Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality discussion thread, part 27, chapter 98

Where it goes from here: If the enemy actually wants to defeat this coalition, nothing happens. This is a temporary alliance against an outside threat, and if said threat goes away, the alliance will probably collapse of its own accord. (It may bring some lasting changes to the leadership of Hogwarts, but people will chafe against the strict security, and old and new grudges will emerge, and the coalition will break.)

If the enemy has been breeding Harry/Draco as the future leader of Magical Britain (much more likely), they will continue to attack or otherwise be active, probably conceding many victories to the new Kids' Coalition.

And its elite SS (Silver Slytherin) troops?

It reads like a very forced solution - there would be significant gains to one noble house going against the tradition, so their heir could have several years of Hogwarts students rally behind them - and also kind of impossible to implement, given that we don't know much about their birth control methods, and the Noble Houses are unlikely to all marry at the same time etc.

That said, the HP universe which Eliezer took on as his setting is full of such bugs, and this is a reasonable patch.

I see it as a solution to the latter, but the former? I'd heard rather the opposite problem.

I think that people may be confused as to what's happening with this announcement.

The early phase details of the agreement were negotiated first between Harry and Lucius. Harry represented house Potter here because he's the entirety of house Potter. Lucius negotiated with Harry because Harry (as the boy who lived) has a lot of clout and credibility and he offered to throw that behind Draco. On an emotional level, HP also offers revenge against whoever attacked Draco and the possibility of revenge against Dumbledore.

Step two, the adults negotiate amongst themselves. In this second phase Lucius goes to the board of Governors with the agreement he and Harry made as a starting point.

The Knott and Greengrass votes are naturally inclined to go with Malfoy by faction alliance. Knott is also incentivized to go with the plan for other reasons. His son is a friend and chief lieutenant of Harry Potter. That's a potentially very valuable connection, but its a connection that can't be used when the votes are split death eater v Dumbledore. Realignment effectively "monetized" that asset. Greengrass doesn't have that and so asks for a few sweeteners on its deal. Also, the plan reduces their children's risk of death which is a non trivial inducement.

Bones runs the aurors. That's a strong base, but the aurors are generally kept out of Hogwarts, which was previously described as an invincible fortress. This puts her people inside Hogwarts which expands her domain of influence. While she probably wouldn't be willing to do that at the expense of being kicked from the order faction to the death eater faction, its worth it if she gets to keep most of the same allies (which she does via Harry) while isolating Juergen and other of her more extreme opponents. Also, the plan reduces the childrens' risk of death which is a non trivial inducement.

Neville inherits the Longbottom vote when he turns 18, so Longbottom is in Harry's camp in the long run and so his aunt has reason to at least reap the benefits of being on Harry's side since they pay the costs regardless. Like Bones she benefits from isolating extremists like Juergen. Based on her comments in prior chapters both at the war game and about QQs speech she favors a higher level of military readiness and is getting that from this deal.

So once the adults agree on the deal. Why announce it this way vs some other way?

An announcement through official channels goes through Dumbledore. Bypassing that contributes to sidelining / undermining Dumbledore, so Malfoy has a clear interest in the announcement through non official channels.

For Bones and Longbottom an announcement from the board has the two of them seen as going along with house Malfoy. Given their current alliances this would be damaging and bad for their images. By having the children give the boards's announcement right on the heel of an announcement by Harry and Draco the optics are that Draco is bringing the Greengrass / Knott votes and Harry is bringing the Bones / Longbottom votes. This allows them to maintain the optics of their factional alliance. They are seen as Harry's votes rather than as Malfoys votes.

Greengrass and Knott are in similar situations. As parts of Malfoys faction they also benefit from sidelining Dumbledore. They are lesser houses than Malfoy and are voting with Malfoy and are seen to be voting with Malfoy. Their houses get much more visibility and 'airtime' with this plan than if the board announced a vote. The chapter notes that it had all been negotiated and rehearsed and that the prominent role Daphne got was one of the carrots thrown to Greengrass.

Basically it happens this way because it is in the parents interests for it to happen this way.

Harry and Draco make a power play to illustrate that they can make the anouncements and Dumbledore doesn't have the power.

Because these are children who have been force-matured by both becoming (kind of fake) child soldiers and death, because the agreement specifically was created by two of said children, because all of the parents have other things to do, because the children are already there, because part of the theme of the first half of this story if you remember was "Children are people too, and not subhuman simply because of their age".

Susan Bones is giving the Aurors orders because it is her Aunt that runs the Auror office. She's basically the stand-in. The kids are the few actually sane people in Hogwarts.

this also rubbed me hella wrong.

This also bothered me- no matter what reasoning I read here, I'll still regard this scene in the same light as the now removed scene where Harry Potter walks up to the Sorting Ceremony while the Weasley Twins play the freaking Ghost Busters theme.

Probably a plot hole, but I'll try to fill it in: Harry is trying to build alliances that will last among the children rather than their parents, and Lucius appreciates Draco having a moment of glory. Between them, they can get whatever the hell they want in terms of symbolic gestures from their 'allies'.

The alliance is so far just in the Hogwarts board, not in the Wizengamot. Perhaps they feel it's a limited alliance with a limited purpose, and can be broken off if the purpose at hand changes - safety of the students in Hogwarts.

Even so, I agree that we haven't seen what exactly the people outside Lucius's faction and the House of Greengrass got as an inducement to enter the alliance.

I've felt like the whole story is too fast, but there are apparently reasons EY wanted to cram the story into a single year. To have only one defense professor? To avoid having to deal with Harry's sex life? I'm not quite sure what all the reasons are (I imagine they're multiple, and that some have probably been mentioned by EY and I'm forgetting), but while I think I would have preferred having Harry develop over 7 years as in canon instead of solving everything as an 11 year old, it's obvious that as the story is actually set up some things just are going to have to happen implausibly quickly.

This is just starting. Harry has little formal power right now; ditto Draco. And while this alliance is landmark and a place to start, it's also for the explicit purpose of dealing with Mr. Childkiller - it won't hold up under any other circumstance, half the people still loathe each other, etc.

This is a very important move, but it's nowhere near the last one.

I think it's partly a matter of moving the story along so we can finally get to the end.

Hypothesis: Perhaps the alliance is temporary, and to limited aims, at this point? Less likely from a narrative standpoint, but from a suspension-of-disbelief perspective maybe the Imperius Curse is about.

In the first possibility it would be less about Hermoine's death, and more about the behind-the-scenes balance of power having drastically shifted (though the death makes a nice pretext) and about the threats and concessions we haven't seen yet making it possible. In the second, this would be I Notice I am Confused, part two.

From an OOC perspective I doubt either sadly, but from an IC perspective we can't rule it out yet.

Well, regardless of whatever other plotting among each other, all participants actually do have a very good reason to join—their kids still go to Hogwarts, they want to keep them safe but at the same time groom them to inherit the family fortunes, and as was pointed out explicitly in the chapter, there are still good reasons, both politically and for safety, not to go to the other schools. An (at least temporary) alliance for the protection of their children is actually quite logical for all concerned.

I wonder if this will somehow play into Quirrell's plot to have both Ravenclaw and Slytherin win the house cup.

I think the moratorium on house point is one of the most important details this chapter. I'd been wondering for a long time how QQ would have both Slytherin and Ravenclaw win the house cup. The points lock seems to be a way to make that happen.

The reason that's so important is that it means this is part of the plan. Harry, Draco and the rest are all in place playing their assigned roles. If they had gone off script, then they wouldn't be advancing QQ's scheme.

I'm just imagining the professors' frustration: "Well done, , and five points for AAAAGHHH CURSE YOU HARRY!"

I thought Rowling was actually moving toward something of the kind, questioning the house system and bringing back together the houses under one roof in the persons of Harry, Ron, Hermione, and Neville.

"The first thing that comes to mind is that this is probably part of Quirrell's plot to set up Harry as Light Lord..."

If it's as patently ridiculous as his plot to invent a fake Dark Lord who publicly reveals himself and challenges Harry to a fake public duel where he casts a fake Avada Kedavra that fake-backfires just so Harry can spend summer vacation at home, then I sure hope not.

I agree that it's important and has serious consequences, but what is the puzzle?

Wrong thread

(He's already too clever for a 10-year old, but Harry is far too clever for a 10-year-old, so fair's fair.)

More like a 12-year old now.

I can imagine an alternate HPMoR in which instead of Hermione, Harry had died--preferably later in the story, say at a false climax in the middle of a full-scale war--and Hermione and Draco had to step up to being the protagonists. Possibly I'm just getting tired of Harry's perfection, but seeing them develop towards what Harry is now seems to have more potential drama than seeing Harry develop anywhere (that can be portrayed in fiction and understood by a wide audience) from where he is already.

You're not a Qrngu Abgr (rot13) fan by any chance, are you?

Even ignoring the rest of the post, the idea of a Green Slytherin based off of Avada Kedavra is interesting for many reasons.

Let's look at some of the implications:

• Avada Kedavra and the Patronus Charm (2.0) are basically mutually exclusive. In order to cast the first, you must want someone dead for the sake of being dead, and in order to cast the latter you must value all life to the point of denying death altogether.

• Avada Kedavra and the Patronus Charm (2.0) cancel each other out. We saw this in Azkaban, and at the time we probably assumed it was just a result of Quirrell and Harry's magic going out of control, but on closer inspection it seems that both simply destroy the other, matter and antimatter style, which makes sense considering what type of magic they are created from. A magically created preference for death over life, and a magically created preference for life over death.

• They both also follow the political lines, as you mention above. Avada Kedavra is more likely to be known and cast by those desperate for someone to hate, and the True Patronus is more likely to be cast by those who are trying to cooperate, simply because those mindsets are more likely to lead to those specific preferences.

• Now that I think about it, the two groups are also the 'Cooperators' and the 'Defectors' in the Prisoner's Dilemma.

• The interesting question is if they are going to devolve into standard Green vs Blue political idiocy. If Harry has a controlling power, they may not, but I don't think Draco has progressed enough as a rationalist to be able to avoid all those old lessons yet.

There is probably more here, but I need to sit down and think for five minutes, and do a quick read through of the archives.

First-years can't cast AK for reasons of raw magical power, so an organization of first-years can't use the Killing Curse as a membership criteria.

I like the thought, because awesome complications & pattern-matching. I also really hope it doesn't exist. It seems more likely that Jugson would have started such a faction.

My guess is computer hardware and a source of electricity, so he can finally get started on one of those big projects to gain large amounts of personal power / resources.

The economy-disrupting arbitrage scheme was introduced as early as chapter 4. Lots of money would have helped Harry in pretty much every arc. He could think of many, many other schemes to help him finally start world optimisation in earnest. But he never did that. In story logic, he never got round to doing it due to interference from all sides. In writing logic, this can only happen in the final arc because otherwise, the story will be known as "Harry Potter gets really rich" and cease to be about the methods of rationality anymore.

That doesn't necessarily point to computer hardware, but chapter 87 mentions them as a powerful tool that wizards lack ("If there's a money-making method in this book that sounds difficult for a wizard, but it's easy if we can use Dad's old Mac Plus, then we'd have a plan.") and I have a hard time thinking about world optimisation plans that wouldn't benefit from at least some sensible organisation of data, scheduling and on-the-fly printing.

Most of the ideas listed so far are either much too nasty, better done with magic, or both. Mostly both. So, what contingencies could Harry procure from the world for a reasonably modest amount of money that do things he cannot just transfigure, or do by wand, and which the twins would not recognize?

First thing that comes to mind are various non-lethal drugs, since those are going into the targets body, which means transfiguration is out if you want the subject to live. So, LSD (lethal dose absurdly higher than effective dose. .which is useful if you want to dose a crowd) Tranquilizers think this fits on all counts?

Lets see, what else would it be a bad idea/impractical to transfigure. Muggle photography gear? But the twins would recognize that.

Smoke grenades. (Not subject to finite, a counter for every spell that requires you to see your target.)

Protective kit good enough to count as valid precautions for transfiguration stunts.. would break the budget given.

Id say bugging kit, but a purely mechanical recording device would be a museum piece, and cabinet size..

1) A nuclear device

You can't buy nuclear or other WMDs for a hundred Galleons. And the instruction implied buying, not to stealing (and what wizard capable of stealing nuclear warheads would want or need such a paltry payment?)

More to the point, Harry - or any wizard - can just Transfigure WMDs. Quick, free, and no need to carry dangerous stuff around.

He can also Transfigure antimatter. If he can come up with a reliable remote trigger, that is gram per gram the deadliest thing known to Muggle science. It was also foreshadowed a bit (chapter 14):

Say, Professor McGonagall, did you know that time-reversed ordinary matter looks just like antimatter? Why yes it does! Did you know that one kilogram of antimatter encountering one kilogram of matter will annihilate in an explosion equivalent to 43 million tons of TNT? Do you realise that I myself weigh 41 kilograms and that the resulting blast would leave A GIANT SMOKING CRATER WHERE THERE USED TO BE SCOTLAND?

2) Some other form of muggle weapon

As above for any weapon I can think of. Antimatter and nuclear weapons trump any area-effect attack. Poisons and biological or chemical agents can be Transfigured too, unless you need them to last for a long time before acting. Magic trumps Muggle personal weapons. ETA: not Harry's magic, though, and guns can be useful against weak or unprepared wizards. Electronics, computers, and software are Sirs Not Appearing In This Fanfic.

Ingredients for a magical ritual/potion which will resurrect Hermione if the main plan fails

Interesting. An irreplaceable Muggle artifact that was created by expending life in some manner, so sacrificing it would release "life energy"? I think though that defeating Death in such a purely magical would not be appropriate for Harry.

And the acid from the previous chapter.

I don't see a particular advantage to those things. Quirrel doesn't fear a single nuclear weapon -- Voldemort can survive such a thing -- he fears nuclear annihilation or MAD, which is a separate matter and not much overlapped with an individual bomb. Muggle weapons are useful and a matter that might require someone to go outside of the country to get... but even a firearm requires training that Harry doesn't have, and can not kill a Dementor or a Troll. Where firearms could threaten the average unaware Wizard, we've seen that most major players are aware of firearms (including McGonagall, Dumbledore, and Snape, see chapter 61), and thus it would not likely fall under things that a Muggle Expert's sons would not recognize.

And the set of things that Rationalist!Harry knows can resurrect someone is very, very small, and not much overlapped with the Muggle world. Most rituals and potions require ingredients that already have significant magical power.

The "things that Fred and George can't recognize" is an interesting set. Canon!ArthurWeasley isn't very knowledgeable, but he at least had an interesting in electrical power, heavy-than-air non-magical flight, and chemical fueled engines. I think we can expect him to be of similar intelligence or smarter in MoR. It's possible that he's better at hiding his interest in Muggle technology or that Rationalist!Harry intentionally wrote non-standard descriptions for the items, but that seems unlikely. ((We're also taking 1990-ish tech, so some 'obvious' stuff from today either didn't exist or would exceed his budget.))

The first thought is dry ice, and the tools necessary to maintain it. Rationalist!Harry has broken several rules of transfiguration, including "don't burn anything", but the ability to transfigure CO2 is probably the easiest way to 'safely' violate that rule, not terribly expensive, but not within his normal abilities to easily produce otherwise.

I'm thinking sulfuric acid?

Don't forget Space Stuff.

Well, we know that the Weasley twins don't recognize anything on the list, and since older muggle technology has a way of gradually seeping into the wizarding world, it's not likely to be anything developed too recently. It also probably isn't something that an Oxford professor would be able to obtain inconspicuously, or else Harry would probably just ask his father. (Though it still might be something his father could obtain at the cost of drawing attention to himself, and Harry just doesn't want anyone to guess that said purchase was really for him.) Anything electronic is unlikely, as we've seen no foreshadowing that Harry has invented a way to make electronics work near magic. So I looked through some timelines of important inventions, starting with the 1920's, for anything that might be remotely useful for a young magical inventor to have. My results:

Tommy guns, lie detector machines, jetpacks, polaroids, radar, photocopiers, LSD, teflon, electron Microscopes, slinkies, silly Putty, submachine guns, nuclear weapons, velcro, rocket-Propelled Grenades, super Glue, various antibiotics, fiber optics, lasers, halogen Lamps, kevlar, high-temperature superconductors, various chemical weapons and poisons,

Harry mentions that someone would likely have to go out of the country to obtain some of the items on his list. The only items on my list which would be difficult to obtain on short notice in Britain would be weapons and body armor, owing to strict UK gun laws; this makes it likely that Harry is looking for weaponry. Can anyone else think of a non-electronic 20th century muggle invention that would be difficult to obtain in the UK but not overseas?

Plastic explosive.

I'd assumed it would be a variety of muggle items that were generally useful but hard to get, rather than preparations for any one specific thing. My "mental image" was basically a chemistry set, since Harry probably knows some tricks that require specific chemicals that you can't get at a normal shop because most people don't want them.

That wouldn't require going outside Britain, though. Something illegal or highly controlled, like Izeinwinter's suggestion of LSD, or the weapons a lot of other people are suggesting. I don't /think/ Harry would go for warheads, but guns maybe.

I was thinking it could be something for cryonics.

A nuclear device was the first thing I thought of as well, but I'd expect obtaining the parts to be prohibitively difficult for any plausible contacts. Stealing a finished warhead would probably be easier. But it's not that much easier, and either way I can't think of any plausible motive: the wizarding world and the Muggle world are so intertwined that MAD is quite problematic. Nor are there many plausible targets; the wizarding population is so spread out that a single warhead couldn't do much that couldn't be done far more easily, less disruptively, and with less collateral damage using a truck full of ANFO or something. Azkaban may be one; I can't think of any others.

On the other hand, Muggle weapons or controlled substances of some kind (perhaps dangerous chemicals?) seem quite likely. Britain's a wealthy first-world country with plenty of international trade going on; if you've got enough money on hand, about the only reason you'd need to leave the country to get something is if it's not legally for sale.

Are "communication mirrors" supposed to be a big secret of the Aurors that Harry wouldn't have been able to learn about otherwise? I doubt it.

It's relevant that Dumbledore had it pointed out to him that mirrors could have saved Hermione, and he didn't procure them for Harry and Neville

Given that Harry talks with the Defense Professor about how the magicial world works and reads a lot of books I find it unlikely that Dumbledore would think that Harry doesn't know about the mirrors.

Atlas Shrugged spends a sizable period of time criticizing the flaws of Comte's positivism, considering it destruction of the ego and involuntary servitude for the sake of psuedo-Catholic guilt-based mysticism. The twins' thought processes echo Comte's ethics system very heavily, as do the Weasleys in general: they'd do anything for Rationalist!Harry without asking payment because they consider him worth serving without regard for themselves.

The resulting rule morality is directly in conflict with Rationalist!Harry's desire for preference utilitarianism, in addition to being rather risky on its own level.

Rand's Objectivism identifies reasons to do things without cash payment, despite the pop history version of her viewpoints. See Dagny and Galt, or for a platonic version (despite the HoYay) D'Antonio and Rearden. But that's done because you think the other person or their requires are worth the cost.

Yvain's All Debates are Bravery Debates might be useful to read here. (and possibly inspired that). Basically, Harry thinks that it would be healthy for the twins to realize that they don't have to be selfless all the time, always. Yvain writes that he had met someone who had been raised in a family that demanded ridiculous selflessness and reading Rand changed his life.

Harry thinks they're too selfless?

See http://www.reddit.com/r/HPMOR/comments/1l8dpa/chapter_98_is_out_spoilers_in_comments/cbwrxho

Eliezer answers on r/HPMOR.

It might be a typo for 'anent'?

I think that it's fine, but Reddit is correct: it shouldn't take ‘to’.

ETA: And also, it's redundant.

That's one of the common interpretations, yes.

That's been my interpretation for a while, at least with Quirrell developing Harry to be his new host - take over the body of he who saves the rest of the magical world, from you.

I think this or something very close to it is strongly likely to be correct; so much so that at this point, I'm very close to shifting the question to the level of whether, univat tebbzrq Uneel nf n fgebat prageny yrnqre sbe zntvpny Oevgnva, uvf vagragvba vf gb npgviryl pynvz cbffrffvba bs Uneel, be jurgure ur jvyy or fngvfsvrq nf gur cbjre oruvaq Ehyre! Uneel'f guebar juvyr ur crefbanyyl tbrf nobhg chefhvat vzzbegnyvgl.

Hmmm. I figured Quirrell tricked Dumbledore into assigning the Troll as the Defense Professor when Dumbledore opened the wards for Quirrell. Maybe it was Dumbledore doing the tricking.

I tried imagining how this might work, including thinking about how the mirror works, and this got me to revise my probability that the mirror would respond well to Quirrell downward. Assuming Quirrelmort and that Harry's Dark Side is a reflection of Voldemort's feelings on death (which are big assumptions, but they seem likely to be correct), I don't think Quirrell would be recognized by the mirror as someone who both wanted the stone but did not want to use it (Voldemort killed people to save himself from death, dark side is terribly afraid of death and is known for using whatever resources it can, etc). (The key question is whether oclumency works on the mirror, but given that canon Dumbledore placed this security mechanism himself, according to him, I think the defense professor would be as uncertain as we are about Oclumency's efficacy.)

What following the idea "How to retrieve the stone?" did turn up, though, was a parallel to canon, with Harry's dark side suggesting he "Use the boy." The question is which boy (Neville is the main candidate sticking in my mind, but I'm not sure why; maybe because he's the only boy in Harry's camp that seems likely to wind up in such a situation who might not want to use the stone? Most obvious candidates (Draco, maybe Ron?) seem like they'd have motivation to use it.).

I think I know which one you are talking about; the one in which one of the students acts like Speedy Gonzales, right? I can't find it either. I suspect it was "Harry Potter and Selective Perception", which has since been deleted. If you're lucky, Gwern will have happened to archive it through his casual browsing.

I don't think you need to rot13 this, simply because the various notions in your post have been openly discussed in this and past threads quite a lot. Also because when I see "D-Zbeg", I instantly parse it as "Dr Zoidberg", so now thanks to you I have an uneraseable mental association between Quirrell and said character.

Evil Overlord List, revised edition:

After discovering the secret to immortality, I will not share it with the world's third most powerful wizard (or so), no matter how certain I am of her loyalty to me, or of her ability to keep secrets. The worst case scenario then is having to train up a new powerful lieutenant, rather than having to kill an immortal ex-lieutenant or trying to contain the secret once it's out.

If Bellatrix was that important, Voldemort could have just ensured she wasn't sent to Azkaban to avoid the problems Velorien points out. More likely, the importance only came later and Voldemort decided on a quick ret-con.

her flesh is what's important-for the revival ritual (IF that's why quirrelmort broke her out, which is quite likely.). she doesn't have a servant of her own to revive her with, so getting her a horcrux would be of no use.

In canon, Apparition becomes unreliable across long distances (as in, very few people could reliably travel to another country by Apparating, and even less (no one ?) to another continent). If this is true in HPMoR universe, then Apparate to the Pioneer plaque is out of question.

Harry can't apparate yet, nor can he learn to for a few years, since it seems to be based on strength of magic rather than skill. Unless he makes some partial-transfiguration-style physics deduction he won't be able to apparate across a room, nevermind across the solar system.

I can't parse that. Did you misword something?

Could you clarify what point you are trying to make with this observation?

As for trying to draw inferences from canon incantations, that way madness lies. It seems beyond reasonable doubt that JK Rowling just used pseudo-Latinish words that fit the desired meaning, as is not unusual for a certain kind of children's fantasy story. There's little to indicate that she chose them based on some deeper historical or other reasoning.

For what it's worth, the Harry Potter Wiki claims that the Cruciatus Curse was invented in the Early Middle Ages, though it does not cite its sources.

Jokes's on Harry, by the time he revives Hermione, the difference in maturity level will make a continued friendship impossible.

First question- Given the facts in the HPMOR universe, why do you think Hermoine's death is inevitable?

Second question- Why do you not take the criticism of mourning as merely a form of signalling into account? Harry could easily argue that if he did mourn and move on he is being disloyal to Hermoine if there is even a 1% chance of sucess.

Third question- Even if you ignore all that, isn't actually investigating more important right now than mourning? Whoever killed Hermoine could be a long-term enemy- even if they aren't, bringing them to justice is almost certainly a Good Thing and given Harry's cunning a worthy use of his time.