Hah. Fun, but completely unreasonable. The Wizengemot is ultimately responsible for the safety of wizard-kind, and though they’re pretty selfish when it comes to minor issues, as soon as a Harry makes the threat to disable wizard-kind’s defenses against Dementors, everyone, Dumbledore and Malfoy and Bones and so on, will be his enemy, and they will disable him.
Danylo
Maybe H&C’s final form was McGonagall? That’d be a fun twist.
Reposted, will some spelling errors corrected. I am a professionally published award-winning Science Fiction and Fantasy author...
Protip: if you’re going to make claims like that, and then spend several paragraphs bashing another author—don’t be a coward. Post proof of your identity. In fact, post proof of every claim you make. You can’t* declare people ‘academically suspect’ without providing a citation. You can’t declare people irrational without providing at least a quotation of irrational thought.
An example of irrational thought: “The people I know in person (especially professional Physicists and Mathematicians and computer programmers in areas such as A.I.) who insist that they are entirely rational, all of the time, have at times annoyed me, especially when, for example, their pose breaks down and they leap and yell for joy while clapping their hands at Sarah Palin speeches (as one ex-FermiLab JPL neighbor of mine does), or turn red-faced and yell at me.”
First, you draw conclusions about all from a very small survey. Next, you dismiss all the pursuit of rationality because it is inherently unreachable. There is a difference between 5% and 95%, and while neither is 100% one is much more than the other.
P.S. The audacity of posting on a website run by Eliezer and declaring yourself to be ‘censored.’ Well, it speaks volumed.
P.P.S. “Edit” button exists for a reason. See this post as an example of how to use it. I reported your duplicate post, I suggest you delete it.
*You can, be be prepared to be laughed at and ignored.
Well, Snape himself was bullied, and earlier in the story he asked HP to stop a bully, so I’m guessing he orchestrated the fight to raise the reputation of SPEW and marginalize the bullies. It was mentioned that a first year wouldn’t be able to break the protego spell, so perhaps he helped out?
This would, of course, mean that he delivered the letters and/or orchestrated the “prophecy” as well.
As a side note—it’s been so long since the last update that it took me maybe 1/4th of the chapter to fully understand what’s going on. Perhaps I should have skimmed 71 before reading.
Final side note—Eliezer, what do you think of ASOIAF?
FFSN—On the whole ‘forgetting the story’ theme—who was Rianne?
What were the two fanfics you recommended for their beauty?
Slight spoilers for those who haven’t read chapter 55:
My god, Harry is infuriating. Why, after realizing that Quirrell might have set him up, after deciding to doubt everything Quirrell said about the plan (and needlessly dismissing his doubts), did he assume that there really is a magical psychologist to fix Mme.Black up?
Why, after deconstructing his predicament did he then fail to apply the same rationalism to its immediate effect? Ugh. If there’s one scene that convinced me that he’s under the Imperius curse, it’s his thinking up ways of convincing the likely-fictional-Doctor of healing the likely-uncurable maniac.
These past 5 chapters have been as infuriating as thrilling. I hope Harry stops being human and once again becomes his hyper-rationalist self at some point in the near future.
P.S. Does anyone else find dramatic irony to be the most infuriating, anxiety-inducing literary tool known to man?
Really? I think it suggested that it was now too late for Dark Lord Harry to return to being Good Lad Harry without external intervention, a la kiss. He’s in too dark a place to think Happy Thoughts.
Oh, you’re quite right. Perhaps Quirrel was planning to kill the Auror to make it clear that a break-out had occurred? That way, a full check of the prison would occur and Bella’s replacement would likely be found. Which in turn would mean that it was put there simply to deceive Harry into a false sense of security. When the break in is made public, Dumbledore would naturally come under suspicion (since a Dementor disappeared under his watch) and he would suspect Harry. That might also explain the lack of the 30th charm by Quirrel. Might make Harry traceable.
I could be completely wrong, of course. Pure speculation.
Assume for a moment that Quirelll was being honest with Hermione, in a twisted way. He was the hero and he invented Voldemort in order to defeat Voldemort. He then realized that being a hero wasn’t working out for him, so he went away, but unlike his Riddle persona, Voldemort would continue to be hunted, so he had to fake his death.
Is Harry already aware of the Horcrux’s and the need for a servant to revive Voldermort? He seemed to completely ignore that bit of information when Dumbledore mentioned it to him.
Harry teaches Draco to cast Patronus 1.0, Hermione wants to learn Patronus 2.0. Harry doesn’t want anyone to know of 2.0, so he keeps it secret. Draco learning of 1.0 is a net gain in terms of Dementor containment—he represents all of Slytherin.
Hermione learning of 2.0 would be a ‘net gain’ at face, but too risky to allow. If others learn of the secret from her (or read her mind to find out) and the secret spreads, then it’s a net loss for Dementor containment. You gain a second ‘lifer’ (I wanted to say Dementor killer, but that’s a bit oxymoronic) and potentially lose thousands of normal guards.
Oh, I’m sure you and I can come up with lots of rationalizations to justify using her. Problem is, Harry, in addition to being a rationalist, is also a fictional character.
Eliezer, through Harry has, thus far, had a certain sense of poetic justice. Using Bella as bait would go against that. The same drive that leads Harry to see himself as the mesiah of two worlds—the man who will kill death, that same drive will balk at using Bella. It’s too ugly.
I don’t think it’s reasonable to assume that he could predict the Patronus stopping the curse. Harry didn’t know it could do it. How could Quirrell, who can’t even cast Patronus 2.0?
Additionally, he had to be certain that Harry wouldn’t be able to recall his Patronus, which would also be beyond him.
Oh my! That’s an interesting point. What if his suicide was a way of short-circuiting the Prophecy?
I’m assuming that’s what your scenario is, and it’s brilliant.
I wonder if Harry’s dark side (assuming it’s part of Voldermort) knows it’s part of Voldermort. If it doesn’t, what will happen to it when it/Harry finds out? Obviously Harry considers Voldermort an enemy. Will he try to destroy it?
You have to remember the fact that the Imperius curse can be resisted in canon. There’s no reason for that to not apply here.
But what happened to his inner Slytherin, and the Draco inside his head? They, ironically, are the ones whose warnings (about suspicious plotting) should have the best chance of getting through to Harry.
That’s an interesting point. In context of that, consider the following—Harry is now [end of chapter 54] without protection from the Dementors, thus gone entirely to the ‘dark side,’ which in Harry as in most is rather Slytherin. That means that Harry is now in the perfect position to see how he’s been manipulated, and act against on it: specifically, betraying Quirell and going with his first story “He made me do it.” He can even attribute his attacking an Auror who thought about Moody* to the Dementors and potentially get away with the whole thing.
Just something to consider.
* I misread, but the point remains.
“to obey its Master or Mistress”
His theory is that they wouldn’t work. So, if his theory is true, it’s true. Not sure how else to explain it.
That reminds me of something else Quirrell arranged for Harry—occlumency. If they read Bella’s and the Auror’s mind, they’ll see Harry as a villain, and since Harry has training in occlumency, he’s no way to prove them wrong. The entire thing looks like a set-up.