Reviews FanFic / Harry Potter And The Methods Of Rationality

I must respectfully disagree with the last part of that review — I picked this up, and after six chapters or so, I very much regretted that I had. When I spend most of the time reading wishing that someone would smack the protagonist repeatedly up the head, it tends to ruin my enjoyment of the story, and I found the Harry of this story to be incredibly annoying — with no sign that he was ever going to become less so.

I once tried out the fanfic by going to a random chapter. In it, Harry and Dumbledore get into a debate about the afterlife. It made me want to punch Harry in the face. Having Harry reduce Old Wise Man Dumbledore into a stuttering, sweating wreck from a few arguments made me immediately peg down Harry as a Sue no matter what the author says. Maybe I picked the wrong chapter, but I'm certainly not wanting to read it.

Without trying to argue about fic!Harry's sue-ness. There are about five different scenes in which harry and Dumbledore fight. Although the early arguments are the kind of curb stomp battle you'd expect if a 100 year old man debated an 11 year old,Dumbledore makes several mistakes in the fic's present and flashbacks that, in the most dramatic argument (probably the one you read) Harry's "arguments" are just a call back to earlier chapters throwing Dumbledore's mistakes back in his face. That's what reduces Dumbledore, and in the next argument harry is owned severely for shooting below the belt.

Honestly, I can't see Harry as a Sue. Sure, he delivers some author tracts, but in the end being way smarter than he should be is part of his personality. As the review said, he is a very different character from the original Harry, a very overblown, flawed, but ultimately interesting character. I don't say I always agree with the views he propagates, but I feel that it's kind of the point: He is a highly intelligent, rational -kid- in a magical world where wizards have long since discarded rationality in favor of their all-purpose magic. This sometimes makes him insufferable, but I find that this is one of the charms of the character: he is certainly intelligent but he has countless flaws that he has to overcome, making his character-development really fascinating.

That said, I'm not even sure I would call this a "Harry Potter parody". It's more of a re-imagination, showing just how much a simple change in Harry's environment could change the story, and if I have to deal with some author-tracts and the deconstruction of the original setting, then so be it.

Somebody else said it far better than I did: "I have totally avoided Methods of Rationality because even the premise struck me as mean-spirited. A screed about how children's fantasy doesn't apply sufficient scientific thought is, to paraphrase Vonnegut, like attacking an ice cream Sunday in a full suit of armor."

Really, the whole thing is just bitter as hell and screams "I'M SMARTER THAN ROWLING PAY ATTENTION TO ME!" No wonder TV Tropes loves it so much.

I honestly don't see it as mean-spirited. I don't read it as an attack on the original series, but an extended what-if that ends up being an interesting story in its own right (and, most of all, a funny one). Harry is ultra-rationalistic and finds himself in a world where people can transform into cats and time machines are used to solve trivial problems. Naturally, he freaks out. And it's hilarious. And Quirrell is awesome.

"I have totally avoided Methods of Rationality because even the premise struck me as mean-spirited. A screed about how children's fantasy doesn't apply sufficient scientific thought is, to paraphrase Vonnegut, like attacking an ice cream Sunday in a full suit of armor."

This isn't how I see the story at all. On the contrary, I see it as focusing on how applying critical thinking and a fresh perspective to a situation helps to make it that much more awesome. Rather than tearing the original Harry Potter down, it's an attempt to make the absolute most of its composite parts.

Before he even started writing HP Mo R, Eliezer wrote an essay (http://lesswrong.com/lw/ou/if_you_demand_magic_magic_wont_help/) on fantasy and how it relates to the idea of actually using and appreciating the awesome powers and experiences that are really available to us all the time. Harry's success owes largely to the fact that he constantly looks for opportunities to make the most out of his situation, rather than following the lead of everyone else.

In the original series, Harry accomplished the things he did by taking initiative, exploring his environment, and trying to resolve problems, but he only managed to take initiative and try to solve things that were clearly pointed out as problematic, and investigate things that other wizards noted as mysterious. Mo R Harry takes the initiative much further, trying to find out everything about his environment that he possibly can, in order to resolve the biggest problems he can hope to tackle.

The opposition that Mo R Harry faces is much, much greater than that which the original Harry did, because the whole story is predicated on the idea of thinking carefully about how to milk everything for the best results it can deliver, and a Harry who goes to such efforts can deliver so much more than was ever asked of him in the original canon.

^^^ Pretty much, yeah.

@Desertopa: I liked that essay of his, probably because it's similar to my own approach to fantasy and magic. I disagreed (like always) over his assessment of those who believe in the supernatural. Also, saying "I'm not trying to knock magic itself" once clarifies your point, but saying it several times more is a Suspiciously Specific Denial.

This blog post argues against the idea of Harry Potter facing severely difficult challenges.

I read it as the fun adventures (though certainly not all of Harry's adventures are fun) of a kid who is dropped into a new, magical universe and. Completely unconstrained by its common wisdom, bringing a new knowledge base to the table, and equipped with the mental tools to understand the new world he's in, begins turning everything upside down.

An in-universe MST 3 K, in some respects. And in that, IMHO, it succeeds very well.

Sure, Yudkowsky doesn't hold back with the anvils (and he likes quoting his own writings just a little too much), but a lot of his targets are issues that have generally been noticed by many, many others and are entirely deserving of anvils (the good/evil/irrelevant trichotomy of Rowling's magic houses, for one).

And certainly Harry is far smarter than any eleven-year-old has any business being, even if the plot wouldn't work without it. On the other hand, one might note that he was already a messiah figure in the original books, so if you have a problem with god-child figures you might be reading the wrong source material to begin with. ;)

(Of course, the fic/author do have definite issues with race and gender issues. Link reproduced from YMMV page: http://www.journalfen.net/community/the_hms_stfu/492170.html)

H Arry isn't a Sue. Maybe you should stop skipping and actually read before you judge no? Stop claiming it sucks when it's obviously an alternate universe mon ami. Au revoir et chier.

@King Raptor: Yes, because noticing that hypergamy exists definitely means you have "gender issues".

Well, he IS smarter than Rowling. He even corrected her Latin mistakes, even though she went to Exeter and he didn't.

Aside from the literacy skills necessary to write any cohesive work of fiction, intelligence of the author has almost no bearing on the entertainment value of a story. Nobody is debating that Yudkowsky is smart. Although trying to prove he is smart by referring to one instance in which he corrected someone else, is as terrible an argument as me claiming to be smarter than the President because I once correctly predicted the outcome of a football match and he didn't.

That was just one example and mentioned because that was a mistake someone who has not studied Latin really shouldn't have had to correct someone who has on. So more like you correcting the President on matters of the law, which he has a Ph.D. in and you don't.

It seemed a bit tactless to mention that she obviously doesn't understand maths and science, that her plots are full of holes and can only be resolved by giant Dei ex Machina, that she has no logic skills to speak of and that her writing is tedious and full of boring clichés.

See but

What does writing skill have to do with intelligence.

An intelligent person would have done something she is better at, or made herself good at the thing she wanted to do. I've tried to read The Casual Vacancy, and it was even more tedious. Why did you only address the last point and ignored the other three?

Does anyone aside from snide elitists looking for flaws to refer to so they can falsely try to quantify the quality of a piece of work by the intelligence of the author actually CARE that she got the Latin wrong? Because I'm going to go out on a limb here and guess 'no.'

She doesn't understand maths and science - again, no bearing on the writing. Her plots are full of holes - well, I'll give you that. Time-turners and Goblets of Fire... blech. But I find they're not enough to ruin a story unless you have unrealistically high standards for children's books. Dei Ex Machina - again, you have a point, but if we had to get rid of every piece of work that used one of these there would be practically nothing left. As for her writing being tedious and boring, well, I know you might immediately start saying 'Lowest Common Denominator', but a few dozen million people, including a few I'm sure are smarter than Yudkowsky, would disagree with you.

That's their lookout. ;)

Actually that addressed two of your points: plots full of holes and tedious writing.

As for the other two, they're so vague that there's really no addressing them, especially considering they're not that relevant.

They are if we're discussing intelligence. Offering an opinion that you find my view "laughable" is not actually the same as refuting my argument.

Putting quotes around laughable as if I said it, when in fact I said no such thing, isn't helping your argument.

And I'm actually discussing the relevance of intelligence to writing skill specifically; I apologize if that wasn't clear from the get-go. Your original point was that the author of this story is smarter than Rowling, and I'm not sure of the relevance of that to anything.

Oops, the "laughable" thing was from another thread. I must have got them mixed up. Sorry about that.

To answer your question: it does not seem likely, based on everything I've read, that an author is capable of writing a character who is more logical or intelligent than him- or herself. Rowling writes boring characters from scratch – her most interesting character was practically a caricature of a man she resented, seemingly for the crime of being smarter than her and a science teacher. She seems to dislike science. Yudkowsky, on the other hand, writes intelligent characters, though not everyone will be able to identify, and I love that about him.

Did that answer your question?

Although I don't necessarily agree with your viewpoint, I do understand it clearly now, and I can't really fault you for it. After all, if I did, this comment section would just turn into an argument over personal preference, and Lord knows TV Tropes has enough of that.

So, I guess I'll just bow out at this point and thank you for clarifying.

I think Yudkowsky does an absolutely wonderful job of writing intelligent characters. The problem is, he does a terrible job of writing characters that are interesting, or likeable, or... anything that made me want to root for anyone on either side of the story. Rowling's Harry Potter is not smart, but I can hope he succeeds in defeating an evil adversary. Yudkowsky's Harry Potter makes me want to punch him for being such an egotistic, pretentious, 'I've nailed a soapbox under each of my shoes in case I ever need to make an Author Tract unprepared!' brat who speaks the way no 11 year old in existence has ever spoken.

I can identify with him, but I honestly don't want to.