I don’t think the chapter was supposed to be a slam-dunk answer. I thought it was supposed to be the beginning of an example (implied to be an extended process of character development) showing how reading an incomplete story can mislead you on specific points. I’m somewhat torn about this, because if everything the author writes leads you to one conclusion, he doesn’t get to complain when you believe it. This holds true even if the work is already finished, because he doesn’t get to make people finish reading. But I do tentatively expect later chapters to change the current anti-feminist message.
Quite possibly Eliezer did miss something. For example, female billionaire J.K. Rowling said, “Hermione is a caricature of what I was when I was 11”. Eliezer used her characters and world to (correctly) argue for his philosophy and against hers. He has frequently snarked at her. He made some readers ask why he was making her caricature sillier in the S.P.H.E.W. arc, and so inferior to his own altered stand-in. I don’t know if he’s thought these events through. Nor do I know what it would mean to miss this, as an author.
At the same time, I think I completely disagree about the treatment of McGonagall in this chapter. Harry is the one giving a factually incorrect apology. And I do think she’ll show more competence after this, subject to the constraint of being in a story where children save/end the world. (TV Tropes link removed for your protection.)
I don’t think the chapter was supposed to be a slam-dunk answer. I thought it was supposed to be the beginning of an example (implied to be an extended process of character development) showing how reading an incomplete story can mislead you on specific points. I’m somewhat torn about this, because if everything the author writes leads you to one conclusion, he doesn’t get to complain when you believe it. This holds true even if the work is already finished, because he doesn’t get to make people finish reading. But I do tentatively expect later chapters to change the current anti-feminist message.
Quite possibly Eliezer did miss something. For example, female billionaire J.K. Rowling said, “Hermione is a caricature of what I was when I was 11”. Eliezer used her characters and world to (correctly) argue for his philosophy and against hers. He has frequently snarked at her. He made some readers ask why he was making her caricature sillier in the S.P.H.E.W. arc, and so inferior to his own altered stand-in. I don’t know if he’s thought these events through. Nor do I know what it would mean to miss this, as an author.
At the same time, I think I completely disagree about the treatment of McGonagall in this chapter. Harry is the one giving a factually incorrect apology. And I do think she’ll show more competence after this, subject to the constraint of being in a story where children save/end the world. (TV Tropes link removed for your protection.)