Harry Potter And The Methods Of Rationality

People who only have cursory familiarity with the fic, and see stuff like Harry playing Devil's Advocate to all possible sides, or listening to Malfoy talking about raping a child and not exploding with righteous indignation on the spot, or Harry using utilitarianism to justify clever but unnecessary bullshit like what he did with Neville on the train station. His smugness during the first chapters doesn't help either.

Our Harry is, as usual, a Hero with Bad Publicity, and all too easily dismissed as insane. But this time it's both in and out of universe!

And yeah, EY is pulling too many threads, too fast. We are left with nothing to speculate with. Why are they interrogating Quirrell? At every moment I felt like Scrimgeour was going to die horribly!

edited 15th Mar '12 9:59:36 PM by MarkThis

They are interrogating Quirrel because he is the DADA teacher, and that position is cursed, so if anything bad goes down at hogwarts, they look there first. Its lazy policing / profiling, but wizardry Brittain wouldnt know due process if the fangs of due process were embedded 5 inches deep into its glutimus maximus.

Okay, so Hermonie was not calm, that was despair. Hmm. Given that Harry told her she was memory charmed, presumably she has been buzy unpicking the threads of the last couple of weeks. Might manage to think of something herself, but the problem is, even if she solves it, the wizengamot isnt going to be any more amenable to reason than Harrys table mates. Eh.. Wouldnt the debt strictly speaking be to Malfoy the younger, not Lucius? No, of course not. Aristocracy. Good lord, the implied conversation between the younger and older malfoy with the truth serum..

I almost want to see that

Damn it!

I _knew_ there was something coming regarding Santa Claus and still I put off collecting, rhuminating on, and posting all the Santa Claus-related material with speculation. It's not like I didn't have time, and if only I had _done_ _it_ I might have found the pattern. And if I'd found the pattern maybe the anti-climactic reveal wouldn't have been so disappointing.

Ah well. I was right about the prank, at least. Only instead of saying, "They used a hammer." I wove a complicated narrative concerning the fabrication of hammer-like objects I termed 'woddleconkers' starting with a discussion of common surface ores and with such gems as "construct some sort of rudimentary lathe." I feel a bit silly, there, but it's gratifying to have been on the right track.

Since my efforts were mentioned, I am well-encouraged to complete the set by summarizing the chapter the author meant to mention before. I'll put it back in that older post, but I'm putting it here, too, because I know _I_ wouldn't want to go back and review.

Chapter 40: Pretending to be Wise

Quirrell lectures HJPEV on becoming vulnerable to Let's You And Him Fight (which is tragically a trope that diverges from the original meaning of the phrase and so is not linked here), answers some questions about the afterlife, lowers room temperatures, makes a joke with two of his favorite words as the punchline, learns that he already knows where the Resurrection Stone is (despite having _just_ _told_ HJPEV that he should be careful when sharing information), drops a hint regarding his (modestly successful) quest for immortality, and runs off to steal a Deathly Hallow which he has almost certainly possessed since that very afternoon.

40

• Lucius is a gun pointed at whomever he thinks threatens his son.
• You got that part where You-Know-Damn-Well-Who has the fucking Resurrection Stone now, didn't you?
• It's possible we should find and compare all the times the narrator comments on the things cooling down. This _could_ be some Sixth Sense shit, you know?

Relatedly, I have a problem. As he has been seducing HJPEV, Quirrell has also seduced me. I do so love him that I disregard all the signs that he is bad for any damn thing I could ever want. I base future expectations on what I so desperately _want_ Quirrell to do instead of what I have every reason to expect he will do. In building predictions of his behavior I replace his obvious goals with goals that align with mine.

It's a bad, bad thing. It's the kind of love that leads to people later saying things like, "You always destroy the things you love." because they deny the world where the thing that destroyed them did not love them back. I know this. And he'd know this too if he ever noticed my love for him. Which he doesn't and which only makes it worse/better.

I want a story as good as this one where this very Quirrell is a Villain Protagonist (Sue, as long as I'm being honest with myself) who does all the terrible things to all the characters I don't care about while making productive (happy? ish?) pawns out of all the characters I do care about while being heartless and witty and as competent as possible while still preserving some measure of dramatic tension.

I'm sure I'm not the only one, so I'm sure attempts will be made to write that story. I hope I find one, one day, and I hope it's not completely terrible.

edited 16th Mar '12 4:05:55 AM by loserthree

Right, so.. Telling Anyone At All about Lucius's threat was a mistake, and Harry made it twice - Hat and cloak is Quirrelmort pulling the trigger on the loaded gun Harry handed him. The duel never happened at all, because that would involve H and Malfoy talking first, which is much too unpredictable, so they were met in the trophy toom with a sleep hex, and then memory charmed to remeber the duel ect.,

So Dumbledore knows Quirrel isn't who he says he is? And he still lets him teach? The hell man?!

In regards to Snape's plotting, I'm still not sure what the whole plan was.

Step 1: Have Hermonie fight bullies.

Step 2: Ban her from fighting bullies

Step 3: ???

Zetsubou deshita.

The position of DADA teacher is *cursed*. It literally does not matter who he hires for the job, they will, by virtue of occupying the seat, turn out to be a bad guy. At which point going "fuck it, just hiring the most competent teacher" isnt that insane. Except this also makes him a competent crook..

I am sorry, I have let this go on for about four or so pages, and I really hate to shout, but, please, people. SPOILER TAG THIS STUFF! Even if it is entertaining, and speculation. Some of us have been reading not just this fic but Shinji and Warhammer 40k, Fallout Equestria and other things as well and haven't caught up yet. I am one of them and I know for a fact I do not have a Time-Turner to get more hours in the day. Have some consideration for people like me who aren't as smart as you are. Thank you.

Wait, does this means that you aren't reading Luminosity? :|

The last wave of updates was how many months ago and lasted for how long? i am wondering if should wait until this bits is finished rather than reading as it is released.

Nope, not reading Luminosity, at least not at the moment. Sparkly vampires I have read about already, done by Anne Rice. Therefore, do not feel burning need to read about any more of them. This is subject to change.

Possibly homoseuxal? Must remember to investigate. *

edited 16th Mar '12 7:44:50 AM by TheHandle

Well, I highly recommend it, but the story won't be going anywhere (being already done) so you can wait until you catch up with others fics or whatever.

Just realized something, that Harry might admonish us over.

We only observed Snape burning the notes that he found, and that they had a elaborate "S".

However, it is never stated, not even by inference, that Snape wrote these notes or that he even knew who wrote these notes, as far we know Snape just burned notes that could help Hermione Granger nothing else.

edited 16th Mar '12 7:44:29 AM by Bluelantern2814

Well, admonish you, I refuse to jump to conclusions in this story, since the characters are so devious any deduction is a Bat Deduction at best and Entertainingly Wrong at worst.

Also, why would Dubmledore caution Harry against himself? Huh, huh, Santa? Also, why go all the way to the USA? If he's going to go very far away, send him to Australia. If he just needs to change environments, why not France? I'm sure Harry is fluent in French!

edited 16th Mar '12 7:53:32 AM by TheHandle

True that, then Admonish me and my friends >.>

Well, Rice's vampires are sparkly as in skin with a texture and feel like alabaster that reflects light better than a thousand diamonds and some of them are gay, I suppose. I think I haven't read the last five or so of her books, though. Things may have changed.

Are you confusing Rice with Meyer?

It was a Watchmen joke due to your Rorschach-ish stylistic choices.

Nope, read the first three of the Vampire Chronicles books. Rice did the whole sparkly vampire thing years before Meyer. Lestat has a habit of describing himself in just about the same way I did, and this holds true for most other vampires he talks about as well. Especially the titular Queen of the Damned, Akasha.

Go ahead and speculate, just because Dumbledore as much as admitted to being Santa Claus doesn't mean he is. I mean Hermione confessed to murder and I doubt anyone thinks she did that. Besides if you read carefully, Dumbledore never actually says he did it, he just nods and says "you know me too well."

Why would Dumbledore caution Harry against himself? To test him of course.And ultimately to draw him closer to Dumbledore.

Dumbledore is, in this, even more manipulative than in cannon. Up to the obliviate scene I considered him a strong contender for Hat and Cloak, merely because I could see him gaining benefit from H&C's actions. I still consider him a weak contender, but I think most of us can see who H&C likely is.

As to reasoning, think about it. Harry mentions in the chapter when he mentions/shows the Cloak to Dumbledore how bad he felt about "distrusting a man who was effectively Gandalf." By instilling feelings of guilt for holding back, and carefully drawing the truth out with a sense of disappointment, Dumbledore creates an image of himself in Harry's mind as the caring figure who is only looking out for him and encourages future trust via avoidance of guilt. I agree with harry that you can only mention how something "doesn't seem like Dumbledore's style" so many times before it becomes a cop out.

Hell, even the Phoenix's Price scene can be read to be a way Dumbledore attempts to instil an image of moral superiority to Harry, in an attempt to exert a modicum of control over his actions. Our Chaotic Good hero obviously chafes at this, but that attempt was obviously at least a secondary goal of showing him that room.

Everybody assumes Dumbledore was Gryffindor, but I wouldn't be surprised at a reveal that mentions he was Slytherin.

Also, everybody seems to be surprised at the Santa reveal, but I've suspected it since the Cloak, and I knew it since Quirrel mentioned that the Card went to London (12 Grimmauld Place, likely.)

My only complaint (which may be to myself) was that I didn't realize the actual power and pervasiveness of False Memory Charms until Harry explains it himself in this chapter. I literally shared his insight to the word where he realized what happened to Skeeter, but I didn't think about the ramifications of changing a memory and removing that memory later in order to establish effect without cause or to insert a different cause into the mind of the person involved. It may have been mentioned before, but if so my mind just didn't process it and I had insufficient givens to extrapolate an answer. Probably a holdover from normal canon, where Memory Charms don't seem to have that capability (It would have been fairly easy to at least make Lockheart functional again by re-adding certain parts of his life to his memory. Come to think of it, why isn't Obliviation used to treat Cruciatus insanity ala Nevelle's parents? If it's this precise it should be able to do so fairly easily given an agile practitioner.)

Anyhoo, there's my rant. TL;DR: Don't trust Dumbledore. Or anyone, come to think of it.

Nevilles parents were aurors. Auror training has to include occulmens training or other absolute defenses against memory charms, as an auror subject to this kind of manipulation would be not only useless, but an active danger to everyone he or she works with. Those mental defenses are obviously still intact and preventing cures of the type you are considering, which makes all kinds of sense - if occlumens defenses could be broken down by enough torture, that would be a fatal flaw.

Heck, a proper journalist would study occlumancy too, as the mere thought of loosing a good story, or worse, printing a false one because some punk wacks you with a memory charm should cause you to break out in cold sweats. But Rita Skeeter was a hack, not putting in that much effort to be sure of her facts is well in character.

edited 16th Mar '12 12:21:06 PM by Izeinsummer

I think you're making assumptions there, It's never mentioned that torture doesn't break down an Occlumency barrier, but the canon reason for the torture of Neville's parents was to gain information out of them. If they were Occlumens and it was understood that that meant they would never get any information out of them, there was no reason to not simply murder them.They had obviously already been overpowered.

Also, Occlumency is described as a conscious effort, it is a leap to assume those rendered insane could maintain occlumency barriers. In fact, if they could, they would likely not be insane, since Perfect Occlumency is literally taking on another personality mentally to the point that mind readers think you are that person.

Also, I don't remember reading anywhere that Occlumency protects against memory charms, just against Veritaserum.

They were crucioed for information because they were immune to less blunt methods of information extraction. Extracting their memories and dumping them into a pensive would have been faster and surer, so they must have been warded against that class of magic. That said, rather than barriers that stay up even after your mind falls apart it is possible that going insane is the final defense of an occulmens. A selfdestruct mechanism for the mind, as it were, in which case the reason they cannot just erase the torture is that it would not cure the general shredding they did to themselves.

edited 16th Mar '12 12:30:24 PM by Izeinsummer

Again, that's really just Wild Mass Guessing.