Harry is getting dumber and dumber.
razor11
Karma: 119
I found a review on ff.net that probably echoes with many others who are not as immersed in LW culture and even those that are. I thought a discussion of this person’s points would be constructive so I’ve copied the review here: ” So.
I have a few problems with this.
First of all, the use of terms and situations that the readers don’t understand. In earlier chapters, you would do this, and then you would EXPLAIN the reference. That was something I liked. It was educational. Now, however, you’re simply calling on references and expecting the audience to understand. I get that it would be irritating to have to explain everything, but it gets to a point where your fanfiction gets mixed up with your essays. And that’s not good, because the result of this mixture fails to do the job of either a fanfiction OR an essay. Remember, the people who read this are unlikely to be previously familiarized with such sources.
Now, I don’t think you’re doing this on purpose, but to a reader who doesn’t BREATHE the terms you use because they aren’t in your field, it seems as though the only reason you include these are to make Harry seem smart. To you, it may seem natural for Harry to use such sources. To your readers, it seems pretentious, as though they are meant to consider Harry’s educated-sounding thoughts as far beyond them. That brings me to another problem.
Harry is becoming a bit of a Gary Stu. He is portrayed as being far more intelligent than others, to the point that he becomes the center of all intelligent thought. Mcgonagall and Dumbledore are reduced to gasping over Harry’s complex reasoning. I find it worrying that Harry doesn’t bother to try to explain things to them because “they wouldn’t understand.” Also, Minerva is shown as being bewildered by Harry’s discussion with Moody. The only characters NOT bewildered are Alastor, who is being spun as hypercompetent right now, and Quirrel, who is an established mentor figure.
Particularly disturbing was the scene with Dean. The way non-rationalists are portrayed is ridiculous. The whole scene gives me the feeling that the main characters have just converted to a religion and are mocking the practitioners of the old, who are characterized as shallow and wildly fanciful. It’s really like you’re saying that characters are !stupid until they are “saved” by Harry, who shows them the way of rationality. Mcgonagall herself is “he couldn’t expect a witch to understand that.” It reeks of superiority.
Furthermore, Harry has never been beaten. He has made mistakes with consequences, and learned lessons, but he has not been defeated in what he considers his own field. No one has out-reasoned him. Hermione has beaten him academically, but she is characterized as accomplishing this due to hard work and memorization, rather than being smarter than Harry. If Harry were to be defeated when he thought he had outsmarted the opponent BECAUSE the opponent outsmarted him, it would help to dispel this.
This is what I have to say. I hope that you won’t simply think of this as a flame, because science forbids dismissing any argument on the ground that it is unreasonable without actually making it clear what said fallacy is.
Waiting for a reply,
A concerned constructive critic. ”
Thanks!
Anyone have access to this?
http://spp.sagepub.com/content/early/2012/10/02/1948550612461284.full.pdf+html
Thanks.
https://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/25/opinion/sunday/neuroscience-under-attack.html
What are your thoughts on this article? How can a layman discern between good and bad neuroscience in books?
Can anyone recommend a good book on improving social intelligence? This is probably a subject that would be helpful to many of us.
One method I use to share files quickly and anonymously is to use DropCanvas ( http://www.dropcanvas.com ). It has a simple interface, allows direct linking, and does not require signing up.
It’s still the same in the original post. Maybe you forgot to change it?
those who are effected by our actions
Minor nitpick: effected’ should be ‘affected’.
What about Learning Python the Hard Way? Would you recommend it for a newbie to programming who wants to pursue a career in CS? I downloaded that book due to Internet recommendations but havent dived into it yet. I would appreciate insight into what i should start with if i want to program seriously for the long haul.
If you want the book, I have uploaded it to the following hosts:
http://dropcanvas.com/mri3r/1
OR
http://www.peejeshare.com/files/363225114/Thinking_and_Deciding_-_Jonathan_Baron.mobi.html
Edited to update links.
There is a website called ezproxy dot blogspot dot com which posts occasionally working password to library sites and universities’ online resources. It might prove useful to some people here.
The second book on your list can be found here: http://free-books.us.to/get?nametype=orig&md5=5982F61815B32A27FF6C27D946EF4D36
One possible deterrent to implementing that might be that people who initially came here to discuss the story might also participate in other non-HP related reading activities, such as going through the Sequences and discussing other posts, becoming better rationalists in the process. I don’t have the statistics either though so I don’t know how accurate this is.
Thanks! That would be awesome :)
Or maybe it’s just a departure from the original story? This Voldemort doesn’t have much in common with the canon one.
Not HPMOR talk, just a suggestion for these discussion threads:
I think that it would make far more sense to start a new thread after every new update rather than when they reach a certain number of comments. New people starting in this thread will miss a lot of good ideas posted in the last one, and also that it is better to have all ideas in one thread than scattered so we can refer to them. Having two threads without any new update in between could also create unnecessary rehashing of old posts.
Since the update schedule seems to be spaced about a week apart, there will probably be about 500-1500 comments in the meantime so there is little chance of having to create new threads too early. In the rare case, a minimum number of comments can be assigned if updating is too frequent.
Harry doesn’t know whether whoever framed Hermione knew her closely or not. He knew that her mind was probably tampered with on several different occasions, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that the criminal interacted with her on a regular basis, or enough to empathize with her. Otherwise I think he would have considered Quirell as a lead suspect early on.
If Hermione’s testimony had changed from last time, I’d have guessed that McGonagall was mouthing a spell or trying to Confound Hermione so she gave a different testimony under Veritaserum.
Since that isn’t the case, she was either trying to: a) provide moral support for Hermione (“Keep strong” and such)
b) communicating something. If it’s this, then I strongly suspect that McGonagall is cooperating with future Harry in some rescue plan. She might be communicating a simple message like “Don’t worry” or “We’ll get you out” which would imply that she has some extra knowledge about how things are going to play out.
But what she told Hermione shouldn’t be very important as there was no way to know that Hermione, in her tired state, would understand the significance of whatever McGonagall mouthed.
Sorry no longer have it.