“Clever kids in Ravenclaw, evil kids in Slytherin, wannabe heroes in Gryffindor, and everyone who does the actual work in Hufflepuff.”
You’ve already said it. But it doesn’t hurt to repeat.
“Clever kids in Ravenclaw, evil kids in Slytherin, wannabe heroes in Gryffindor, and everyone who does the actual work in Hufflepuff.”
You’ve already said it. But it doesn’t hurt to repeat.
Where it goes from here: If the enemy actually wants to defeat this coalition, nothing happens. This is a temporary alliance against an outside threat, and if said threat goes away, the alliance will probably collapse of its own accord. (It may bring some lasting changes to the leadership of Hogwarts, but people will chafe against the strict security, and old and new grudges will emerge, and the coalition will break.)
If the enemy has been breeding Harry/Draco as the future leader of Magical Britain (much more likely), they will continue to attack or otherwise be active, probably conceding many victories to the new Kids’ Coalition.
Did the survey.
Results: I’m better at estimating continental populations than I had thought; I am frustrated by single-option questions in many cases (e.g. domain of study, nothing for significantly-reduced-meat-intake-but-not-strict-vegetarian, interdependent causes of global catastrophe) and questions that are too huge to be well-formulated, let alone reasonably answer (supernatural/simulation/God).
Also the question about aliens made me unaccountably sad: even if I retroactively adjust my estimates of intelligent alien life upwards (which I would never do), I have to face the incredibly low probability that they’re in the Milky way.
You miss the point—he is still hiding it. The eye provides full 360-degree vision at all times, but few people know this, so he maintains an appearance of some level of vigilance.
This means that anyone who sees him respond quickly to a threat (i.e. evidence of vigilance) will have an immediate explanation of how he was able to do so (being vigilant), and not look beyond it to find out the extent of his abilities.
Quite well thought out, really.
Now you’re just being paranoid.
Which is totally appropriate.
So...maybe.
In any fic that comes out in installments, there’s incentive for the author to have ever-more-gripping plot, for the sake of readers’ short attention spans. I’m glad Eliezer has not fallen into this spiral, and still feels able to post a chapter in which no new plot developments happen (other than characters finding out about previous events).
So have a heart-shaped red-foil-wrapped candy.
Oh, Death was never enemy of ours!
We laughed at him, we leagued with him, old chum.
No soldier’s paid to kick against His powers.
We laughed, -knowing that better men would come,
And greater wars: when each proud fighter brags
He wars on Death, for lives; not men, for flags.
Harry’s reason given to the Malfoys for suspecting Quirrell is “just because he’s the defense professor.” I’m sure he knows all of this other evidence as well, and would consider it appropriately if actually given a chance to sit down and consider the possibilities (though he might be rather distracted by Draco’s Dumbledore hypothesis).
The character who seems to be the best response to this, and whom I hope we will see again shortly, is Amelia Bones. She seems to kick just as much ass as Moody, without the significant aid of a literally all-seeing eye. Watching her Azkaban defense was quite impressive, and I hope that the hints of “Bones” in this chapter mean we’ll see her in action again, and not just as a potential signatory.
What impresses me is that this post not only argues persuasively for using LessWrong as social resource, but it has provided me with convenient links to many posts I otherwise would have missed that are pretty high-quality (both for choosing what to do with my life, and general quality).
It is—obscurely, and too late, and to those who already know.
It’s called Women’s Studies (though it’s about more that women’s experiences).
And people (for whom the inferential distance is too great) love to hate on it.
Please write your own article. This is worthy content, but thousand-word comments are an awful medium.
It reads like a very forced solution—there would be significant gains to one noble house going against the tradition, so their heir could have several years of Hogwarts students rally behind them—and also kind of impossible to implement, given that we don’t know much about their birth control methods, and the Noble Houses are unlikely to all marry at the same time etc.
That said, the HP universe which Eliezer took on as his setting is full of such bugs, and this is a reasonable patch.
On the topic of illogical career paths, Bones has a real job that requires being a very good auror, rather than being an errand-boy for Dumbledore, as Moody seems to be.
And as for “what are these people doing running a boarding school”, they run a school based on reward and (mostly) punishment, rather than the growth of their pupils; they teach a rigid curriculum that seems to have remained unchanged for centuries, in spite of advances in both the magical and muggle worlds; and they socially condition people into narrow roles, largely defined by negative attitudes towards others, based solely on the House a piece of fabric sorts them into.
Counterpoint: it appears that Harry is now serious about using Transfiguration as a weapon. However, he has not recently been considering very much else, meaning that he has fewer backups than perhaps he should, in the case where someone counters his Transfigurations (e.g. with good shields, or casting finite on Harry before a fight).
Another subtle point that was full of win:
“I cannot believe that guy’s reaction time,” Harry said, brushing off his Cloak as he stood up from where he’d been lying invisible on the floor, unseen by his previous self. “I can’t believe his movement speed either. I’m going to have to figure out some way to zap him without speaking an incantation that gives it away...”
The “I can’t believe it” is because it’s not true—this is the moment he figures out Moody can see him when invisible.
Harry did not have his bag with him when he went in.
I think it’s relatively plausible, actually. The troll did not necessarily have specific orders to eat her feet-first.
As a matter of character, Dumbledore does have odd notions of what it takes to be a hero. And he may think Harry needed to see the real toll of wars by having someone close to him die.
Or he really was confident that Harry would save her, and he would use the troll attempt as evidence against Malfoy (which would have worked).
And my favourite part of your comment:
“Invisibility cloak not doing what it was supposed to? Well, I can see that.”
Yes; that’s the problem :)
Moody should have expected Harry to outprepare him (and probably did) - based on past experiences, plus general caution. What Moody completely missed was the direction of Harry’s preparation—of having set up the meeting with his own goal in mind.
Survey done, including digit ratio. And I learned something new.
But not particularly confident in the accuracy of my measurement.