Harry Potter And The Methods Of Rationality

Yeah, it's stated, for instance, that Harry's cutting through the walls of Azkaban is really exceptional because ordinarily, a first-year couldn't have done anything of the sort, and it took partial Transfiguration to allow it. Similarly, Dumbledore when walking through Azkaban was seeking to sense magical power, and noted that "none of the inmates have any more magic left than a first-year student".

I'm pretty sure i've figured out quirrelmorts plan for harry and magical britian.

To TLDR it for you guys, hes going to train harry as a caesar, and use harry as a figurehead/puppet to force magical britian into a war of conquest with the rest of the magical world, probably selling it as a world wide war on dark wizards. Then once england owns the wizard world, they own the entire world since you can't fight invisible mind rapers.

Viewed in this context all of his actions start making sense. Harry is a very well known figurehead and a natural leader for magical Britannia to unite behind. Suddenly quirrelmorts speech of uniting magical Brittan under one person (harry) makes sense, once you've imbued all the power into a single leader its a lot easier to effectively run a war, as well as hurting harry's main competition for power.

His first step is to go to Hogwarts, the most important place in england. He organizes it so that he can get away with blatantly improving the combat effectiveness of all the Hogwarts students there, developing and show casing the future generals and officers of the later wars. Also because those generals and officers will develop followers, all he has to do is gain influence over those people and he gains all of their followers as well. He also gets to develop his own Caesar, Harry. Hes already said that power in the magic world flows from strong wizards and their followers.

Then he convinces harry to undertake a war against the magical world. He points out that it will impossible to get rid of things such as the power of the noble houses and Azkabhan without taking power. He also points out to harry that if he wants to raise the living standards of the muggle world he will need a united magical world behind him, something that he will be unable to do by peaceful means since he will first need to exterminate all of the dark wizards. With both harry and quirrelmort on the same side with technology they would be able to both curb stomp other countries and administer them effectively.

Then with Harry's participation, he puppet masters a civil war in another country and gets magical England to step in to save the country, and get harry/draco appointed/showcased as wonderful warriors. They then use this power to keep taking over more and more of the real power in england. Then you start administrating the new country as a vassal state, raise more recruits, get a bigger army, rinse and repeat until they own the magical world. Then with the magical world united they own the muggle world since lets face it, you can't fight a foe that can turn invisible and mind rape your leaders.

And of course since england is ruling the world as an empire, and harry is ruling the world as caesar, and quirrelmort has his hooks into harry, quirrelmort now rules the world.

Or at least thats what my plan wold be if I were quirrelmort.

edited 5th Feb '12 12:38:29 PM by pringlescan

Only a fool would attempt a plan as complicated as possible, said Lucius.

This looks even more complicated.

Then again Lucius is not the boss of no-one, failed to keep the Death Eaters under control.

He's also failed to go to jail or lose any status. Basically, if you play the game the way Lucius does, you'll never be prime leader material, but, like Talleyrand, you'll endure.

Quirrelmort's plan is very bold. And, obviously, it will be stopped by the end of the story.

Someone figured it out from the first chapter alone. The whole plot. Anyone want to give it a shot? How is the endgame gonna be here?

When was it stated that someone figured out everything from the first chapter?

It was stated by EY himself, though I don't remember where. And not "everything", just "the plot".

And replace "did" with "able to". [citation needed]

No, he said we the readers could, but someone actually did. I suppose it's a matter of oblique refrences to obscure speculative fiction works. EY has read a staggering amount of stuff.

So, next chapter in July? BTW, I wonder if he's been reading Fallout Equestria or showing any interest in ponies altogether. The LW folk certainly seem to overlap with that fandom, from what I read.

who said it wouldn't be out till july?

No one. I hope. Please.

I am teasing our favourite author.

It appears that all his links have been stripped out of his FFN author page. I suppose this change hits all author pages, but his page is kind of more about the link collection than anything else. And maybe that's the point. I don't know. I watch the blinkin' lights.

^This just in. FFN declares "No Fun Allowed Ever".

Oh also the simplest answer to how they got Rita Skeeter to do it was because instead of faking all of the evidence, they merely memory charmed Rita into thinking she had seen it all, or they imperiused her into writing it. Either way would be a crime so it makes sense that they would obliviate themselves to cover their tracks (and that there was someone involved capable of fucking with peoples' minds.

Oh I think it might of been talked about before but just in case this wasn't an unconscious theft of someone elses idea, Quirrelmort turns into a vegetable because the shade of voldemort zapped the original quirrel into a vegetable. As voldemort drains quirrel's life force when he is acting through him he withdraws, or minimizes his drain as much as possible. When he does it looks like he is a drooling vegetable because without voldemort's shade possessing him that is all that is left.

@Mark This "Only a fool would attempt a plan as complicated as possible, said Lucius. This looks even more complicated. Then again Lucius is not the boss of no-one, failed to keep the Death Eaters under control."

Yeah that's kind of my thinking too, voldemort is thinking big time and taking a kind of risky plan because as a professor he gets to lower the variables that are outside of his control. These are the actions that tip his hand to me anyway.

• He has taught them to be able to summon patronuses, and which can be used to send messages which as he has said has important military uses. The ability to summon patronuses also undermines the ministry as they use dementors for military purposes.

• In a related note he has been given the authority to teach them the killing curse. Obviously this strengthens the students of hogwarts as a military force, either now or later. Also worth noting is quirrels belief that surprise is what wins most battles, and Harry with an invisibility cloak and the ability to cast the death curse is a strong combination, although harry would just use a gun if he had gone that dark.

• By setting up the army system he has accomplished the development of military skills in all of the students of his armies, including setting up a clear public reputation of who the best generals and officers are. He gets students to start working with people in other houses, mollifying the slytherin vs everyone dynamic which prevents the wizard world from being unified and strong.
• He is preparing Harry to be the leader of the wizarding world, both publicly by showing off Harry's strengths as a general/leader to the world, by hurting Lucius Malfoy's influence with his speech, and by teaching and developing Harry's strengths.
• He has taken Harry and made him experience the worst crime of the Wizarding Government, Azkhban and as a result Harry has now decided to take power and impose his will over wizarding england. And that decision troubled the resident seer as well as being significant and potentially terrible.

My conclusion based on those facts is that whatever plan he has it probably ends up using Harry as a leader for the armies of Hogwarts against the ministry, and more speculative against the wizarding world at large. Oh also it was already thought of, remember dumbledore's army in canon? It would be an amusing twist to bring to fruition the ministries fear of using Hogwarts as a place to raise an army.

edited 7th Feb '12 11:12:41 PM by pringlescan

"Oh also the simplest answer to how they got Rita Skeeter to do it was because instead of faking all of the evidence,they merely memory charmed Rita into thinking she had seen it all,"

The even simpler answer is that they asked Dumbledore to fudge the records for them. He is a gryffindor after all.

It may have looked like a harmless prank, but it was also a major crime Dumbledore wouldn't be into. You DO NOT mess with the credibility of the government. It leads to bad things.

"The thing about growing up with Fred and George, is that you sort of start thinking anything's possible if you've got enough nerve."

Dumbledore faking the record isn't enough - the article claims Rita saw the record.

Didn't think of memory charming Rita - I suppose it's possible to plant fake memories as well as obliviate. Still seems like the hard way to do it to me.

What do you know, and why do you think you know it? All we know is a story appeared in the Prophet. (Actually, given magic we don't even know that the story appeared in the prophet - maybe there's a charm on the Quibbler that makes you think it's the Daily Prophet.)

We do not know that Rita wrote the story. We can't even be sure that the Prophet approved the story. Maybe there's a charm on the paper so you read it differently. Maybe they replaced all the papers with a clever forgery. Maybe they bribed the printer. Maybe they bribed the copy editor. Or maybe they just showed up at the Prophet, fake story in hand, and said "Latest story from Rita Skeeter, where do you want it?"

We know that Fred and George were involved and that the story was seen by several people and...that's it for what we know for certain.

I figured the easiest way to mess with an official wizamagigawertz record was to ask the guy who presides over them to fudge them. Granted there are other, more interesting possibilities but it's what I would have done.

In case anyone else missed it:

"Update 2/7: Currently 4,800 words into Ch. 83, the Aftermath (final chapter) of the next story sequence.

You may also have noted that Fanfiction.Net has disabled links in all author profile pages. As a result I’ve moved the entire content of the author’s profile to HPMOR.com, and am seriously considering making it the primary version with FF.net as the mirror.

You can also hit the front page of HPMOR.com to simultaneously check the latest chapter and latest Note."

I applauded.

I think it would be easier to change Rita's mind but I agree; IF you want to change the record of the proceedings of the Wizengamot then Dumbledore is the go to guy.

I realized my suggestions to change the printing of the story have a flaw - Rita will scream bloody murder when she finds out. Or at least she would have if she hadn't been. That might be acceptable given the goal (make people not believe whats printed), but it isn't what Harry asked for.

edited 9th Feb '12 11:50:48 AM by anotherblackhat

Quirrell may have assisted Fred and George, if not orchestrate the plot himself. He did threaten Skeeter with "Goodbye, Rita Skeeter", which implies that he had already had something in motion against her. Come to think of it, that confrontation probably happened when Quirrell left Harry at the bookstore. It does fit within the timeline; Quirrell was alone in Diagon Alley, and Rita Skeeter was on her way to Mary's Room:

"She'd just received an anonymous tip about Madam Bones making time with one of her younger assistants... The tipster had said that Bones and her young assistant were due to eat lunch in a special room at Mary's Place."

If nothing else, it's a completely Quirrell thing to do.

edited 9th Feb '12 4:07:51 PM by AlexRose

He would not have reacted to the newspaper the way he did.

He could have; he's extremely good at hiding his cards, after all. But I doubt that Fred and George would have approached Quirrel for help.

Yeah, but what would he gain from that, when his plan was to lure her into Mary's place and squash her? He's not one to expend unnecessary effort, and the weird newspaper levitation fastreading didn't look like the sort of stunt he'd like to pull just to show off that he's surprised: he didn't need to.