For the sake of my sanity and happiness I've decided to take a break from my ongoing Billy and Howard review. So in honour of the long awaited conclusion of Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality, I'm going to tell you all how I don't like it very much, as you do. Now I know that this story carries a lot of philosophical internet baggage because of its author, Eliezer Yudkowsky of Less Wrong, but I'm going to try and avoid reviewing it as a manifesto or an advertisement for his web community, but rather as a story and fan work.





Let's begin with the author's introduction.

Disclaimer: J. K. Rowling owns Harry Potter, and no one owns the methods of rationality. Click to expand... Click to shrink...

Ah, there's our first problem, this fanfic really isn't based on J.K Rowling's books, or even the films. You see when Eliezer Yudkowsky began writing Methods he hadn't actually read the books and got most of his info on the series from either the wiki or other second hand sources. Basically Methods of Rationality is a fanfiction for Harry Potter tumblrs. Now don't get me wrong, I have no trouble with cynically piggy backing off a well known property to gain recognition, as this very thread should attest, but it's always been my philosophy that if you're going to homage, critique, or even just rip off a work, you should really take the effort to actually experience it for yourself. It'd be like if I reviewed movies based off snatches of conversation from people walking out of the cinema, though I wouldn't be surprised if someone on Channel Awesome already does that.



Compare this to a story I respect a lot more, Luminosity, a Twilight fanfic that was inspired by and shares its basic rationalist protagonist premise with this very fic. The author of that story actually read the Twilight books and made every effort to maintain consistency with their rules, up to and including the sparkles. In my opinion that story, while not flawless, felt a lot more authentic and avoided most of the embarrassing continuity gaffes and reading comprehension failures that Methods suffers from.

This fic is widely considered to have really hit its stride starting at around Chapter 5. If you still don't like it after Chapter 10, give up. Click to expand... Click to shrink...

I really don't want to do over a hundred and fifteen chapters in one go, so fine, challenge accepted.





Please visit HPMOR DOT COM for:



* Ongoing podcast of the story; Click to expand... Click to shrink...



I've listened to a chapter or two of that, not a bad job, although everyone sounds far too American.







Meta-fanfiction? Fanfiction Triumphant?







Harry James Potter-Evans-Verres is every other language's word for smug.









I don't even want to know.





* Trigger warnings page (warnings about possible traumatic associations for some readers; to avoid spoilers for most readers, there are no warnings inside the main story); Click to expand... Click to shrink...



What is the point of that? If you're going to have trigger warnings, just put them at the beginning of the chapter where they're needed!





* How to learn everything the main character knows; Click to expand... Click to shrink...



This really reminds me of those old ads that promised to teach us Doc Savage's exercise routine if we bought a decoder ring.





Reviews make me happy. You can leave reviews on any chapter, no login required, and there's no need to finish reading it all before you start reviewing chapters - but do please leave at most one review per chapter. Click to expand... Click to shrink...



Well I'm going above and beyond aren't I?





This is not a strict single-point-of-departure fic - there exists a primary point of departure, at some point in the past, but also other alterations. The best term I've heard for this fic is "parallel universe". Click to expand... Click to shrink...

This seems to mostly be an excuse to ignore pretty much everything Eliezer wants to about J.K Rowling's setting and characters, no matter how much it weakens the initial "what if" premise and makes me wonder why he didn't just write his own, original wizard school story as many other authors have.

We open the story proper with this mysteriousness:

Beneath the moonlight glints a tiny fragment of silver, a fraction of a line...



(black robes, falling)



...blood spills out in litres, and someone screams a word. Click to expand... Click to shrink...



No idea what that's about. Maybe it's just what happened to the last guy who talked shit about Methods on the internet.





Every inch of wall space is covered by a bookcase. Each bookcase has six shelves, going almost to the ceiling. Some bookshelves are stacked to the brim with hardback books: science, maths, history, and everything else. Other shelves have two layers of paperback science fiction, with the back layer of books propped up on old tissue boxes or lengths of wood, so that you can see the back layer of books above the books in front. And it still isn't enough. Books are overflowing onto the tables and the sofas and making little heaps under the windows. Click to expand... Click to shrink...

It was a hideous fire hazard and nobody could ever find a place to set down their drink. This feels like someone trying way too hard, whoever lives here don't sound like bookworms as much as hoarders. Also, is the only nonfiction in the house SF? As a lifelong devotee to sci fi, that sounds really blinkered.

This is the living-room of the house occupied by the eminent Professor Michael Verres-Evans, and his wife, Mrs. Petunia Evans-Verres, and their adopted son, Harry James Potter-Evans-Verres. Click to expand... Click to shrink...

True fact, Germany recently had to enact laws preventing their nobility from accumulating a mad amount of surnames, don't know why that popped into my head. Not-Vernon and Petunia are having an argument, apparently having to do with the letter that's lying on their coffee table. It's addressed to

Mr. H. Potter

in green ink, presumably because there wasn't enough ink to actually include all his other last names.

"You're joking," Michael said to Petunia. His tone indicated that he was very much afraid that she was serious.



"My sister was a witch," Petunia repeated. She looked frightened, but stood her ground. "Her husband was a wizard." Click to expand... Click to shrink...



I'm curious as to why this Harry has grown up ignorant of the wizarding world. If we can turn to canon for a moment, the only reason that Harry didn't already know magic was real when his Hogwarts letter arrived was because the Dursleys hated and were ashamed of their connection to wizardry, they weren't under Dumbledore's orders to not tell him. Indeed, that was half the reason Hagrid was so pissed at them. Yet Petunia Evans-Verres, who supposedly had a much better relationship with her sister and is not nearly as bitter and twisted as her canon counterpart, still kept not only Harry, but her husband in the dark as well. Basically Petunia is more open about her family when she's married to the mean, narrow minded bigot than when she's with what's meant to be a competent scientist with an inquiring mind. At this point it'd honestly make more sense if Harry had been fostered with a couple of muggle scientists with no familial ties to the Potters, the how would certainly take some explaining but it'd still be less weird than that fic where Harry was raised by the Culture.







The Professor rolled his eyes. "Dear, I understand that you're not familiar with the sceptical literature. You may not realise how easy it is for a trained magician to fake the seemingly impossible. Remember how I taught Harry to bend spoons? Click to expand... Click to shrink...

Did he ever bend them from the other side of the room? How is this the first time Harry being a bloody wizard has come up, did Eliezer not remember that accidental magic is something Rowling's wizards do as children? Admittedly this Harry probably had a lot less reasons to feel angry or scared than the real one, but it was pretty clear that accidental magic was fairly common even in kids raised in healthy environments. Actually, considering how obnoxiously powerful HJPEV becomes later one, I almost have to credit Eliezer for not having him follow Tom Riddle's example and manifest wandless, silent magic via the power of Bayes.

Petunia retorts that she saw things way more arcane and strange than spoon bending, but when pressed for an example uses her hotness, seriously.

"Listen. Michael. I wasn't - always like this -" She gestured at herself, as though to indicate her lithe form. "Lily did this. Because I - because I begged her. For years, I begged her. Lily had always been prettier than me, and I'd... been mean to her, because of that, and then she got magic, can you imagine how I felt? And I begged her to use some of that magic on me so that I could be pretty too, even if I couldn't have her magic, at least I could be pretty." Click to expand... Click to shrink...



Eliezer Yudkowsky has often been accused of sexism and I have to say no fucking wonder. Petunia both deeply feared and envied Lily's magic ever since they were little kids and their relationship only truly began to disintegrate when Lily headed off to Hogwarts without her, so of course Eliezer assumes that the issue that really drove the sisters apart was that Petunia was kind of plain. That's like reading the myth of the Gorgons and coming to the conclusion that Athena was madly in love with Poseidon, you're completely ignoring a character's history and motivations in favour of defaulting to "things girls worry about".

"And Lily would tell me no, and make up the most ridiculous excuses, like the world would end if she were nice to her sister, or a centaur told her not to - the most ridiculous things, and I hated her for it. And when I had just graduated from university, I was going out with this boy, Vernon Dursley, he was fat and he was the only boy who would talk to me. And he said he wanted children, and that his first son would be named Dudley. And I thought to myself, what kind of parent names their child Dudley Dursley? It was like I saw my whole future life stretching out in front of me, and I couldn't stand it. And I wrote to my sister and told her that if she didn't help me I'd rather just -"





Petunia stopped.



"Anyway," Petunia said, her voice small, "she gave in. She told me it was dangerous, and I said I didn't care any more, and I drank this potion and I was sick for weeks, but when I got better my skin cleared up and I finally filled out and... I was beautiful, people were nice to me," her voice broke, "and after that I couldn't hate my sister any more, especially when I learned what her magic brought her in the end -" Click to expand... Click to shrink...

Yep, Petunia didn't dump Vernon because he was a nasty, boring man who viewed her only surviving family as freaks, but because she didn't like his hypothetical baby name. And she only did that after acquiring dangerous beauty drugs from her sister by apparently threatening to kill herself, the sister whose child she later lied to for years in order to avoid an awkward conversation. It's amazing, the author has somehow made a wicked stepmother who could've walked straight out of a Roald Dahl book more shallow and unlikable.

...Okay maybe that's a little harsh, I'd certainly rather be raised by this Petunia than Aunt Petunia and since dissenting viewpoints are a good thing, here's one on the secrecy in this family.

Forum Viking said: She was told something dangerous out there murdered her sister. The sister who was powerful enough to change her whole life. The sister who likely is her benchmark for power. People react to terror in strange ways. She could have been repressing or maybe with the better relation the sisters had. She was told speaking about Tom attracted his attention and thought keeping her trap shut was safer. She may have also thought dumbles was implying for her to keep said trap shut. His plan works better with a slightly clueless Potter bluntly.



There are a lot of reasons to keep silent especially given the resistance we're seeing here. Click to expand... Click to shrink...

All good points, though from what I've seen later on this may just be a case of Viking being a better writer than the author.

After Petunia and Michael bicker over the existence of witches and wizards for a while, our protagonist opens his mouth for the first time.



I can't help but read everyone's dialogue in an American accent, it's weird. Harry asks Petunia how her parents were convinced that Hogwarts was real and that Lilly was magic and the answer is obvious, muggle born families are visited by a Hogwarts professor, less obvious is why one isn't already here. I suppose that plot hole affects the books as well so we'll let it slide, once. Harry is all in favour of following the experimental method and actually trying to contact the school, but Michael is obviously a little sceptical.







The Professor turned and looked down at him, dismissive as usual. "Oh, come now, Harry. Really, magic? I thought you'd know better than to take this seriously, son, even if you're only ten. Magic is just about the most unscientific thing there is!" Click to expand... Click to shrink...



I was going to criticize the Professor for not considering the dozens of minor miracles that Harry must've caused by now, but the story seems to have forgotten that. Instead I'm going to criticise him for all these reasons I have outlined in a handy list:



For God's sake man, he's ten, don't be so brusque. As far as you know, your wife is rapidly becoming disconnected from reality, yet you're acting like she just admitted to liking Ancient Astronauts. Why aren't you asking who sent this letter in the first place? The people who know your address and seem to have gone to great efforts to try and convince your son he needs to go and learn magic from them?

The omniscient narrator then ensures this story will be forever beloved by child prodigies and those who think they were child prodigies.





Harry's mouth twisted bitterly. He was treated well, probably better than most genetic fathers treated their own children. Harry had been sent to the best primary schools - and when that didn't work out, he was provided with tutors from the endless pool of starving students. Always Harry had been encouraged to study whatever caught his attention, bought all the books that caught his fancy, sponsored in whatever maths or science competitions he entered. He was given anything reasonable that he wanted, except, maybe, the slightest shred of respect. A Doctor teaching biochemistry at Oxford could hardly be expected to listen to the advice of a little boy. You would listen to Show Interest, of course; that's what a Good Parent would do, and so, if you conceived of yourself as a Good Parent, you would do it. But take a ten-year-old seriously? Hardly.



Sometimes Harry wanted to scream at his father. Click to expand... Click to shrink...

I agree with him, we could've avoided so much bloodshed in the 90's if only we had taken the opinions of a ten year old less seriously.





'"Mum," Harry said. "If you want to win this argument with Dad, look in chapter two of the first book of the Feynman Lectures on Physics. There's a quote there about how philosophers say a great deal about what science absolutely requires, and it is all wrong, because the only rule in science is that the final arbiter is observation - that you just have to look at the world and report what you see. Um... I can't think offhand of where to find something about how it's an ideal of science to settle things by experiment instead of violence or violent arguments -"' Click to expand... Click to shrink...

And smart people never argued about the methodology or definition of science ever again, luckily confirmation bias was only invented recently by anti-vaccination wingnuts. Plus everything can be observed directly, like black holes and dark matter. Actually, this does seem like something I can see come out of a bright child's mouth, I know when I was a bookish ten year old I spouted the latest smart sounding thing I read at any passing grown up.







His mother looked down at him and smiled. "Thank you, Harry. But -" her head rose back up to stare at her husband. "I don't want to win an argument with your father. I want my husband to, to listen to his wife who loves him, and trust her just this once -"



Harry closed his eyes briefly. Hopeless. Both of his parents were just hopeless.



Now his parents were getting into one of those arguments again, one where his mother tried to make his father feel guilty, and his father tried to make his mother feel stupid. Click to expand... Click to shrink...



I do find it interesting that in the universe where Petunia is a better parent, she has a worse marriage. Maybe Michael only married her for her veela blood induced looks or something.





"I'm going to go to my room," Harry announced. His voice trembled a little. "Please try not to fight too much about this, Mum, Dad, we'll know soon enough how it comes out, right?"



"Of course, Harry," said his father, and his mother gave him a reassuring kiss, and then they went on fighting while Harry climbed the stairs to his bedroom.



He shut the door behind him and tried to think.



The funny thing was, he should have agreed with Dad. No one had ever seen any evidence of magic, and according to Mum, there was a whole magical world out there. How could anyone keep something like that a secret? More magic? That seemed like a rather suspicious sort of excuse. Click to expand... Click to shrink...

It's kind of like when creationists invoke godly omnipotence as an explanation for logical shortfalls, sure it fits within their ideas but it basically depends on you buying into their belief system in the first place.

It should have been a clean case for Mum joking, lying or being insane, in ascending order of awfulness. If Mum had sent the letter herself, that would explain how it arrived at the letterbox without a stamp. A little insanity was far, far less improbable than the universe really working like that.



Except that some part of Harry was utterly convinced that magic was real, and had been since the instant he saw the putative letter from the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Click to expand... Click to shrink...

That's probably because he's ten. I think the real reason most kids believe in Father Christmas as long as they do isn't because of anything their parents do, but more because they simply like things being a bit fantastic.

Harry decides that he may as well go hard or go home and begins composing a reply to the letter

Dear Deputy Headmistress Minerva McGonagall,



Or Whomsoever It May Concern:



I recently received your letter of acceptance to Hogwarts, addressed to Mr. H. Potter. You may not be aware that my genetic parents, James Potter and Lily Potter (formerly Lily Evans) are dead. I was adopted by Lily's sister, Petunia Evans-Verres, and her husband, Michael Verres-Evans. Click to expand... Click to shrink...

I'm sure McGonagall meant no disrespect Harry, it's just three quills died of exhaustion trying to write your full name. Anyway, Harry asks for someone to come and demonstrate some magic for his father as well as help him procure school supplies.

Harry added their current address, then folded up the letter and put it in an envelope, which he addressed to Hogwarts. Further consideration led him to obtain a candle and drip wax onto the flap of the envelope, into which, using a penknife's tip, he impressed the initials H.J.P.E.V. If he was going to descend into this madness, he was going to do it with style. Click to expand... Click to shrink...

Finally, something we can all respect. Harry goes back downstairs to his passive aggressive parents.

"Mum," Harry said into the unnerving silence, "I'm going to test the hypothesis. According to your theory, how do I send an owl to Hogwarts?"



His mother turned from the kitchen sink to stare at him, looking shocked. "I - I don't know, I think you just have to own a magic owl." Click to expand... Click to shrink...



That's a good question, even if they weren't terrible people, how were Dursleys expected to reply to Harry's Hogwarts letter? Nobody can say I'm not fair.



"Well, the letter got here somehow," Harry said, "so I'll just wave it around outside and call 'letter for Hogwarts!' and see if an owl picks it up. Dad, do you want to come and watch?"



His father shook his head minutely and kept on reading. Of course, Harry thought to himself. Magic was a disgraceful thing that only stupid people believed in; if his father went so far as to test the hypothesis, or even watch it being tested, that would feel like associating himself with that... Click to expand... Click to shrink...

Michael is so lucky that I'm stuck comparing him to Vernon.

Only as Harry stumped out the back door, into the back garden, did it occur to him that if an owl did come down and snatch the letter, he was going to have some trouble telling Dad about it.



But - well - that can't really happen, can it? No matter what my brain seems to believe. If an owl really comes down and grabs this envelope, I'm going to have worries a lot more important than what Dad thinks.



Harry took a deep breath, and raised the envelope into the air.



He swallowed.



Calling out Letter for Hogwarts! while holding an envelope high in the air in the middle of your own back garden was... actually pretty embarrassing, now that he thought about it.



No. I'm better than Dad. I will use the scientific method even if it makes me feel stupid. Click to expand... Click to shrink...



In a better story story-hell a better science lesson, this would be a lesson about the limits of inductive reasoning and the experimental method but no....







"Harry?" asked a bemused woman's voice, one of the neighbours.



Harry pulled down his hand like it was on fire and hid the envelope behind his back like it was drug money. His whole face was hot with shame. Click to expand... Click to shrink...



I wonder if wizards ever get addicted to things like cheering charms. Maybe their equivalent to Breaking Bad is about a potions master secretly stealing pleasant memories from penesives and selling them off to the highest bidder.

An old woman's face peered out from above the neighbouring fence, grizzled grey hair escaping from her hairnet. Mrs. Figg, the occasional babysitter. "What are you doing, Harry?"



"Nothing," Harry said in a strangled voice. "Just - testing a really silly theory -"



"Did you get your acceptance letter from Hogwarts?"



Harry froze in place. Click to expand... Click to shrink...

Mrs. Figg has been observing They of Many Names for nearly eleven years and surely has noticed that Harry is basically the opposite of someone who believes in magic. Why exactly is she talking like the Hogwarts letter is about as remarkable as the phone bill?

"But you don't have an owl. Poor dear! I can't imagine what someone must have been thinking, sending you just the standard letter." Click to expand... Click to shrink...

It is really weird, but responsibility for this plot hole must be lain at Rowling's feet. My only theory for why Harry was sent the wizarding family letter in canon is that Dumbledore really wanted to scare the shit out of the Dursleys. Hey, we've all been there. Harry closes out the chapter by summing up my general feelings about this story.



I actually don't mind this chapter that much. Despite Harry's disturbing resemblance to Wesley Crusher he actually acts something like a bright human child here, a non-detestable one in fact. It is however dragged down by Yudkowsky clearly having a very shallow understanding of Petunia's character and the somewhat sexist underpinning he gives her.



I'm the Wizard of Woah! Thank you all for reading, if you disagree with anything I wrote please feel free to tell me.