Since Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality is apparently still a thing, I figured I’d spend a few minutes before fediverse monster-movie night to collect relevant links:
- Archive of su3su2u1 review, via here (among other things an easy intro to how the “science” in HPMoR is bunk)
- Spacebattles.com forum thread: The Wizard of Woah and Irrational Methods of Irrationality
- HPRick and Morty
- “If you think you can point to an unnecessary sentence within [HPMoR], go ahead and try.”
- Sneering at Yudkowsky’s advice about writing “awesome” characters
- Sneering at Yudkowsky’s retrospective interview (August 2025)
- Sneering at Yudkowsky’s presence on a TV Tropes fork
And this from our own bitofhope:
Tired of people misrepresenting HPMOR as a Harry Potter fanfic where Harry uses science to study magic.
Anyone who has actually read the fic knows it’s a Death Note/Waiting for Godot/Spaceballs crossover fic about aristocrat failchildren bringing glowstick swords into an airsoft match. There are zero superfluous sentences. Every sentence a painting, especially when Glup of the Most Noble and Ancient Judean People’s Front of Shitto casts Compelled Duel on Backgroundella O. C. Technicallynot of the Superlatively Posh and Antiquarian Judean Popular Front of Whatsherface.
In the words of Anton Chekhov: if you establish in the first act that you must never burn anything you have transfigured, you must have a character transform something into a rocket in the third act and then fire that rocket without any harm done. This will prove you’re a better writer than Chekhov.
Final exam question: You are facing the most reddit serial killer of all time and his dumbass henchmen. Armed with only your wits and a spell that can transform anything into anything else, devise an escape. For extra credit, invoke one or more of the following science fiction plot devices: nuclear fusion, carbon nanotubes/fullerenes, wormholes/warp drives, neutronium, wave/particle duality, brown notes, grey goo, the anthropic principle, quantum tunneling, Maxwell’s demon.
HPMOR: the only novel that has been fully read by fewer people than mistakenly believe to have fully read it.
And a question dug up from one of those old threads: OK, so, Yud poured a lot of himself into writing HPMoR. It took time, he obviously believed he was doing something important — and he was writing autobiography, in big ways and small. This leads me to wonder: Has he said anything about Rowling, you know, turning out to be a garbage human?
I haven’t seen STRANGE ÆONS’ video about HPMOR here, so I’d strongly recommend checking that out
It’s still a solid takedown; it’s aging very well. Previous discussions are here and here.
I enjoyed watching that, even as someone who really liked HPMoR.
I wasn’t aware of a lot of the wider context around the author and the rationalist movement. For example, I read HPMoR with Harry calling all the wizards in the book NPCs as commentary about Rowling’s writing (that her characters and magic system bend to suit the plot, as very few characters have any agency) so every other person at Hogwarts is an NPC, but if Yudkowsky actually believes that people who aren’t rational are, effectively, subhuman, then that twists the interpretation of HPMoR rather dramatically. I’m still not convinced Yudkowsky thinks that, but it’s disheartening to hear that some HPMoR readers basically founded a cult that does believe that.
Thanks for the link! I should check out his other videos. He seems like a really hoopy frood.
You should keep it that way; if you read more of his shit then his fascist proclivities will trip over themselves trying to convert you. But also it’ll cause psychic damage. So best to just avoid.