Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality: Commentary

(Spoilers ahoy.)

Notes on Chapter 30

“Girls can win by tricking boys who don't take girls seriously” is not a feminist message.

Notes on Chapter 33

Given that Quirrell had specifically avoided having a points system so that Harry couldn't exploit it, I was rather disappointed when Harry didn't think of the best way to exploit the points system they use here.

If Dragon and Chaos really want to shut Sunshine out of the game, they shouldn't go towards Sunshine at all. Instead, they should charge full-speed at each other, and fight very aggressively. After the fight, the winning team will be ahead of Sunshine by at least 23 points. And since Dragon and Chaos are close to evenly matched, the winning team will probably lose most of its members as well. That way, Sunshine will never be able to get back in the game, because there simply won't be enough opponents to shoot in order to gain points.

(I'm ignoring traitors here, but if Sunshine has enough traitors to accumulate nearly 23 points on top of their initial lead, it's practically impossible for them to lose anyway.)

I don't think they would actually use this strategy – Draco would be too proud to agree to it, even if it does technically win. But Harry should have at least thought of the idea.

A theory about the ending

Even before seeing how the end played out, it seemed ridiculous that Voldemort would leave Harry holding zir wand when ze took away all Harry's other stuff and instructed the Death Eaters to restrict zir moves so carefully. Why would Voldemort leave zem the wand? As ze says, “To fathom a plot, look at the consequences and ask if they might be intended.” Perhaps Voldemort, or someone controlling zem, intended that Harry use the wand to defeat Voldemort and the Death Eaters.

Tom Riddle #1 is worried about a prophecy that says Harry Potter-Evans-Verres has the power to vanquish a Dark Lord. A person seeking eternal life would prefer to avoid staking their existence on winning a prophecied 1-vs-1. So ze tries to subvert it at “every point of intervention” - by making sure the prophesied Dark Lord is not zemself, but someone else.

The very first thing ze does is to abandon Quirrel's body and possess another hapless victim. Ze then subdues the original Quirrel and ze imprints zemself upon Quirrel, creating Tom Riddle #3. One Quirinus-Quirrel-possessed-by-Tom-Riddle enters; one Quirinus-Quirrel-possessed-by-Tom-Riddle leaves.

Using a minion (Sprout, perhaps), #1 forces #3 to make an Unbreakable Vow. The vow stipulates:

#3 will fully take on the role of Lord Voldemort. #3 will resurrect Hermione and coerce Harry into making the Vow about the world's destruction. #3 will also find an excuse to waste an entire hour on something, so that no one suspects Polyjuice Potion. After that, #3 must ensure being vanquished by Harry. Ze will not kill Harry under any circumstances, and ze will reveal zemself to Harry as the Dark Lord. If Harry fails to vanquish zem, ze must continue giving Harry more resources (the wand) and motivation (torture threats) until Harry does it. Lastly, #3 will obey the commands of anyone who gives the code phrase Recommend-Performance-Humble-Horizon-251, in case the plan fails, Harry gets killed, and #1 has to stop #3 from Dark Lording all over the place.

#1's minion erases #3's memory of making the Vow, and instead gives #3 false memories that ze is actually #1 and has just taken most of Hogwarts hostage. (No need to risk detection by actually doing it. All ze needs is the ability to claim it's true in Parseltongue, which only requires zem to believe it.)

Then #1 Obliviates all minions involved (except the one involved in the fake hostage scheme), releases #3 to do zir work, and retires to a quiet home in the country until this all blows over. Ze decides to abandon the role of Lord Voldemort and never act too much like a Dark Lord again until Harry is perma-dead. Thus, ze maximizes zir chances that the prophecy and Dumbledore's conditions think of #3 as the only relevant Dark Lord Voldemort.

Most everything else happens as the story says. #3, not knowing ze's being controlled by an Unbreakable Vow, rationalizes zir decisions, and is able to report that false motivation in Parseltongue because ze believes it.

I find this theory more believable than the story where #1 willingly exposes zemself to a prophecied opponent who is holding a wand, knows #1's true identity, and even has an hour left on zir Time-Turner. The biggest weakness of the theory is that the imprinting might not work as smoothly as I describe. Still, #1 had plenty of time to experiment and perfect the plan before executing it, since there was nothing crucial about the exact moment ze pulled it off.

That's about the size of it.

One last thing: In the “do not mess with time” incident, Harry didn't really get intimidated by the force of Time itself. It was just a false memory implanted by Dumbledore in accordance with the prophecies, to make sure Harry didn't learn too much about time travel too soon.