History YMMV / HarryPotterAndTheMethodsOfRationality

** Harry can be viewed as a paragon of goodness and hope, a highly flawed hero, self-centered prick with only the barest of good intentions or even a borderline VillainProtagonist. It mostly depends on whether the reader agrees with Harry's philosophy and how much of Harry's smugness they are willing to tolerate.

* HypeBacklash: This is likely one of the most popular fanfics in the ''Harry Potter'' fandom. Naturally, this has led to a lot of people who consider it wildly overrated, in particular deeming Harry a complete narcissist whose ego and self-importance both need a serious deflating, and the author not ''nearly'' as smart as he thinks he is.

* HypeBacklash: This is likely one of the most popular fanfics in the ''Harry Potter'' fandom. Naturally, this has led to a countermovement that considers it wildly overrated, in particular deeming Harry a complete swot whose ego and self-importance both need a serious deflating, and the author not ''nearly'' as smart as he thinks he is.

* BetterThanCanon: To some fans, although obviously this is ''very heavily'' dependent on everyone's tastes.

* HypeBacklash: This is likely one of the most popular fanfics in the ''Harry Potter'' fandom. Naturally, this has led to a countermovement that considers it wildly overrated, in particular deeming Harry a complete swot whose ego and self-importance both need a serious deflating - although that is arguably the point of Harry's character arc.

* HypeBacklash: This is likely one of the most popular fanfics in the ''Harry Potter'' fandom. Naturally, this has led to a countermovement that considers it wildly overrated, in particular deeming Harry a complete swot whose ego and self-importance both need a serious deflating.

%%* AcceptableTargets: Two jabs at ''Literature/AtlasShrugged''.

* 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).
** The psychology in general is oversimplified in the fic, mostly just re-framing it to fit the AuthorTract better. 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.

* TastesLikeDiabetes: Harry's "romantic" first date, organized by the rest of the girls in his class. He's not amused.

** The story in general attracts arguments of this nature. Either it's an original, interesting take on Harry as a character, or just another Super!Harry story that acts much, ''much'' smarter than it actually is.

* AcceptableTargets: Two jabs at ''Literature/AtlasShrugged''.

* AwesomeEgo: How the fans tend to view Harry. He is extremely arrogant, but he also happens to be a bordeline MagnificentBastard who achieves BeyondTheImpossible on daily basis.

* MarySue: According to [[WordOfGod Word of Fanfic Author]], Hermione is one who has been given the same treatment as MOR!Voldemort, i.e. given the standard tropes but with the reasoning behind them at least partially justified and followed to their logical conclusions. She is a magical prodigy who can beat Harry even when he's using time travel to cheat, is able to withstand every method of temptation Voldemort throws at her based solely on sheer moral conviction, [[WordOfGod is [=McGonnagal's=] secret long lost great-niece]], and [[spoiler:ends the story resurrected from the dead and given the magical powers of a unicorn and troll]]. The only reason it's not apparent to most people is that she isn't the main character.

** Chapter 4, with its off-hand mention of how someone could make a lot of money by [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arbitrage exploiting the difference]] in the relative prices of silver and gold in the Muggle and Wizarding economies. (Buy gold from wizards, sell it to Muggles, use the money to buy silver from Muggles, sell the silver to wizards, and end up with more money than you started with. Or, if the imbalance is in the other direction, buy silver from wizards and sell it to Muggles for gold.)

* BigLippedAlligatorMoment: Some of the many shout outs to the [[AuthorAppeal authors' preferred literature]] may veer into this for some readers, even if they do usually illustrate some point or other. While Harry and Dumbledore can be forgiven for this in light of their [[PopCulturedBadass interest in muggle literature]], readers may find it a little immersion-breaking when Malfoy or Quirrell start referencing transparent expies of ''Manga/DeathNote'' or ''Manga/FullmetalAlchemist''.

** 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?]]

* JerkassWoobie: Draco Malfoy goes through quite a bit of suffering. He had lost his mother before the story began, was forced to deal with his worldview getting shattered, was manipulated by multiple patries and finally [[spoiler:had his father be killed by his closest friend.]] Even though he is a ManipulativeBastard and an aspiring Death Eater, it is hard not to feel at least a little bad for him.

* StrawmanHasAPoint: Dumbledore, while debating Harry about death and immortality, was intended to be in the wrong and held a position that runs contrary to the author's worldview. Yet, in the eyes of many readers, Dumbledore made a better case than Harry did. His concern that Harry will go to far in his search for immortality is entirely justified given what happened to Voldemort and so is his belief in souls which he has some good evidence for. Meanwhile, Harry casually dismisses most of the headmaster's arguments without bothering to think much about them, let alone test whether or not they are true, not to mention act like a real jerk throughout the whole conversation.

* TheWoobie: Poor, poor Bellatrix. Quite remarkable, considering that her characterization here is merely an expansion upon her characterization in canon.
** [[spoiler: Subverted, the part where she started out perfectly decent until Voldemort "ruined" her was a complete fabrication to manipulate Harry. She was apparently a deranged blood-purist zealot long before he ever came along. Well, at least that was what Voldemort told Harry toward the climax, but [[UnreliableNarrator can we really be sure?]] ]]

* StrawmanHasAPoint: Dumbledore, while debating Harry about death and immortality, was intended to be in the wrong and held a position that runs contrary to the author's worldview. Yet, in the eyes of many readers, Dumbledore made a better case than Harry did. His concern that Harry will go to far in his search for immortality is entirely justified given what happened to Voldemort and so is his belief in souls which he has some good evidence for. Meanwhile, Harry casually dismisses most of headmaster's arguments without bothering to think much about them, let alone test whether or not they are true, not to mention act like a real jerk throughout the whole conversation.

** The psychology in general is oversimplified in the fic, mostly just re-framing it to fit the AuthorTract better. 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.

* BigLippedAlligatorMoment: Some of the many shout outs to the [[AuthorAppeal authors' preferred literature]] may veer into this for some readers, even if they do usually illustrate some point or other. While Harry and Dumbledore can be forgiven for this in light of their [[PopCulturedBadass interest in muggle literature]], readers may find it a little immersion-breaking when Malfoy or Quirrel start referencing transparent expies of ''Manga/DeathNote'' or ''Manga/FullmetalAlchemist''.
* BrokenBase: The "Self Actualization" arc faces a lot of criticism for being overdrawn, having relatively low stakes, being somewhat separated from the main plot and focusing on minor characters whom readers little reason to care about. Still, the plot is sufficiently complex and the themes sufficiently interesting for some people to enjoy that part of the story.

* FanNickname: Quirrelmort, Harryzer.
* GeniusBonus:

* 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 [[spoiler:Professor Quirrell/Lord Voldemort]]. Without spoiling anything:
** Exhibit A: [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pioneer_plaque The Pioneer plaque]] [[spoiler: is a horcrux.]]
** Exhibit B: [[ItMakesSenseInContext The remains of a beautiful blue beetle are seen in his office.]] [[spoiler: The beetle used to be Rita Skeeter.]]
** Exhibit C: Bellatrix Black [[spoiler: has been broken out of prison by him and Harry.]]

* MisaimedFandom:
** 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. As in canon, friendships with Ron and Draco are probably mutually exclusive given how deeply they loathe each other.
** In this version, Hermione is TheHeart or TheMcCoy, and Harry himself is TheSpock. Draco could be TheKirk.