Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality discussion thread, part 4

Eliezer's author notes say: If you want to know everything HJPEV knows and more, read the Sequences.

That would have been fair enough while there were only a few chapters of MoR up. Now, however, Eliezer is promising that reading the Sequences will teach readers how to perform Transfiguration, how to protect themselves against telepaths, how to conjure up a (v2.0) Patronus, and so forth. That seems a little optimistic.

The discussion of snake's sentience reminded me of an argument I once made about the nature of pureblood discrimination against Muggles, which I'll reproduce here:

Consider how we, as humans, justify our definitions of personhood. Why do we say that chimps, for example, are not people? Essentially, we come up with a list of features which we have, and things which aren’t people don’t have, like talking, tool use, etc. and then say everything which looks very similar to something which has those features is a person (why, for example, we consider a severely mentally retarded person a person).

In the Wizarding World, manufacturing a facsimile of sentience – talking, etc. is trivial. Even a very poor family can purchase multiple such objects as a child’s toy (Magical Chessmen). They would reject that these object are people, they’re simply toys, not truly free willed, despite resembling that strongly. When it comes down to it, the only difference between real people and all these simulacra seems to be the ability for autonomous magic use – so this becomes the criteria for person-hood.

For wizards, form is not a determinant of nature, thanks to the various transmutations and shapeshifting that is possible, this means that something looking similar to a person cannot be assumed to have the characteristics of a person, so the familiarity based extension I mention above that we have doesn’t apply.

All in all, by this rather natural definition, Muggles aren’t people. All they are is clever simulacra, with no greater moral significance than a child’s toy.

Move back to the chimp analogy. A chimp can do many things a person can do, but falls short on the key criteria. Despite this it’s being suggested that human-chimp hybrids may be genetically viable. It’s quite possible such a hybrid would then meet the criteria for personhood by our definition. Would you approve of people breeding with chimps? Or accept chimp-human hybrids as full members of society without reservation?

Has Quirrell been kissed by a Dementor? With Voldemort responsible, presumably.

That would explain his zombie mode - when he slouches, drools, doesn't speak, and can only stagger around.

And in chp 45 the Dementor could have been speaking to (zombified) Quirrell rather than to Voldemort when it said to Quirrelmort "that it knew me, and that it would hunt me down someday, wherever I tried to hide."

Voldemort can take over Quirrell and act through him, turning him into articulate Quirrell. But when he's not actively in control Quirrell enters zombie mode. Voldemort might be going someplace else while he leaves Quirrell on autopilot, or maybe he just needs to rest because controlling Quirrell uses up his energy.

chp 51-54 & A/N

Is it plausible that Harry would go along with this rescue? It is harder to accept than a Sirius rescue, which would've been based on the belief that Sirius was actually innocent (he hadn't done the awful things he was convicted of). The extenuating circumstance of having become evil under the influence of the Dark Lord provides a much weaker reason to rescue someone, and requires much more trust in the person who is conveying the information (since they must not only get the facts right, but make some subtle and complex judgments about the prisoner's character and what they deserve).

If Quirrell had just come straight out and asked Harry to help him break Bellatrix Black out of Azkaban, and to pretend to be Voldemort while doing it so that she would follow him out, I don't think he would have done it. Far too many red flags. Sure, Harry wants to end Azkaban, but to start with Bellatrix, who undeniably did so many evil things? Quirrell's case in favor of Bellatrix's innocence sounds like what a partisan would say when trying to make their side seem favorable, not an argument that Harry would buy (just as he could see through Draco's case against Dumbledore). Genre savvy Harry has read plenty of stories about villains with a sympathetic backstory.

Harry knows that Dumbledore doesn't trust Quirrell, he can imagine how Hermione would react to this (and she was right about transfiguration experimentation), or how Neville would react (Neville, who said with his voice shaking that torturing his parents was "not even close to the worst thing she's ever done").

Or even how Draco would react: Bellatrix Black? She was one of the few who were truly evil (chp 47). Forget that nonsense about wanting to save a poor innocent person from the nasty Dementors (you really think that's why Quirrell wants to break someone out of Azkaban?), this is obviously part of a plot. As Father would ask, who benefits? What kind of plot would involve breaking Bellatrix Black out of Azkaban?

But Quirrell didn't just come right out and suggest that they go free Bellatrix from Azkaban, he gradually and artfully got Harry to buy into the plot. So if we're going to wonder whether it's plausible for Harry to go along with it, we'll have to look at how Quirrell manipulated him into agreeing, and why Harry fell for the manipulations and wasn't stopped by these red flags.

Something that came up in a conversation offsite between me and Adelene Dawner:

Both in canon and MoR, where are all the grandparents and great-grandparents?

Supposedly, wizards have much longer lifespans than Muggles. I'm a Muggle, about to turn 22, and I've still got a grandparent left. Meanwhile, baby Harry managed to be orphaned without any of his grandparents stepping forward to take him in, or even trying to have a relationship with him. Perhaps Lily and Petunia's folks, Muggles both, were dead by this time - they never show up in canon - but what happened to pureblood James's mom and dad? Or their parents, or their siblings - when these people could all easily have lived to be a hundred years old, there should be some many-generation families running around.

The only visible ancestors we have before the canon epilogue are Augusta Longbottom, and, by the end of the series, Andromeda Tonks. Old characters like Dumbledore and McGonagall exist, but seem unmarried, childless, grandchildless. The Weasleys had at least one great-aunt and one great-uncle, but neither Molly nor Arthur has parents coming around for dinner, and they try to be an awfully close-knit family.

Harry chokes on his water twice in ch 49. Suppose that Quirrell, having been tricked into drinking Comed-Tea, finds out what spell makes it work, and puts it on Harry's water. Then he can think the following: here are some guesses I have about Harry. I will think about them in order; if Harry raises his glass, I will state my guess.

A pretty interesting way of reading minds, right?

Hey Eliezer- if you're planning to upload your Author's Notes to the LW wiki, it might be helpful to post that intention to your profile on Fanfiction.net. I know of at least 3 groups independently trying to collect all of the AN's themselves:

• The Facebook Page

• An Evernote Page

• Dan Cowell's Translation Page

Chapter 54: why don't Harry and Quirrell cast Somnium on Bellatrix instead of deceiving her? (The deception requires Quirrell to tell Harry the Death Eater password, among other things...) Why does Quirrell talk to Bahry so confidently while Bellatrix can hear him? Why does he follow his whims to play-duel and then kill Bahry instead of quickly subduing and memory-charming him, if they planned to pull off the perfect crime? Why is he so vulnerable to Dementors that he drops immediately when Harry's Patronus vanishes, even though Bahry's Patronus is still there successfully protecting Bahry and Harry? (Or am I misunderstanding the reason for his screaming? It's very similar to Harry's screaming when he first encountered a Dementor. If the screaming were caused by Quirrell's spell coming in contact with Harry's - brother wands or whatever - then Harry should've felt a symmetrical effect, which he didn't.)

Also, am I the only one stupid enough to only now realize that the professor's name is Quivering Squirrel?

I have a question about chapter 49 and was wondering if anyone else had a similar reaction. Assuming Quirrell is not lying/wrong, and Voldemort did kill Slytherin's Monster, then my first thought was how unlikely that Slytherin's Monster should have even survived long enough to make it to 1943. No prior Heir of Slytherin had had the same idea? Perhaps no prior Heir of Slytherin had been strong enough to defeat Slytherin's Monster? No prior Heir had been ruthless enough?

Maybe this constitutes weak evidence for the theory that Quirrell is lying.

Chapters 55-56: disappointment. Harry recovered way too easily, if the story were consistent he'd be screaming on the floor until the Aurors arrived. The obstacle of Bahry's future testimony shouldn't have been so easy to remove, now I'm suspicious that Eliezer will deal with the obstacles posed by McGonagall, Dumbledore and others in the same fashion. In general, the end of Ch. 54 seems to promise all hell breaking loose, 55 undoes that, tries to build more suspense instead, and fails to be believable because it erased previous suspense too easily. It's like a prelude that promised a fugue and didn't deliver. But the part where Harry momentarily thinks of Bellatrix as a good unquestioning minion was one of those moments of brilliance that I love the fic for.

The best description of hell breaking loose I've ever read was the first part of Dostoevsky's "The Idiot". I first read it assuming it would be a difficult work of "serious" literature, and it totally upset my expectations by being more exciting than any "fun" literature I'd seen. Here's how it goes: all the heroes and the main conflict are introduced in the first couple pages, then the situation quickly becomes tense, then passions begin to flare up, then the whole thing explodes while we're not even halfway into the chapter, and when you expect it to subside it explodes some more instead, then more and more, and unbelievably the chaos just keeps growing until the last page of Part 1 when it ends with a couple paragraphs and you have to close the book rather than read on to Part 2, because you're shaking and you need to work out who was thinking what.

I noticed something odd in chapter 17, which seems relevant:

Harry was rather confused. "But this could be important, yesterday I got this sudden sense of doom when -"

"Mr. Potter! I have a sense of doom as well! And my sense of doom is suggesting that you must not finish that sentence!" ... "This isn't like you!" Harry burst out. "I'm sorry but that just seems unbelievably irresponsible! From what I've heard there's some kind of jinx on the Defense position, and if you already know something's going to go wrong, I'd think you'd all be on your toes -" ... "I see," Harry said slowly, taking it all in. "So in other words, whatever's wrong with Professor Quirrell, you desperately don't want to know about it until the end of the school year. And since it's currently September, he could assassinate the Prime Minister on live television and get away with it so far as you're concerned."

Professor McGonagall gazed at him unblinkingly. "I am certain that I could never be heard endorsing such a statement, Mr. Potter. At Hogwarts we strive to be proactive with respect to anything that threatens the educational attainment of our students." ... "Oh, I doubt that, Mr. Potter. I doubt that very much." Professor McGonagall leaned forward, her face tightening again. "Since you and I have already discussed matters far more sensitive than these, I shall speak frankly. You, and you alone, have reported this mysterious sense of doom. You, and you alone, are a chaos magnet the likes of which I have never seen. After our little shopping trip to Diagon Alley, and then the Sorting Hat, and then today's little episode, I can well foresee that I am fated to sit in the Headmaster's office and hear some hilarious tale about Professor Quirrell in which you and you alone play a starring role, after which there will be no choice but to fire him. I am already resigned to it, Mr. Potter. And if this sad event takes place any earlier than the Ides of May, I will string you up by the gates of Hogwarts with your own intestines and pour fire beetles into your nose. Now do you understand me completely?"

As Harry observes, this exchange is extremely out of character for McGonagall. Telling Harry not to voice his concerns about Quirrel, I could believe; but cutting him off mid-sentence, and them making such a graphic, violent threat if he does, I can not. It is so out of character, in fact, that I think it must be a symptom of being Imperiused.

We know that Voldemort used to use Imperius quite a bit, and the only real reasons he might stop would be if someone figured out how to detect it (which hasn't happened), or if his new form didn't have the power. One Imperiused person rules out the second possibility, so if if Quirrelmort put an imperius on McGonagall, he has almost certainly used it elsewhere too.

Which brings us to Harry's attempted breakout of Bellatrix. Breaking in to Azkaban to rescue Bellatrix Black, I could just barely believe. Pretending to be Voldemort while doing so, however, pushes credibility too far. From Chapter 52 to Chapter 54, Harry is Imperiused. There are just too many things stupid and suspicious about the plan to believe that Harry overlooked all of them.

And that brings us to the question of what Imperius actually does. And this, I think, explains the chapter title, "The Stanford Prison Experiment", which otherwise seems not to fit at all. The conclusion of that famous experiment was that if you give someone a role - even a fake role, like a prison guard over subjects in a psychology experiment who are technically free to leave - then they adopt it as part of their identity, including the evil parts, and become blind to the wrong things they do as part of that identity. So perhaps that's what Imperius does: it assigns its target a particular role, which their mind will bend to accommodate. That would also explain why the title was redacted for part 1, which takes place before the Imperius curse was cast.

Here are some abnormalities in Harry's mind:

This was it, this was the day and the moment when Harry started acting the part.

And in another part of him, like he was just letting another part of his mind carry out a habit without paying much attention to it...

Professor Quirrell had instructed Harry, calmly and precisely, how he was to act in Bellatrix's presence; how to form the pretense he would maintain in his mind.

The only problem with this theory, is that Harry believes that Quirrel can never use magic on him. His Patronus and Quirrel's Aveda Kevadera certainly didn't interact well, and there seems to be an issue if they touch. But the theory that they can never use magic on each other, seems to have appeared from nowhere; there is no evidence for it whatsoever, except the sense of doom. Perhaps that idea was planted, to make the idea that Harry was Imperiused seem less plausible?

I would like to take this opportunity to hail Discordia, and say that yes, in fact, I would like it very much if you started convincing people that I was some sort of shadowy conspiratorial figure. Honestly I'm disappointed that this hasn't happened already.

I would like to take this opportunity to say that I've long suspected you had Discordian sympathies (even before HJPEV started being really overt about it with Chaos Legion and such), and that I often already do portray you as a shadowy conspiratorial figure (and, occasionally, as a dark wizard) when I tell people about your work. Honestly, SIAI is the closest thing I know of to an actual honest-to-Gog real-life New World Order conspiracy, or at least the only one I know of whose master plan to utopia is both (1) plausible, and (2) not shockingly uncreative or unambitious or reactionary about what a better world could look like.

Some thoughts about Comed-Tea.

(I apologize in advance if these have already been discussed; there are a LOT of MoR comments and I haven't read all of them. If someone points me at the thread I'll slink off quietly and apologetically and read it.)

1) It seems there have to be two pieces to the behavioral control surrounding Comed-Tea (supposing Harry's basic theory is correct).

The first piece is, as Harry infers, inducing the drinking of Comed-Tea just before a surprising event is about to occur.

The second is suppressing the drinking of Comed-Tea otherwise. Were it not so, the "guarantee" wouldn't work... there would be no reliable expectation of something surprising happening when you drink it.

That second part needn't be magical, incidentally; there are many things that suppress people's desire to drink them via non-magical routes... castor oil is a canonical example. But if Comed-Tea had blatantly aversive properties Harry presumably would have noticed that. So whatever the aversive factor is, it's subtle (which still doesn't make it magical).

Actually, now that I think about it, the first piece of that is so unreliable (that is, most surprising events aren't preceded by drinking C-T) that it's probably better to model it the other way: the unusual aspect of C-T is that it suppresses the desire to drink it UNLESS something surprising is about to happen.

This seems like a realization worth highlighting in the text, as it gets at a very basic and important fact about false positives and false negatives that people lose sight of all the time.

2) Harry seems to be holding the Idiot Ball when it comes to Comed-Tea's implications.

That is, he convinces himself that Comed-Tea doesn't have the ability to Alter the Very Fabric Of Reality... all it does is combine some minor clairvoyance with the ability to magically influence his decision to drink it... and drops the subject.

Um... really? Isn't that second thing basically a limited version of the Imperius Curse? Isn't that at least noteworthy?

At the very least, it suggests that Comed-Tea is an empirical test of defenses against magical mind-control: if Comed-Tea still works on Harry while using X, then X is not a defense against magical mind-control. Harry in the MoRverse is apparently an Occlumens; testing whether using Occlumency suppresses the effect of Comed-Tea seems worth doing. (This is admittedly difficult because Comed-Tea doesn't work reliably, but it's the best thing he's got at the moment. It seems out of character not to try. Also, if I'm right about point 1, then maybe Comed-Tea does work reliably... maybe it's chemically very addictive, but magically suppresses the cravings except at the right time. In that case using Occlumency against it, if it worked at all, would suddenly cause one to crave it. Which would be startling.)

More broadly, the implication that magic to systematically influence Harry's behavior without his knowledge or consent -- in other words, to introduce bias -- is cheap and widespread seems fundamentally important. What other forms of mind-control are operating in the wizarding world? Does Occlumency work against all of them? Does anything work against all of them? Who markets this stuff, anyway, and how was it developed, and why isn't it classified as an Unforgivable Soft Drink? Is there a variant formula that influences people not to bully one another, or to think rationally, or to hail Harry as their lord and master?

That none of this even occurs to Harry (let alone the rest of the wizarding world) in a world nominally without the Idiot Ball seems like a plot hole. That said, one could retcon it by suggesting that ubiquitous magical mind-control artifacts also suppress thinking about magical mind control. (You might even expect this: mind-controlling artifacts that don't do this don't become ubiquitous.)

Narratively, all of this seems like a worthwhile topic to explore in the context of MoR. The parallels to advertising and critical thinking skills, for example, seem inescapable.

3) I see a number of comments talking as though the Comed-Tea itself were influencing minds to drink it at the right moment, and as I recall Harry thinks this way as well.

That something is influencing the drinker's mind seems a sound theory, but that the Comed-Tea itself is doing so seems less clear. Harry should at least consider alternate theories.

In particular, if Harry is still positing an eavesdropping Atlantean Font of All Magic that responds to "Wingardium Levioso", it seems just as plausible that the AFoAM mediates the drinking of Comed-Tea.

Admittedly, the AFoAM is pretty close to being a Fully Generalized Explanation... which is to say, Harry is coming awfully close to theism there. But I suppose that's another post.

Quirrell is reading Hermione and Draco's minds, and the story he told Harry about how he learned that Harry was a parselmouth, in chapter 49, is partially fabricated. While that story does explain Quirrel knowing that Harry's a parselmouth, it doesn't explain why he chose to confirm that knowledge on his very next private meeting after Draco found out. Also, as Harry observed, Quirrell has at least one hidden source of information:

(EDIT: On rereading, Harry brought up parselmouth first, which explains the timing. But the remaining arguments for the conclusion that Quirrell is reading Hermione and Draco's minds still apply, and still seem sufficient.)

"There were times when Harry suspected that Professor Quirrell had way more background information than he was telling, his priors were simply too good."

And besides that, simply as a prior probability, Quirrell ought to be reading every mind he's confident he can get away with reading, and Hermione and Draco are very unlikely to notice . This also suggests that when Quirrell arranged for Harry to learn occlumancy, it was a bit of misdirection; he knew he'd be able to get the same information from Harry's friends, but that having suggested it would make Harry more inclined to trust him. Finally, this means that the secret of partial transfiguration is not safe, and if Quirrell is Voldemort then it does not satisfy the conditions of the prophecy.

Edit: My inference that Quirrell is overwhelmingly vulnerable to Dementors seems to be incorrect, explanation here, although he is more vulnerable than usual. The importance of keeping Patronus 2.0 up derives from it being a blind spot for Dementors, allowing prisoners to escape. Enough time without Patronus 2.0 leads to impossibility of prison break.

Ch. 54. Since Quirrell was that unusually vulnerable to Dementors, he should've made the point of how important it is to keep the Patronus 2.0 up at all times and immediately restore it in case of failure, making that idea more available to Harry's mind. Not making that point explicitly was stupid.

(Quirrell should know that, since Auror's Patronus utterly failed to shield him from Azkaban's Dementors, which means that he must've felt the difference between level of protection from the Dementor offered by different Patronus variants at training session at Hogwarts, as well as the abnormal vulnerability to Dementors shielded by merely classical Patronus. The point of the training session now seems to be exactly the research on influence of Dementors on possessed Quirrell, with Harry's wand left near the Dementor possibly an experiment.)

Re. the "sentient snakes": I had a similar reaction, "What, snakes in this world are intelligent, and that has no consequences?" But centering the reaction on moral issues... well, this is a gripe/rant/sore spot with me. Particularly when the word "sentient" is involved.

"Sentient" means the ability to feel. I don't know if snakes are sentient. But I absolutely guarantee you that cows and pigs are sentient.

In moral debates, the word "sentient" is one of a class of words I call "words that don't mean what they mean": words that we systematically abuse, by having 2 definitions; and we use the word in practice with definition 1, and pretend it has definition 2 when we want to justify our actions.

It is so very very common for people to talk about "sentient life", and use it to mean "life forms with a grammatical language". If you just came out and said, "I think that the feelings of beings that can't express themselves with a recursive grammatic structure need never be considered", people would realize how unjustified and self-serving this view is. So people use the word "sentient", yet in a way implying it applies only to beings with grammar, so they can say what they want to say, but in a way that sounds like they are saying something less self-serving.

The way I understand it, MOR is meant to be an example of how a rational being might go about approaching a completely new and confusing set of observations, such as discovering that magic is real. However, I think harry has missed a lot of the low hanging fruit he could be researching. Although my suspension of disbelief shut down these thoughts pretty fast when I first started reading, I was always pretty curious about why magic was created in the first place, why only certain people could control it, and how exactly the energy needed for spells was obtained and applied. So here are a few things I would want to research ASAP if I was harry.

A) Is it possible to fool the source of magic (sm) so that it allows a muggle to cast spells? It was pretty safe for harry to rule out the idea that your DNA contains all the information needed to create a complex mechanism which can generate a magical field and respond intelligently to your intentions, so it makes sense that your DNA only serves as a signal that tells an external force to activate spells when you verbally or non verbally cast them. However, this raises a few interesting questions. does sm actually read everyone's DNA constantly/ whenever they try to cast a spell? or does the sequence of DNA cause a more obvious external change to your appearance that sm looks for? If it uses something like the pattern of your brainwaves, the shape of your face, etc as a marker, then it may be possible for a muggle to mimic a magic user easily and vice versa, but if it actually DOES read your DNA, then where? Could you grow a heart using a magicians DNA, have it implanted, and acquire magical abilities? For that matter, if you preserved the body of a dead wizard, and set up a electric transmitter in their mind which mimicked the signals sent when someone cast a spell, what would the effect be? Any recognition system should be possible to fool, and this would be the most important thing to test for me. Imagine being able to give every person dying of thirst or hunger in the world unlimited access to the resources they need. there would be no more third world countries, although you would also be distributing a terrible weapon.Which actually brings up another question...

B) Why on earth would you invent a powerful system for allowing someone to directly effect reality with their thoughts, and then let everyone with the right DNA use it with no inhibitions whatsoever? Avada Kedavera, Imperio, and fiendfyre may have their uses, but I would not let all of my ancestors use them without supervision with no more training then it takes to cast any other kind of spell. It would be as idiotic as giving everyone I knew the codes required to launch a nuclear missile whenever or wherever they wanted too using their cellphones. Even if they all had good intentions, someone is going to make a dumb mistake eventually. Creating a system for inhibiting the use of such spells would be complex, but only an idiot would not try. This has several implications for harry, either magic was invented by a moron, there are even MORE powerful spells out there that he could cast if he knew the access codes (!!!), or someone already found out how to game the restrictions so they fell apart long ago and nobody even realizes they exist, you may even be able to get it working again.

C) the SM has to have a a sustainable energy source somewhere, a method for using this energy to create the effects we call spells, and in order for it to perform the complicated routines needed to assess someones intentions, it probably has to be somewhat intelligent. Somewhere out there may be an AI, a group of slaves being used to perform observations and calculations, or the work is being sent on a distributed computing network to the minds of every sentient being on the planet. this may be the hardest thing to research since there are almost an infinite variety of of possible systems which may be the cause, and it is probably concealed. But, If you could find the physical source of magic, you could reprogram it to do whatever you wanted, and could achieve world peace or destruction in one step

I would write more but I am honestly hoping for people to actually read through this and give their thoughts, so I guess I had better stop now in the hope of remaining somewhat concise.

50.

Harry would be doing himself a favour to broaden his circle of friends. Hermione is an unreliable companion and even in the best of times it is terribly impractical to so limit your options. Even from a raw, practical, 'Slytherin' perspective why on earth would Harry be dreaming of claiming complete social dominance of the peer group when he hasn't even got a stable social network within it yet?

Ch. 49. The throwaway reference to Tenorman Family Chili is awesome.

chp 55

Cognitive therapy as a pre-Patronus intervention in early stage Dementation

Slight spoilers for those who haven't read chapter 55:

My god, Harry is infuriating. Why, after realizing that Quirrell might have set him up, after deciding to doubt everything Quirrell said about the plan (and needlessly dismissing his doubts), did he assume that there really is a magical psychologist to fix Mme.Black up?

Why, after deconstructing his predicament did he then fail to apply the same rationalism to its immediate effect? Ugh. If there's one scene that convinced me that he's under the Imperius curse, it's his thinking up ways of convincing the likely-fictional-Doctor of healing the likely-uncurable maniac.

These past 5 chapters have been as infuriating as thrilling. I hope Harry stops being human and once again becomes his hyper-rationalist self at some point in the near future.

P.S. Does anyone else find dramatic irony to be the most infuriating, anxiety-inducing literary tool known to man?

Ch. 54: If Harry and Quirrell discussed the possibility of an Auror seeing them, Harry should have told Quirrell that AK is out of the question- no sense in killing one innocent person in the course of saving one innocent person.

And it's a pretty big miscalculation of Quirrell not to anticipate Harry's intervention at the key moment. He really should have seen by now that Harry's light side is that strong.

Unless, of course, that was the real gambit somehow.

ETA: Loved the writing, though- I was on the edge of my seat.

chp 51

Lesath Lestrange to Harry Potter in chp 27: "They say you can do anything, please, please my Lord, get my parents out of Azkaban, I'll be your loyal servant forever, my life will be yours and my death as well, only please -"

It seems to be a plot hole in MoR (ETA: not in canon - so the zombiehood is important) that no-one who appears on screen seems to have known Quirrel before his appointment as teacher. In particular, no-one ever gets to ask, "why is Quirrel acting like a zombie, he didn't do that when I met him ten years ago". Neither does anyone say, "I know you've been wondering why Quirrel acts like a zombie; he's been like that ever since I met him ten years ago, and here's why."

No-one is holding the idiot ball. Therefore Dumbledore didn't take a complete stranger on as Defense Professor; Quirrel must have had references.

Since the zombie-hood is due to possession/mind control (in canon), we can assume that it implies possession in MoR as well (even if possession isn't true here). Also, Dumbledore remains suspicious of Quirrel. Therefore Dumbledore must have investigated Quirrel's zombie-hood, or gotten a satisfying explanation from Quirrel himself.

Further note: Dumbledore can cast warding spells such as "no-one who wishes to harm the people living here may enter this house" (this was used on Harry's house in canon and was powerful enough to protect Harry from Voldemort and the Death Eaters in the summer vacations). The warding spells on Castle Hogwarts are described as diverse and very powerful, and if they didn't have this function already, Dumbledore would have added it (in canon he presumably was holding the idiot ball and didn't do this). Therefore we know Quirrel isn't planning to harm Harry directly, or at least wasn't planning to do so at the time he entered the castle.

It occurred to me that Harry is confused with Hermione's reactions (possibly Dumbledore's) not because he is a consequentialist and she is a deontologist, but rather because he hasn't yet realised that offending her is a consequence of being a consequentialist, and so he should include "deviates from deontological ethics; may offend friends and society" as one of the negative consequences for actions that otherwise seem right by consequentialism.

I've figured out what Harry's "sense of doom" reminds me of. The old action movie Timecop with Van Damme. The antagonist there used a clever plot to help a younger version of himself succeed in the past, but they had to avoid touching because "the same matter cannot occupy the same space". In the end the protagonist forces them to touch, whereupon they both die in freaky fashion and disappear from the timeline. But it's probably just another of Eliezer's clever shout-outs, not an actual clue.

So, what's the importance of Roger Bacon's diary? Canon & conservation of detail both suggest it's something, possibly a horcrux or possibly some other tool of Quirrelmort. This Voldemort is too smart to horcrux his own diary, but this diary would be an awfully convenient trojan horse for him to have (extremely durable, treasured by Harry).

It doesn't seem to produce any sense of Doom, though, which seems to count against the horcrux hypothesis.

Could Quirrell be using it to spy on Harry, to get his curiously accurate priors? Does Harry keep the diary in the pouch which he carries around everywhere, and which he brought to Azkaban, and which the Quirrell cast a spell on and entered in snake mode? If so, it could be a part of Quirrell's current plot. (Or, Quirrell could've done something else with Harry's pouch, which doesn't involve the diary.)

Consider how, in 51-54, Harry decides to trust Quirrell. No one ought to trust Quirrell, at all. He has some agenda, which he does not let on to. Even if he did describe his complete agenda, you'd never be able to trust that he was telling the truth, because he's so rational and self-controlled that he would be equally able to tell you something almost the truth, except for certain modifications made to make your cooperation more likely.

And few people trust Harry; and with good reason.

The more rational someone is, the less you can trust them. The less rational someone is, the more you can trust them. You can trust a bigot to keep acting bigoted. You can trust a religious zealot to stay true to her faith. You can trust someone who votes the party line without thinking to keep voting the party line.

Whereas, a religious zealot who actually thinks about her religious principles is much less reliable. The Jesuits are a perfect example of this - religious, but prone to thinking about their religion, and thus a neverending source of heresy and controversy within the Church. A politician who actually thinks about the issues might break with his party, or vote differently than the people who elected him expected.

How much does society rely on our irrationality, on our inability to change our minds or avoid signalling our true intent, and our inability to avoid following through on our emotional commitments (revenge, punishment, reward, nepotism)? What's the social cost of rationality? Is it reasonable to think that people have evolved to be less-than-optimally rational?

EDIT: Spoilers even if you have read all chapters (particularly spoilery to those who have not read the original books). Following post is in rot13. Collapse thread from this comment if you want to avoid said spoilers, as some repliers commented in rot26 before it was established this information qualified as spoilage.

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N: Dhveeryy vf cbfrffrq ol Ibyqrzbeg. O: Gur jnl Dhveeryy npgrq va pnaba va sebag bs Uneel, cevbe gb gur erirny gung ur jnf Ibyqrzbeg, jnf trarenyyl cynlvat gur ebyr bs n zvyq-znaarerq cebsrffbe. P: Gur jnl Dhveeryy npgf va ZbE va sebag bs Uneel vf nf n onqnff cebsrffbe.

Gur xrl nffhzcgvba orvat znqr ol pregnva ernqref vf gung N--->O naq bayl O, naq fb ~O--->~N, naq fb P--->~N. Guvf vf n pyrne snyynpl jura fgngrq rkcyvpvgyl, ohg jura yrsg vzcyvpvg gur vzcebcre ybtvp tbrf haabgvprq ol zbfg. Fbzrguvat gung zvtug uryc va guvf ertneq zvtug or gb unir fbzr nqhyg cbvag bhg gung Dhveeryy unf punatrq fvapr gurl ynfg zrg uvz, rg prgren, nygubhtu ng 50 puncgref vg'f engure uneq gb chg gung va fzbbguyl naq vg jbhyq pbzr bss gb ernqref cerivbhfyl pbaivaprq gung Dhveeryy jnf abg Dhveeryyzbeg (jurgure sebz vaabprapr gb UC pnaba be whfg abg guvaxvat vg nccyvrq va guvf cnegvphyne fgbel) nf urnil-unaqrq sberfunqbjvat, naq gb ernqref jub unq haqrefgbbq gur znggre sebz rneyl ba vg jbhyq frrz gb or znxvat n cyrnfnagyl fhogyr cbvag gbb boivbhf.

The website hosting MoR now has a popup with audio when you go to it, so it is now NSFW.

Would Harry's patronus block any killing curse, or only one thrown by Quirrell?

With Chapters 55-56, I have some theories regarding Quirrell's true plan. He is Voldemort (or rather contains a piece of Voldemort) but we know he doesn't want Harry dead; he's had ample opportunity to simply murder Harry if that was the goal. I think rescuing Bellatrix is a distraction as well, really nothing more than a cover story or "fortunate side effect" of achieving the true goal. If rescuing Bellatrix was the true goal, he wouldn't have jeopardized the mission by attempting to murder the auror.

I think Quirrell's ultimate goal is the Dementation of Harry, probably in order to draw out Harry's dark side (which I think is the horcrux-fragment of Voldemort). He tried this at Hogwarts and it would have worked if not for Hermione's intervention. Since he was unlikely to be able to bring Dementors to Hogwarts a second time, he concluded that he'd have to bring Harry to Azkaban. The rescue plan is a cover story designed to persuade Harry into going to Azkaban--although I suppose Quirrell figured he might as well make the rescue target someone who could actually be useful to him/Voldemort if freed.

So basically Quirrell deliberately put himself out of commission, thinking that Harry would quickly fall prey to the Dementors in such a situation. The hole in my theory is that this seems like an all-or-nothing play: he's now revealed at least three pieces of important information to Harry (1. His own willingness to kill innocents; 2. The spell-clash aspect of their joined magics--which for my theory to be correct, Quirrell must already have known about; and 3. Quirrell's own insanely-high power level). These three pieces together are probably enough to make Harry suspect that Quirrell is an aspect of Voldemort, once he has the chance to think things through. Quirrell is subtle enough that he should have had a backup plan in place in order to retain Harry's trust in the event that Harry is not Demented, but I can't imagine what that might be. Maybe Quirrell's backup plan involves the Imperius Curse or memory charms or something. I'd say that "Kill Harry" would be the simplest and most obvious backup plan, but I think Voldemort wants/needs Harry alive.

Not a prediction so much as a guess: Bellatrix's Innervate charm did work on Quirrell. He's currently faking unconsciousness (and remaining in the form that gives himself some protection from the Dementors) as he waits to see whether Harry will or will not succumb to Dementation.

A few thoughts, just to go on record with them. As always, apologies if I'm repeating well-covered ground; I have not read all the comments on this thread, nor am I likely to. I would appreciate pointers to comments I ought to read, though.

Polyjuice, Bahry would have called it, if he'd thought that anyone could possibly do magic that delicate from inside someone else's body

OTOH, the same person is described in ch52 as

the... man Professor Quirrell had Polyjuiced into.

It's unclear whose voice that is in, but the same sentence describes the voice as "unfamiliar," which suggests we're getting Harry's POV rather than Word Of God. So Harry believes Quirrell Polyjuiced into this man.

So either: A. Harry is right, and Bahry is mistaken about what's possible while Polyjuiced. B. Bahry is right, and Harry is mistaken about what happened. C. They're both right, and something weird is happening. (E.g., Harry's companion is not actually doing magic as delicate as he appears to be doing, or some such thing.)

B seems most plausible to me, as Bahry ought to know about such things. The simplest explanation is that he isn't Polyjuiced at all -- the "sallow lanky bearded man" with the "low and gravelly" voice is Harry's companion's natural form. (Of course, there might be other means of changing his appearance that we've never heard of before, but that would be a cheap narrative trick.)

Which suggests he is not and never was the actual Quirrell. And also that he is not and never was anyone Harry would recognize (from pictures, from extrapolation in mirrors, etc.)

Professor Quirrell had pointed out that there was no plausible reason for him to be possessed by the shade of He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named.

So either: A. There is in fact no plausible reason for this. B. There is a plausible reason, but neither Quirrell nor Harry can think of one. C. There is a plausible reason, but Harry can't think of one, and Quirrell is pretending not to be able to think of one.

The most likely of those given the data I'm aware of is A. Which suggests that Professor Quirrell is not and never was possessed by Voldemort (ETA: er, I mean, by the shade of He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named).

Which is not to say that Harry's companion isn't or wasn't.

Re: 54:

Harry can still salvage the situation somewhat, if I understand the ending. They're going to know Bella escaped, but Harry can still put Quirrel in his pouch (since he's in snake form) and hide with Bella under the invisibility cloak, right? Or can Aurors see through the cloak in HP:MOR? I think in canon nobody can penetrate the Cloak's invisibility.

Chapters 51-54: bravo! Some of the best writing so far. My new favorite line from the fic: "it was a down payment on everything that Harry meant to accomplish with his life". I immediately had to rewatch the training montage from the 2008 film "Wanted" that starts at about 46:00 to get more of the same emotion.

To what extent can magic be used to make food that doesn't require killing?

Chap 65:

Harry's treatment of the different (agents?) in his head make me wonder about the MOR Horcrux mechanics and the possibility of making copies of a being. If the horcrux copying process is repetatively damaging, like analog copies of a wax cyinder recording, there would be a degradation in each stage, and the last horcrux, Harry would be the poorest copy. Or if each horcux was same-quality, there might have been only something like limitations on the first analog-digital conversion, and successive generations of copies might be exact, like digital-to-digital. The ability to copy consciousness is interesting. One can, a la Star Trek transporters, destroy the original to keep from having duplicates, you could let either the scanning process not destroy things, or you could make the construction process repeatable. High-fidelity digital reproduction make software and IP copies have constant marginal cost, and I wonder what that might mean for copies of consciousness.

If Voldemort can have a number of horcruxes, each of which can regenerate a new Voldy, why can't he generate multiple selves from them? Would a being with the ability to copy itself do so, or not? A team of Voldemorts, or post-horcrux-Voldemorts would be more powerful and resilient than a single one. Or is Voldemort too selfish to work with himself?

New chapter.

In the lack of Comed-Tea, I suggest taking a sip of something before the final line.

Regarding the fact that, at the start of the scene, Quirrell skips one of the thirty security Charms, the most straightforward explanation is that it was just the one preventing time-travel within the room, but could there have been a more devious purpose?

New Chapter: 50.

In part 3 of this thread people talked about the likely locations of 5 Horcruxes and the riddle that "Quirrell" mentions. Somebody mentioned the pun, the fact that canon!Voldemort's mother named him Tom Marvolo Riddle. I don't think anyone pointed out that he made himself the answer. 'What exists in every Greek or magical element?' Sounds like Tom Marvolo Riddle.

Canon!Voldemort infected historical artifacts with parts of himself because he valued, and wanted to see himself as the fruition of, the history of wizardry in general and Hogwarts in particular. (I think Rowling gave him a Gryffindor artifact in the form of Harry Potter in order to show that Voldemort's evil existed in some form throughout that history and no House escaped completely.) MoR!Voldemort probably also values magical history, but sees it as part of a vastly larger whole. So he distributed his backups throughout the elements of reality as pictured in magical history. In so doing he happened to corrupt the Pioneer 11 plaque, but any message there seems like a function of his desire to rule humanity at least as much as his alleged admiration for the Pioneer program. If EY decided to continue Rowling's metaphor, he probably locates the source of MoR!Voldemort's evil in reality itself, or values drawn from archaic thinking, or both.

I am happy to promote this fanfic on my blog, which, so far as I know, has no readers :)

In ch. 47 Harry teaches Draco how to cast a Patronus, but in ch. 48 he refuses to teach Hermione. Why?