JTHM

• JTHMAug 15, 2013, 6:23 PM

  3 points

  in reply to: Jadagul’s comment on: Harry Pot­ter and the Meth­ods of Ra­tion­al­ity dis­cus­sion thread, part 26, chap­ter 97

  You are entirely correct. I mis-remembered the events of book four.

• JTHMAug 15, 2013, 6:20 PM

  2 points

  on: Harry Pot­ter and the Meth­ods of Ra­tion­al­ity dis­cus­sion thread, part 26, chap­ter 97

  If Harry Potter already had the contract written before going into Gringotts, how did Moody’s eye not see it? I suppose it is possible that Moody’s eye cannot see into the folded space of Harry’s pouch, but Harry has no reason to assume as much, and is smart enough not to take the risk. And whether or not Moody can see into folded pouch-space, this line makes no sense at all: “Moody paused as his Eye caught sight of the second half of the document as Harry Potter slowly, as though reluctantly, began to unfold the top upward.” Moody’s eye can easily see through mere paper. Why would he be able to see only the unfolded portion of the document?

  This chapter would make a lot more sense if Harry committed the wording of the contract to memory beforehand and wrote it down at the meeting, and if McGonagall or Dumbledore was escorting Harry, not Moody.

• JTHMAug 15, 2013, 1:17 PM

  −1 points

  in reply to: fubarobfusco’s comment on: Harry Pot­ter and the Meth­ods of Ra­tion­al­ity dis­cus­sion thread, part 26, chap­ter 97

  Canon contradicts you: In book four, the house-elf Winky was able to conjure the dark mark with the use of a wand despite presumably never having wielded one before.

• JTHMJul 25, 2013, 3:19 PM

  24 points

  in reply to: gothgirl420666’s comment on: Harry Pot­ter and the Meth­ods of Ra­tion­al­ity dis­cus­sion thread, part 25, chap­ter 96

  At this point, it would be the greatest fake-out in literary history if Quirinus Quirrell was actually just Quirinus Quirrell.

• JTHMJul 25, 2013, 3:10 PM

  9 points

  in reply to: Tripitaka’s comment on: Harry Pot­ter and the Meth­ods of Ra­tion­al­ity dis­cus­sion thread, part 25, chap­ter 96

  The fact that Quirrell seemed not to know the symbol of the Deathly Hallows is very strange—the symbol is reasonably well-known in the wizarding world, as Grindelwald used it as his own. Which raises the question: was Quirrell’s apparent failure to recognize the symbol an oversight on Yudkowsky’s part, or an important clue?

• JTHMJul 25, 2013, 5:28 AM

  20 points

  on: Harry Pot­ter and the Meth­ods of Ra­tion­al­ity dis­cus­sion thread, part 25, chap­ter 96

  For those who don’t know, the actual origin of “The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death” is Corinthians 15:26, specifically, the King James version.

• JTHMJul 18, 2013, 3:54 AM

  14 points

  in reply to: linkhyrule5’s comment on: Harry Pot­ter and the Meth­ods of Ra­tion­al­ity dis­cus­sion thread, part 24, chap­ter 95

  I’m pretty sure that Quirrell DID just update. This chapter seems to be a pivotal moment in his character arc: a cynic learns that there really is such a thing as love and friendship in the world.

• JTHMJul 10, 2013, 6:31 AM

  3 points

  in reply to: William_Quixote’s comment on: Harry Pot­ter and the Meth­ods of Ra­tion­al­ity dis­cus­sion thread, part 23, chap­ter 94

  I think it somehow relevant that Dumbledore said, “Fred and George Weasley are the Heir of Gryffindor”, not “Fred and George Weasley are the Heirs of Gryffindor”.

  Admittedly, I don’t know what it means, but at this point, I think we can safely say that even minor quirks of grammar mean something in HPMoR.

• JTHMJul 6, 2013, 6:51 PM

  10 points

  in reply to: Randaly’s comment on: Harry Pot­ter and the Meth­ods of Ra­tion­al­ity dis­cus­sion thread, part 22, chap­ter 93

  Nicholas Flamel, who is already known to change identities frequently, is the obvious candidate.

  (And Flamel could also be Quirrell; Of the canon characters, there are four people likely to be as powerful as MoR Quirrell is: Dumbledore, Grindelwald, Voldemort, and Flamel. He’s not Dumbledore; Grindelwald is probably still in Nurmengard; Voldemort is a distinct possibility, but that-one-infamous-post-we-all-know-about is, in my opinion, more likely to be a red herring than truth; Flamel is most likely. If Quirrell were not Flamel, Harry would be correct in assuming that Quirrell would kidnap Flamel if the stone were genuine. Lack of access to the elixir of life would also explain Quirrell’s illness and the accelerated aging that Harry observed when Quirrell was in the infirmary. It also explains why Flamel knows that the Stone is hidden in Hogwarts. And if Quirrel/​Flamel is female, that would explain how an attacker managed to intercept Hermione in the girls-only staircase. This theory also explains Eliezer’s hints that a future story development will make it obvious that he is in no way shortchanging the female gender.)

  I suspect that, if Flamel is Quirrell, the presence of the stone at Hogwarts is some elaborate trap to draw out Voldemort, whom Flamel may believe resides in, or is, Harry.

  Edit 5/​11/​2014 (Spoilers up to Chapter 101): Dhveeryy unf abj orra frra qevaxvat havpbea oybbq, gur nqirefr rssrpgf bs juvpu ner fgngrq va pnaba gb or artngrq ol gur Ryvkve bs Yvsr. Synzry jbhyq or bar bs gur srj crbcyr jubz jr pna or pbasvqrag jbhyq or fher rabhtu bs guvf cebcregl bs gur ryvkve gb org uvf urnygu ba vg. Ubjrire, Dhveeryy unf nyfb orra fubja gb unir n yvax gb Uneel’f zvaq, n yvax juvpu Ibyqrzbeg cbffrffrq va pnaba naq sbe juvpu V pna vzntvar ab cynhfvoyr ernfba sbe Synzry gb unir. Gur onynapr bs rivqrapr va snibe bs zl traqresyvccrq-Synzry-Dhveeryy gurbel vf abj zhpu qvzvavfurq.

• JTHMJul 3, 2013, 5:15 AM

  9 points

  in reply to: Alsadius’s comment on: Harry Pot­ter and the Meth­ods of Ra­tion­al­ity dis­cus­sion thread, part 20, chap­ter 90

  To make Harry Potter a worshiped celebrity.

• JTHMJul 2, 2013, 5:10 AM

  13 points

  in reply to: Michael Wiebe’s comment on: Harry Pot­ter and the Meth­ods of Ra­tion­al­ity dis­cus­sion thread, part 20, chap­ter 90

  No, the abruptly-ended and grammatically-incorrect sentence preceding this passage indicates actual discontinuity:

  “Dumbledore wasn’t being very cooperative, and in any case this was several minutes after the critical location within Time”

  Notice the lack of punctuation. The end of this sentence has been lopped off, and deliberately. Eliezer Yudkowsky does not make careless punctuation errors.

• JTHMJul 2, 2013, 4:32 AM

  18 points

  in reply to: Randaly’s comment on: Harry Pot­ter and the Meth­ods of Ra­tion­al­ity dis­cus­sion thread, part 20, chap­ter 90

  “Beneath the moonlight glints a tiny fragment of silver, a fraction of a line...”

  This sounds like an alchemy circle, which has to be drawn “to the fineness of a child’s hair.” I guess it involves the creation of a philosopher’s stone.

• JTHMJul 2, 2013, 4:27 AM

  8 points

  in reply to: loserthree’s comment on: Harry Pot­ter and the Meth­ods of Ra­tion­al­ity dis­cus­sion thread, part 20, chap­ter 90

  Magick Moste Evile? (This is an in-universe book from canon, in case anyone forgot.)

• JTHMJul 1, 2013, 8:07 PM

  1 point

  in reply to: gwern’s comment on: Harry Pot­ter and the Meth­ods of Ra­tion­al­ity dis­cus­sion thread, part 19, chap­ter 88-89

  80% probability that Hermione will make a horcrux; a mere 30% probability that everything will happen exactly as I specified above. It is a very specific prediction, after all.

  ...And a 90% probability that the plan will occur to Harry whether or not he pulls it off.

• JTHMJun 30, 2013, 8:41 PM

  12 points

  on: Harry Pot­ter and the Meth­ods of Ra­tion­al­ity dis­cus­sion thread, part 19, chap­ter 88-89

  Prediction for Chapter 90: Time Pressure, Part 3:

  “Wait a moment,” you say. “Time Pressure, Part 3? Harry already lost his race against the clock. Why would Chap. 90 be called ‘Time Pressures’?”

  Because Harry’s race against the clock to save Hermione’s life has only just begun, and he has slightly less than six hours left. Eliezer mentioned that one of his most significant purposes of Chap. 86 was to update characters’ states of knowledge before the next arc. If you recall, in that chapter, Harry learned the word “horcrux.” And in Chap. 87, Harry learned of the philosopher’s stone.

  So what will Harry do? Get the shell removed from his time turner, or obtain a time turner from someone else. Learn about the Horcrux ritual as quickly as possible, travel back in time, get Hermione to create a horcrux, and erase her memory of doing so thus that her death plays out just as before. Then start working on the stone to restore Hermione to life. (He could also take the “bone of the father, flesh of the servant, blood of the enemy” route, but positively identifying Hermione’s enemy could be difficult. Lucius Malfoy and Company, who were tricked into antagonizing Hermione, might not count for purposes of the ritual.)

  The hard part, of course, will be getting Hermione to kill, but Harry can probably find someone in a hospital who has only days to live and convince Hermione that creating a horcrux is a net ethical positive.

  Without Hermione’s death, murder would have been a line Harry was unwilling to cross. I think that whoever is behind this plot really wants Harry to cross the Moral Event Horizon and/​or create the stone (the second possibility is less likely though, since Hermione was already working on the stone, but that fact could have been unknown to the plotter).

  Edit: As of Chapter 101, this prediction has probably been proven wrong, unless Harry’s memory of executing this plan has been erased (not completely impossible; there’s a moment when he becomes momentarily disoriented.) But I think this would make a totally awesome piece of recursive fanfiction. After HPMoR is finished, I might write this.

• JTHMJun 30, 2013, 4:31 AM

  1 point

  in reply to: Decius’s comment on: Harry Pot­ter and the Meth­ods of Ra­tion­al­ity dis­cus­sion thread, part 19, chap­ter 88-89

  It could be House Malfoy and Friends, but if so, we would still need some reason why Quirrell would not have told McGonagall that the troll was likely after Hermione. If Quirrell did want Hermione dead, he would most likely have kept any other potential murderers away from her so that her death could occur at a time and in a manner that would suit him best. So the most probable explanation is that it was, in fact, Quirrell.

• JTHMJun 30, 2013, 4:16 AM

  13 points

  on: Harry Pot­ter and the Meth­ods of Ra­tion­al­ity dis­cus­sion thread, part 19, chap­ter 88-89

  Harry knows how smart Quirrell is, and he knows that if it occurred to him that the troll was an attempt on Hermione’s life, it would have occurred to Quirrell instantly. We (and Harry) know that Quirrell said nothing to McGonagall, from which Harry will soon infer that Quirrell could have saved Hermione yet did nothing. (Which makes it likely, but not certain, that it was Quirrell who was behind the troll.) In either case Quirrell has reached a point, or is about to reach a point, in his sinister plan where it no longer matters (or perhaps even requires) that Harry take him as a mortal enemy.

  Draco (and maybe even Lucius) will most likely infer from the troll incident that Hermoine was not the one who attacked him, and he will align himself with Harry in the coming Roaring Rampage of Revenge. I would not be surprised if Lesath Lestrange also made an appearance.

• JTHMDec 22, 2012, 9:28 PM

  1 point

  in reply to: ygert’s comment on: Harry Pot­ter and the Meth­ods of Ra­tion­al­ity dis­cus­sion thread, part 18, chap­ter 87

  It’s strongly implied that in MoR, just as in canon, Dumbledore is hiding a philosopher’s stone in Hogwarts at Flamel’s request. Dumbledore even tries to tempt Harry to use Alohomora on the door leading to the stone.

  And if Dumbledore has had a chance to examine it, we can be assured that it is real.

• JTHMDec 22, 2012, 8:50 PM

  −1 points

  in reply to: Axel’s comment on: Harry Pot­ter and the Meth­ods of Ra­tion­al­ity dis­cus­sion thread, part 18, chap­ter 87

  Well, Flamel could just use the philosopher’s stone to transmute base metals to gold. So I doubt he would bother with commodity-trading. But, yeah, Dumbledore should be a suspect at this point, though I assign a low probability to him being behind this. Dumbledore does not want Harry to be indebted to Malfoy (unless MoR Dumbledore is secretly completely different from canon Dumbledore), and so he would not hinder Harry in his quest to pay off the debt quickly.

• JTHMDec 22, 2012, 8:37 PM

  0 points

  in reply to: pedanterrific’s comment on: Harry Pot­ter and the Meth­ods of Ra­tion­al­ity dis­cus­sion thread, part 18, chap­ter 87

  There’s no reason he can’t work on both problems simultaneously.