Harry Potter And The Methods Of Rationality

Luminosity slows down for a while partway through when Bella's raising her baby, converting werewolves and so on with no real conflict. But it quickly picks up again The Voluterri attack, and Bella's forced to become a fugitive. Apart from that, the only real bad part I'd say is that conspicuously averts Unspoken Plan Guarantee, meaning the ending has no real tension.

Anyway, Luminosity/Radiance certainly has a different style than HP Mo R. It's less didactic and more like "What Twilight would be if the characters weren't complete idiots". The most interesting part is seeing how all the different crazy vampire powers interact in unexpected ways.

edited 15th Oct '12 10:06:11 AM by storyyeller

We already moved that discussion off to the right thread. It's fairly high up on the Fan Fiction topics list, you should be able to find it. However, the discussion is across two pages, so be sure to go back a page and read the first few posts.

Not sure that it counts as terrible PR if your goal is to terrify and/or intimidate people, as Harry would need to do if he were trying to take over the world as its Dark Lord. Also, though the Death Eaters don't have a public image of sharing Harry's philosophy, given his bond with Quirrellmort I'd suspect that at least the Dark Lord's philosophy matched Harry's fairly closely. (Actually, do we know that the Death Eaters have the same philosophy/image in Methods as in canon?)

edited 15th Oct '12 10:17:52 AM by Exetera

Sorry about that, I saw you asking on the last page so I responded.

Who says you have to terrify people to be a Dark Lord? That's the stereotype, right there. You could try impressing the fuck out of them instead? Respect is better than fear for generating obedience.

Quirrell's hero persona story says not so... remember, his hero persona was apparently extremely well-respected and he still couldn't get anyone to cooperate with him. Note that, coming from Quirrell, things might not have worked out exactly as he tells them, but I am going to treat this as reasonable evidence against.

edited 15th Oct '12 11:17:15 AM by Exetera

Because then you aren't a Dark Lord and it ruins all the fun. Also see Quirrell's comments on how fast people betrayed him as a hero despite how much they liked and respected him.

Edit: Ninja-d.

edited 15th Oct '12 11:18:47 AM by LogicDragon

Hey, I am not saying it is a fool-proof plan. But every single high end evil bastard in the books and films I have read, unless you are told from the beginning that they are going to win, end up losing because they go too into the deep end of kitten-strangling evildom.

From Sauron to Lord Foul to the Snow Queen and points in between.

And we don't yet know Quirrell's previous identity. The one he had before he was subsumed by whatever is playing the game of thrones now. The one that Director Bones knew him as.

Or alternatively he tried what you're suggesting but went too far into the goodness aspect, then got frustrated and went too far into the moustache-twiddling aspect. Or maybe he's just a bastard who decided he could cause more pain being subtle than setting puppies on fire and did indeed indentity-thieve Hero!Quirrell.

edited 15th Oct '12 11:37:33 AM by LogicDragon

Remember that Quirrellmort did indeed make a speech described as shockingly reminiscent of hero!Quirrell's beliefs, even though there was no particular reason for him to call back to fictional beliefs. This suggests to me that his hero-related beliefs were as genuine as anything regarding Quirrell could be.

There's another thread that was left for Harry a while back that I'd be interested to see if he picks back up: in Chapter 56, Harry claims to have "mastered" his Invisibility Cloak and to be able to see Bellatrix while she's under it. He also makes some speculation as to the materials used in its construction. Which leads me to the thread: might Harry perhaps try to reproduce it? I have no doubt that if Harry so much as hinted some insight into it Dumbledore would readily volunteer his own expertise and resources, as Methods Dumbledore seems no less mesmerized by the Deathly Hallows than his canon counterpart.

I thought making the Cloak and the other Hallows needed the blood of a Thestral?

Shouldn't be too hard to come by. Go down to Hogwarts carriages, Stupefy, Transfigure a syringe, take blood, Innervate.

Also, if Harry's right about the ritual for Hallow creation being that simple (also recall Quirrell's words about rituals) then he could make mankind immortal by giving everyone Cloaks of Invisibility to Death.

I thought Thestrals had all that "not quite dead but beyond life" schtick going on? So I sorta doubt Stupefy would work on them and wouldn't that combination of spells be just a teeny tiny bit Dark as fuck if HJPEV did use it?

BRB laundry.

Harry doesn't want to be a Dark Lord, if anything he wants to be a Light Lord. Quirrell might trivialize the distinction, but it's quite significant since it determines matters such as whether you're willing to dominate the world through terror.

Or what, specificially, you want to do with that domination. Voldemort seems to want to dominate for the sake of it (and for the sake of exercising cruelty).

I doubt it's quite that easy, but I don't think it would necessarily be beyond Harry and Dumbledore.

Presumably Dumbledore could just ask Hagrid for some blood if necessary. He does, after all, own a whole herd of Thestrals...

I suspect Harry is more concerned with outcome than method.

I would say that's true of canon Voldemort, but it's not obvious that Methods Voldemort was the same.

edited 18th Oct '12 9:38:14 AM by Exetera

Terrifying people into submission has, as a necessary outcome, people being terrified. The impact on quality of life is not incidental.

That was beautifully laconic.

But, come to think of it, why didn't the Order mail a few owls with grenades to the known Death Eaters?

edited 18th Oct '12 7:19:16 PM by TheHandle

The terror and its consequent impact on quality of life is, however, likely to be extremely transient and followed shortly thereafter by immortality and travel to the stars. I assume Harry could deal with it.

That's what Stalin and Mao said.

Yes, and it's quite obvious that Quirrell is indeed trying to tempt him in that direction - and also that Harry is not entirely resistant to it. That said, I expect Harry would actually follow through on his philosophy rather than take the path of the dictator.

edited 18th Oct '12 8:59:15 PM by Exetera

I don't doubt that Harry would willingly terrify the populace into submission if that was the most practical way of ushering in a magical transhuman utopia without lasting negative repercussions from the methodology, but I don't think that's a very realistic scenario. Taking up the banner of the Death Eaters would necessarily be a Zero-Approval Gambit, and I think any situation that compelled him to try and do so would have to be extremely contrived.

You couldn't scare people into submission without killing/torture. That is something that Harry would never do so the whole point is moot.

Isn't scaring people into submission what he did at the end of the trial? Or tried to do, anyways.

Also, who wants to bet the person who was analysing him was Mad-Eye Moody?

edited 19th Oct '12 8:30:14 AM by Hyp3rB14d3

The person? What about Susan Bones?

"Isn't scaring people into submission what he did at the end of the trial? Or tried to do, anyways."

I was speaking on the scale of the entire nation. There is a difference between making it too politically inconvenient to pursue legal action against someone and crushing an entire nation underneath your heel.

Voldermort couldn't accomplish it and he skinned a dude.