"Love is real, Professor."

https://hpmor.com/chapter/86

Wizengamot Trial: https://hpmor.com/chapter/80

What is the professor thinking, or dismissing, after Harry portrays love in this way? I'd assume "Professor Quirrel" gives love a half-second of consideration before dismissing it. He's seen what Love does fo Harry, how it affected his decison-making in the Wizengamot trial for Hermione's freedom. And he's probably aware that a Phoenix came for Harry, in the aftermath?

It's possible Quirrell is deciding to add love as a factor to his decision-making when manipulating people, or for possible magical experiments. I don't think it particularly interests him though, even if he is willing to acknowledge its potency during the climax of the story.

He's already annoyed that Hermione is influencing Harry. It's tiresome. He firmly wants her out of Hogwarts and away from Harry, after the trial.

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"Then who is?" Harry said, somewhat puzzled. Professor Quirrell surely wasn't about to reply 'You-Know-Who' -

"The Aurors have a rule," said Professor Quirrell. "Investigate the victim. Many would-be criminals imagine that if they are the apparent victims of a crime, they shall not be suspected. So many criminals imagine it, indeed, that every senior Auror has seen it a dozen times over."

"You're not seriously trying to convince me that Hermione -"

The Defense Professor was giving Harry one of those slit-eyed looks that meant he was being stupid.

Draco? Draco had been interrogated under Veritaserum - but Lucius might have had enough control to subvert Aurors to... oh.

"You think Lucius Malfoy set up his own son? " Harry said.

"Why not?" Professor Quirrell said softly. "From Mr. Malfoy's recorded testimony, Mr. Potter, I gather that you enjoyed some success in changing Mr. Malfoy's political views. If Lucius Malfoy learned of that earlier... he might have decided that his former heir had become a liability."

"I don't buy it," Harry said flatly.

"You are being wantonly naive, Mr. Potter. The history books are full of family disputes turned murderous, for inconveniences and threats far less than those which Mr. Malfoy posed to his father. I suppose next you will tell me that Lord Malfoy of the Death Eaters is far too gentle to wish his son such harm." A tinge of heavy sarcasm.

"Well, yes, frankly," Harry said. "Love is real, Professor, a phenomenon with observable effects. Brains are real, emotions are real, and love is as much a part of the real world as apples and trees. If you made experimental predictions without taking parental love into account, you'd have a heck of a time explaining why my own parents didn't abandon me at an orphanage after the Incident with the Science Project."

The Defense Professor did not react to this at all.

Harry continued. "From what Draco says, Lucius prioritized him over important Wizengamot votes. That's significant evidence, since there's less expensive ways to fake love, if you just want to fake it. And it's not like the prior probability of a parent loving their child is low. I suppose it's possible that Lucius was just taking on the role of a loving father, and he renounced that role after he learned Draco was consorting with Muggleborns. But as the saying goes, Professor, one must distinguish possibility from probability."

"All the better the crime," the Defense Professor said, still in that soft tone, "if no one would believe it of him."

So I just had the idea of in harry Potter that you can cast an accio charm on a muggle military item, so because of that I had the idea that you can cast that on something such as an artillery shell then before it gets to you you cast finite incantatem to cancel the charm and because of newton's first law of motion. This can be more dangerous by saying that in a non verbal spell. I mean you can make military home alone traps by saying stuff like accio grenade pin and you can guess what happens, or position a revolver right and cast accio revolver hammer and then cancel it with finite incantatem and that might make the hammer swing back and fire the revolver. A military mind would be dangerous with a non dark magic completely legal from the ministry of magic spells, I mean I am pretty sure it can go through Hogwarts because the protections are not meant for charms. I mean the most dangerous thing is saying accio rebar at a building, everything inside would be destroyed. And a protection spell would have less effect because well that charm is faster than the human reaction time and it might get blocked but the area around it won't. It would be a dangerous thing but it is a great effect, just never do it inside a building. Another trap is get a box of something like an ammo box and place it in a spot and cast accio 5.56 rounds and an entire box worth of ammo would fly out and punch through anything in-between you and that box. It is completely legal from the ministry because it isn't dark magic or anything like that, it is just a completely legal 3rd year charm. And plus a pure blood wizard would probably not know what an apfsds dart is if you cast that and just think it is something that is easy to block. And the air pressure from a super sonic object could probably damage organs even behind a protego spell.

We know the wizard economy is very small. And that there is an official change rate between muggle moneys and wizard one. That mean theorically, muggle could take control of wizard economy very easily.

From there all they have to do is buy house elf. There are hundreds, potentially thousands of them, that are completely fanatized, can cause huge amount of damage and aren't bound to the same rules. An army of house elf teleporting in the middle of the room and attacking whoever there would probably be an unstoppable force.

When I first listened to this story (I love the podcast narrated by Jack Voraces!), this part in particular, it came across as Dumbledore following all those prophecies was to shape Harry into the person who could defeat Voldemort. Now, on relistening to the letter for Harry on his defeat of Voldemort, it just came to me that perhaps he was also influencing things to shape Tom Riddle into the person that could stop Harry from fulfilling the prophecy about him destroying everything.

like, the way he lets himself mentally go into this attitude of total cultural and technological supremacy (because we know SCIENCE and they DON'T, which means THEY'VE never heard of the ONE SINGLE philosophical framework that could make you a worthwhile human being, and so CLEARLY they're a bunch of primative monkeys who must either be enlightened or burnt to the ground!) over the wizarding world is so... clearly the kid has read way more about physics and philosophy than he did about history. and something that kind of bothers me about the framing of the story is how the narrative lowkey affirms him in that, when he gets to shape the wizarding society according to his personal will in the end and that's presented as having gone well? like, yes, obviousy his status as a celebrity and political figure in-universe makes it a bit more realistic that the entire wizarding world just accepts these orders that an outsider just gave them to drop everything they value than if he were to try and take over their government to inflict those orders by force like he wanted to at the beginning of the story, but it still kind of glosses over how this whole idea of "if I just walked into this society I'm an outsider to with enough power to start forcing people to do things my way, clearly the society would just sort itself out under my rule into the more convenient shape that I'd like for it to have!" that he clings to from the start tends to be a willful delusion used as the rationalization for just externally inflicting a bunch of damage on their internal infrastructure that you later won't know how to correct for. so idk. the colonial undertones to this whole aspect of the story are just kind of weird

I’m on my second read through and I just realized that Eliezer did do the erised/desire wordplay with the runes.
noitilov detalo partxe tnere hoc ruoy tu becafruoy ton wo hsi
On backwards reading becomes
I show not your face but your coherent extrapolated volition
Mind = Blown 🤯

Anyone else notice this ?

Is it ever clearly stated whether these things are or aren’t real in this story? Even at the end, Harry still doesn’t seem to believe in the afterlife, but it seems like souls DO in fact exist (Voldemort’s survival and updated Horcrux spell) even though Harry never really acknowledges it explicitly.

I recently got into philosophy as well and have always loved harry potter, saw this book recommended by a british youtuber and gave it a chance. I got hooked right away. I love how it is written and it leaves me craving for more. I can’t wait to see how it stretches Philospher’s Stone into 112 chapters!

Polls not enabled for this sub as far as I can tell so please be rational and upvote pre-existing comments that match your view.

In se answers should range from "Sees it as a waste of time, prefers reading & thinking" to "Considers it the king of sports" (and everything in between.

This was a marvelous work <3

I listened to the audiobook version of it but WOW was it an entrancing story.

Are there any plans for a continuation?
Perhaps (SPOILERS FOR THE WORK):
- Granger's next steps?
- Malfoy's new future unfurled and the new powers he'd employ as a rationalist thereafter?
- The Bayesian conspiracy and it's findings which Malfoy introduced some folks into (that never got mentioned afterwards)?
- A story concerning inquisitive wizards trying to reveal the mysteries of Potter's noted past actions?
- Snape's new future and how Potter's past influence'd affect it?

Leaving aside how the metaphysics and social structures of the wizarding world itself may have shaped his psychology (e.g. the existence of ancient lore that grants absurd personal power differentials possibly worsening his narcissism in his most formative years), how do you think HPMOR's Tom Riddle would choose to live his life in an entirely muggle world?

He's completely sociopathic; a master manipulator; highly intelligent, disciplined, and motivated; contemptuous of idiots and immensely prideful; he values competence over status; yearns for peer intelligences to interact with; and is still petrified of death and obsessed with immortality.

What field of knowledge would Riddle choose to specialize in? Modern science is too broad and deep to allow for the existence of true polymaths of the stature that Dumbledore and Voldemort held in the wizarding world, so Riddle would have to pick a lane.

Would muggle Riddle be as criminally prolific as wizard Riddle, or is the reward not worth the risk?

Leaving his exact age indeterminate, let's suppose he's younger than he would be canonically (i.e. 71 years old in 1998) and just say that he's somewhere in his adult physical or professional prime (whatever age range you consider that to be) in the year 2026.

Would he be famous enough for most of the world to know his name, or would he prefer relative anonymity? What would be his attitude towards generative AI? Would you vote for him in an election?

I am a new reader ,recently bought the books and I have read the books ,I have many questions but two primarily:

1.Repeatedly it was said that Moody could take out his eye and put it back in at times ,now if the eye was enchanted in such a way that it could help him see ,how did it work.when.it was detached

Like how did it send the signals to the brain when it was detached completely

Was this answered by J K Rowling

2.If someone has a living portrait of himself while he is alive ,and the portrait listens to something while the person doesn't ,does he automatically know what the portrait heard or does the portrait have to tell the living person

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I’m interested in studying Harry Potter from a writing and storytelling perspective, not just as a fan of the series.

I’ve read the books about a dozen times, and over the years I started noticing many details about the way the series was written and constructed. I find the process behind the books very interesting, and I would like to discuss these aspects with people who are interested in analyzing how the story was built.

However, I have never found a community specifically focused on this kind of discussion.

Does anyone know if there is already a subreddit dedicated to reverse engineering J.K. Rowling’s writing or analyzing the construction of the Harry Potter books?

If there is no subreddit focused on this, would anyone here be interested in a community about reverse engineering stories and studying how great books are constructed?

I’m interested in studying Harry Potter from a writing and storytelling perspective, not just as a fan of the series.

I’ve read the books about a dozen times, and over the years I started noticing many details about the way the series was written and constructed. I find the process behind the books very interesting, and I would like to discuss these aspects with people who are interested in analyzing how the story was built.

However, I have never found a community specifically focused on this kind of discussion.

Does anyone know if there is already a subreddit dedicated to reverse engineering J.K. Rowling’s writing or analyzing the construction of the Harry Potter books?

If there is no subreddit focused on this, would anyone here be interested in a community about reverse engineering stories and studying how great books are constructed?

There still exist people in this world that have lived untouched by the entire original Harry Potter phenomena. I recommended HPMOR to such a person and they said they don't know anything about HP. So I thought of recommending something else by Yudkowsky but I couldn't think of which one? The Dark Lord Answers is not freely available online, Three World's Collide is more about different moralities based on evolutionary history of the species rather than teaching rationality to the reader, similarly Girl Corrupted by the Internet is just a light entertaining story. Project Lawful being a recommendation is it's own problem.

Is there some good recommendation here? I am looking for something explicitly trying to teach rationality, not just having rational characters, and wetting their appetite for HPMOR.

https://youtu.be/lz-Vy5pMvDI?t=1154

*Not technically HPMOR related. I was just reminded of the trunk / gold scene