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Draco Malfoy and the Practice of Rationality
(Continuation of Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality by Less Wrong) Still reeling from Lucius' Death and Narcissa's rebirth, Draco struggles to find his place in a changing Hogwarts and learns a dark secret of his new room-mate: Harry James Potter-Evans-Verres
Unknown Binding
Published January 1, 2015
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
October 2, 2017
Very strong start, strong end point, but the space between them was not especially satisfying. There was too much mysterious, complicated stuff that had to be explained, rather than puzzled out by the reader. I was unpleasantly shocked when the stakes proved much greater than I had imagined from the setup.
March 26, 2018
This book started off really good but at about midway it just kept getting worse and ended with a terrible ending. The main message of the book is that rationality sucks and it is better not to use it. HPMOR was awesome because it took rationality and made it a power that Harry used to solve problems. This book did the opposite. It made Draco’s “rationality” lead him to the wrong conclusions. It made Draco become paranoid and trapped to the point where he made Mad eye Moody look trusting. Draco missed the obvious even though he was in the Bayesian conspiracy.
It didn’t help that the author chose to have the universe conspire against him through prophecies to use rationality against him. One of the main characters dies a pointless death for no reason. The climax was a complex convoluted plot that didn’t make any sense after you think about it for a while. There were so many other simpler ways that any rational sane person could have resolved the dilemma. Draco could have just talked to Hermione because he trusted her to be good. Draco could have just used his rationality to test Harry. It is much simpler to make that kind of test than the author imagines.
Voldemort could fool people into thinking he was good by creating scenarios where his objectives and what a good person would do would match. This was possible because Voldemort has a lot of power to control what is happening and no one fully suspected him of being Voldemort in his “good” roles. All Draco would have to do would be to create a scenario where being good and being Voldemort had different results. For example, seeing if Harry would be willing to sacrifice himself for his friends.
This author seemed to want a face off of Harry and Draco and twisted the universe in ridiculous ways to achieve that no matter the cost and pretend that these are Draco’s most rational choices. So I am supposed to read this and take the message that the most rational path for Draco to be moral and save the world is to become and crime lord and mass murder so that he could trap Harry in Stone and that is how to prevent the end of the world. What utter nonsense. How did anything Draco did in the end help anything? It really feels like the author wanted a Dark Lord face-off and just built backwards anyway necessary to force that to happen.
By the way, that was really sick how one of the few ways this book tries to be funny is having humor with Grindinwald (aka Hitler) running a shirt shop. Draco is so worried about Voldemort but has no problem with a mass murderer who was arguably far worse. Way to disrespect the mass-slaughter of people by Hitler.
It didn’t help that the author chose to have the universe conspire against him through prophecies to use rationality against him. One of the main characters dies a pointless death for no reason. The climax was a complex convoluted plot that didn’t make any sense after you think about it for a while. There were so many other simpler ways that any rational sane person could have resolved the dilemma. Draco could have just talked to Hermione because he trusted her to be good. Draco could have just used his rationality to test Harry. It is much simpler to make that kind of test than the author imagines.
Voldemort could fool people into thinking he was good by creating scenarios where his objectives and what a good person would do would match. This was possible because Voldemort has a lot of power to control what is happening and no one fully suspected him of being Voldemort in his “good” roles. All Draco would have to do would be to create a scenario where being good and being Voldemort had different results. For example, seeing if Harry would be willing to sacrifice himself for his friends.
This author seemed to want a face off of Harry and Draco and twisted the universe in ridiculous ways to achieve that no matter the cost and pretend that these are Draco’s most rational choices. So I am supposed to read this and take the message that the most rational path for Draco to be moral and save the world is to become and crime lord and mass murder so that he could trap Harry in Stone and that is how to prevent the end of the world. What utter nonsense. How did anything Draco did in the end help anything? It really feels like the author wanted a Dark Lord face-off and just built backwards anyway necessary to force that to happen.
By the way, that was really sick how one of the few ways this book tries to be funny is having humor with Grindinwald (aka Hitler) running a shirt shop. Draco is so worried about Voldemort but has no problem with a mass murderer who was arguably far worse. Way to disrespect the mass-slaughter of people by Hitler.
May 26, 2024
3.5
Many spelling mistakes in the first half, but entertaining enough. The character's lessons are definitely less nuancey in the first half as well. But it really picks up in the second half and they start to have rather deep lessons and draco seeing the mirror was very cool and I love the effect it had on the rest of the plot. I love how committed Draco is to his plot nad even though it was annoying having no idea what was happening I was glad when I finally understood and I was very mad at both endings because I wanted to see Alexio's trials and then the mirror again so badly but I didn't get to. Also I like the idea of the scary dark robes also I love how the Chalice is essential to the whole plot, i definitely feel like I've gotten to explore what happens to that awesome hospital that Harry made.
I also found Hermione and Draco's courtship to actually be incredibly cute.
Many very enjoyable moments and I'm very glad I read the whole thing, it was very fun.
Many spelling mistakes in the first half, but entertaining enough. The character's lessons are definitely less nuancey in the first half as well. But it really picks up in the second half and they start to have rather deep lessons and draco seeing the mirror was very cool and I love the effect it had on the rest of the plot. I love how committed Draco is to his plot nad even though it was annoying having no idea what was happening I was glad when I finally understood and I was very mad at both endings because I wanted to see Alexio's trials and then the mirror again so badly but I didn't get to. Also I like the idea of the scary dark robes also I love how the Chalice is essential to the whole plot, i definitely feel like I've gotten to explore what happens to that awesome hospital that Harry made.
I also found Hermione and Draco's courtship to actually be incredibly cute.
Many very enjoyable moments and I'm very glad I read the whole thing, it was very fun.
September 7, 2019
Setting presentation, design and originality (how cool is the setting?): 2
Setting verisimillitude and detail (how much sense does the setting make?): 3
Plot design, presentation and originality (How well-crafted was the plot, in the dramaturgic sense?): 2
Plot and character verisimillitude (How much sense did the plot and motivations make? Did events follow from motivations?): 1
Characterization and character development: 2
Character sympatheticness: 3
Prose: 2
Page turner factor: 4
Mind blown factor: 2
Final (weighted) score: 2.7
Available at: https://www.fanfiction.net/s/11223914...
Setting verisimillitude and detail (how much sense does the setting make?): 3
Plot design, presentation and originality (How well-crafted was the plot, in the dramaturgic sense?): 2
Plot and character verisimillitude (How much sense did the plot and motivations make? Did events follow from motivations?): 1
Characterization and character development: 2
Character sympatheticness: 3
Prose: 2
Page turner factor: 4
Mind blown factor: 2
Final (weighted) score: 2.7
Available at: https://www.fanfiction.net/s/11223914...
May 5, 2024
About what I expected, good start for a novice writer
April 25, 2017
Mediocre overall, at best it had strong nostalgia triggers for HPMOR but at worst it opened up a number of questions that it failed to satisfyingly resolve. Honestly what was going on with the stone towards the end of the book?
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews