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  1. - Top - End - #31
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    Default Re: Anonymouswizard researches Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality

    Quote Originally Posted by Tyndmyr View Post
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    Even Contessa knows that winning requires a good double-tap sometimes.
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    Default Re: Anonymouswizard researches Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality

    I have to admit, that was one thing I never really understood in MOR. Harry would just say something like 'it's three times more likely that we're in a universe where X happens' Why three, as opposed to four or six? He just seemed to be coming up with random numbers.

    I feel like the reaction to this fic would be less conflicted if the writing wasn't so unnecessarily snide.

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    Default Re: Anonymouswizard researches Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality

    Quote Originally Posted by Sapphire Guard View Post
    I have to admit, that was one thing I never really understood in MOR. Harry would just say something like 'it's three times more likely that we're in a universe where X happens' Why three, as opposed to four or six? He just seemed to be coming up with random numbers.

    I feel like the reaction to this fic would be less conflicted if the writing wasn't so unnecessarily snide.
    Very likely. Tone matters as much as content; as Ive said elsewhere, MoR feels like it forgot the 'fan' in 'fanfiction', written by someone whose active contempt for the original work is omnipresent.

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    Default Re: Anonymouswizard researches Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality

    Quote Originally Posted by Silva Stormrage View Post
    Agreed it was meant for the author to open up people to "rationality" which in this case is more of Less Wrong's odd offshoot brand of that school of thought. He has also explicitly stated that Harry is not an author avatar and that Harry's actions should not be automatically assumed to be a good idea so I am not sure what you are picking up here.

    Spoiler: Main Themes/Rants from the story?
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    The main "Author Rants" that generally get thrown about from the story that I see people having issue with are ,
    1) Death is bad and if you are against immortality you are an idiot
    2) Hard work works and if you aren't good it's because you didn't work hard enough you slacker.
    3) Trying to think things through and logically deduce the correct outcome is the only approach people should take to problem solving.

    Obviously rephrased the general rants into their more antagonistic/preachy phrasing, but are these the themes people are taking issue with? Because they seem preaching but not to the level that should inspire this much dislike for the story... Is there something else that I am missing/overlooking?


    Am I literally the only person on this thread who thinks the fic is decent?

    I seriously no joke would like to hear what causes people to see this perspective with actual descriptions other than "Harry is an *******" or "Author self promoting his own pet theories" so I know what triggers this response from the seemingly overwhelming majority. Because I still don't see it. The friends I have talked to about it who dislike it dislike it for various reasons (Not liking the "Rationality" school of thought, Harry being too unlikeable a main character, liking the HP books too much and not liking how the story kinda ****s on them at random times) but they don't have the vehement hatred for it I see on the internet so often.
    Don't get me wrong, as fanfiction goes, HPMOR is great. Really, everything about it is AU fanfic turned up to 11. It's really, truly exceptional at taking ideas, themes, characters, and events from canon and reshaping them to fit the key point of departure from the canon (best summarized as 'injecting LW-type rationalism into 70% of the cast').

    It's just that that includes a lot of the negative stuff about fanfiction as well as the positive stuff. Mockery of canon - up to 11. Transparent, strident, polemical authorial worldview - up to 11. Characters transformed to the point of being unrecognizable as their canon counterparts - up to 11. Effectively OC characters taking over the plot - up to 11. And so on.

    And yes, I know Yudkowsky doesn't intend for Harry to be an author avatar, but there are three issues with that. First, Harry absolutely comes across that way in early chapters. Second, most people who read HPMOR that way aren't going to go look for Yudkowsky's statements on the matter, or read far enough into the fic to find out when that starts changing. And third, just because Yudkowsky didn't intend it doesn't mean that isn't what ended up happening to a large (albeit not total) extent.

    Spoiler: Elaboration on the third point
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    Harry is absolutely a mouthpiece for LW-type rationalism. We could go through the numerous passages where he dictates LW articles verbatim or references LW shibboleths or takes instruction in LW thinking from sources like Quirrell and so on.

    The main reason Harry wouldn't be considered an author avatar is that Yudkowsky lets Harry be wrong and at times shows dramatically that Harry is wrong. As the author puts it: "But please keep in mind that, beyond the realm of science, the views of the characters may not be those of the author. Not everything the protagonist does is a lesson in wisdom, and advice offered by darker characters may be untrustworthy or dangerously double-edged."

    One could argue about where Yudkowsky seems to draw the line between science and philosophy, but that's not the main problem. The problem is that right or wrong, the entire enterprise remains founded on his LW-rationalist worldview. Reading about Harry's incurable LW-rationalism for 122 chapters comes across as an author tract on LW-rationalism whether or not Harry's always right or successful with that approach.

    Further, Harry's wisdom and Harry's foolishness both end up in support of LW-rationalism. Harry's failures are sometimes failures of humanity, but more often failures to live up to the standard of LW-rationality. As you yourself quoted: "[Harry'd] failed to reach what Harry was starting to realise was a shockingly high standard of being so incredibly, unbelievably rational that you actually started to get things right, as opposed to having a handy language in which to describe afterwards everything you'd just done wrong." If you're someone who thinks, say, that one of Harry's primary failures was putting rationality didacticism above not being a complete ass, you get the sense that Harry has learned the wrong lesson here. Meanwhile, Harry's numerous and substantial successes are triumphs of LW-rationalism, even the ones that are wild untested extrapolations of wizardry based solely on the author's intuition about how magic ought to work, rather than the rational methods of investigation the author touts. Either way, the author's worldview comes up roses.

    The result is that we have a character who is devoted to the author's worldview, who dictates that worldview at length, who isn't always perfect in his pursuit of that worldview, but who nonetheless demonstrates that the author's worldview is the greatest worldview ever. That's roughly how Yudkowsky necessarily sees himself as a LW-rationalist. Hence, author avatar.


    Yet that isn't where the hatred comes from. However we address the question of Harry being written as an author avatar, he is often read as an audience wish-fulfillment avatar. He is the idealized unpleasant elitist nerd, and many of the things that make him so are either justified or validated by the narrative. The most vehement detractors of HPMOR are people who've had nasty experiences with that kind of person and resent seeing that person get the star treatment from HPMOR. (It doesn't help that such people are rather overrepresented in the HPMOR fandom, and that a fair number of them appear not to have read Yudkowsky's disclaimer either.)
    Last edited by Lethologica; 2018-09-26 at 03:30 PM.

  5. - Top - End - #35
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    Default Re: Anonymouswizard researches Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality

    Quote Originally Posted by Sapphire Guard View Post
    I have to admit, that was one thing I never really understood in MOR. Harry would just say something like 'it's three times more likely that we're in a universe where X happens' Why three, as opposed to four or six? He just seemed to be coming up with random numbers.
    He is supposed to have done a quick Bayesian inference. That is the typical kind of result you get from such an analysis. I think there are some instances in the first few chapters where he explicitly goes through some of the steps but it would get old pretty soon if you would have to read those steps every time Harry does it, that is why later in the book Harry just announces what he thinks is most likely. Of course, a number as 3 should not be taken as literal. He is dealing with a lot of unknowns after all and just winging a lot of the variables. Such an analysis would tell you, which possibilities are exponentially suppressed (i.e. hundreds or thousands of times less likely than the forerunners) and may give you a rough ordering of the prime candidates. But a difference of a factor 3 in likelihood seems very unreliable, those two possibilities would be seen as essentially almost equal. Unless Harry did that analysis knowing all the input variables exactly, then he could state a difference of 3 with confidence. Does he ever mention a factor of 3 in the book? In which context? I cannot remember when he does.

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    Default Re: Anonymouswizard researches Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality

    Quote Originally Posted by Silva Stormrage View Post
    Because they seem preaching but not to the level that should inspire this much dislike for the story...
    My take on it is that some people liked it a lot and some people got turned off by all the preachiness, then the internet did its ugly thing, everything got blown way out of proportions and now you mostly only hear from the most extreme people on either side. Though admittedly, the author having kind of an oversized ego and no people skills certainly didn't help.

    Personally I very much enjoyed reading it, but more importantly, I like that it inspired a bunch of other authors to write their own pieces of rational (fan)fiction. Without HPMOR we wouldn't have had a lot of other stories that I greatly enjoyed/am currently greatly enjoying. Many of which are probably better (or at least more consistently good) than the story that started the pseudogenre.
    Last edited by Silver Swift; 2018-09-26 at 03:44 PM.
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    Default Re: Anonymouswizard researches Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality

    Okay, update time. Reading music is the Metal Gear Rising soundtrack, because I worked my way through both Les Miserables and my Evanessence collection on Tube journeys. RULES OF NATURE!!!

    Chapter 7 - Bloody 'Ell
    Pretty nice 'leaving the parents' scene, now we can follow how a mother and father react to having their only child leave home for a dange- sorry, got a bit hopeful there. Harrry is acting a bit more like a kid here.

    However, he does not have a good heart.

    I've been to the Harry Potter shop near Platform 9 King's Cross. It's not worth it, it's in the wrong place for the book, and neither book or film actuall give a decent representation of the station.

    He's right that not everybody can become a wizard. Depending on the game it takes either 11 INT or five Failed Notches.

    ROOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOON!

    No, no Harry, stop it. You've left your best friend and the greatest character behind. I know you're not supposed to meet him until the train, but can we at least get a bit of time away from your preaching?

    Option c Harry, always option c.

    ROOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOON!

    No, Ron's not headed for Ravenclaw. But he's better than you could ever be, I'd play chess with him and lose any day.

    Obviously our author has never seen a profession quidditch game with a full grade snitch. I remember this one time where about two hundred goals were scored as the Seekers furiously searched Oxfordshire for it, when it had actually decided to visit Lankreshire. By the time a seeker had caught it in Buckinghamshire over a thousand goals had been scored int he game.*

    No Harry, stop it, you're insulting the best character. Honestly Quidditch should probably have a set time limit after which the game ends (optional early end by catching the snitch optional), but the rest of what you're saying isn't strictly true. Although I do think that getting rid of the hundred and fifty points for the Snitch and just making it a game ender would improve the game while still allowing the single player focus.

    Just remember, if the quaffle hasn't been passed through the goal in a hundred and twenty passes it is declared null and a new quaffle is started. Any goals from behind the hoops are worth fifteen points, while any goals from beyond the halfway line are worth twenty five. A goal is scored for each hoop the quaffle goes through during the throw.

    Draco! Almost as good as Ron, but he's not Ron so we don't get the chess.

    No, Ron, come back! This story won't be bearable without you!

    Okay, I really am liking Draco. Although that might just because I know what it's like to be the increadibly posh one, crumpets and scones.

    Slytherin! Take the pompous brat down a notch!

    I do like that Lucius does seem to have definitely cared for Draco and that this is made clear at this stage. Now all he has to do is cover Harry in mustard and throw him into the lake.

    Well Harry is the son of a mudblood.... best joke of the story so far.

    Come on Harry, do it! Then maybe we can get HP and the Cell in Azkaban.

    No, no Draco, we need Harry to murder her so he can go to Azkaban, can't you act like a horny teenager towards somebody else?

    And we're back to supervillain Potter. This is going to get boring.

    You're right Harry, there's only one monster in this conversation and Draco didn't get first dibs. Must be nice being the author avatar.

    You know, this would be a much less disturbing chapter if I hadn't had a weirdly related conversation earlier today. Although that one did actually involve punishment.

    Ah, is this a magic fades/changes story? I like those, might actually do a MOR/UA crossover, if only because the way Adepts work would make Harry's Mind explode. Plus I could probably blag a Rationamancer out of it.

    You call it mysterious, I call it lazy writing. And nobody would have cared if you didn't bring the book locating up.

    I really do like the description of science as always moving forward, despite it being a somewhat simplified view of reality (there have been cases of lost knowledge, although never as bad as people make it out to be).

    All I can think of with regard to Harry and Draco is 'kiss kiss kiss kiss' and 'You and me we can ride on a star, if you stay with me girl, we can rule the woooooold'.

    The chapter ends and I'm just wishing Ron would come back. Best character in this story.



    * Anonymouswizard realises that the snitch can't leave the playing field, but he feels free to ignore setting details as much as the fanfic author does.
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    So here I am, trapped in my laboratory, trying to create a Mechabeast that's powerful enough to take down the howling horde outside my door, but also won't join them once it realizes what I've done...twentieth time's the charm, right?
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    How about a Jovian Uplift stuck in a Case morph? it makes so little sense.

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    Default Re: Anonymouswizard researches Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality

    Quote Originally Posted by 5a Violista View Post
    The way the fic treats some of its themes as the only correct way to live life (and treats people who disagree with a large amount of condescension; not to mention the way it treats anybody who doesn't know whatever theory is being presented at the moment)
    Spoiler: For example, in a near chapter
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    , Harry explains things to Hermione in an incredibly condescending way simply for not knowing it (thus, readers who didn't know it would automatically treat the explanation as "Main character of fic personally attacks the reader" rather than "Main character explains new idea to the reader").


    Not to mention, compared to the original Harry Potter stories, Methods of Rationality leaves a lot lacking in terms of depth, plot, character development, character agency, character consistency, background, pacing, and so on, and it relies heavily on telling rather than showing. Non-HarryPotter characters tend to become silly and illogical and out-of-character at certain points in the story in order to make Harry Potter look better and smarter and more sane. And, it promises at the beginning to explore magic through a scientific lens
    Spoiler: (but)
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    but over the course of the story it relies less and less on science and more and more on the author's favorite brand of intelligence. In addition, while it preaches scientific principles, it fails to follow them, once again failing at the "show, don't tell", for example Harry chews out Hermione for "only doing one experiment" but in many situations he does zero experiments before arriving at the correct solution. Sure, sometimes he does experiments but even when he does it glosses over the actual science part, failing in the eyes of the people who wanted to read the story for the science-in-magic part.
    Plus, there's all the (generally more minor than that 'rape' comment by Draco and Harry's non-reaction to it) casual sexism
    Spoiler: For example, later in the story
    Show
    , while Hermione's Women's anti-bullying league is good, it's later essentially revealed that the intelligent men are basically allowing the women to do their thing. Or, as revealed in the ending, how Hermione (an intelligent, strong, capable woman in her own right throughout the story) doesn't really seem to have any motivation on her own. Granted, very few characters in the story seem to have any motivation of their own, but that's partially a consequence of the author's pet theories and partially a consequence of the author's poor writing style.


    And all that's not including the themes you included in your spoiler and how many people's philosophical and sociological beliefs seem to contradict them completely.
    Spoiler: Specifically, going through them one by one
    Show

    1) Death is bad and if you are against immortality you are an idiot
    This goes against any sort of belief in an afterlife, against the trope that living forever is actually not that good, and against the canon in-universe in Harry Potter. ...won't go more into detail because of the rules against discussing real-world religions.
    When this theme is treated as really preachy, it pushes away the religious and spiritual, many people who loved the original series, and the people who just don't like the idea of immortality.

    2) Hard work works and if you aren't good it's because you didn't work hard enough you slacker.
    Again, many philosophies, beliefs, and social theories fundamentally contradict this as well. ...won't go into more detail because of the rules against discussing real-world politics.

    3) Trying to think things through and logically deduce the correct outcome is the only approach people should take to problem solving.
    Honestly, the way it is implemented in the story kinda contradicts the scientific principles from many fields: in which real-world experimentation is more important than theorycrafting and thought experiments. Plus, there are many other problem-solving methods which don't involve logic or a single "correct outcome".

    So, basically, those themes seem to condescend towards certain religious beliefs (which we can't discuss on this board), certain political beliefs (which we can't discuss on this board), certain scientific ideas (which we can discuss on this board), and certain personalities and decision-making methods, in addition to the aforementioned condescension towards people who simply don't know the jargon for his favorite theories, as explained by Harry Potter.

    Oh, yeah. And the nerd elitism that shows throughout most of the story. That, too. Almost forgot about it.

    ((Edit: One more thing I just remembered: It fundamentally changes a bunch of things about how the Harry Potter universe works, without including those changes in the premise, and then it occasionally mocks the Harry Potter universe by mocking the changes or exploiting the loopholes it itself created. The original premise is "Harry Potter but with science" and the related changes that are necessary for that to happen, but
    Spoiler: A few examples of the other things it changes
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    How Transfiguration works, how Time Turners work, how liberally Time Turners are given out, who betrayed Harry Potter's parents, how horcruxes work, how ghosts work, how the afterlife works, what Dementors represent and how they work, Peter Pettigrew's transforming abilities, Peter Pettigrew's and Sirius Black's relationship, Dumbledore's personality, most of the Weasleys' personalities and plot-points relating to them, how prophecies work, how patronuses work, how Parseltongue works, what the basilisk was for, ...

    Some of those are understandable in order to make the plot work. Some of them fill in details or plot-holes that were left in the original series. However, when there's so many unnecessary ones (that have nothing to do with the plot) and so many that are created for the express purpose of criticizing the original work through them (instead of just filling in the plot-holes), it starts to feel a little weird.


    In my opinion, the above reasons are why many people dislike this story so much. At least, those are the reasons I dislike it so much.
    It has a great premise, but its execution doesn't really hold up to the premise.
    Okay thanks for responding, I still disagree that a lot of the Harry being smug is the author trying to be smug towards people who don't know the topic (It kinda goes against his stated goal of introducing the topic to people) and we can see that despite Harry claiming he is perfectly fine in his treatment of others (See how his interaction with Neville is played in that scene) the very instant he sees it from an outside perspective he notices something horribly wrong about his own behavior. But I can see how it can easily easily be read the way you see it.

    I think you are projecting the anti feminist part though, Harry's first reaction to Draco's rape comment was utter shock and then declaration of "Tearing apart their remnants of the middle ages". Clearly not ignoring it or discounting it. As for the "Intelligent males doing the thinking"... thats how Harry Potter the books work too? He is making a meal with the ingredients the HP books grant him, it seems odd that he should suddenly have a new female antagonist to score equality points. The main characters in the plot in cannon HP are Dumbledore, Voldemort and Harry. McGonogal, Hermoine, Ginny and Mrs Weasley are probably the main female characters in the regular series and they don't really do anything important that doesn't directly revolve around those male characters.

    In fact
    Spoiler
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    It could be argued he did do that as Perenelle is a competent female character who has survived for several hundred years with her cunning. Evil sure but frankly thats more of a critical character than any female in the canon HP books.


    I see the characters in this story having much stronger motivations than canon though so i am not sure what you mean there. Harry in canon has pretty much no grand motivation to speak of, the same with Ron. In general, "Explore and have fun at Hogwarts" isn't really a motivation. Hermoine has the same motivation as in canon which is just pretty much "Learn everything" but it's more grounded in HPMOR due to her rivalry with Harry. Draco in HPMOR is likewise much more fleshed out than his general "Be a rich bully and something something pureblood" attitude from canon.

    Still the points you make on the religious aspects are valid as I never read the HP books through that lens or knew anyone who did but I am sure they exist. And thats all I shall say on that due to board restraints.

    As for the AU elements thats also a good point as I am... not a particular fan of the canon HP books, (I don't like pretty much any of the main cast and find some of the general themes nonsensical at best) generally liking the setting and world building aspects more than the actual plot. So a lot of the cheap potshots at the canon works really didn't bother me at all but I imagine a smug author sniping at a beloved children/teen book series probably would tick people off a fair bit.

    Quote Originally Posted by Lethologica View Post
    Don't get me wrong, as fanfiction goes, HPMOR is great. Really, everything about it is AU fanfic turned up to 11. It's really, truly exceptional at taking ideas, themes, characters, and events from canon and reshaping them to fit the key point of departure from the canon (best summarized as 'injecting LW-type rationalism into 70% of the cast').

    It's just that that includes a lot of the negative stuff about fanfiction as well as the positive stuff. Mockery of canon - up to 11. Transparent, strident, polemical authorial worldview - up to 11. Characters transformed to the point of being unrecognizable as their canon counterparts - up to 11. Effectively OC characters taking over the plot - up to 11. And so on.

    And yes, I know Yudkowsky doesn't intend for Harry to be an author avatar, but there are three issues with that. First, Harry absolutely comes across that way in early chapters. Second, most people who read HPMOR that way aren't going to go look for Yudkowsky's statements on the matter, or read far enough into the fic to find out when that starts changing. And third, just because Yudkowsky didn't intend it doesn't mean that isn't what ended up happening to a large (albeit not total) extent.

    Spoiler: Elaboration on the third point
    Show
    Harry is absolutely a mouthpiece for LW-type rationalism. We could go through the numerous passages where he dictates LW articles verbatim or references LW shibboleths or takes instruction in LW thinking from sources like Quirrell and so on.

    The main reason Harry wouldn't be considered an author avatar is that Yudkowsky lets Harry be wrong and at times shows dramatically that Harry is wrong. As the author puts it: "But please keep in mind that, beyond the realm of science, the views of the characters may not be those of the author. Not everything the protagonist does is a lesson in wisdom, and advice offered by darker characters may be untrustworthy or dangerously double-edged."

    One could argue about where Yudkowsky seems to draw the line between science and philosophy, but that's not the main problem. The problem is that right or wrong, the entire enterprise remains founded on his LW-rationalist worldview. Reading about Harry's incurable LW-rationalism for 122 chapters comes across as an author tract on LW-rationalism whether or not Harry's always right or successful with that approach.

    Further, Harry's wisdom and Harry's foolishness both end up in support of LW-rationalism. Harry's failures are sometimes failures of humanity, but more often failures to live up to the standard of LW-rationality. As you yourself quoted: "[Harry'd] failed to reach what Harry was starting to realise was a shockingly high standard of being so incredibly, unbelievably rational that you actually started to get things right, as opposed to having a handy language in which to describe afterwards everything you'd just done wrong." If you're someone who thinks, say, that one of Harry's primary failures was putting rationality didacticism above not being a complete ass, you get the sense that Harry has learned the wrong lesson here. Meanwhile, Harry's numerous and substantial successes are triumphs of LW-rationalism, even the ones that are wild untested extrapolations of wizardry based solely on the author's intuition about how magic ought to work, rather than the rational methods of investigation the author touts. Either way, the author's worldview comes up roses.

    The result is that we have a character who is devoted to the author's worldview, who dictates that worldview at length, who isn't always perfect in his pursuit of that worldview, but who nonetheless demonstrates that the author's worldview is the greatest worldview ever. That's roughly how Yudkowsky necessarily sees himself as a LW-rationalist. Hence, author avatar.


    Yet that isn't where the hatred comes from. However we address the question of Harry being written as an author avatar, he is often read as an audience wish-fulfillment avatar. He is the idealized unpleasant elitist nerd, and many of the things that make him so are either justified or validated by the narrative. The most vehement detractors of HPMOR are people who've had nasty experiences with that kind of person and resent seeing that person get the star treatment from HPMOR. (It doesn't help that such people are rather overrepresented in the HPMOR fandom, and that a fair number of them appear not to have read Yudkowsky's disclaimer either.)
    This was a very well written post. Pretty much everything is spot on, can't find much fault in the argument. Most of those things don't bother ME that much because my viewpoints are fairly similar to whats being preached in the story so a lot of the flaws aren't really flaws from my perspective. On the other hand this was a great eye opener on some of the complaints others would have on the story.

    Still a shame the forums don't have a like button.
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    Default Re: Anonymouswizard researches Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality

    Quote Originally Posted by Anonymouswizard View Post
    Honestly Quidditch should probably have a set time limit after which the game ends (optional early end by catching the snitch optional), but the rest of what you're saying isn't strictly true. Although I do think that getting rid of the hundred and fifty points for the Snitch and just making it a game ender would improve the game while still allowing the single player focus.
    My preferred fix is to have the Snitch be worth 1 point and allow the seeker on the team that is behind to function as a fourth chaser. That way the seeker is still the most important position, but the rest of the team needs to make sure they are ahead on points for long enough that the seeker can catch the snitch.

    As for games ending in a reasonable amount of time, I would just enchant the snitch to become slower and larger as time goes by. It's more elegant than having two separate game end conditions and it preserves the idea that matches could, in theory, go on for a very long time. The downside is that you can't use the number of goals scored as a tiebreaker in tournaments, but if you really need a tiebreaker you could just use <playtime in lost matches> - <playtime in won matches> instead.

    Anyway, next chapter is another one where Harry is being kinda of an ass again (I think chapters 7 and 8 are the point where a lot of people bail out), but I'm curious to hear what you think about the arc that starts after that. I think that arc marked the turning point where I really started to enjoy the story more and was able to get sucked into it.
    Last edited by Silver Swift; 2018-09-27 at 11:53 AM.
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    Default Re: Anonymouswizard researches Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality

    Ah, HPMOR.....


    Loved it (but wasnt blind to its flaws and obvious preachiness at a lot of times).

    You need to read it as a mostly humurous, science-inspired AU Fic, and you`ll likely enjoy it.

    Take it as a "normal" Fanfic and its too arrogant, unsympathetic and plain vain, take it as a rationality primer and its to ... harry Potter (and preachy^^).


    Overall I agree that its a grand example of many Fanfic Things done perfectly well, and just as many done ...not wrong per se, but very very arrogantly preachy.


    Though getting rid of "boring Dumb Kid with a Quidditch fetish and some Chess Skills" asap was a good move in my view, soe depending on who yu ask I am either much more intelligent than the regular HP Fanboy, or a soulless monstrosity, your pick ^^

    PS: my favourite Characters in "teh Book" do not include Harry until the later Top Ten at the least, but that was the same in the original Books....
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    01010100011011110010000001100010011001010010000001 10111101110010001000000110111001101111011101000010 00000111010001101111001000000110001001100101001011 100010111000101110

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    Default Re: Anonymouswizard researches Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality

    Regardless of whether you agree with the viewpoints espoused or not, misrepresenting something for the purposes of mocking it is dishonest storytelling.

    He is supposed to have done a quick Bayesian inference. That is the typical kind of result you get from such an analysis. I think there are some instances in the first few chapters where he explicitly goes through some of the steps but it would get old pretty soon if you would have to read those steps every time Harry does it, that is why later in the book Harry just announces what he thinks is most likely. Of course, a number as 3 should not be taken as literal. He is dealing with a lot of unknowns after all and just winging a lot of the variables. Such an analysis would tell you, which possibilities are exponentially suppressed (i.e. hundreds or thousands of times less likely than the forerunners) and may give you a rough ordering of the prime candidates. But a difference of a factor 3 in likelihood seems very unreliable, those two possibilities would be seen as essentially almost equal. Unless Harry did that analysis knowing all the input variables exactly, then he could state a difference of 3 with confidence. Does he ever mention a factor of 3 in the book? In which context? I cannot remember when he does.
    That wasn't a quoted number, just an example.. He doesn't seem to have any basis for the numbers he picks, just assumes that X event is Y times more likely to happen based on...nothing much?

    Personally I very much enjoyed reading it, but more importantly, I like that it inspired a bunch of other authors to write their own pieces of rational (fan)fiction. Without HPMOR we wouldn't have had a lot of other stories that I greatly enjoyed/am currently greatly enjoying. Many of which are probably better (or at least more consistently good) than the story that started the pseudogenre.
    Any examples you'd like to share?

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    Default Re: Anonymouswizard researches Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality

    Quote Originally Posted by Sapphire Guard View Post
    Any examples you'd like to share?
    Definitely!


    Animorphs, the reckoning
    : Rational animorps, very dark, but extremely tense and exciting. Really conveys how utterly in over their heads the main characters are while still allowing them to have agency in the story. Update schedule has recently slowed to a crawl, but the author is still writing it.

    Pokemon, the Origin of Species: Trying to make pokemon lore work in a coherent setting is a hell of job. In terms of pacing it's the polar opposite to Animorphs. Which is to say, we're 59 chapters in and we still have only gotten vague hints about what the bad guys are up to. The plot is mostly happening in the background while the main characters are exploring the world, but that doesn't matter because the world is really cool and the characters are interesting.

    Unsong: This one is weird. The premise is that Apollo Eight crashed into the crystal sphere that surrounds the planet and caused a crack through which magic started leaking back into the world. People can now use magic by speaking one of the many names of God (specifically the Jewish one) and there are large megacorporations build around discovering and copyrighting new names. Also, Tamiel (ie. the devil) is now messing everything up on a geopolitical level. The story is a lot more surreal than that premise suggests and you do need to be able to handle a bit of Pratchett style weirdness (as well as a lot of jumping back and forth on the timeline), but if you can it is absolutely worth the read.

    Color Psychology.: It's a rational RWBY fanfic! Ruby is a mechanical genius who is socially awkward in a very convincing (and frankly adorable) way and... That's basically it. The story just started and, while the author is keeping a good pace at one chapter a week, it's still too soon to see where the story is going.

    Optimized Wishing Project.: This is a rational Dragonball fanfic. The premise is that Goku isn't stupid and the Dragonball world has some level of coherent rules. It's not quite as good as the others on this list and I don't particularly like this version of Bulma, but smart!Goku is cool and the story is still very well written and funny.

    I would also like to mention Mother of Learning (D&D-esque world where the main character gets stuck in a groundhog day loop), because I wouldn't have found out about it without HPMOR, but I believe MOL started before HPMOR finished and isn't directly inspired by it.
    Last edited by Silver Swift; 2018-09-27 at 03:27 PM.
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    Default Re: Anonymouswizard researches Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality

    Quote Originally Posted by Anonymouswizard View Post
    However, he does not have a good heart
    ...
    No, no Harry, stop it. You've left your best friend and the greatest character behind. I know you're not supposed to meet him until the train, but can we at least get a bit of time away from your preaching?
    Intended by the author or not, Harry's attitude does result in him having less honest friendship than in the original books. A great deal less.

    I think this is realistic, but also a valuable lesson that may not be wholly intended.

    As for the whole LW-rationalism that is brought up by a few people...the author very clearly wants to use this setting as a venue to explore his favorite topics in philosophy, sure. Some of them are even pretty solid ideas, though I view LW as a whole as...lots of interesting ideas wrapped in an unfortunate amount of confidence. There is a trend you'll notice throughout his works whereby an assumption of correctness is prematurely taken, when more sane people would react more slowly, but do more checking to ensure they are not somehow mistaken.

    As for rational fiction, Mother of Learning is pretty great.

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    Default Re: Anonymouswizard researches Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality

    I'm going to stay out of the discussion, which seems to have moved far past where I'm at Also no chapter today, I got off work at eight and start at seven thirty tomorrow, I just don't have the energy to blitz a chapter of this (which now take me almost an hour each).

    Quote Originally Posted by Tyndmyr View Post
    Intended by the author or not, Harry's attitude does result in him having less honest friendship than in the original books. A great deal less.

    I think this is realistic, but also a valuable lesson that may not be wholly intended.
    Certainly, and I'm probably acting a bit more annoyed than I should be, but the author essentially has dismissed Ron almost as much as Harry, whereas he was originally as important as Hermione to the story (if not moreso). While his main positive qualities are his loyalty and courage, with his intelligence likely being average (it's not really possible to establish intelligence levels from the original books, but Ron's at the very least not stupid), and his main skills might be in Chess and Quidditch over practical magic, but the fanfic is really doing him a diservice right now. Plus wasn't he the most strategic one of the trio? It's been a while since I read the books.

    I still remember his introduction in Philospher's Stone, where he was the first member of the wizarding world Harry's age to really talk to him, while amazed by the fact it was Harry Potter didn't start fanboying, and just treated him as a person. I always felt like Harry latched onto Ron at the beginning much more than the other way round.

    Although I might be getting even more annoyed because I just began The Furthest Station as my 'for fun' reading (at least the depiction of Amersham is much more authentic than The Hanging Tree's attempt at High Wycombe, I must have missed the mansions in my years of living there), and PC/DC* Peter Grant manages to be a relatively rationalist magician while still being able to make friends.

    * I don't think he was ever officially made a detective despite spending most of his time in plainclothes. Doesn't quite matter, looks like it might be Insp/DI by the next book.
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    How about a Jovian Uplift stuck in a Case morph? it makes so little sense.

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    Default Re: Anonymouswizard researches Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality

    Quote Originally Posted by Anonymouswizard View Post
    Certainly, and I'm probably acting a bit more annoyed than I should be, but the author essentially has dismissed Ron almost as much as Harry, whereas he was originally as important as Hermione to the story (if not moreso). While his main positive qualities are his loyalty and courage, with his intelligence likely being average (it's not really possible to establish intelligence levels from the original books, but Ron's at the very least not stupid), and his main skills might be in Chess and Quidditch over practical magic, but the fanfic is really doing him a diservice right now. Plus wasn't he the most strategic one of the trio? It's been a while since I read the books.
    Of the original triad, Hermione is the smart one, Harry's the PoV, and Ron's the loyal friend, mostly. MoR*Harry is a lot more intelligence focused, to the point of neglecting other virtues, at least presently, sure. Intelligent isn't the same as good, and the original triad feels a good deal more balanced.

    It's rare for a book to do both intelligence and heart well, I think. It's common for the former to get wrapped up in plots and intrigue and lightly brush over the human side of things, whereas the latter may just not worry about the unimportant logical details. There's only a handful of books I'd say that really nail both.

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    Default Re: Anonymouswizard researches Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality

    Ron was also important as the native born wizard of the trio. Harry and Hermione were both raised by muggles, and still spend most of their time outside of Hogwarts in the muggle world, being exposed to muggle things. He serves as a handy voice of exposition and familiarity so that Harry and co aren't caught completely off guard by every random magical thing to show up.
    “Evil is evil. Lesser, greater, middling, it's all the same. Proportions are negotiated, boundaries blurred. I'm not a pious hermit, I haven't done only good in my life. But if I'm to choose between one evil and another, then I prefer not to choose at all.”

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    Default Re: Anonymouswizard researches Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality

    He's also good at off the cuff planning. Hermione makes good but complicated plans, and panics when the plan goes wrong or something unexpected comes up, Ron is better at thinking on his feet -ie getting the Basilisk Fangs.

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    Default Re: Anonymouswizard researches Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality

    Quote Originally Posted by Keltest View Post
    Ron was also important as the native born wizard of the trio. Harry and Hermione were both raised by muggles, and still spend most of their time outside of Hogwarts in the muggle world, being exposed to muggle things. He serves as a handy voice of exposition and familiarity so that Harry and co aren't caught completely off guard by every random magical thing to show up.
    Indeed, but the author avatar must preach how un-scientific and wrong it would be to hang around with such a lowly peasant and instead how rational and scientific it is to be in good relations with the racist rapist.
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    ...so we built a five millionth, three hundreth, twenty first one. That one burned down, fell over, then got eaten by the snarl, but the five millionth, three hundreth, and twenty second one stayed up! Or at least, it has been until now."

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    Default Re: Anonymouswizard researches Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality

    Keep in mind, Methods of Rationality is an alternate universe story.

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    The one big point of departure is a bunch of prophecies back in the time of Merlin. This causes Merlin to create The Interdict of Merlin, with the goal of reducing the power level of magic down to where it is no longer a threat to existence. This is necessary to give Slitherin's monster a much better reason for existing. In the original books, it was just something to threaten muggle-borns with. Now, it became a way for Salazar Slitherin to pass knowledge down to someone in the future, and bypass the Interdict.

    It is the prophecies, and Dumbledore's listening to them, that leads to Harry's pet rock being destroyed/killed, as well as everything else.

    It is the crazy behavior of Dumbledore, against the logically sane behavior of Quirrel, that leads Harry into being the person that he needs to become.

    People complain that there are more time turners here than in canon. The truth is, we have no clue how common time turners are in canon. All we know is that Hermione had one in canon, and there are two (maybe three?) known in this story.
    Last edited by Douglas; 2018-09-27 at 09:00 PM. Reason: mark spoilers
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    Default Re: Anonymouswizard researches Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality

    Quote Originally Posted by keybounce View Post
    Keep in mind, Methods of Rationality is an alternate universe story.

    Spoiler
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    The one big point of departure is a bunch of prophecies back in the time of Merlin. This causes Merlin to create The Interdict of Merlin, with the goal of reducing the power level of magic down to where it is no longer a threat to existence. This is necessary to give Slitherin's monster a much better reason for existing. In the original books, it was just something to threaten muggle-borns with. Now, it became a way for Salazar Slitherin to pass knowledge down to someone in the future, and bypass the Interdict.

    It is the prophecies, and Dumbledore's listening to them, that leads to Harry's pet rock being destroyed/killed, as well as everything else.

    It is the crazy behavior of Dumbledore, against the logically sane behavior of Quirrel, that leads Harry into being the person that he needs to become.

    People complain that there are more time turners here than in canon. The truth is, we have no clue how common time turners are in canon. All we know is that Hermione had one in canon, and there are two (maybe three?) known in this story.
    Didn't Rowling say that all the Time Turners in England were destroyed on that shelf in book five?
    Last edited by Douglas; 2018-09-27 at 09:01 PM. Reason: mark quoted spoilers
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    Default Re: Anonymouswizard researches Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality

    This thread is focused on someone reading the story for the first time, do not post spoilers outside a spoiler tag. That's actually in the forum rules, not just a principle of etiquette.
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    Default Re: Anonymouswizard researches Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality

    One thing I will add - despite all the criticism I brought up, I find HPMOR tremendously re-readable. I went to check on one of the statements keybounce referenced, found it immediately, and still ended up plowing through a dozen or more chapters for their own sake. There's a lot to say about HPMOR's flow, not all of it good, but when it works it really works.

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    Default Re: Anonymouswizard researches Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality

    Quote Originally Posted by Silver Swift View Post
    Definitely!


    Animorphs, the reckoning
    : Rational animorps, very dark, but extremely tense and exciting. Really conveys how utterly in over their heads the main characters are while still allowing them to have agency in the story. Update schedule has recently slowed to a crawl, but the author is still writing it.

    Pokemon, the Origin of Species: Trying to make pokemon lore work in a coherent setting is a hell of job. In terms of pacing it's the polar opposite to Animorphs. Which is to say, we're 59 chapters in and we still have only gotten vague hints about what the bad guys are up to. The plot is mostly happening in the background while the main characters are exploring the world, but that doesn't matter because the world is really cool and the characters are interesting.

    Unsong: This one is weird. The premise is that Apollo Eight crashed into the crystal sphere that surrounds the planet and caused a crack through which magic started leaking back into the world. People can now use magic by speaking one of the many names of God (specifically the Jewish one) and there are large megacorporations build around discovering and copyrighting new names. Also, Tamiel (ie. the devil) is now messing everything up on a geopolitical level. The story is a lot more surreal than that premise suggests and you do need to be able to handle a bit of Pratchett style weirdness (as well as a lot of jumping back and forth on the timeline), but if you can it is absolutely worth the read.

    Color Psychology.: It's a rational RWBY fanfic! Ruby is a mechanical genius who is socially awkward in a very convincing (and frankly adorable) way and... That's basically it. The story just started and, while the author is keeping a good pace at one chapter a week, it's still too soon to see where the story is going.

    Optimized Wishing Project.: This is a rational Dragonball fanfic. The premise is that Goku isn't stupid and the Dragonball world has some level of coherent rules. It's not quite as good as the others on this list and I don't particularly like this version of Bulma, but smart!Goku is cool and the story is still very well written and funny.

    I would also like to mention Mother of Learning (D&D-esque world where the main character gets stuck in a groundhog day loop), because I wouldn't have found out about it without HPMOR, but I believe MOL started before HPMOR finished and isn't directly inspired by it.
    Thank you. None of these are fandoms I know, but I'll probably look at the Pokemon one.

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    People complain that there are more time turners here than in canon. The truth is, we have no clue how common time turners are in canon. All we know is that Hermione had one in canon, and there are two (maybe three?) known in this story.
    We don't know how many exist, but we do know that they are very difficult to get hold of. Hermione needed all kinds of character references despite extenuating circumstances such as being Petrified for six months and and helping to catch a serial killer. Harry getting handed one on day 1 wouldn't be possible in canon.

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    Default Re: Anonymouswizard researches Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality

    Darn, all this conversation is making me want to write Rationalists of London. As well as a Harry Potter/PC Grant crossover, which I think would work (the magic is just similar enough to be presented as two different ways to do the same stuff, and there's very little overlap between what the HP world deals with and the supernatural in RoL).
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    Quote Originally Posted by Zelphas View Post
    So here I am, trapped in my laboratory, trying to create a Mechabeast that's powerful enough to take down the howling horde outside my door, but also won't join them once it realizes what I've done...twentieth time's the charm, right?
    Quote Originally Posted by Lord Raziere View Post
    How about a Jovian Uplift stuck in a Case morph? it makes so little sense.

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    Default Re: Anonymouswizard researches Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality

    Quote Originally Posted by keybounce View Post
    Keep in mind, Methods of Rationality is an alternate universe story.
    But I can't keep that in mind, because it intends to criticise a story (or at least people who want to criticise HP keep referring it to me as if it was authoritative), and if it indeed so very different from HP, then nothing it says about HP makes any more sense than if I bring up Discworld magic rules and complain about how DW's narrativium proves HPverse is stupid.

    Now, I happen to agree with you, based on my limited knowledge of it, but I'm not sure people who prefer it to HP do.

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    But really, the important lesson here is this: Rather than making assumptions that don't fit with the text and then complaining about the text being wrong, why not just choose different assumptions that DO fit with the text?
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    Default Re: Anonymouswizard researches Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality

    Quote Originally Posted by Grey_Wolf_c View Post
    But I can't keep that in mind, because it intends to criticise a story (or at least people who want to criticise HP keep referring it to me as if it was authoritative), and if it indeed so very different from HP, then nothing it says about HP makes any more sense than if I bring up Discworld magic rules and complain about how DW's narrativium proves HPverse is stupid.

    Now, I happen to agree with you, based on my limited knowledge of it, but I'm not sure people who prefer it to HP do.

    Grey Wolf
    It is an adjacent universe, and the things which it criticizes or parodies are true of the original, and some of them are often mocked in other contexts by folks who are simply talking about Harry Potter books/movies.

    Hell, the books and movies are also sort of like this. Adjacent, but not quite identical.

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    Default Re: Anonymouswizard researches Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality

    Quote Originally Posted by Tyndmyr View Post
    It is an adjacent universe, and the things which it criticizes or parodies are true of the original, and some of them are often mocked in other contexts by folks who are simply talking about Harry Potter books/movies.
    This is true of some of the criticisms. It is decidedly not true of all of them.

    Quote Originally Posted by Tyndmyr View Post
    Hell, the books and movies are also sort of like this. Adjacent, but not quite identical.
    Which (a) generally wasn't to the movies' credit and (b) doesn't present the same issues as a critique does.

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    Default Re: Anonymouswizard researches Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality

    Quote Originally Posted by Tyndmyr View Post
    It is an adjacent universe, and the things which it criticizes or parodies are true of the original, and some of them are often mocked in other contexts by folks who are simply talking about Harry Potter books/movies.

    Hell, the books and movies are also sort of like this. Adjacent, but not quite identical.
    Based on what I have seen, this isn't particularly true. HPMoR seems to strawman a significant amount of canon HP to make its point.
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    Default Re: Anonymouswizard researches Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality

    Quote Originally Posted by Tyndmyr View Post
    the things which it criticizes or parodies are true of the original
    Case in point.

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    But really, the important lesson here is this: Rather than making assumptions that don't fit with the text and then complaining about the text being wrong, why not just choose different assumptions that DO fit with the text?
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    Quote Originally Posted by Keltest View Post
    Based on what I have seen, this isn't particularly true. HPMoR seems to strawman a significant amount of canon HP to make its point.
    I would say that it calls out where canon does not make sense, and shows what would happen if people took thinks more seriously.

    Book 6, Harry uses a spell that all he knows is "For enemies". Never tested it. Would you expect a wizard-raised wizard to do this? Nope. Only muggle-raised Wizards. Do you ever have a "Here is how to survive safely with magic" for people that learned none of the background / safety / common sense stuff?

    Nope.

    Etc. There's a LOT of canon that makes no sense.
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    Slytherin's monster is a big one -- making it make sense required inventing the Interdict of Merlin, which required inventing a reason for the Interdict. And that's basically the AU departure point.


    There is very little "I'm going to completely depart from canon".

    I don't like his treatment of the afterlife or dementors.
    I will say that how he dealt with the after life is at least decent:
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    Do you believe in the Afterlife, Mr. Quirrel?
    If I did, would I still be here?
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