Does anyone else find it implausible that Quirrell would both act upon the latest prophecy moments after hearing it and act as though he interpreted it in the most literal sense possible? To suppose that he is acting out of concern when speaking to McGonagall is to accept that this is what he does.
Yet, it has been made explicit in HPMoR that prophecies are riddles addressed to the one who hears it. Quirrell knows this. I thus find it unlikely that he would jump on the first ″obvious″ literal interpretation rather than ponder the riddle.
Not to mention that if Quirrell did embrace the line about the world ending in the most explosive, catastrophic and literal sense possible, and that it alarmed him, it would be foolish of him to say nothing of the prophecy. And Quirrell—we know that at least—is not foolish.
So, if the prophecy about the end of the world is a riddle, what could be its answer?
My hypotheses so far:
Harry tries to revive Hermione, and the knowledge he acquires in order to do so (whether or not he succeeds) lets him solve the riddle of what magic is/how it is ruled. He chooses to make that knowledge public, thus changing the face of the magical world to those who live it it. (50% estimate)
Harry will succeed in actually cheating death, and either as a result or through the means he employs to do it, this will affect the source of magic in a way that will change some of its features. (40% estimate)
Harry does not succeed in reviving Hermione, and this somehow ends up in the world catching on fire. (5% estimate).
Harry is not the one whom the prophecy refers to. It could be Snape, for example. (2% estimate).
So, if the prophecy about the end of the world is a riddle, what could be its answer?
The only outcome I’ve found any hints for so far is the intelligence amplification hypothesis. The last time Harry brainstormed ways to achieve ultimate power, mind magic was first on the list. And he was recently heard to say ‘I will change and be less stupid’. IA breaks the plot, though, and leaves the author with a character he can’t write, so I’m not hugely confident of it.
Clarification/nitpick: I’m sure Eliezer could create a character, tell us that it was smarter than him, and have most of us accept that, or at least lull us to suspending our disbelief. This isn’t quite the same thing as writing a character who’s smarter than him.
Okay, I see I’ve been using words in an idiosyncratic way, so I’ll just dump out my thoughts on the subject, most of which came from Eliezer’s author notes:
To write a character successfully, you need to show that character acting in ways in which it would be plausible for them to act. To write a character who’s smarter than you—who would plausibly choose courses of action and speak lines of dialog that wouldn’t occur to you—you need to cheat. Smarter-than-Author-Intelligences can think faster and remember more, but they can’t be better than you at seeing the connections between the facts at their command. If they’re Emmett Brown, they can invent amazing technologies, but the scientific explanations for them will be gibberish. If they’re Sherlock Holmes, they reach startling and true conclusions on the strength of bad evidence.
The movie Gattaca is full of artificially-selected superbeings who never speak a single witty line. That’s the difference between a character who’s supposed to be smart and a character who’s successfully written that way, between telling and showing. Eliezer may have intended for Quirrell to be smarter than him in some sense, but he hasn’t been written that way, because he couldn’t have been.
Unless all you meant by ‘horsepower’ was thinking speed, in which case you might be right. Dunno.
I did mean thinking speed. Note the exchange where Harry blames Quirrell for not thinking of stuff in time, and Quirrell retorts that even smart people miss stuff and need time to reach their conclusions. An author has usually much more time than the characters and the benefit of controlling the world entirely, so he can make the characters more intelligent than him in that they’re able to think faster and better under pressure, and that they’re able to legitimately draw the right conclusions from the evidence that’s been left available to them.
Does anyone else find it implausible that Quirrell would both act upon the latest prophecy moments after hearing it and act as though he interpreted it in the most literal sense possible? To suppose that he is acting out of concern when speaking to McGonagall is to accept that this is what he does.
Yet, it has been made explicit in HPMoR that prophecies are riddles addressed to the one who hears it. Quirrell knows this. I thus find it unlikely that he would jump on the first ″obvious″ literal interpretation rather than ponder the riddle.
Not to mention that if Quirrell did embrace the line about the world ending in the most explosive, catastrophic and literal sense possible, and that it alarmed him, it would be foolish of him to say nothing of the prophecy. And Quirrell—we know that at least—is not foolish.
So, if the prophecy about the end of the world is a riddle, what could be its answer?
My hypotheses so far:
Harry tries to revive Hermione, and the knowledge he acquires in order to do so (whether or not he succeeds) lets him solve the riddle of what magic is/how it is ruled. He chooses to make that knowledge public, thus changing the face of the magical world to those who live it it. (50% estimate)
Harry will succeed in actually cheating death, and either as a result or through the means he employs to do it, this will affect the source of magic in a way that will change some of its features. (40% estimate)
Harry does not succeed in reviving Hermione, and this somehow ends up in the world catching on fire. (5% estimate).
Harry is not the one whom the prophecy refers to. It could be Snape, for example. (2% estimate).
The only outcome I’ve found any hints for so far is the intelligence amplification hypothesis. The last time Harry brainstormed ways to achieve ultimate power, mind magic was first on the list. And he was recently heard to say ‘I will change and be less stupid’. IA breaks the plot, though, and leaves the author with a character he can’t write, so I’m not hugely confident of it.
People seem to have had an easy enough time writing a convincing CelestiAI.
Clarification/nitpick: I’m sure Eliezer could create a character, tell us that it was smarter than him, and have most of us accept that, or at least lull us to suspending our disbelief. This isn’t quite the same thing as writing a character who’s smarter than him.
I suspect that at least Quirrell is smarter than him, when it comes to pure mental horsepower.
Okay, I see I’ve been using words in an idiosyncratic way, so I’ll just dump out my thoughts on the subject, most of which came from Eliezer’s author notes:
To write a character successfully, you need to show that character acting in ways in which it would be plausible for them to act. To write a character who’s smarter than you—who would plausibly choose courses of action and speak lines of dialog that wouldn’t occur to you—you need to cheat. Smarter-than-Author-Intelligences can think faster and remember more, but they can’t be better than you at seeing the connections between the facts at their command. If they’re Emmett Brown, they can invent amazing technologies, but the scientific explanations for them will be gibberish. If they’re Sherlock Holmes, they reach startling and true conclusions on the strength of bad evidence.
The movie Gattaca is full of artificially-selected superbeings who never speak a single witty line. That’s the difference between a character who’s supposed to be smart and a character who’s successfully written that way, between telling and showing. Eliezer may have intended for Quirrell to be smarter than him in some sense, but he hasn’t been written that way, because he couldn’t have been.
Unless all you meant by ‘horsepower’ was thinking speed, in which case you might be right. Dunno.
I did mean thinking speed. Note the exchange where Harry blames Quirrell for not thinking of stuff in time, and Quirrell retorts that even smart people miss stuff and need time to reach their conclusions. An author has usually much more time than the characters and the benefit of controlling the world entirely, so he can make the characters more intelligent than him in that they’re able to think faster and better under pressure, and that they’re able to legitimately draw the right conclusions from the evidence that’s been left available to them.
Then we don’t disagree on anything except word choice. Hooray! Upvotes all around.
So that’s how you get high karma, is it?