Yeah, that’s the other side of the same complaint :-) I’m not complaining about Harry’s behavior, but about Eliezer putting so much macho posturing (and opportunities for it) into the story.
Well, the premise of the story necessitates that Harry be an eleven year old boy and that he be highly competent. Having people constantly underestimate him is a practically unavoidable consequence.
Harry could just quietly, secretly exceed people’s expectations, but when those people are his allies, it’s probably a poor strategic decision.
There is a little too much of that for my taste. There are plenty of other things going on as well in the story, enough of them to keep me interested, but the bits that seem to be just Ender’s Game don’t impress me. Being smart isn’t nearly that reliable at producing victory in battle; there are too many details of execution that matter tremendously, and there’s just generally too much unpredictable stuff going on. Admittedly, there have been historical generals who consistently won, but they always had some consistent edge that for some reason their enemies couldn’t fully duplicate or counter (higher technology being an obvious possibility, or perhaps ability to recruit soldiers from a population that already possessed useful, difficult to develop military skills not practiced elsewhere).
Harry hasn’t won consistently. He’s lost plenty of mock battles, and while he sometimes gets his way against adults, he’s sometimes thwarted. Harry also does have a couple advantages that can’t readily be replicated by other characters, namely his technological and scientific savvy, and the True Invisibility Cloak, and the time turner which can’t be replicated by most of his opponents.
Eliezer wrote ages ago that he gets people complaining that Harry wins too often and isn’t sufficiently challenged, and people complaining that he loses too often and doesn’t accomplish much, and considers himself to be doing his job properly if he’s at least getting similar amounts of each kind of complaint.
I think in this case it’s more an “I’m not as pathetic as you think I am” contest. Nobody’s going to mistake him for the best duelist in that group, but he’s not willing to concede complete inferiority. It’s certainly a status game, it just doesn’t rise to the level of “establish[ing] superiority”.
He gets the mechanism wrong though. In a real fight, Moody kills him or at the very least takes his toys away if he’s needed alive. There wouldn’t be any time-turned copies of him in the first place.
I bet a large portion of the readership would have been disappointed if that didn’t happen.
And in this particular case, that was the only fast way for Alastor to gain enough respect for Harry’s competence that they could cooperate in the future. It wouldn’t have been consistent with his already established paranoia if he just believed Dumbledore & co.
I can imagine this getting old eventually, but imo it hasn’t happened yet.
HP: Punch AM in snout to establish superiority.
Anyone else getting tired of this? Harry does it to everyone he meets, including Minerva and Hermione.
Everyone else: presume HP is inferior; withhold information.
I can see both sides of it.
Yeah, that’s the other side of the same complaint :-) I’m not complaining about Harry’s behavior, but about Eliezer putting so much macho posturing (and opportunities for it) into the story.
Well, the premise of the story necessitates that Harry be an eleven year old boy and that he be highly competent. Having people constantly underestimate him is a practically unavoidable consequence.
Harry could just quietly, secretly exceed people’s expectations, but when those people are his allies, it’s probably a poor strategic decision.
It’s okay, he’s just rewriting Ender’s Game.
There is a little too much of that for my taste. There are plenty of other things going on as well in the story, enough of them to keep me interested, but the bits that seem to be just Ender’s Game don’t impress me. Being smart isn’t nearly that reliable at producing victory in battle; there are too many details of execution that matter tremendously, and there’s just generally too much unpredictable stuff going on. Admittedly, there have been historical generals who consistently won, but they always had some consistent edge that for some reason their enemies couldn’t fully duplicate or counter (higher technology being an obvious possibility, or perhaps ability to recruit soldiers from a population that already possessed useful, difficult to develop military skills not practiced elsewhere).
Harry hasn’t won consistently. He’s lost plenty of mock battles, and while he sometimes gets his way against adults, he’s sometimes thwarted. Harry also does have a couple advantages that can’t readily be replicated by other characters, namely his technological and scientific savvy, and the True Invisibility Cloak, and the time turner which can’t be replicated by most of his opponents.
Eliezer wrote ages ago that he gets people complaining that Harry wins too often and isn’t sufficiently challenged, and people complaining that he loses too often and doesn’t accomplish much, and considers himself to be doing his job properly if he’s at least getting similar amounts of each kind of complaint.
He admits freely that Moody would have kicked his ass in a real fight, so I’m not sure how much actual superiority was established there.
Just because Harry’s learned to keep his claws sheathed doesn’t mean he’s not still engaging in dominance contests.
I think in this case it’s more an “I’m not as pathetic as you think I am” contest. Nobody’s going to mistake him for the best duelist in that group, but he’s not willing to concede complete inferiority. It’s certainly a status game, it just doesn’t rise to the level of “establish[ing] superiority”.
Moody set it as a condition for being able to speak as an equal.
He gets the mechanism wrong though. In a real fight, Moody kills him or at the very least takes his toys away if he’s needed alive. There wouldn’t be any time-turned copies of him in the first place.
Stable time loops are sort of a problem for what-if scenarios—it’s sufficiently hard to make up one, coming up with alternates isn’t always possible.
I bet a large portion of the readership would have been disappointed if that didn’t happen.
And in this particular case, that was the only fast way for Alastor to gain enough respect for Harry’s competence that they could cooperate in the future. It wouldn’t have been consistent with his already established paranoia if he just believed Dumbledore & co.
I can imagine this getting old eventually, but imo it hasn’t happened yet.
Yes, but its fun to watch.
It happens a lot, but you wouldn’t expect it to happen only a LITTLE with a super intelligent 11 year old.