Yeah, that looks a lot like encouraging people to review.

It could have been worse though, i.e. like "If you don't donate amount xy until March 3, Harry will die a gruesome death." He did hold his fanfiction hostage before to raise money, iirc for a symposium of his employer.

 

what is MoR?

 

Some would say the best thing since sliced bread, other would say the third worst fanfiction of mankind (right behind 'My Immortal' (the unbetaed version) as no.1 , and 'Harry Crow' as no. 2.)

Here you go: https://www.fanfiction.net/s/5782108/1/Harry_Potter_and_the_Methods_of_Rationality

And its DLP thread: https://forums.darklordpotter.net/showthread.php?t=15594

 

What the hell??
Well, time to read it.

 

A mediocre fic that for some reason a lot of people really like or really hate.

 

For all the things MoR did wrong, its Voldemort makes a good villain. Good as in competent.

Spoiler

If there was never a Harry Potter, only two versions of Tom Riddle, then the older one, as clearly superior, should win, since he's smarter, more powerful and is holding all the aces at the end of chapter 113.

If LW truly wants Voldemort to be everything that an easily deceived storybook villain isn't, then there's nothing Harry can do to get out alive given that Voldemort is older, smarter, more experienced and powerful than Harry, truly immortal and irredeemably evil. Unless of course, LW employes the oratory Deus Ex Machina that Taure mentioned.

Voldemort is smart and since Harry doesn't know the wording of the second prophecy, and Voldemort interpreted the Trelawney prophecy correctly (though his actions might not have been optimal) I would assume that Voldemort interprets the prophecy of doom correctly and Harry will destroy Earth. In this case, I say let Voldemort win. He may be evil, but he clearly wants to preserve Earth (as his personal playground). I'm less unsure of Voldemort than Harry.

Harry must consider the option that while Voldemort has promised not to hurt some of his friends truthfully, there was no binding contract with possible negative consequences for Voldemort, which means that Voldemort's intentions could change in the future which is exactly the same thought trick that Harry used earlier in the finale. Which means that without a Vow, anything Voldemort promises isn't worth shit.

Harry has no way of convincing Voldemort (that I can think of) that his survival will be beneficial to Voldemort (because Voldemort primarily cares about himself) or anyone else on Earth in any way if Voldemort believes that the doom prophecy and his interpretation of it are both correct and Harry=apocalypse. And I can think of nothing else that Harry could say that Voldemort would find interesting enough to not kill Harry afterwards. Now that Voldemort is learning muggle science, there's nothing Harry can offer him that Voldemort can't obtain himself.

All flaws of MoR aside, I think it's an interesting riddle to ponder. However, I still don't believe that LW actually has a solution. Harry is absolutely fucked and he is going to die.

 

It is worth noting the last time Yudkowsky did this the "good" ending involved the anihilation of both a planet full of people and all of the main characters.

 

I have no doubt that the actual solution is:

a) Absurdly convoluted
b) Unbelievable
c) Thematically at odds with Harry Potter
d) Intellectually masturbatory

If Harry is a horcrux and knows so, telling Voldemort would likely stay his execution, but have fun being a prisoner for eternity.

 

Voldemort also knows Harry is a horcrux. He doesn't care because apparently everything else is also a horcrux.
Other things that are horcruxes: Multiple space probes, random grains of sand, things buried deep underground and beneath the ocean, Hermoine Granger, and anything else Voldemort felt like making at any given time. He has tens of thousands of them.
Yudkowsky decided to remove all of the disadvantages of horcrux creation to make a villian who is hilariously villian sue.

 

If no one guesses correctly I can see him holding the "good ending" hostage pending some goal being met. It may not be obviously financial in nature at the beginning, but will in some way further his goal of pushing his messianic message further.

Taure, I promise you really don't want to dig any deeper. For your own sake, and that of irrational irritation, you don't want to follow the horcrux thread at all- that way lies madness. :facepalm

Scott_Press, I stand by Harry telling Voldemort in Parseltongue that he is the only way to ensure that the world doesn't end in fire, via science apocalypse that are impending. This follows LW's goals to spread his brand of rationality and to finish the manifesto in such a way that furthers that goal. People need their lives saved by "the society for..."

And look I just lost interest again. This post feels a bit over the top, but so does the story.

 

Ah. That's rational fiction then? Remove the limits of a plot device to create a supervillian Gary Stu?

 

Wouldn't Voldemort reform at the Horcrux? What good is a space probe going to be? Eternally reforming in space and then immediately dying a few lightyears away from earth seems unwise. Same problem with beneath the ocean and presumably under the ground, although that would depend on what that means exactly.

 

Since when did Voldemort reform at the Horcrux? When he died on halloween he was blasted from his body into the wraith form in Harry's nursery. He didn't go flying off to a cliff on the side of the ocean, or Bellatrix's vault.

 

It happened differently in the universe shown in MoR. Here Voldemort changed how the Horcrux ritual works and one of the side effects is reforming inside his Horcruxes. It was by simple luck that Quirrell happened to stumble upon one of them or else Voldemort would be stuck like that for eternity.

 

I assumed that was because the Harry the Horcrux was there.

 

He reforms at a horcrux as soon as somebody touches it (he didn't think this was the case, he thought it would work like in canon, and now he thinks he fixed the flaw that caused that issue) which is why it took him so long to get a new body. Apparently even though he has tens of thousands of horcruxes they are all extremely well hidden.
And, um, Harry doesn't count for some reason? Mumble mumble living horcrux mumble mumble.

 

This is explained by the fact that the Resurrection Stone is also a 'crux and combining the properties of both, Voldemort can (1) resurrect (because horcrux) and (2) free roam in horcrux ghost mode (because Res Stone, which summons spirits, which can move around). Should Voldemort be disembodied again, he just plays Body Snatcher until he makes a new body for himself.

 

Its worth noting Voldemort hasn't tested this, and he was wrong the first time.

 

Must have misread something then. I assumed that he tested the ability to ghost around after being freed from horcrux entrapment by Quirrell. It would follow that the fix to the horcrux ritual is recent (as in, hapened in time since the birth of Quirrellmort, meaning that Voldemort developed the fix while teaching at Hogwarts) and the Resurrection Stone might be the only horcrux with the improved horcrux spell applied. I sort of assumed that the Stone could've already been a horcrux and Voldemort used Hermione's to apply the new spell to it.

It's kind of hard to figure out LW's timeline for this.

 

I've read the story from beginning to the end and due to its sheer length and masturbatory philosophical and scientific blathering it can be easy to forget certain details and experiments that Harry Conducted earlier in his school year. As such, if i am correct about the solution to Harry current predicament...

He just needs to buy a little time, because Voldemort has (unknowingly) killed himself and if he kills Harry Potter it wont change the outcome only accelerate his impending doom.

With a wave of his wand Voldemort striped off harry clothes ripped away his pouch and torn the ring off his finger.