Fair warning: what this is, is, Elizer yes-that-guy Yudkowsky wrote a one-and-done Harry Potter novel, and it is everything you would expect. Some aspects are fantastic! Others… yikes. Within two chapters, it goes from spotting Umberto Eco’s Ur-Fascism in the Death Eaters’ whole pitch, to declaring Hermoine an NPC unless she can pass a gatekeeping knowledge-check about quarks.
A detail I love that’s not a spoiler: Crabbe and Goyle are well-characterized to act exactly the way they are in canon. They’ve been molded as bodyguards since they were little, and now they’re in wizard middle school getting to play tough-guy bruisers on Draco’s behalf, so of course they’re tryhard doofuses that he finds mildly embarrassing. But when Quirrel invites one of them to spar, demonstrating the ancient mystical defense known as… judo… Goyle quietly asks what belt he has. Quirrel says “seventh dan.” The tough-guy act comes right back up, and Goyle throws himself into it, because he knows he’s about to get his ass kicked, safely.
The whole thing is ultimately about modeling people on these layers of facade. A lot of it gets overly analytical and kinda up-its-own-ass. Certain characters call that out and condemn actions at face value, so some of it’s deliberate writing for the protagonist and antagonist. But only some.
Even with abundant benefit of the doubt, figuring ‘this guy wrote Harry like a know-it-all child,’ any recommendation would be complicated.
For an intelligent take on Harry Potter I can recommend https://hpmor.com/ I found it better than the original books.
Fair warning: what this is, is, Elizer yes-that-guy Yudkowsky wrote a one-and-done Harry Potter novel, and it is everything you would expect. Some aspects are fantastic! Others… yikes. Within two chapters, it goes from spotting Umberto Eco’s Ur-Fascism in the Death Eaters’ whole pitch, to declaring Hermoine an NPC unless she can pass a gatekeeping knowledge-check about quarks.
A detail I love that’s not a spoiler: Crabbe and Goyle are well-characterized to act exactly the way they are in canon. They’ve been molded as bodyguards since they were little, and now they’re in wizard middle school getting to play tough-guy bruisers on Draco’s behalf, so of course they’re tryhard doofuses that he finds mildly embarrassing. But when Quirrel invites one of them to spar, demonstrating the ancient mystical defense known as… judo… Goyle quietly asks what belt he has. Quirrel says “seventh dan.” The tough-guy act comes right back up, and Goyle throws himself into it, because he knows he’s about to get his ass kicked, safely.
The whole thing is ultimately about modeling people on these layers of facade. A lot of it gets overly analytical and kinda up-its-own-ass. Certain characters call that out and condemn actions at face value, so some of it’s deliberate writing for the protagonist and antagonist. But only some.
Even with abundant benefit of the doubt, figuring ‘this guy wrote Harry like a know-it-all child,’ any recommendation would be complicated.
I personally found HPMOR to be self aggrandising garbage that throws around scientific terms to try and be rationalist but uses them all wrong anyway.
Also the authors a cult leader. Somehow.
I thought that it used up all its good insights covering the first couple of books, and then limped to the ending.
is he ?