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Complete Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality by Less Wrong - T

Discussion in 'Almost Recommended' started by headbanger22, Mar 9, 2010.

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  1. Riley

    Riley Alchemist DLP Supporter

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    Hell I'd fucking give Jon a forever home to see more of any of his work.

    Joe is in the same bracket.

    Shezza and his Denarian Apocalypse as well. Wanker.
     
  2. arkkitehti

    arkkitehti High Inquisitor

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    The reason behind MoR's huge following is that it's in a way more than just Harry Potter fanfiction. It was actually the first piece of fanfiction I ever read (I hadn't even realized there was such a thing as fanfiction), and it was because it was posted on some forum or another that I was following as an interesting take on rationalism, kind of in the way TEDtalks are linked around. I also learned about the existence of DLP via LW's rants on MoR.

    You have to realize that a large portion of the following of MoR isn't in any ways interested in the rest of the Harry Potter fandom, it simply intersects with much larger part of the other internet communities than any other "better" fanfiction. There's for example a thousand post thread about it on the xkcd forums.

    I agree that MoR isn't the best thing to start with if you are genuinely interested in HP fanfiction, but nonetheless it's a huge magnet collecting people to the fandom, because you can discuss it beyond it's literary values, or even without any interest in the HP universe (I certainly hadn't read all the books before enjoying MoR).
     
  3. Riley

    Riley Alchemist DLP Supporter

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    And therein lies its critical failing as an Intro to Fanfiction.

    Yes it does all those things, but at the heart of fanfiction is the fan part. As in, it's not meant to be used as a platform for anything other than a good story. I can say with all honesty that I respect LW for his continuation of a story, especially in the midst of all the media and news around it.

    However, MoR is not a good Intro to Fanfiction, simply because it is not (in my opinion) good fanfiction. I feel like a lot of people will read it and assume this is how all fics are, or how a good portion are, when in fact it's not.

    Again, I don't have an issue with others liking it, much as I wish I could just torch it from the internet forever, but that in no way means that I can accept (quietly at least) that this is what any class would use, as it wasn't really ever meant to be just fanfiction, it's a mouthpiece for the Author to convey his thoughts and ideas on the world and how it should run, given form in a shitty piece of literature that everyone eats up.

    Honestly it has the same rating as 50 shades of grey to me. It's fanfiction, but it misses the core point of Fanfiction.
     
    Luc
  4. esran

    esran Professor

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    Intro fanfiction usually isn't good. In my case I started with natural 20 which was and is amazing but from what I hear most people start with cliche terrible crap.
    And HPMOR is better than most fanfiction because most fanfiction is terrible and HPMOR is mediocre.
     
  5. golan

    golan Temporarily Banhammered DLP Supporter

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    Coupla years ago, I started with stuff I'd never read today (such as Prefesser N).
     
  6. Russano

    Russano Disappeared

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    MoR is what got me into fanfiction, first fic I ever read. I still have a great amount of fondness for it. To this day, I don't think a fic has made me laugh as much as MoR. That said, for all the cool concepts and things it does well, from a purely literary standpoint its fairly terrible.

    Nightmares of Future Past and then Team 8 were my follow up fics. I actually miss those days. Back then I could read horrible cliche filled stories and thoroughly enjoy them, Dumbledore/Weasley bashing, harems and all. Nowadays everything seems to make me walk away in disgust.
     
  7. golan

    golan Temporarily Banhammered DLP Supporter

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    This is the same feeling I get, when I watch stuff I ADORED as a child... FUCK, that means, I'm getting older. Goddamn.
     
  8. Ayreon

    Ayreon Unspeakable DLP Supporter

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    [citation needed]

    Sorry to be a bit snarky, but who says what the core point of fanfiction is? That it has to have a good story and work as a novel?
    That seems like your personal judgment.

    Fanfiction is just fiction that borrows characters, settings and/or plot from an original work. If you're trying to study fanfiction, you should look at the works that are actually popular and not the ones you personally enjoy.

    Obviously MoR sacrifices quite a bit in order to teach certain concepts and lessons that the author thought were important. It's still fanfiction though.
    Just as stories that jettison setting and plot completely and just have the characters hanging out in a coffee shop are still fanfiction. (Even though I personally have no interest in them.)


    EDIT: Nevermind that (below), was mostly turned around in a later chapter. :)
    I'll leave it here though, no deleting stuff.

    I'm trying to articulate why the recent chapters felt sort of off.
    I guess it's because they don't work well on the stories own themes.
    Most of the story seemed to be all about optimism and humanism and truth and so on. Now it ends with mass-murder and covering up the truth.
    Seems like a very cynical ending in light of how the story started.
    I understand the basic arguments - this was the solution that Harry came up with in 60 seconds and it was self-defense after all; telling the truth might have some bad consequences - but it's still unsatisfying.
    I just did not expect this story to take that arc of a Harry with lots of deeply held principles becoming jaded and ending up another Dumbledore I guess.
     
    Last edited: Mar 10, 2015
  9. theronin

    theronin Order Member

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    HPN20 has some weak points, but it's a quality piece of fanfiction. It would be absolutely terrible if it tried to take itself seriously, but it doesn't, so it works really well.
     
  10. Sesc

    Sesc Slytherin at Heart Moderator

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    You would probably off better to jump onto the "fiction" instead of the "fan" part, Riley, at least insofar the former describes a story -- because MoR is not, by any account, a "story" (and even less of a HP one), and that is why it is a really bad way to start explaining FF.
     
  11. esran

    esran Professor

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    False, MOR is, by many accounts, a "story". Which is to say, many people have indeed claimed it is a story.
    In other words I reject to your usage of "by any account" which should only be used when your premise is an axiom of the debate, or agreed upon by most people with experience in the subject matter (In this case MOR and stories)
     
  12. Sesc

    Sesc Slytherin at Heart Moderator

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    I was indeed operating under the assumption that we agreed on the basic definition of "story". My bad.
     
  13. Mutton

    Mutton Order Member

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    Maybe he just finds author tracts to be a subset of stories? Since HPMOR is basically Rationalist Shrugged.

    I think it's a big enough story that a course on fanfic should cover it, and it brought a huge number of people into the hobby, but I'm somewhat doubtful that it will have any long term effects. HPMOR will be an aberration, not a foundation of fanfic to come
     
  14. esran

    esran Professor

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    Story: A sequence of events, real or fictional.
    That a good definition? If you want to give your definition I can rejudge MOR with your definition in mind.
     
  15. theronin

    theronin Order Member

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    A big part of the reason people like MoR is because the author stand-in that attempts to pass for Harry is a smug little shit that uses his "rationality" as an excuse to look down on other people who haven't seen the light, and by reading it they feel like they become "rationalists" and get to look down on other people too.
     
  16. arkkitehti

    arkkitehti High Inquisitor

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    And by writing that, you have managed to look down on those people. Great job.

    I mean, I can very well understand why MoR has such a huge fanbase (explained above), but I can't understand the hate it seems to elicit here. Yes, it's pretty bad as a story (haven't followed it since something like chapter 85), but so is 95% of all other fanfiction. At least MoR has/had plenty of genuinely hilarious moments in the beginning, and has a lot of out-of-the box thinking you don't see too often in fanfiction.
     
  17. Sesc

    Sesc Slytherin at Heart Moderator

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    esran: Without feeling the need to draw up the 'perfect' definition here -- there would definitely be some reference as to the content and the form, and I'm pretty sure this would exclude MoR. By your definition, anything from an essay to a poem could be a story, which obviously does not work.

    Regardless, the original point was that MoR is not typical or even a good example for FF, so using it as a way to introduce that seems questionable.

    arkkitehti: Objectively, if it was to be held to story standards, it would be a bad one. Subjectively, I dislike many of plot-ideas in it, and what finally ends up annoying me is the author's attitude, within and without the story: the way he regards Harry Potter, and the way he regards people who happen to disagree that his "story" is the greatest thing ever (i.e., us).

    But Taure covered all of that pages ago.
     
  18. Caledfwlch

    Caledfwlch Sixth Year DLP Supporter

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    While I can understand why there's criticism that MoR isn't a story, because at times it does give the impression that it's just a platform for the author to use as his mouthpiece, I still think it's unfair to say it isn't one.

    It has characters and a plot, and just because it doesn't fit your personal idea of what a story should be doesn't mean it can't be classified as a story by the most commonly accepted definition of the term.

    You're free to dislike it, yes, but making remarks like that serves no purpose.


    Having said that: not a fan of the last few chapters. It feels like the author takes the story too seriously at times or not seriously enough and it shows. I'm looking forward to the reunion between Hermione and Harry, but I think the story was better off with her dead tbh, so we'll see how that goes.
     
  19. Sesc

    Sesc Slytherin at Heart Moderator

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    It doesn't "give the impression", that's the stated intent. LW said so himself. I'm only taking him by his word, nothing more. Read Taure's post I linked, and the exchange with LW that lead up to it. His aim is to educate people on Rationality, and this work is one of his means of doing so.
     
  20. gamarad

    gamarad Fourth Year

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    Are you saying that essays and poems can't be stories?
     
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