The Wizard of Woah and Irrational Methods of Irrationality

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.

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.

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

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.

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!

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

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

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:

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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".

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.

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.

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:

1. For God's sake man, he's ten, don't be so brusque.
2. 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.
3. 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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....

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.

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?

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.