General announcement:

I do not lie to my readers.

Almost everything in MoR is generated by the underlying facts of the story. Sometimes it is generated by humor (I can't realistically claim that Ch. 5 would have comic timing that precise in a purely natural universe). Nothing is generated to deliberately fool the readers.

There are two exceptions to this claim I can readily recall - cases where red herrings made it into the text - and they occur in Ch. 21 where my phrasing of Dumbledore's note to Harry was influenced to be overly compatible with the fan theory (which took me quite by surprise) that the notes were sent by Sirius Black. And in Ch. 77 when Mr. Hat and Cloak says "Time -", which was generated to be compatible with the postulate of a Peggy Sue. I may go back and eliminate both of these at some point to make the text herring-free.

Methods of Rationality is a rationalist story. Your job is to outwit the universe, not the author. There are also cases where people have scored additional points by successful literary analysis, e.g. Checkov's Gun principles. But the author is not your enemy here, and the facts aren't lies.

Of course there are various characters running deceptions and masquerades, but that is quite a different matter.

Not HPMOR talk, just a suggestion for these discussion threads:

I think that it would make far more sense to start a new thread after every new update rather than when they reach a certain number of comments. New people starting in this thread will miss a lot of good ideas posted in the last one, and also that it is better to have all ideas in one thread than scattered so we can refer to them. Having two threads without any new update in between could also create unnecessary rehashing of old posts.

Since the update schedule seems to be spaced about a week apart, there will probably be about 500-1500 comments in the meantime so there is little chance of having to create new threads too early. In the rare case, a minimum number of comments can be assigned if updating is too frequent.

Let's discuss Dementors. I was surprised to learn that a lot of people came away from TSPE believing in Harry's initial hypothesis, that Dementors had no minds of their own and were controlled by the expectations of the people nearest them. To me, this seemed conclusively disproved by something Harry isn't aware of: the fact that the dozen Dementors he scared away went back to their hundred-plus brethren in the central pit and thereafter all of them refused to tell the Aurors where Harry was, despite the fact that there were quite a lot of Aurors believing very strongly that they would.

If there's something I'm missing that rescues this hypothesis, I'd appreciate it being pointed out. At this point, I have to believe that whatever ritual (or possibly "law of magic", if we believe Harry) creates Dementors also imbues them with at least some independent decision-making ability, and that they have goals which include 'continuing to exist'.

Hypothesis:

Quirrellmort intends to upload his mind into Harry's body soon, as soon as Harry is Dark enough. Voldemort will become the Boy-Who-Lived. And Quirrellmort wants or needs this to happen within the next few months.

Evidence:

If Quirrellmort were only after the Philosopher's Stone and training Harry for a long career, he'd keep his own cover intact as long as he could. Instead, over the last few story months, Quirrellmort has cheerfully all but ruined his cover in favor of giving Harry chances to turn Dark.

• Quirrellmort got the Dementor brought to Hogwarts, waited until the last moment to observe Harry's wand by the Dementor's cage, gave wrong advice about how to help Harry recover from the Dementor-induced personality change, and persuaded the other wizards to let Harry face the Dementor again.
• Quirrellmort took Harry to Azkaban soon after seeing Patronus 2.0, leading to more Dementor contact and the recovery of Bellatrix, Quirrellmort's preferred assistant for critical tasks (like, say, ritual magic to download yourself into your Horcrux's body).
• Quirrellmort (as H&C) set up Hermione for Draco's attempted murder, thus both cutting off Harry from the person who's his best influence against being Dark, and motivating Harry to embrace his Dark side more in order to rescue or avenge Hermione.

The first stunt made Dumbledore suspect a plot, the second showed that Voldemort had returned, the third that Voldemort was in Hogwarts. But it's all been worth it to Quirrellmort to hurry up Dark!Harry. Why?

Perhaps because Quirrellmort is running out of time in his current body.

• On the day he killed Rita Skeeter, she observed Quirrellmort had his hair falling out.
• Harry has noticed Quirrell looking visibly older.
• The curse on the Defense against the Dark Arts position demands a terrible conclusion to his year - or at least the appearance of one.

And if Quirrellmort doesn't intend to be around as Quirrell much longer, what does he intend? We have clues.

• We know from the prophecy that Quirrellmort and Harry can destroy each other's spirits.
• Quirrellmort has said that Harry's sense of doom between them is precisely of Harry's doom.
• We suspect from canon combined with "Dark Harry" moments that Harry is an accidental Horcrux containing a partial copy of Voldemort's mental circuitry, and possibly some of his power too.
• Quirrellmort suggested a plan where Harry would be seen to fight the returned Voldemort and defeat him.

The obvious answer is that Quirrellmort intends just the plan he told Harry: Harry will indeed be seen to fight Voldemort and "defeat" him. And "Quirrell" will die, probably having been revealed to be Voldemort. But Quirrellmort... will have downloaded himself into Harry's mind, and so will win the duel he seems to lose.

Just as before, a single clash of spells between Voldemort and Harry Potter will lead to the destruction of "Voldemort"(Quirrell.) And "Harry" will walk away triumphant. But "Harry" won't be Harry any more.

If Quirrellmort's plan succeeds, Harry as we know him will cease to exist. Voldemort will go on in triumph -- as Harry Potter, the boy who destroyed Voldemort twice over. Harry will be the beloved hero of magical Britain -- and Voldemort inside.

I suggest Quirrellmort's top priority is to turn Harry fully Dark before the end of the year, so he can safely download into Harry.

Dumbledore's trickeries: just how much is he covering up?

We know, now, from the "Santa Claus" stunts, that Dumbledore is quite capable of trickery. Reading between the lines, it appears he cruelly sabotaged Snape and Lily's teenaged relationship.

What other deceptions belong to Dumbledore? Several are possible.

• the prophecy and Snape
• Rita Skeeter's False Memory Charm
• Amelia Bones burning Narcissa Malfoy
• Lily's final Dark-ritual conversation with Voldemort

The prophecy and Snape:

The "confessor" interlude makes it clear that Snape was present for Sybil's prophecy. Does that mean that Harry is wrong to theorize that Dumbledore arranged for Snape to hear it...

... or did Dumbledore use a Time-Turner to make sure Snape heard the prophecy live and in person, so that Snape would be baited more credibly into telling Voldemort?

Rita Skeeter's False Memory Charm:

Dumbledore rewards the Weasleys for the prank, which happened to benefit Harry Potter and deprive Lucius Malfoy of a tool. Is it possible that he not only rewarded them for it, but committed the active part of it himself?

Amelia Bones burning Narcissa Malfoy:

There's suggestive evidence within the text ("Someone would burn for this") that Amelia Bones is hard-bitten and fire-minded. We also see her specifically pulling back Dumbledore from confessing to Narcissa's murder. Is it possible that Bones performed the murder, and afterward Dumbledore pretended to Lucius that he had been Narcissa's killer?

Lily's final Dark-ritual conversation with Voldemort:

Lily's last conversation with Voldemort just so happens to replicate the requirements of a Dark ritual - you name the thing sacrificed, and then the thing to be gained.

"I accept the bargain. Yourself to die, and the child to live."

Did Dumbledore prompt Lily on what to say if confronted by Voldemort, to trigger the accidental Horcruxing that saved Harry?

How much of this is Dumbledore actually guilty of? Do we know or suspect other trickeries, or have other evidence?

Why is HPMOR's Quirrellmort so much less violent than HPMOR's Voldemort?

HPMOR paints a Voldemort fixated on punishing his inferiors, a Voldemort who never used persuasion or inspiration when he could rely on suffering.

• Voldemort amused himself by inducing in Bellatrix a love so knowingly one-sided that it was not a happy thought for her.
• Quirrell asserts Voldemort slaughtered an entire monastery rather than simply impersonate an appropriate student.
• Voldemort's rule was so coercive and terrorizing that Lucius Malfoy finds it best to claim he was not merely deceived or misled but forced to obey him.
• If Harry's "dark" thoughts under the Dementor's influence represent Voldemort's mind accurately, Voldemort's reflex inclination was to punish or kill anyone who didn't slavishly obey.

Yet Quirrellmort, for all that he talks cynically and is prepared to kill or memory-charm, prefers not to punish when he can benignly persuade or inspire.

• Quirrell is verbally much less insulting than an army drill sergeant, let alone how Snape treated students.
• The "Quirrell point" system is all about achieving rewards, not avoiding punishments.
• Quirrell's entire plan revolves around patient impersonation and feigned subordination - the kind of behavior that the old Voldemort allegedly refused at the monastery.
• Quirrell is explicitly disapproving about the old Voldemort's approach to persuasion.
• We've been in Quirrell's head when Harry and Dumbledore weren't around, yet his violent acts have always been to "eliminate my enemy", not to "instill fear of me in my intended lackey." The author's had 70+ chapters to show Quirrell or even H+C tormenting a hireling of his with no one else around, and neither has done so.

In HPMOR, Voldemort was grandiose, cynical, and punitive. Quirrellmort is grandiose, cynical, but not punitive. We see him kill to remove danger, but we don't see him torment to instill subordinates' fear of him. Why the change? Options:

• 1: Maybe Quirrellmort is still as punishment-oriented as old Voldemort, but the author doesn't want to show us that ugly side of him quite yet. But if Quirrell doesn't deserve our sympathy, isn't it a good idea to make us lose it? Or if the author wants to hold off on admitting Quirrell is Voldemort until the last moment, why not have H+C be the punisher instead of Quirrell?
• 2: Maybe Voldemort had bad publicity; he was ruthless with enemies, but it's only propaganda that he abused his own people. But Bella and Dementor!Harry are both private evidence that Voldemort was abusive.
• 3: Maybe Quirrellmort has realized the practical downsides of being punitive with those under your authority, and no longer uses those tactics. But if he could figure he was wrong about such a huge part of his leadership style, why is he so deaf to all the other ways he could be wrong about what to expect from people? Where did that open-mindedness go?
• 4: Maybe Quirrellmort doesn't have Voldemort's abusive impulses, because Horcrux!Harry is holding onto them. But why would Quirrellmort not believe in terrifying his subordinates anymore, when he still believes that nobody has any reliable kindness or loyalty? It's cynicism as much as anger that inspires rule-by-fear, and Quirrellmort has full cynicism.

Of those four, my bet is on Horcrux!Harry, but even that doesn't quite make sense to me. Why'd you change, Quirrellmort?

1. Dumbledore believes that Voldemort is at large.
2. And that he's probably responsible for Hermione's troubles.
3. And that he can possess people.
4. And that Quirrell is under heavy suspicion, both as a Defense Professor and directly in this case.
5. And Dumbledore still looks for Tom Riddle elsewhere.
6. And he doesn't hold the Idiot Ball (because no one in this fic does).

I notice I am confused.

I thought you all might find this amusing: I just got a friend to read HPMoR, and now he's planning on using parts of it to teach his Intro to Psych course.

I think he's planning to use Ch 8 (Hermione's Comed-Tea test) and the chapter(s) with Draco and Harry doing the Blood Purity experiment.

I don't remember MY Intro to Psych course being anywhere NEAR that interesting...

I just penned a few thoughts on maintaining proper pessimism about Methods's future. (I also teased Eliezer and, indirectly, Less Wrong commenters a bit. It's all tongue-in-cheek and in a spirit of friendship.)

If anyone can think of a better title for that post, do let me know. I couldn't come up with a pithy Rationalist phrase that quite fit it.

In retrospect, our guesswork was a lot messier than it should have been.

Chapter 25:

One set of problem-solving groups had been given the instruction "Do not propose solutions until the problem has been discussed as thoroughly as possible without suggesting any."

The other set of problem-solving groups had been given no instructions. And those people had done the natural thing, and reacted to the presence of a problem by proposing solutions. And people had gotten attached to those solutions, and started fighting about them, and arguing about the relative importance of freedom versus efficiency and so on.

and

Starting out by looking for solutions was taking things entirely out of order. Like starting a meal with dessert, only bad.

While Less Wrong discussants are usually prone to less fighting and arguing than the norm, they are not prone to being inefficient.

What we should have done was forbade any and all solutions until two days after the chapter was released. We had five full days to guess, we didn't need to have all our solutions down the first twenty-four hours. Not to mention that instead of simpler solutions, we continued to look for answers more complex than the ones already proposed after we thought we already cleared the low-hanging fruit.

While some people have made an attempt to analyze first, listing everything in the room, things that only Harry knows, et cetera, the majority of us just proposed solutions right away. This was probably not what Mr. Yudkowsky wanted.

Word of God:

One thing I did notice was that many readers (a) neglected simple solutions in favor of complex ones, (b) neglected obvious solutions in favor of nonobvious ones, and (c) suggested that the correct hints had been put there for deliberately deceptive purposes.

...which in my mind I parsed as keep it simple, stupid, and you all were looking in the wrong direction and why the hell are you all proposing one preposterous idea after another, are you trying to look intelligent or something.

My only conclusion after reading that was that if we drew a map first we probably would of found the more probable solutions a lot quicker. Also reading through 1.5k+ comments full of solutions was headache-inducing.

Apologies if this was in the earlier thread; I didn't see it.

Some facts: When Quirrell is being interrogated, he "sneezes" to cancel the spell "polyfluis reverso", which would show who, if anyone, had polyjuiced into Quirrell. Canon has it being posession, not polyjuice. Also, he suggests that someone is possessing Quirrell in a way that makes it unlikely to be believed.

Some speculation: Quirrell wants the auror to think that he's somebody else polyjuiced as Quirrell, and is willing to reveal that he is capable of powerful wandless magic to do so. He also at least partly reveals that when he messes with the room's lighting earlier. Why does Quirrell not try to hide this ability better when he knows the strategic value of hidden abilities and, IIRC, only a few wizards (Voldemort among them) are known to be capable of wandless magic?

Only tangentially HPMoR related (HPMoR hammers on the #5 point, will hopefully delve deeply into the #6, and touches on the others), but this Cracked article was an interesting perspective:

Somewhere in the last thread's 1000 posts, it occured to me that it might be useful to have a list of non-obvious insights aggregated. This is stuff that may be missed if the reader has read only HPMoR but is unfamiliar with canon, or it may be things that are well hidden in plain sight. I know it's not normal practice to rot13 such things, but the sheer density of them makes it seem prudent.

• Dhveery vf Ibyqrzbeg.

• Yhpvhf guvaxf Uneel vf Ibyqrzbeg.

• Dhveery znqr gur Iblntre 2 cebor n Ubepehk.

• Uneel nppvqragnyyl thrffrq gur ybpngvbaf bs Dhveery'f Ubepehkrf.

• Dhveery xvyyrq Evgn Fxrrgre.

• Qhzoyrqber urycrq Yvyl znxr Crghavn'f ornhgl cbgvba.

• Dhveery unf gur Erfheerpgvba Fgbar Qrnguyl Unyybj.

I know there's a bunch I'm missing so feel free to add. Ideally, they should not be controversial, just easily missed.

First - YAY! I really do love this book.

Second, the link to part 13 isn't working.

Third, are we going to get a George Bailey scene of people helping to pay off the debt? He did only save them all from the Dark Lord. I know it's not quite as important as helping people to get mortgages, but it should count for something. If nothing else, there's got to be enough people with money out there who wouldn't want the Boy Who Lived to be in debt to the leader of the Death Eaters just as a political matter. And after his show of power against the Dementor, there should be a few people who would consider doing him a favor an extremely wise investment.