Something about Harry’s deductions in Ch.46 smells fishy to me. It could be that he didn’t consider that two or more professors could have been present at the revealing of the prophecy. It could be that he automatically assumed the prophecy must have been freshly produced, rather than having been found in an old book as is usually proper. It could be that “It was Snape who told Voldemort about the prophecy (not knowing whom it spoke of)” does not in any way follow from “At some point, Snape begged Voldemort to spare Lily’s life”.
It could be a number of such things, but they could be explained away somehow: the real problem, I think, is that this looks like one of those magical trains of thought that bad crime fiction writers give their Holmes-ripoff protagonists, wherein the author starts from the solution and then, looking backwards, draws a path that enables the character to figure it out.
But it ends up looking fake, as it does now, because the character runs straight from the minimal facts he has to the hindsight-correct solution. This is not how an intelligent, realistic character thinks: before moving on to the next deduction, you try to take into consideration as many possibilities as you can, before you risk wasting your time or—gasp—take action using your very first idea as a logical premise.
And yet here, before the “Perhaps Dumbledore...” passage, Harry spends almost an entire page nose in the air, following his author-granted Magical Truth Compass. He doesn’t even mention any alternatives, even though there are a boatload of those. Of course he knows Voldemort’s and the Death Eaters’ psychology well enough that he can confidently interpret his disinterest in Lily as a servant’s prayer. What else could it possibly have been?
I don’t think Harry’s deduction chain needs to be scrapped, but I definitely think it needs more work, because in its current state it shattered my suspension of disbelief, hard. Make him consider and dismiss more options along the way, or make him express some thought along the lines of “It was a shaky conclusion, and he could have been mistaken or misinformed on any number of points… but if it was correct, the implications were dramatic, and if it wasn’t, asking those questions would cause no harm, and might still provide important clues”, or even better, both.
PS: The above applies even if the MoR-truth is actually different and Harry is therefore tragically mistaken. The narrative would be a lot more interesting, but the undeserved confidence of that train of thought would remain an artistic problem.
Thanks for the spotting—fixed. (I actually originally wrote “if the MoR-truth is actually different and Harry...”, then threw in “from canon-truth” during a cursory edit pass).
A couple of days ago I was scouring the site to get recommendations on some good fiction to read. MoR and Luminosity just seem to whet the appetite! I came across a recommendation for Lawrence Watt-Evans. In the resulting discussion Caladonian comments on Sherlock Holmes:
What about Sherlock Holmes? Once you get past his obvious shortcomings, he’s a pretty decent rationalist.
Not really. His ‘logic’ appears to be solid reasoning the same way a theatrical backdrop appears to be real scenery or a magician’s slight of hand appears to be the performance of a mystical action: it has the semblance and nothing more.
Conan Doyle wrote in such a way as to convince people that Holmes was exercising reasoning powers, not to showcase examples of such reasoning. By the power of plot, Holmes was correct, but it doesn’t follow that his stated reasoning was.
That did spring to mind when I was reading the passage you describe.
I thought of Conan Doyle too while reading that passage. I think it was a conscious attempt by Eliezer to incorporate some detective-style reasoning. IMO it doesn’t work perfectly, but makes for a fine read anyway.
Watt-Evans is nice, but he can’t write exciting endings. If only we could cross his work with the Night Watch novels (you might’ve seen the film, it’s an adaptation of Russian fiction) - they aren’t as carefully written, but have good unexpected climaxes of just the type Eliezer is shooting for. One of the books ends like this: Gur tbbq thl, jvgu ybgf bs tbbq zntrf yraqvat uvz gurve cbjre, tbrf nybar gb snpr gur ivyynva naq fnir gur qnl. Fhqqrayl ur fcraqf nyy uvf cbjre ba n fuvryq gb cebgrpg uvzfrys, jvgubhg gelvat gb nggnpx gur ivyynva ng nyy. Gur ivyynva tbrf sbejneq jvgu uvf rivy cyna naq xvyyf uvzfrys. (Gur tbbq thl ernyvmrq gur synj va gur ivyynva’f cyna whfg va gvzr naq pnfg gur fuvryq gb pbaprny uvf gubhtugf. Ba n erernqvat bs gur obbx, gur synj jnf va cynva fvtug nyy gur gvzr.)
Something about Harry’s deductions in Ch.46 smells fishy to me. It could be that he didn’t consider that two or more professors could have been present at the revealing of the prophecy. It could be that he automatically assumed the prophecy must have been freshly produced, rather than having been found in an old book as is usually proper. It could be that “It was Snape who told Voldemort about the prophecy (not knowing whom it spoke of)” does not in any way follow from “At some point, Snape begged Voldemort to spare Lily’s life”.
It could be a number of such things, but they could be explained away somehow: the real problem, I think, is that this looks like one of those magical trains of thought that bad crime fiction writers give their Holmes-ripoff protagonists, wherein the author starts from the solution and then, looking backwards, draws a path that enables the character to figure it out.
But it ends up looking fake, as it does now, because the character runs straight from the minimal facts he has to the hindsight-correct solution. This is not how an intelligent, realistic character thinks: before moving on to the next deduction, you try to take into consideration as many possibilities as you can, before you risk wasting your time or—gasp—take action using your very first idea as a logical premise.
And yet here, before the “Perhaps Dumbledore...” passage, Harry spends almost an entire page nose in the air, following his author-granted Magical Truth Compass. He doesn’t even mention any alternatives, even though there are a boatload of those. Of course he knows Voldemort’s and the Death Eaters’ psychology well enough that he can confidently interpret his disinterest in Lily as a servant’s prayer. What else could it possibly have been?
I don’t think Harry’s deduction chain needs to be scrapped, but I definitely think it needs more work, because in its current state it shattered my suspension of disbelief, hard. Make him consider and dismiss more options along the way, or make him express some thought along the lines of “It was a shaky conclusion, and he could have been mistaken or misinformed on any number of points… but if it was correct, the implications were dramatic, and if it wasn’t, asking those questions would cause no harm, and might still provide important clues”, or even better, both.
PS: The above applies even if the MoR-truth is actually different and Harry is therefore tragically mistaken. The narrative would be a lot more interesting, but the undeserved confidence of that train of thought would remain an artistic problem.
Fortunately Eliezer gave himself some phoenix-magic wiggle rooom:
Did you mean to say, “if the MoR-truth is the same as the canon-truth”?
Because Harry is mistaken compared to canon truth. In canon, Snape eavesdropped on the original prophecy when it was spoken in front of Dumbledore.
Thanks for the spotting—fixed. (I actually originally wrote “if the MoR-truth is actually different and Harry...”, then threw in “from canon-truth” during a cursory edit pass).
A couple of days ago I was scouring the site to get recommendations on some good fiction to read. MoR and Luminosity just seem to whet the appetite! I came across a recommendation for Lawrence Watt-Evans. In the resulting discussion Caladonian comments on Sherlock Holmes:
That did spring to mind when I was reading the passage you describe.
I thought of Conan Doyle too while reading that passage. I think it was a conscious attempt by Eliezer to incorporate some detective-style reasoning. IMO it doesn’t work perfectly, but makes for a fine read anyway.
Watt-Evans is nice, but he can’t write exciting endings. If only we could cross his work with the Night Watch novels (you might’ve seen the film, it’s an adaptation of Russian fiction) - they aren’t as carefully written, but have good unexpected climaxes of just the type Eliezer is shooting for. One of the books ends like this: Gur tbbq thl, jvgu ybgf bs tbbq zntrf yraqvat uvz gurve cbjre, tbrf nybar gb snpr gur ivyynva naq fnir gur qnl. Fhqqrayl ur fcraqf nyy uvf cbjre ba n fuvryq gb cebgrpg uvzfrys, jvgubhg gelvat gb nggnpx gur ivyynva ng nyy. Gur ivyynva tbrf sbejneq jvgu uvf rivy cyna naq xvyyf uvzfrys. (Gur tbbq thl ernyvmrq gur synj va gur ivyynva’f cyna whfg va gvzr naq pnfg gur fuvryq gb pbaprny uvf gubhtugf. Ba n erernqvat bs gur obbx, gur synj jnf va cynva fvtug nyy gur gvzr.)
That ending was a truly awesome moment, especially given the buildup.