I have an alternative explanation for Harry’s Dark Side: Harry’s mother is narcissistic, impressed by education, and not particularly smart.
“by far the simplest explanation for this unverbalizable fear of yours is just the fear of losing your fantasy of greatness, of disappointing the people who believe in you” (ch. 77) is textbook thinking for a child of a narcissistic parent. The child feels perpetually ignored because the narcissistic parent needs validation from the child’s accomplishments but refuses to actually listen to the child. Thus, the child is spurred to ever greater heights of intellectual achievement by the parent’s need for more status and withholding of love.
“The black rage began to drain away, as it dawned on him that...his family wasn’t in danger” (ch. 5) suggests that Harry’s Dark Side is Harry desperately trying to stay close to his family.
Typically, children of narcissistic parents inherit either narcissistic or people-pleasing traits. Comparing Harry’s personality to these traits (google “Children of narcissistic parents”, 1st link) shows that Harry has textbook narcissist traits:
Grandiose sense of self-importance? Check. He wants to “optimize” the entire Universe
Obsessed with himself? Check. He appears to only care about people who are smarter or more powerful than him—people who can help him. He also has contempt for most students and their interests (Quidditch, etc.)
Goals are selfish? Check. Harry claims to want to save everyone, but in practice he tries to increase his own power most quickly. The saving-Hermione thing is still selfish because Harry sees Hermione in the same way he sees his mother—weak in many ways and bound by emotions and convention, but someone Harry must impress. “It’s disrespectful to her, to think someone could only like her in that way” (ch. 91) makes sense in that a child would be disgusted by Oedipal implications. If Harry’s mother was not narcissistic, then Harry would not have worked so hard to impress Hermione and would have been less disgusted by the thought of being sexually attracted to her.
Troubles with normal relationships? Check. Harry is playing high-stakes mind games with those he is closest to (Quirrell, Draco, Hermione, Dumbeldore), which is emphatically not normal friend behavior. Harry has contempt for nearly everyone else, and is currently hiding alone under an invisibility cloak.
Becomes furious if criticized? Check. When Snape mocked Harry in Potions class, Harry tried to destroy Snape’s career. Quirrell explained, “When it looked like you might lose, you unsheathed your claws, heedless of the danger. You escalated, and then you escalated again.” (Ch. 19)
Has fantasies of unbound success, power, intelligence, etc.? Check. Harry wants to conquer the entire Universe with the power of his intelligence.
Believes that he is special and should only be around other high-status people? Check. Harry avoids average students when possible, and certainly does not hang out with them for fun. A possible exception is Harry’s army, but minimal text is devoted to Harry instructing them, while much text explains how powerful (in battle) and high-status the students in the army have become. In Harry’s mind, the army is a tool to use and an opportunity to show off, not an opportunity to give back and help friends improve their skills for their own sake.
Requires extreme admiration for everything? Check. Harry takes anything less than admiration for his brilliance as an insult, and responds by striving for new levels of intellectual achievement and arrogance, until the others recognize his dominance. Quirrell’s lesson on how to lose described how to avoid making powerful enemies, not how to empathize and care for others—the insatiable need for admiration is merely delayed and repressed, not corrected.
Feels entitled—has unreasonable expectations of special treatment? Check. Harry requires subservience from the school administration, and special magic items such as the time-turner. “McGonagall said, “but I do have a very special something else to give you. I see that I have greatly wronged you in my thoughts, Mr. Potter...this is an item which is ordinarily lent only to children who have already shown themselves to be highly responsible” (Ch. 14).
Takes advantage of others to further his own need? Check. “I only used you in ways that made you stronger. That’s what it means to be used by a friend.” (Ch. 97)
Does not recognize the feelings of others? Check. “Er, can I take it from this that you have been through puberty?” (Ch. 87)
Envious or believes they are envied? Check. Quirrell said to Harry, “You have everything now that I wanted then. All that I know of human nature says that I should hate you. And yet I do not. It is a very strange thing.” (Ch. 74)
Behaves arrogantly? Check. “Minerva’s body swayed with the force of that blow, with the sheer raw lese majeste. Even Severus looked shocked.” (Ch. 19) I can’t think offhand of a single instance when Harry is not arrogant.
“The Drama of the Gifted Child” by Dr. Alice Miller (Google for the .pdf) spells out what a child raised by one narcissistic parent and one distant parent typically looks like. It looks a lot like H.J.P.E.V.
I can relate personally—my mother drove me to extreme academic success so she could feel good about herself. I succeeded, then (99th percentile on standardized tests, attended a prestigous and excellent college that I will not name here) but it harmed my ability to relate to people, to distinguish my actual dreams from my mother’s grandiosity/insecurity, and to succeed academically once I had surpassed my mother’s ability to judge progress. When I first found HPMOR I was overjoyed that I was not alone in my arrogance and hope for immortality. It’s only recently that I realized why that is, and what that cost. “Every time I call on it… it uses up my childhood.” (Ch. 91). Suffice it to say that I studied obsessively for years.
I thought about spoiler-warning this to avoid memetic hazard, but apparently on this site “that which can be destroyed by the truth should be”.
While this is an excellent explanation, I can’t help but wonder if it’s not metafictional. Remember, Harry is “almost but not quite” like 18-year-old Eliezer, and I would not be at all surprised if, well, certain stereotypes about pushing one’s child relentlessly (usually labelled “Jewish mother” but actually trans-ethnic) held true for 18!Eliezer, and therefore for his model of Harry.
As a show of respect and allegiance, I can say that they definitely held true for my mother and thus for me, and it’s only after spending a lot of time out of her house and away from her influence that I’ve even remotely mellowed down into a decent adult. Actually, my mother still manages to give me neurotic freak-outs whenever I visit home, due to the massive swings in her evaluations of my life choices that can take place inside five minutes. Like, yeah, I was the dickface kid who mentally compared himself with Paul Atreides.
By the way, the easiest way to deal with the arrogance is just to continually take note of how blatantly unadaptive and useless it actually is. If you’re really trying to get what you want by blatantly using other people (and this is not nearly as evil in real life as in fiction: in real life, this is what a purely professional relationship actually is and everyone knows it), then quite often the most useful move is to acknowledge that status hierarchies are situation-dependent and treat them as just another component of the situation, subject to optimization like everything else, rather than as a component of your utility in that situation.
(Wow, that sounded a lot less sociopathic in my mind.)
I agree that HPMOR is intended to describe reality: the entertaining story is the vehicle meant to entertain, and the theoretical content is the payload meant to be remembered. Long before I found HPMOR, I reacted to the death of a family member by planning how to defeat death with science, because nothing less would give me safety. I was baffled that most people preferred to cry for a bit and then forget about it, without making any effort to save themselves or even to fix the particular problem that caused the one death. I read somewhere that EY had a similar experience and reaction, that is mirrored in HJPEV’s reaction to Hermione’s death.
I’ve also mellowed out (e.g. learned, mostly, to seek my own approval instead of my mother’s or that of managers, etc.) I’m glad to hear you can relate. There are many similar labels that might fit: “Jewish mother”, “tiger mother”, “helicopter parent”, etc.
I suspect most people here have not had this experience, and many that have can’t not idolize their parents, due to denial. Harry claims “Suppressed memory is a load of pseudoscience! People do not repress traumatic memories, they remember them all too well for the rest of their lives!” (Ch. 6), but this is inconsistent with “Her mind was slow to remember [the negative information] for a few seconds, which frightened her” (Ch. 84), and denial is a well-known defense mechanism against trauma. The American Psychological Association website says “shock and denial are typical” reactions to traumatic experiences, a well-known historical example is FDR’s refusal to accept the incurability of his polio, and I can attest from personal experience that denial/repression sometimes happens.
I’m not sure what you mean by “acknowledge that status hierachies are situation-dependent”. It sounds like you mean that it’s usually best not to challenge higher-status or higher-arrogance people, because in most situations that’s the best way to get what you want. This matches my experience at least in professional situations—challenging people risks the failure of negotiations or looking incompetent, and is rarely rewarding because if you actually are right or higher-status you can get the same benefit by using your knowledge/skill in a less confrontational way.
I don’t agree that purely professional relationships are optimal for work relationships—I have learned more and gotten more done (both for myself and for my manager) when I feel that the manager truly cares about me and wants me to succeed, and when I truly care about the manager and the team’s success.
I’m not bothered by well-meant but sociopathic-sounding thoughts—if I was, I would not have finished HPMOR. The question of how self-awareness changes moral responsibility is problematic, because there appears to be no scientifically-testable moral authority as well as many opportunities to claim ignorance/feelings as a mask for thoughtful evil intent. That said, I want to do the right, moral, thing, in the hope that there truly is a right thing to do and that my search for meaning is not just my reaction to loss of my mother’s imposition of good/evil judgments.
I’m not sure what you mean by “acknowledge that status hierachies are situation-dependent”.
There are different kinds of status. My adviser might have higher science-status than me, but I have higher otaku-status than him. The situation determines which sort of status is salient.
I don’t agree that purely professional relationships are optimal for work relationships—I have learned more and gotten more done (both for myself and for my manager) when I feel that the manager truly cares about me and wants me to succeed, and when I truly care about the manager and the team’s success.
Oh no, I didn’t mean they’re optimal. But they’re a very useful fallback when you realize that you’re just never going to actually like someone but still need to maintain collegiality with them.
Long before I found HPMOR, I reacted to the death of a family member by planning how to defeat death with science, because nothing less would give me safety. I was baffled that most people preferred to cry for a bit and then forget about it, without making any effort to save themselves or even to fix the particular problem that caused the one death. I read somewhere that EY had a similar experience and reaction, that is mirrored in HJPEV’s reaction to Hermione’s death.
I will admit that I never thought of transhumanism on my own, but I’ve ended up endorsing it simply because I can’t actually think of an involuntary or unwanted death where I actually thought that we shouldn’t have saved the person even if we could have. Then again, I only ever lost a grandmother and grandfather who were extremely old, and seemingly quite ready to pass on.
Harry claims “Suppressed memory is a load of pseudoscience! People do not repress traumatic memories, they remember them all too well for the rest of their lives!” (Ch. 6), but this is inconsistent with “Her mind was slow to remember [the negative information] for a few seconds, which frightened her” (Ch. 84), and denial is a well-known defense mechanism against trauma. The American Psychological Association website says “shock and denial are typical” reactions to traumatic experiences
I think it depends if you merely sustain a trauma or actually develop PTSD.
That said, I want to do the right, moral, thing, in the hope that there truly is a right thing to do and that my search for meaning is not just my reaction to loss of my mother’s imposition of good/evil judgments.
Well of course there’s a right thing to do. I’m just not going to tell you what it is, because I want to know if other people’s conclusions when they research the issue converge with my own. :-p
I have an alternative explanation for Harry’s Dark Side: Harry’s mother is narcissistic, impressed by education, and not particularly smart.
“by far the simplest explanation for this unverbalizable fear of yours is just the fear of losing your fantasy of greatness, of disappointing the people who believe in you” (ch. 77) is textbook thinking for a child of a narcissistic parent. The child feels perpetually ignored because the narcissistic parent needs validation from the child’s accomplishments but refuses to actually listen to the child. Thus, the child is spurred to ever greater heights of intellectual achievement by the parent’s need for more status and withholding of love.
“The black rage began to drain away, as it dawned on him that...his family wasn’t in danger” (ch. 5) suggests that Harry’s Dark Side is Harry desperately trying to stay close to his family.
Typically, children of narcissistic parents inherit either narcissistic or people-pleasing traits. Comparing Harry’s personality to these traits (google “Children of narcissistic parents”, 1st link) shows that Harry has textbook narcissist traits:
Grandiose sense of self-importance? Check. He wants to “optimize” the entire Universe
Obsessed with himself? Check. He appears to only care about people who are smarter or more powerful than him—people who can help him. He also has contempt for most students and their interests (Quidditch, etc.)
Goals are selfish? Check. Harry claims to want to save everyone, but in practice he tries to increase his own power most quickly. The saving-Hermione thing is still selfish because Harry sees Hermione in the same way he sees his mother—weak in many ways and bound by emotions and convention, but someone Harry must impress. “It’s disrespectful to her, to think someone could only like her in that way” (ch. 91) makes sense in that a child would be disgusted by Oedipal implications. If Harry’s mother was not narcissistic, then Harry would not have worked so hard to impress Hermione and would have been less disgusted by the thought of being sexually attracted to her.
Troubles with normal relationships? Check. Harry is playing high-stakes mind games with those he is closest to (Quirrell, Draco, Hermione, Dumbeldore), which is emphatically not normal friend behavior. Harry has contempt for nearly everyone else, and is currently hiding alone under an invisibility cloak.
Becomes furious if criticized? Check. When Snape mocked Harry in Potions class, Harry tried to destroy Snape’s career. Quirrell explained, “When it looked like you might lose, you unsheathed your claws, heedless of the danger. You escalated, and then you escalated again.” (Ch. 19)
Has fantasies of unbound success, power, intelligence, etc.? Check. Harry wants to conquer the entire Universe with the power of his intelligence.
Believes that he is special and should only be around other high-status people? Check. Harry avoids average students when possible, and certainly does not hang out with them for fun. A possible exception is Harry’s army, but minimal text is devoted to Harry instructing them, while much text explains how powerful (in battle) and high-status the students in the army have become. In Harry’s mind, the army is a tool to use and an opportunity to show off, not an opportunity to give back and help friends improve their skills for their own sake.
Requires extreme admiration for everything? Check. Harry takes anything less than admiration for his brilliance as an insult, and responds by striving for new levels of intellectual achievement and arrogance, until the others recognize his dominance. Quirrell’s lesson on how to lose described how to avoid making powerful enemies, not how to empathize and care for others—the insatiable need for admiration is merely delayed and repressed, not corrected.
Feels entitled—has unreasonable expectations of special treatment? Check. Harry requires subservience from the school administration, and special magic items such as the time-turner. “McGonagall said, “but I do have a very special something else to give you. I see that I have greatly wronged you in my thoughts, Mr. Potter...this is an item which is ordinarily lent only to children who have already shown themselves to be highly responsible” (Ch. 14).
Takes advantage of others to further his own need? Check. “I only used you in ways that made you stronger. That’s what it means to be used by a friend.” (Ch. 97)
Does not recognize the feelings of others? Check. “Er, can I take it from this that you have been through puberty?” (Ch. 87)
Envious or believes they are envied? Check. Quirrell said to Harry, “You have everything now that I wanted then. All that I know of human nature says that I should hate you. And yet I do not. It is a very strange thing.” (Ch. 74)
Behaves arrogantly? Check. “Minerva’s body swayed with the force of that blow, with the sheer raw lese majeste. Even Severus looked shocked.” (Ch. 19) I can’t think offhand of a single instance when Harry is not arrogant.
“The Drama of the Gifted Child” by Dr. Alice Miller (Google for the .pdf) spells out what a child raised by one narcissistic parent and one distant parent typically looks like. It looks a lot like H.J.P.E.V.
I can relate personally—my mother drove me to extreme academic success so she could feel good about herself. I succeeded, then (99th percentile on standardized tests, attended a prestigous and excellent college that I will not name here) but it harmed my ability to relate to people, to distinguish my actual dreams from my mother’s grandiosity/insecurity, and to succeed academically once I had surpassed my mother’s ability to judge progress. When I first found HPMOR I was overjoyed that I was not alone in my arrogance and hope for immortality. It’s only recently that I realized why that is, and what that cost. “Every time I call on it… it uses up my childhood.” (Ch. 91). Suffice it to say that I studied obsessively for years.
I thought about spoiler-warning this to avoid memetic hazard, but apparently on this site “that which can be destroyed by the truth should be”.
While this is an excellent explanation, I can’t help but wonder if it’s not metafictional. Remember, Harry is “almost but not quite” like 18-year-old Eliezer, and I would not be at all surprised if, well, certain stereotypes about pushing one’s child relentlessly (usually labelled “Jewish mother” but actually trans-ethnic) held true for 18!Eliezer, and therefore for his model of Harry.
As a show of respect and allegiance, I can say that they definitely held true for my mother and thus for me, and it’s only after spending a lot of time out of her house and away from her influence that I’ve even remotely mellowed down into a decent adult. Actually, my mother still manages to give me neurotic freak-outs whenever I visit home, due to the massive swings in her evaluations of my life choices that can take place inside five minutes. Like, yeah, I was the dickface kid who mentally compared himself with Paul Atreides.
By the way, the easiest way to deal with the arrogance is just to continually take note of how blatantly unadaptive and useless it actually is. If you’re really trying to get what you want by blatantly using other people (and this is not nearly as evil in real life as in fiction: in real life, this is what a purely professional relationship actually is and everyone knows it), then quite often the most useful move is to acknowledge that status hierarchies are situation-dependent and treat them as just another component of the situation, subject to optimization like everything else, rather than as a component of your utility in that situation.
(Wow, that sounded a lot less sociopathic in my mind.)
I agree that HPMOR is intended to describe reality: the entertaining story is the vehicle meant to entertain, and the theoretical content is the payload meant to be remembered. Long before I found HPMOR, I reacted to the death of a family member by planning how to defeat death with science, because nothing less would give me safety. I was baffled that most people preferred to cry for a bit and then forget about it, without making any effort to save themselves or even to fix the particular problem that caused the one death. I read somewhere that EY had a similar experience and reaction, that is mirrored in HJPEV’s reaction to Hermione’s death.
I’ve also mellowed out (e.g. learned, mostly, to seek my own approval instead of my mother’s or that of managers, etc.) I’m glad to hear you can relate. There are many similar labels that might fit: “Jewish mother”, “tiger mother”, “helicopter parent”, etc.
I suspect most people here have not had this experience, and many that have can’t not idolize their parents, due to denial. Harry claims “Suppressed memory is a load of pseudoscience! People do not repress traumatic memories, they remember them all too well for the rest of their lives!” (Ch. 6), but this is inconsistent with “Her mind was slow to remember [the negative information] for a few seconds, which frightened her” (Ch. 84), and denial is a well-known defense mechanism against trauma. The American Psychological Association website says “shock and denial are typical” reactions to traumatic experiences, a well-known historical example is FDR’s refusal to accept the incurability of his polio, and I can attest from personal experience that denial/repression sometimes happens.
I’m not sure what you mean by “acknowledge that status hierachies are situation-dependent”. It sounds like you mean that it’s usually best not to challenge higher-status or higher-arrogance people, because in most situations that’s the best way to get what you want. This matches my experience at least in professional situations—challenging people risks the failure of negotiations or looking incompetent, and is rarely rewarding because if you actually are right or higher-status you can get the same benefit by using your knowledge/skill in a less confrontational way.
I don’t agree that purely professional relationships are optimal for work relationships—I have learned more and gotten more done (both for myself and for my manager) when I feel that the manager truly cares about me and wants me to succeed, and when I truly care about the manager and the team’s success.
I’m not bothered by well-meant but sociopathic-sounding thoughts—if I was, I would not have finished HPMOR. The question of how self-awareness changes moral responsibility is problematic, because there appears to be no scientifically-testable moral authority as well as many opportunities to claim ignorance/feelings as a mask for thoughtful evil intent. That said, I want to do the right, moral, thing, in the hope that there truly is a right thing to do and that my search for meaning is not just my reaction to loss of my mother’s imposition of good/evil judgments.
There are different kinds of status. My adviser might have higher science-status than me, but I have higher otaku-status than him. The situation determines which sort of status is salient.
Oh no, I didn’t mean they’re optimal. But they’re a very useful fallback when you realize that you’re just never going to actually like someone but still need to maintain collegiality with them.
I will admit that I never thought of transhumanism on my own, but I’ve ended up endorsing it simply because I can’t actually think of an involuntary or unwanted death where I actually thought that we shouldn’t have saved the person even if we could have. Then again, I only ever lost a grandmother and grandfather who were extremely old, and seemingly quite ready to pass on.
I think it depends if you merely sustain a trauma or actually develop PTSD.
Well of course there’s a right thing to do. I’m just not going to tell you what it is, because I want to know if other people’s conclusions when they research the issue converge with my own. :-p