I'd wondered if anyone on DLP was reading this- guess that answers that.

Sometimes this guy can be surprisingly insightful and intelligent in his writing, yet, out of 42 chapters I probably hate 20 of them.

The fic was a good idea for a while but a combination of the authors (sometimes painfully obvious) lack of understanding of canon Harry Potter, as well as the tone that sometimes raises my hackles- its looking more and more likely that I'm going to have to abandon this forever.

The self-satisfaction that practically oozes from the last couple of chapters sometimes manages to eclipse even the unmagical magic.

 

Fuck me, he's still writing?

This isn't a particularly good story, and is full of self-satisfied over-intellectualizing. The characters are OOC, and bland, and Harry feels like a self-insert.

But even so, it looks like a lot of work has been put into this. It's an interesting exercise, perhaps, but not a story. At best, it's a demonstration of how scientific principles can be applies to speculative fiction. At worst, it's mental masturbation.

LessWrong will never be a particularly engrossing writer of fiction, but I can honestly say that I admire the effort that's gone into Methods of Rationality.

 

Part of what annoys me about the story is that it's meant to be a "fixing canon" story. Which is a cool idea. Fixing everything wrong with canon is interesting. Hell, I've thought about it loads.

But he fails at it. He "fixes" things that weren't broken (e.g. the nature of transfiguration) and leaves things that seriously needed fixing (e.g. wizarding economy, currency and banking system).

I guess this just goes back to his lack of knowledge of the source material.

 

It isn't a fixing canon story. Its a scholar-without-a-highschool-education's attempt to educate people, turned into fiction with the name 'Harry Potter' slapped onto it.

Also, I think you'd need to have actually read canon to fix canon.

 

Heh. I'm still enjoying it.

 

While I'll be the first to admit plenty of things about this fic bug me, this just strikes me as patently unfair. Just because this is fantasy means our characters can't put round pegs in round holes? Would Voldemort actually going to a modicum of effort hiding his Horcruxes on Earth be inappropriate too, instead of making them out of priceless collectibles and trusting in his cracked-out schemes to keep them safe?

It stresses my suspension of disbelief in fantasy when I see characters with lightsabers that don't just cut through locked doors, and of all the things wrong in this fic I don't think the idea of somebody making (or trying to make) intelligent use of the tools given to them by the universe is one of them. Voldemort sticking a horcrux in space is a completely fair parody because as canon stands it's a completely reasonable idea.

My problem with MoR is more that the things he has altered from canon, namely Transfiguration, have been altered in such a way that they raise more troubling questions than answers (Transfiguration Terrorism ftw.) The idea of altering magic to make it fit with science is flawed, since no matter if the rules of magic are different from those of the science we know, they are still RULES and that makes magic scientific by definition without need for twisting it to better match physics or chemistry.

If I was going to mess around with a canon "fix fic" of this type, instead of trying to alter magic to make it more like science, I'd alter it to make it more balanced. If a Horcrux in deep space is an intelligent solution, then it isn't a sign that your character is breaking suspension of disbelief, it's a sign that your system is flawed. If a spirit required a ritual using one of its horcruxes to be resurrected, then a horcrux in space becomes much more useless without a recovery method (along with a horcrux on the bottom of the ocean, similar uninteresting situtations.)

 

While spaceships are clearly outside of the framework of canon, I don't see any reason that spaceships must clearly be outside the framework of all fantasy stories, or even all fantasy stories based on canon. Pointing a special stick at a club and making it levitate by saying "Wingardium Leviosa" makes an equal amount of sense (whatever that amount is) no matter where you do it, on Earth or in Space. Having magic work doesn't invalidate advanced science and having advanced science doesn't invalidate magic any more than it was invalid to begin with. One could perhaps more easily argue that stories where Harry Potter becomes a Dark Lord and goes on a killing spree have equally lost focus on what Harry Potter is meant to be.

Perhaps strange genre mixing such as this is seen as unpalatable by many, but there is nothing inherently wrong with it, if it's handled properly. We haven't seen how the spacecrux is dealt with yet, and until MoR deals with it stupidly (as it very well might) it isn't really a stupid plot device. I feel like so far, Voldemort's inability to stop from at least partially showing it off, even though that is an EXTREMELY stupid idea, and cackling about it afterwards is in fact refreshingly characteristic of his normal portrayal.

 

I disagree. There is nothing a priori irrational about the existence of horcruxes or them granting of immortality. That nothing like that happens in the real world we learn from experience. If our experience was as vastly different as it would be if we were living in an HP world, it would be perfectly rational to conclude that they do exist and work to some degree.

You don't like HP mixed with space because it crossed some conceptual line of where the stories you like to read are. That's fine, but it isn't because applying rationality destroys the existence of magic or its effects. Perhaps it destroys the enjoyment of the reader that prefers a story with magic remaining ineffable or whatever, but that's just another way of saying "it's not my cup of tea" rather than an indication of internal incoherence.



In the last dozen or so chapters, the author seems to make considerably more effort into actually making this a story, with something of a plot rather than propping up lectures. The earlier format used to be my main criticism of the fic, but it now I'll have eat crow on that--LW just isn't a particularly engaging author. It's almost odd to say this, but I now I've found the earlier phase, where its point was a seemingly a thinly veiled vehicle for exposition, actually a more enjoyable read [size=-3](your mileage may vary)[/size]. It might not have been a 'real story', but it had some interesting perspectives. Now that the fic has gotten a plot, I find that I can't really bring myself to care about it.

 

Spoiler

Sirius and Pettigrew were lovers? Really?

I am growing increasingly tired of Harry not accomplishing anything. The army thing got old fast and I can't help but find things in most characters that I cannot stand. Nevertheless, it remains a decent read with a solid update rate so I can't complain.

 

And now he's writing slash?

Sadly - I mean, really sadly - I'm not surprised.

 

/facepalm

Spoiler

Obviously Remus was just covering up their real secret by confirming Harrys crazy theory.

Btw: Just because a story contains homosexual characters, doesn't mean it's 'slash'.

 

Vorpal: I think Sesc's point wasn't that the inclusion of space makes it unenjoyable for him, but rather that by taking the idea of horcruxes to its logical extreme the whole idea of horcruxes have been massively overpowered, and that is why they have "no right to exist".

He's not saying that they shouldn't exist in some objective sense (i.e. some sense that magic and space should never mix in literature). He's just saying that writing a world wherein you have both horcruxes and access to space is bad world building.

 

Hold the fuck up, he's doing what now?

Not even a little surprised. His original goal was to get publicity, which is why he chose HP to begin with. Rationally,catering to the largest audience in the fandom is the next step in this.

If this story ever gets to year 5 (doubt it.) I fully expect Harry & Malfoy buttsecks with the possible inclusion of Snape.

 

How about the rational exploration of mpreg ?
Good that I stopped to read that meta fic around chapter 10 or so.

 

It seems to me that the changes to transfiguration have less to do with reconciling it with science than they do with social implications. Canon!transfiguration should have resulted in a post-scarcity society. Which could be interesting in its own right, but not what Yudkowsky was after.

Similarly, I think the whole Sirius/Peter thing is a consequence of him rejecting the regular plot there. Remember that he mocked it with the whole Weasley Rat story. Well, he had to come up with an alternative that met the facts. If Sirius was the traitor, what motivations could he have for going after Peter? Apparently this was the best one.

And I'm fairly sure that the ship is H/Hr.

 

@Taure: good point.

 

Something tells me that by the time Harry is dealing with the spacecrux in this fic, "massively overpowered" will be a very relative term. In a late game DnD 3.5-esque (the author has been hinting at this with all the spells lifted from DnD) world of broken spells and hard counters around every corner, stuff that would otherwise be obscene tends to be much less world shattering. Actually writing in a world with such an ungodly morass of hyperdeadly bullshit is sure to be challenging, but I for one will be amused if it's pulled off well (though there is a large chance he'll fail and it'll just suck.)

 

Meh. I thought this topic was locked?

I'm still expecting at some point or another to discover that there was time traveling somewhere or another along the way. The various changes we're seeing are too...surgical for them to fit within the framework we've been given here. If we can trust him to be true to what he says on his user page he's going to need to start bringing in time travel or some such just to balance things a little.

There are too many alterations in Harry, Quirrel\Voldemort (?), and Dumbledore for there not to be a big reveal sooner or later. I'm also wondering what the impact of Harry's horocrux is on the plot. We've seen all sorts of references to his dark side, sleep habits, etc and we know that things are radically more different than a last minute reconciliation on Petunia's part and the subsequent marrying of a University professor can account for.

Of course LessWrong could simply ignore all that or just stop writing one day while promising a rewrite that never comes... But if he's to remain true to his thesis he has no choice but to balance things.

--bornagainpenguin