History YMMV / HarryPotterAndTheMethodsOfRationality

* CrackPairing: [[spoiler:Sirius Black/Peter Pettigrew]]. Unsurprisingly, it apparently didn't end well.

* DracoInLeatherPants: At first, it appears this is going to be the case, with Draco and Harry getting along pretty well, but then Harry jokes about committing murder, and Draco not only isn't opposed to it, but doesn't understand that it was a joke. [[CardCarryingVillain He then says he's gonna rape Luna Lovegood someday.]] DracoInLeatherPants quickly fades.
** Chapter 72 shows that [[spoiler: he is on his way to a HeelFaceTurn]]
** Chapter 28 takes a jab at the fandom's tendency to do this to Snape.
** And chapter 77 delivers the finishing blow to his [[SelfFanservice fanon sexiness]].
** Lampshaded when Daphne Greengrass says Lucius Malfoy would skin his son alive and turn him into trousers if he heard him talking against blood purism.
---> "Draco Malfoy smiled, metallic robes gleaming in the light of his full corporeal Patronus; it was a smile both arrogant and dangerous, like being turned into a pair of leather pants was beneath his concerns."
* EvilIsCool: He makes it look so and Harry admits his arguments are very convincing and tempting.

* AlternativeCharacterInterpretation: If Harry's theory about how Fred and George pranked Rita Skeeter is correct then the lovable tricksters could be seen as [[spoiler: mind-raping someone with a false memory charm to destroy their career, thereby exposing them to the ire of very dangerous people. HarsherInHindsight much?]]

* RonTheDeathEater: Ron himself gets this treatment, as the author doesn't think too highly of him. He is portrayed as an unreasonable jerk as he insists that Harry is evil through InsaneTrollLogic, downright bullies Hermione for associating with him and is implied to be the one to loudly cheer [[spoiler: after a number of his fellow students lost their parents in the epilogue]]. His only role within the story is to serve as a butt of a joke every so often and to show

* RonTheDeathEater: Subverted. While early on, Harry is very dismissive of Ron and it looks like he's going to be written out of the story, in chapter 31, [[spoiler:he shows up again, as one of two chief strategists in Hermione's army. Unlike Harry, Hermione is better at recognizing the talents of others, and Ron is a master chess player.]]

** For those paying attention, the realization that the [[spoiler: Pioneer Plaque was turned into a horcrux]] is the reason that Quirrel is dying - he has separated out his life essence over such a large distance that light speed is becoming a real problem. This is obvious pretty early on for those who are familiar with relativity, and when he (much later) reads about Muggle physics, Quirrel realizes his mistake. That the starry field is also a view from around the [[spoiler:horcrux - and thus, Pioneer, far out in space]] - is also implied, but never stated outright.
*** Eventually {{Jossed}} in the final chapters.

* HypeBacklash: Some find the fic somewhat pretentious, and some readers [[http://www.journalfen.net/community/the_hms_stfu/492170.html interpret the narrative of Snape and Lily's relationship to be objectionable.]]

* UnfortunateImplications: Harry's objections to Quirrell's fascism would make more sense if the idea that all but maybe six people aren't even sentient enough to be blamed for things wasn't such a core part of the story. Even besides the elitism, nobody has any social skills other than blatant manipulation.

*** {YMMV} on the genius behind that, if you know how AI works.

* FanNickname: [[PossessionSue Quirrel]][[DracoInLeatherPants mort]], [[NotMakingThisUpDisclaimer Harry]][[PossessionSue zer]].

*** Eventually [[Jossed]] in the final chapters.

** There's a long running debate within the fandom on whether Harry is a sociopath or not. The fact that the author admittedly is makes this an interesting one.

** The author, like a lot of readers, seems to have missed the point of Ron, and "sees no reason for him to exist". Canonically, [[TheMcCoy Ron represents emotion]], as [[TheSpock Hermione represents reason]]. Largely excising him from the story leaves out some great opportunities for character development for the hyper-rational Harry. On the other hand, their friendship was founded largely on Harry ''not'' being kind of a jerk.

* JustForFun/XMeetsY: ''Literature/HarryPotter'' meets rationalism.

* LoveItOrHateIt: [[http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/reviews.php?target_group=FanFic&target_title=HarryPotterAndTheMethodsOfRationality Read the reviews (and their respective comments) on TV Tropes, and see for yourself just how polarizing the story is.]]

* MagnificentBastard: Draco took lessons on how to be one, but so far he's only a beginner. The true MagnificentBastard of this fanfic is, of course the one and only Professor Quirrell/Lord Voldemort. Without spoiling anything:

** Even though if you haven't fallen in love with the author after chapter 10, the rest of the book becomes SoBadItsGood, PosessionSue, and CriticalResearchFailure in equal amounts.

* FanNickname: Quirrelmort, [[NamesToRunAwayFromReallyFast Harryzer]].

** There's a long running debate within the fandom on whether Harry is a sociopath or not.

* BetterThanCanon: To some fans, although obviously this is ''very heavily'' dependent on everyone's tastes. Those who think so think it's better because it's cleverer and funnier, has more complex heroes and antagonists, makes more sense that the original book, and (to those sharing the author's worldview), a much saner [=Æ=]sop than the original books'.

** The phsycology in general is oversimplified in the fic. The physics, however is uniformly terrible. For example, Harry's rant about shape shifting that appears as the page quote is correct in that it violates conservation of energy (which strangely didn't bother him when the levitation did it), but the details are nonsense suggesting the author knows the terms but not the underlying concepts (you actually can have unitarity without the Hamiltonian or conservation of energy and none of that has anything much to do with FTL signaling). Especially since he focuses on the relatively minor quantum effects instead of the reality-shattering and much more obvious implications in thermodynamics.

* CriticalResearchFailure: The StanfordPrisonExperiment is taken at face value and treated as a serious piece of research; in real life it's considered a complete joke which functions as a checklist of how ''not'' to do research (as explained on its own page).

* BetterThanCanon: To some fans, although obviously this is ''very heavily'' dependent on everyone's tastes. Those who think so think it's better because it's cleverer and funnier, has more complex heroes and antagonists, makes more sense that the original book, and (to those sharing the author's worldview), a much saner Æsop than the original books'.