Further bonus trivia: 108 is the number of worldly sins according to Buddhism. Given that this is heavily referenced in anime and manga, which Eliezer enjoys, the fact that it’s the chapter in which Voldemort’s backstory is revealed is unlikely to be coincidental.
Actually, he wouldn’t be the first author to deliberately pace his work to achieve this effect. The Death Note manga, for example, is exactly 108 chapters long.
Also, look at how short the previous chapters were. If he were stretching it out so that this one would be 108, this is what I would expect it to look like.
That’s really interesting and definitely helps your case. My main beef is that, opposite Vaniver, I think that there have been quite a few scenes that could be argued to be related to worldly sins to the same degree, and so this is not very different from what random chance would look like.
On the other hand, HPMOR is filled to the brim with pop culture references including anime and manga, from the omakes to things like the Breaking Drill Hex, the Tragedy of Light, Fuyuki City, “a young Japanese” with self-replication powers, and part of Tracey’s summoning incantation. This raises the priors for something that looks like another Japanese pop culture reference not being coincidental.
A year and a half ago, I predicted on this basis that there would be 108 chapters total.
I was wrong, but another piece of evidence against coincidence is that the lower bound on horcruxes makes for the second instance of 107 in Eliezer’s fiction. The first is here, as follows:
The wise fool gave the young genie exactly one hundred and seven precautions to follow while making people happy. The wise fool thought that, with such a long list as that, he was being very careful.
Further bonus trivia: 108 is the number of worldly sins according to Buddhism. Given that this is heavily referenced in anime and manga, which Eliezer enjoys, the fact that it’s the chapter in which Voldemort’s backstory is revealed is unlikely to be coincidental.
Aaaaand there were 107 horcruxes (meaning 107 murders) before he stopped keeping count.
I think it is highly likely to be coincidental :P
Actually, he wouldn’t be the first author to deliberately pace his work to achieve this effect. The Death Note manga, for example, is exactly 108 chapters long.
Also, look at how short the previous chapters were. If he were stretching it out so that this one would be 108, this is what I would expect it to look like.
That’s really interesting and definitely helps your case. My main beef is that, opposite Vaniver, I think that there have been quite a few scenes that could be argued to be related to worldly sins to the same degree, and so this is not very different from what random chance would look like.
On the other hand, HPMOR is filled to the brim with pop culture references including anime and manga, from the omakes to things like the Breaking Drill Hex, the Tragedy of Light, Fuyuki City, “a young Japanese” with self-replication powers, and part of Tracey’s summoning incantation. This raises the priors for something that looks like another Japanese pop culture reference not being coincidental.
A year and a half ago, I predicted on this basis that there would be 108 chapters total.
I was wrong, but another piece of evidence against coincidence is that the lower bound on horcruxes makes for the second instance of 107 in Eliezer’s fiction. The first is here, as follows:
I happen to see 108 in a variety of things. I only hope the creators put something special in those places to justify my numerological tic.