong about things.

And, most tellingly, we now know that Voldemort in his Quirrell mask has been dropping hints that he is actually your Scion X (or David Monroe or whomever). He could just as easily be falsely hinting at the Riddle identity.

Yes, I am suggesting that the student that opened the Chamber of Secrets in '41 was not Tom Riddle, but someone else. Why pick one patsy, when you could have two? It's just one more murder, hardly anything at all.

This means that Voldemort, whomever he really is, had a backup identity behind 'Voldemort' just like he has a backup identity behind Quirrell. It means that he didn't get discovered back in the '70s. And it means that he's just as slick and awesome and I hope he is, as I wish he is.

Oh, damn. I have far, far too much affection for this character. 84 is my new favorite chapter.

When Tom realizes that his plan has failed and cannot be made to work in the intended fashion, he exits his hero, stage left. At that point, 75 or so, he doesn't have a good plan to leave the stage as his villain, so he kind of kicks it for a few years, tolerating the limits of his rule and getting what meager entertainment he can out of being a god damned theater antagonist.

This strikes me as the least characteristic part of your idea. Quirrellmort doesn't seem like someone who would have taken a few years kicking it around trying to come up with a new plan.

ETA: I think that for the most part this seems like a pretty likely outline. I think the evidence stacks up in favor of the new character being a dupe of Voldemort, and this strikes me as the most plausible motivation for him to be playing both sides. I think his plan would probably even have been workable in the sense of making the heroic identity the de facto leader of the country, but he called it quits when he realized that the prize for heroism was not being lavished with adulation, but being treated as responsible for being a hero all the time, whereas the prize for being a Dark Lord was fawning obedience. There are all sorts of directions he could have gone from here, including him deciding that the world seems particularly hateful and so why not keep up the villain role, when the benefits are so much better? But spending a few years in an "okay, now what?" slump seems out of character.

I've been thinking along the same lines, probably because I watched Code Geass not too long ago, and this is basically the "Zero Requiem" gambit employed by Lelouch. He creates a totem of pure evil as a target of the world's hatred, then publicly destroys it, establishing a hero as savior-king. Riddle, like Lelouche, is portrayed as a "Byronic hero"--mysterious, cynical, cunning, arrogant, and brilliant. If this interpretation is correct, Harry might not be his future meatpuppet, but actually the "chosen one", who will fulfill the role of the hero and unite the world as savior-king after destroying the risen Voldemort.

But of course it could have just been a "Palpatine Gambit". In this version, Riddle was using his Voldemort persona to create fear, which his other persona takes advantage of to turn Magical Britain into the Empire, consolidating all power to himself. But in this version, much to the consternation of Tom Riddle, the "Republic" actually doesn't give up power to the obviously qualified hero (due to diffusion of responsibility, political maneuvering, etc.) So instead he decides to just seize power as Voldemort, but by bad luck, he is struck down by Lilly Potter's self-sacrifice. Now he is back, and wants to use Harry as his new hero, but he needs to make it plausible, by convincing Harry of his political views, and making him super-formidable. That way, when "Harry" (actually Riddle acting via Imperius/polyjuice, etc.) takes over Britain and strikes down the resurrected "Voldemort" in his 7th year, people will believe it was possible. Riddle will then rule Britain (and eventually the world as "Harry Potter".

Tom Riddle grew up in the shadow of WWII. He saw much of the Muggle world unite...

Tom didn't want to be Hitler...

In case it's relevant, remember that Hitler was just a muggle pawn of Grindlewald, and the Holocaust existed to fuel Gindlewald's dark rituals.

I think this is right in broad strokes, but what you call "a few years" is '73 to '81, kind of a long time to "kick it" because your plan went astray.

Furthermore, Quiddle also often talks about his motives in terms of what he found "amusing," "felt like," or "pleasant" (in conversation with Hermione). Then there's this:

"You know, Mr. Potter, if He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named had come to rule over magical Britain, and built such a place as Azkaban, he would have built it because he enjoyed seeing his enemies suffer. And if instead he began to find their suffering distasteful, why, he would order Azkaban torn down the next day. As for those who did make Azkaban, and those who do not tear it down, while preaching lofty sermons and imagining themselves not to be villains... well, Mr. Potter, I think if I had my choice of taking tea with them, or taking tea with You-Know-Who, I should find my sensibilities less offended by the Dark Lord."

I think he's not quite so given to long-term planning as you imagine.

So in this scenario, why is he dying? Before, we were unsure that his cataplexy was getting worse; I pointed out that on-screen he seems as active or more active than ever. But Bones says: "And you seem to be resting more and more frequently, as time goes on." and she would know. Are we speculating that whatever dupe's body that Riddle stole is breaking down 60-odd years later after Albania?

I really like your theory of what happened, but have a different idea about Tom's motives. When the hero disappeared, people were already speaking of him as the next Dumbledore. He had two easy paths to world domination. Put yourself in his place and his personality, what would you do? I'd probably get bored and set about creating the only thing I don't have: a worthy adversary. This also explains why Harry Potter is so overpowered.

This is remarkably internally consistent and consistent with the evidence available to us.

Is it possible that he disappeared as Tom Riddle not because his plan wasn't working, but because Dumbledore had discovered Voldemort was him?

You're right. I search the PDF version, and have been told it doesn't receive edits in it's build (currently - though that's the plan for the future).

"The adult wizard." pg. 226

And I agree. I don't like the change either. Thinking that other adult wizards aren't a threat to you unless they're Dark is a horribly mistaken bias in more ways that one.

Definitely not insane. Do not like this change.

Yeah. I dislike this change. "Dark" makes sense for Quirrell to say for purposes of not sounding too evil, for not sounding like he's encouraging being dangerous. But at that point in the story, it was pretty clear Quirrell thought it was a good thing to be dangerous, and saying "adult" wizard is more consistent with that. It's also more consistent with his decision to call "Defense Against the Dark Arts" "Battle Magic."

If you're losing your mind, then either I am too or the nature of your mind-losing is a hallucination about what the chapter says now. I remember the same original text as you do (or, at any rate, the words "the adult wizard" and certainly not "the Dark wizard"). And I strongly agree that the original version is better.

It used to say "adult wizard" yes -- I just confirmed it with an old pdf.

Maybe it's phrased that way in order to be similar to the bit several sentences down:

You are here to learn how to defend yourselves against the Dark Arts. Which means, let us be very clear on this, defending yourselves against Dark Wizards.

That instance of "Dark" makes sense (since they're Dark Arts and not "Adult Arts") and so there is a reason to use "Dark Wizard" throughout.

That passage, of course, ties into what the Defense Professor says in the latest chapter: "You cannot use the Killing Curse, so the correct tactic is to Apparate away." If I had to work from the premise that the revision is actually related to that, I'd assume it's emphasising the Defense Professor being, in fact, a Dark wizard.

But I agree that from a point of view outside Eliezer's head, it appears to have at best neutral impact, and at worst negative impact on the effect of the passage.

In recent history they've had two devastating wars. Plotting and infighting seems perpetual. Most adults spend a reasonable amount of their time using dangerous magic (there was some mention of wizard specific diseases like 'dragon pox' in canon). And everyone in the world can kill you instantly with their wand. So even if their notional life expectancy is high the number of dangers that reduce the population is enormous.

Actually given how easy deadly curses are I'm surprised there are any wizards left... Possibly explains why age correlates with magical power/skill.

Plus, education for 7 years makes no sense if you expect to live another hundred; muggles spend 1/5-1/6th of their life in education, but wizards only 1/15th

This, at least, does not confuse me. It's not like this is a historical constant, for most of human history most people have spent less.

Anyway, it's implied that vocational training exists after one is finished with one's mandatory education.

I wouldn't expect Wizards to be big fans of birth control or abortion.

Are you assuming vaguely medieval tech = Catholic = opposed to birth control and abortion?

The Catholic Church didn't declare that all abortion was murder until the Renaissance, and I don't think there's any reason to think that wizards are generally Catholics. ETA Nor is there any reason to think that Catholics are reliably obedient to Popes.

The simplest explanation might be that wizards (like Tolkien's elves, but less so) just aren't very fertile.

I wouldn't expect Wizards to be big fans of birth control or abortion.

Why not?

There are only thirty hours in a day and every child means greater demands on your time. It's not like they can hire muggles to raise their kids, like affluent muggle families might hire less-affluent folk to look after theirs. And we don't hear about anyone being raised by house elves.

Why wouldn't they want sex without conception?

1) The war 2) Some wizards are more equal than others.

Might be a Baby Boom effect, combined with high death rates from the wars. Basically, WWII still has visible effects.

Considering how poor the Weasleys are, most wizards might well use birth control and abortion. Both seem like they should be magically feasible, and wizards might actually know whether fetuses are conscious.

Nitpick:

Plus, imagine the number of children each couple would have if people jumped from 40 fertile years to 80.

Why would you think that would happen? Women already regularly outlive their fertile periods in real life. Unless you're also proposing some magical mechanism of fertility increase (and if so, why?), you wouldn't expect fertile periods to increase.

Of course, wizards would have longer fertile periods, but you still bump into the hard limit of how many children witches are willing and able to have.

I'd always assumed canon Dumbledore had limited access to the Philosopher's Stone.

As with others, I don't see why they'd oppose birth control. I'd assume magic allowed very good, easy, birth control. After all, Arthur Weasley is known for two things: big family, and tendency to use Muggle techology rather than the superior magic alternative. I'm assuming serious condom malfunction.

You should break up your quote blocks with an extra line so they look like separate quotes..

I find some of the most relatable parts of the story to be the vague hero-against-the world / morality allegory, particularly in the dialogue quoted here. I think as much of the micro-morality of the story is Randian in a way that as much of the surface dialogue might paint Rand as a negative colour (if only by showing how ugly her beliefs on the surface, but revealing their purer roots). Harry is basically saying "Yes, everyone is incompetent; woe that they didn't have the luck to be not, and let's try and change that without getting too annoyed". With greater intelligence comes greater ability (and in a sense perceived moral obligation) to restrain or make productive one's hatred towards that which can't be changed or that can't be changed easily. Harry is taking morality as being the extent to which a strength can compensate for weakness in the spirit of creating future strength. The Randian 'strike' is a utilitarian way to achieve Randian values, and not an inherently Randian way or whatever. I don't think it's immediately obvious Harry isn't aiming for Randian values, if perhaps narratively in a way that Ayn Rand would not have imagined - i.e. strength and weakness are much more complexly intertwined.

(It's not obvious either that I'm disagreeing with the parent post.)

I was thinking of Rand through this entire chapter too, but I dismissed that as a cached thought because of the recent "In Defense of Ayn Rand". Perhaps I shouldn't have.

The Moral of the Story seems to be Harry finding an answer to the weakness, stupidity, and evil of others besides >hating them and destroying them.

EY has made it his life goal to creating an artificial intelligence that is friendly to humans. A mind that transcends us without hating us. Harry MUST triumph over Quirrel, and he must do so by being more moral, not more intelligent. Because if Harry wins by being smarter, then EY would be conceding that morality is a weakness, or at the very least that strength and strength alone will determine which AI will win. And there would always be that risk that the AI would "grow up" as Quirrel puts it, and realize that "the reason it is easy for you to forgive such fools and think well of them, Mr. Potter, is that you yourself have not been sorely hurt". And something tells me that EY's solution is not to create a being that can't be hurt.

My guess is that "The power that the dark lord knows not" is, in some way, a solution to this problem. Harry will triumph for the same reason EY's friendly AI will (supposedly) triumph. But we will see. I haven't read enough of EY's stuff on friendly AI to know for certain what his solution to the AI problem is, only that he thinks he has one.

I recommend checking out what your hints mean in canon, because that's what we have to go off of. The first thing I did when I saw 1926 was head over to the Harry Potter wiki and figure out who was born in 1926. It's Riddle and three of his Death Eater pals, all from Slytherin, of which the obvious option is Riddle. Riddle fits the biographical details you give, with minor modification consistent with the upgrades people get from canon (a MOR Riddle might decide to not murder his family while still in school, for example). The canon rules for Houses appear to be "only Black is Noble and Most Ancient," and so we really don't have any idea which houses are the seven mentioned by Bones, and what the eighth missing house could be. Gaunt is a way better option than, say, Lestrange (where we know Lesath is alive).

In a fanfic, you should expect people to suspect that new characters are canon characters rather than completely new characters, which the person Bones is describing now appears to be (no canon births in 1927).

I think you're underestimating how quick people are to latch onto a detected pattern at the tiniest bit of evidence, and highly overestimating how quick they're to let go of the pattern they (brilliantly) detected when evidence to the contrary appears.

Any date at around that era will keep making people think she identified him as Tom Riddle, no matter any other evidence to the contrary, unless you explicitly have her mention a different name for him by chapter's end.

If you don't want people to have that confusion by chapter's end, just edit the chapter to have her name him with whatever non-Tom-Riddle name she thinks him to be.

Facepalm

Of course, if Riddle wanted to create a hero persona for himself, he wouldn't use his real name, especially not when his villain persona's name was an anagram of his real name.

So to create his hero persona, he looked for a dead scion of a Most Ancient House who he could impersonate. In his Voldemort persona, he orders the kidnapping of the Minster of Magic's daughter, then rescues her in his hero persona, &c.

Also solves the problem of why doesn't Bones know Riddle became Voldemort.

Ah. And checking the Harry Potter wiki, I see I had forgotten just how far the "pureblood" house of Gaunt had fallen in canon.

What house incongruence? Mystery Man was a Slytherin, as was Riddle.

What House incongruence? They're both Slytherins.

(I think one of those Azkabans should be a Hogwarts.)

There's also the two miscalculations in the speech before Yule- Harry's wish (which I think genuinely caught him by surprise) and Harry's publicly disagreeing with him (likewise).

It's dawned on me that one of the biggest themes of this fic may be the importance of being able to notice flaws in one's models of other people.

Not that the theme isn't present, but I almost consider that a general theme of fiction. Romeo and Juliet is enabled by the authorities on both sides not having accurate models of their respective scions. Of Mice and Men is about Lenny's inaccuracy in his model of George. Die Hard always ends because the villain does not have an accurate model of John McClane. I'm sure you could write a whole book about Death Note. etc.

While it is present in HPMoR, it doesn't strike me as especially significant any more so than other fiction, compared to the many more overtly rationalist themes already present.

I think you are erring when you assume that these are Voldemort's plans. They might be, but I don't think they have to be. The story seems to have deviated quite far from the original story.

In fact, my reading is that Quirrell may actually be some good guy, destroying our expectations from the story. I mean, has his turban even been mentioned?

And finally, the bit in chapter 81 about how Harry is wiser than either Dumbledore or Voldemort, because he realizes he's able to realize when he doesn't understand people.

This is a better interpretation of that bit than I've seen before--I approve.

• Failure to talk Hermione into leaving Azkaban of her own free will

Assuming you meant Hogwarts...

If there is a possession element to this plot, as Dumbledore believes, it may not have been her will she was fighting when she had to clamp her mouth shut to keep it from saying Yes.

Interestingly enough, that's also why I liked the older seasons of Mythbusters. You'd see much more of the planning/preparation for their tests, including all the safety considerations.

ie, they'd do the usual "don't try this at home", but then you'd actually see just how much planning/etc it takes to do such things properly and safely.

Nicholas Flamel (born 1340) could be almost as good a source of ancient spells lost to the Interdict of Merlin as Slytherin's Monster

From Chapter 77:

A single glance would tell any competent wizard that the Headmaster has laced that corridor with a ridiculous quantity of wards and webs, triggers and tripsigns. And more: there are Charms laid there of ancient power, magical constructs of which I have heard not even rumors, techniques that must have been disgorged from the hoarded lore of Flamel himself.

So Dumbledore's already using some of Flamel's knowledge in his efforts against Voldemort.

He also seems to be dependent on Albus Dumbledore for protection; maybe it's time Dumbledore called in some quid pro quo if he hasn't already?

If Dumbledore had that kind of leverage, he would have used it to either move or destroy the Philosopher's Stone.

After several hours of experimentation, I have figured out what the trick is. Quirrell did nothing except hum the same song for four hours. The Auror's mind filled in the rest. After four hours of listening to the same fifty-one notes over and over again, I'd be calling code RJ-L20 too.

I would think the real key to horrible humming would not be to have it be uniformly horrible, but so close to brilliant that the horrible notes punctuate and pierce the melody so completely that it starts driving you mad- a song filled with unresolved suspensions, minor 2nds where they just should not belong, that then somehow modulate into something which sounds normal just long enough for you to think you are safe, when it collapses again, and the new key is offensive both to the original and to the modulation. This is not just random sounds, this is purposeful song writing, with the intent to unsettle- in my mind, something like sondheim at his most twisted, but without any resolution ever.

import random, time, winsound
for (p,d) in [(4,1),(5,1),(7,3),(None,1), (4,1),(5,1),(7,3),(None,1), (4,1),(7,1),(12,2),(11,2),(9,2),(9,2),(7,1),(None,1), (2,1),(4,1),(5,3),(None,1), (2,1),(4,1),(5,3),(None,1), (2,1),(5,1),(11,1),(9,1),(7,2),(11,2),(12,4)]:
    if p is None: time.sleep(0.2*d)
    else: winsound.Beep(int(440*2**((p+1*(random.random()-0.5))/12.)), 200*d)

import random, time, winsound

timebias = 0.2
pitchbias = 0.7
changebias = 0.75

timeshift = 1;
while 1:
    timeshift = timeshift + timeshift * random.uniform(1 - timebias, 1 + timebias)
    if timeshift > 1.0 + 2.0 * timebias or timeshift < 1.0 - 2.0 * timebias:
        timeshift = random.uniform(1.0 - timebias / 2.0, 1.0 + timebias / 2.0)
    key = random.randrange(0, len(current) - 1)
    if random.random() > changebias:
        if current[key][0] is not None:
            current[key] = (current[key][0] + current[key][0] * random.uniform(-1.0 * pitchbias, pitchbias), current[key][1])
    else:
        current[key] = (current[key][0], current[key][1] + current[key][1] * random.uniform( -1.0 * timebias, timebias))
    time.sleep(random.random())
    for (p,d) in current:
        if p is None: time.sleep(0.2*d * timeshift)
        else: winsound.Beep(int(440*2**(p/12.)), int(200*d*timeshift))

import math, random, struct, wave
from math import sin,cos,exp,pi
filename = '/home/dgerard/something.wav' # replace with something sensible

def add_note(t,p,d,v):
    # t is time in seconds, p is pitch in Hz, d is duration in seconds
    # v is volume in arbitrary (amplitude) units
    i0 = int(44100*t)
    i1 = int(44100*(t+d))
    if len(signal)<i1: signal.extend([0 for i in range(len(signal),i1)])
    for i in range(i0,i1):
        dt = i/44100.-t
        if dt<0.02: f = dt/0.02 # attack: 0..1 over 20ms
        elif dt<0.2: f = exp(-(dt-0.02)/0.18) # decay: 1..1/e over 180ms
        elif dt<d-0.2: f = exp(-1) # sustain: 1/e
        else: f = exp(-1)*(d-dt)/0.2 # release: 1/e..0 over 200ms
        signal[i] += f*v*(sin(2*pi*p*dt)+0.2*sin(6*pi*p*dt)+0.06*sin(10*pi*p*dt))

def save_signal():
    m = max(abs(x) for x in signal)
    d = [int(30000./m*x) for x in signal]
    w = wave.open(filename, "wb")
    w.setparams((1,2,44100,len(signal),'NONE','noncompressed'))
    w.writeframes(''.join(struct.pack('h',x) for x in d))
    w.close()

signal = []
t=0
for (p,d) in [(4,1),(5,1),(7,3),(None,1), (4,1),(5,1),(7,3),(None,1), (4,1),(7,1),(12,2),(11,2),(9,2),(9,2),(7,1),(None,1), (2,1),(4,1),(5,3),(None,1), (2,1),(4,1),(5,3),(None,1), (2,1),(5,1),(11,1),(9,1),(7,2),(11,2),(12,4)]:
    if p is not None: add_note(t, 440*2**((p+1*(random.random()-0.5))/12.), 0.3*d+0.1, 1)
    t += 0.3*d
save_signal()

signal = []
t=0
for (p,d) in [(4,1),(5,1),(7,3),(None,1), (4,1),(5,1),(7,3),(None,1), (4,1),(7,1),(12,2),(11,2),(9,2),(9,2),(7,1),(None,1), (2,1),(4,1),(5,3),(None,1), (2,1),(4,1),(5,3),(None,1), (2,1),(5,1),(11,1),(9,1),(7,2),(11,2),(12,4)]:
    if p is not None: add_note(t, 440*2**(((p+random.choice([-1,0,0,0,1]))+random.random())/12.), 0.3*d+0.1, 1)
    t += 0.3*d*math.exp(random.random()*random.random())
save_signal()

signal = []
t=0L
pscale=5
pexp=2
transpose = 0
iterations = 10
for ii in range(1,iterations):
    for (p,d) in [(4,1),(5,1),(7,3),(None,1), (4,1),(5,1),(7,3),(None,1), (4,1),(7,1),(12,2),(11,2),(9,2),(9,2),(7,1),(None,1), (2,1),(4,1),(5,3),(None,1), (2,1), 
(4,1),(5,3),(None,1), (2,1),(5,1),(11,1),(9,1),(7,2),(11,2),(12,4)]:
        if p is not None: 
            add_note(t, random.choice([440*2**(((p+transpose)+random.choice([-1,0,0,0,1]))/12.),440*2**(((p+transpose)+random.random())/12.)]), 0.3*d+0.1, 1)
        t += 0.3*d*math.exp(random.random()*random.random())
    transpose = random.choice([-14, -9, -7, -4.5, -2, -1, 0, 0.5, 1, 2, 4.5, 7, 9, 14]) #transpose up or down
    t += 5*(pexp*((pscale**pexp)/((random.randrange(200,600,1)/100)**(pexp+1)))) #wait a while before repeating
save_signal()

I'm not sure how much music you know, and I'm not sure how much music Mathematica knows, so if this is all Greek or too hard, disregard it all:

Try different diatonic modes and different scales altogether. Switch from Major to Phrygian in the middle of a phrase. Switch to different sets of keys depending on whether consecutive tones are ascending or descending. Use a lot of Locrian mode, it is generally wrong-sounding. Try mapping diatonic scale degrees to octatonic ones somehow, and switch between the two octatonic scales at random. See if you can produce a portamento between two notes, and use it a lot when two notes are separated by only a semitone.

EY is one hilarious fellow. He should do standup. The Horrible Humming was just too funny.

And interesting too, because you wonder if it could work.

You might check out a program called Max/MSP if you want to get really deep into this stuff. It handles conversions between MIDI and audio signal pretty elegantly. Other ideas..

You might try making notes that change pitch continuously You might try putting the breaks in parts of the music where we expect it to continue. MIDI "doo" or other synth voice instruments tend to sound pretty maddening on their own without much special effort. Maybe layer in helicopter sounds or applause to simulate breathiness?

This is might be my favourite comment thread on all of Less Wrong. Terrible pity that the poster left!

EDIT: Semi-relevant.

EDIT 2: I have a great love for some technically awful music that I find still entertains me loads. I inflict The Shaggs on my friends in college every excuse I get.

When I was reading that part, all I could think was "Man, I have to try do that..."

I'm using MIDI sounds, which are the simplest to set up, but also have the drawback that every pitch must correspond to an integral semitone, which limits how horrible things can sound.

There are ways around this: a program called Scalar allows you to build microtonally tuned scales and set them up to be controlled by MIDI. Also, Native Instruments' Kontakt allows you to change the tuning of instruments and map the new tuning to a keyboard.

Scalar is free but hard to use: I was never actually able to figure out how to set it up to hear the scales I'd built - but my laptop seems to have a grudge against MIDI devices anyway. Kontakt is a lot easier to use but costs a couple of hundred euro.

I'm worried I may be turning Bad.

You need not trouble yourself. Examining Quirrell's actions has merely made you realize how much you would like to have his power. "Bad" is just a label applied by those too weak to seize that power.

Do not fear the dark side - we have cookies!

Is he actually loyal to his students or Up To Something?.

Upvoted for letting me know I'm not the only one.

I notice that the only thing we're told about Hermione's appearance in Chapter 78 is that she has bags under her eyes, no mention of a cut on her cheek.

You don't think a pissed-off 12 year old who's fighting a duel for vengeance might be inclined to rub a little salt in the wounds?

This seems to suggest that her memories of the duel are a fabrication (or the "Draco" she was fighting was someone else under the influence of polyjuice). Draco has no particular reason to further provoke her and was genuinely unsure whether he could beat her. It doesn't seem obvious why anyone would do that if there was going to be a genuine duel anyway, though.

Well, the whole obliviate cycle on Hermione took place at a time when the events that led to Draco willingly challenging Hermione to a duel probably could not have been predicted, unless someone caused them deliberately. Draco had no intention of challenging Hermione until his hand was forced by some apparently chance events in a battle that did not have to go that way. So if a third party was planning a duel, that turn of events might not have been in their plans.

Although it raises the question of what they would have done if the battle had not turned out that way, since Hermione probably would not have challenged Draco.

You warm my terrible heart.

It's possible, but not everything that's possible is true. You'd think there'd only be able to be one Defense Professor, especially if that position was referred to with the definite article, and so properly coded wards would throw an exception if his identifier did not uniquely pick out an individual.

Quidditch really nags me, because the team you are playing with has nearly zero relevance. And it is so unnessesary, even if Rowling desired a position on the team of key importance, the way the snitch works is still wrong - If it was worth zero points, but catching it ended the game, then seekers are still key, they just cannot win entirely on their own anymore, and the job would require more than just "flies fast",

Not a nail in the coffin? Evidence for and against Dumbledore and Voldemort as authors of the prophecy:

+Dumbledore

• Was the apparent beneficiary of the prophecy

-Dumbledore

• Seems to have a world model that includes such entities as "heroes" and "evil", and is ripe for exploitation
• Gives every outward sign of believing the prophecy is genuine
• Gave Trelawney a magical clock that's probably a listening device

+Voldemort

• Was the actual beneficiary of the prophecy, if he pretended to lose
• Suddenly has a history of setting up both sides of a conflict (My reaction to Ch. 84 was: ...really? You waited until you were half a million words into the fic before introducing this? Really?)
• Has a history of creating orphaned heroes of destiny
• Would have been the one who sent Snape to overhear the prophecy
• Chose Harry and not Neville as his target, then allowed Snape to learn the meaning of the prophecy and that he intended to attack the Potters

-Voldemort

• Reacted strongly to a mention of prophecy once, possibly because he takes prophecies seriously
• Could have defeated Dumbledore by conventional means
• Should not be trying plots as complicated as this one

Quirrell has indicated that he plans to go to war with the Muggles and rule the entire world. If Percent_Carbon is right, and "Tom didn't want to be Hitler. Tom wanted to actually win", he may think that conquering Britain as Voldemort would cost him the larger war. He needs a hero, and his first hero failed. So for eight years afterward, he continued to build up the legend of Voldemort, slowly grinding down the opposition, and then, when all hope seemed lost, a prophecy struck like a bolt of lightning and Voldemort was defeated by a baby in his crib.

On the evidence so far, I've switched to Team Voldemort. You were right the first time. Dumbledore could still be responsible for the Potters being betrayed, because he expected Voldemort to be blindsided by Lily's sacrifice, since "evil cannot ever understand love". The prophecy itself came from Tom. Harry is the Last Scion Redux, but this time his storybook hero status is even more blatant, and he'll rise to power with the insights into rulership that Tom learned as Voldemort. Like creating a "Light Mark".

That's what I think today, anyway. Updating is fun.

Some time after Chapter 38 showed us that Lucius thinks HJPEV is Voldemort, I took his position seriously and looked over the rest of the story.

If Voldemort is the hero, what is Quirrell? I figured he was the Basilisk. And if Quirrell was not the antagonist, who was? I figured it was Dumbledore because the opposite of rational is insane, not stupid.

I now think Quirrell is Voldemort and Dumbledore is not especially insane, but I wish I had thought to reinterpret the prophesy without Voldemort as the obvious bad guy back then. There is so much potential there.

I don't know if rehearsals would do any good

Really, this is how I feel. I'd be really surprised if a setup like that actually worked. I'm not sure Harry is supposed to actually believe (with any confidence) that it works for Chaos. Ultimately you know and everyone else knows that it's just a charade, and that really your "nonconforming" is just conforming one level below surface: You stand there and take abuse that you know to be insincere, and then get a pat on the back about it later, just like everyone else did on their turn.

Hopefully CMR has a better exercise in mind. A really good anti-Asch training tool seems like a great thing to have.

You could mock obviously true statements to practice withstanding opposition.

The danger with this seems to be that you'll also be developing skills for attacking correct positions. It's training you to develop tactics for entrenching yourself in incorrect beliefs. Also it seems to lend itself to the view of arguments as status conflicts rather than group truth-investigation (though I suppose we do need to at least practice how to handle arguments with people who do perceive them this way).

Based on my own experiences being a lone dissenter, the main thing that has allowed me to stand up and maintain my position consistently in the face of uniform opposition and derision, was not expecting much of everyone else in the first place.

For example, in an introductory logic course, when the professor made a mistake, which everyone else in the class agreed with, and I was the sole person to disagree, and attempt to explain it in the face of the entire class brushing me off and laughing about how I thought I knew better when the answer was so obvious to everyone else, it didn't seem weird to me at all that every other person would make the same mistake and I would be the only one to notice it. It wasn't confusing to me, and my success in showing the professor in a couple minutes after class that she had been mistaken after all confirmed for me that my expectations were on track.

Conforming to the beliefs of the crowd is perfectly sensible behavior, in domains where you have no reason to expect yourself to be more accurate than anyone else. Learning to disregard conforming instincts completely is a bad idea, because a lot of the time, it really will be everyone else who's right, and you who's making a stupid mistake which will make you feel like an idiot when you finally realize it. Refusing to conform is both achievable and proper when you have a palpable expectation that other people are going to be stupid.

Unfortunately, it's rather easy for one's expectations of other people's intelligence and rationality to become poorly calibrated.

From www.hpmor.com/notes/82/:

The Center for Modern Rationality is offering $50 prizes for any suggested rationality training exercises that look good enough to test, and $500 prizes for any suggested exercises that we actually adopt into a unit. Specific descriptions of mental skills, accompanied by the request for exercises to teach them, have been posted for the units Be Specific and Check Consequentialism. (Think of this as trying to invent the actual content of the bizarre exercises that Harry has been inflicting on the Chaos Legion since Ch. 29… oh, wait, I haven’t mentioned those in the text yet, have I?)

I doubt whether it's good to do actual anti-conformity training because it might make you too non-conforming (i.e. sticking to wrong positions). Instead, maybe it'd be better to do training on how to use others' opinions as evidence, similar to calibration training. The approach of anti-conformity training sounds good, but I'd stray in some statements which are actually false, the goal here is to actually get to the right conclusions whether the rest of society is right or wrong.

Ron approves of trying to murder Draco Malfoy?

I'm pretty sure even canon Ron would at least say he approves of killing Draco.

He does hate him very much, remember.

And your idea makes a lot more sense than min: Ron alone was smart enough to be scared of Hermione-the-murderer that he wanted to get on her good side.

Either that, or he's just in love with Hermione, and wants to support her in any way he can.

Hat and Cloak might have tried the algorithm on Ron first.

That's what I thought at first, but that explanation still leaves me confused. Canon!Ron was a good guy, more or less, I can't see EY flattening the character into a mere Malfoy-hater.

I'm sure the anti-Malfoy sentiment helped, but additionally he probably believes one of those poor explanations of what "really happened".

Maybe he's afraid she'll come after him next.

Since I don't anticipate getting a chance to point it out inside the fic itself, and the hint is unreasonably subtle:

When Hermione woke the third time (though it felt like she'd only closed her eyes for a moment) the Sun was even lower in the sky, almost fully set. She felt a little more alive and, strangely, even more exhausted. This time it was Professor Flitwick who was standing next to her bed and shaking her shoulder, a tray of steaming food floating next to him. For some reason she'd thought Harry Potter ought to be leaning over her bedside, but he wasn't there. Had she dreamed that? She couldn't remember dreaming.

Harry didn't think of it instantly, but given a little time...

And I hope the next thing he does is to teach her how to cast the True Patronus.

The humming torture sounds similar to Vetinari's clock, only taken to the next level. I liked it too.

EDIT: Now that I think about it, the memetic attack is also similar to "The Book" in Anathem, though the delivery vector is different.

Same. The part about disappearing in Albania is from canon-Quirrell's backstory - that's where he ran into Voldemort's wandering ghost, so it's interesting that in MoR he supposedly went there before the war. The rest of the background recounted by Bones and by Quirrell himself don't really ring a bell with me, the closest thing I can think of is him needing "reconciliation" with the Lady of the House being reminiscent of Sirius Black and his spat with his family, but Sirius already exists in MoR and had a different history.

It might be possible that in MoR the house of Gaunt (the one canon!Voldemort is from) did not fall into poverty and retained their household and Wizengamot influence? If the general 'powering up' of characters can go that far back it would be plausible. And now that I think of it, Quirrell initiated talk about witch-on-Muggle magical seduction during the SPHEW arc, which could suggest that that part of his family background was carried over from canon.

(One of the things that annoy me about HPMoR is that when I can't quickly figure out what a certain passage might be hinting to, I have to assign a frustratingly high probability to the event that it's simply a reference/homage/in-joke to one of the myriad HP fanfictions.)

I don't attach very high probability to this, but: Yermy Wibble? (The guy who proposed a magical draft and was killed for it.)

ETA: To clarify, the reason I think it's a bit improbable is that the mysterious guy's family was dead when he returned, whereas Yermy's family was killed at the same time he was.

Double edit: Forgot that Wibble was first introduced in Chapter 3, in a way that made it clear he's not this guy. This is clearly wrong, forget it.

Riddle.