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| ▲ | smsm42 6 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | For me this is probably the weirdest part of it. I have read HPMOR and was distinctly underwhelmed by its literary quality. I mean, it's not bad, but it's not serious literature. It's not even on the level of the original HP. It's a fanfic. Sure, it's a fanfic with a lot of fan service and geekery and so on, so the audience is targeted masterfully. But still, it's hard not to notice the numerous literary faults. I mean, "he actually thought through a lot of the plot points ahead of time" is a kind of praise, but not one that a decent literary work expects. That's like saying about a chess grandmaster that he actually knows how all the pieces move. I mean, sure, on the fanfic scene it's probably above median, but I've seen people making out of it some kind of epic revelation, akin to some kind of a sacred text. Completely undeservedly, in my opinion, and rather weird for a community that is so proud in it's objective and rational approach to things that put it into its very name. | |
| ▲ | glaslong a day ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | I suppose there is worse sci-fi you could launch a cult from (Dianetics) | |
| ▲ | aiedrionio a day ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | It's terrible as a work of literature. It has many, many, many flaws, but the most serious is that it's boooooring. Hundreds upon hundreds of pages go by with nothing happening except creepy children preaching at each other. It's terrible as a fan fiction. Not a single character acts anything like the original, the world is unrecognizable, and the plot is derailed entirely by the end of the second or third chapter. The original story needs to be distorted beyond recognition because the author's bizarre worldview works even more poorly in a fantasy world than it does in reality. It's demonstrably effective as a manifesto, but that is despite the fact that it is riddled with scientific and conceptual errors. It's one of the worst things I've ever read. The fact that people like it is evidence of the bizarre incestuous nature of the community that produced it. | | |
| ▲ | timmytokyo a day ago | parent | next [-] | | War and Peace is shorter than HPMOR. Anyone who knows anything about Harry Potter fandom in those years knows that its readers were always thirsty for something new in the Potterverse to read or be exposed to. By latching onto that universe's incredible popularity, Yudkowsky exposed a large number of young, inquisitive people to the ideas of rationalism. It was essentially a recruitment mechanism, one that was wildly successful. Many rationalists freely admit that their first exposure to rationalism was via HPMOR. | |
| ▲ | VirusNewbie 12 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | >he author's bizarre worldview what is the author's bizarre worldview, other than the AI will make us extinct view? | |
| ▲ | HDThoreaun a day ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | > It's terrible as a work of literature. It has many, many, many flaws Pretty much all fan fiction is terrible literature. I find yudkowsky's prose to be above average for fan fic which admittedly is just saying hes among the best of the worst. Every single fanfic ever written that doesnt end after 1 book has significant boring sections, theres no editor. > Not a single character acts anything like the original This is the point. Yudkowsky recognized that the hp world acts as a natural foil for his ideology. By changing the characters he points out the original characters flaws, but also the ways they are better than the rationalist versions of the characters. I dont understand why people claim fanfic should be always be faithful to the original setting. Using it as a foil can work too. The characters in the original, especially the authority figures are all incredibly flat. Why would you want more of that? Even the ones he largely keeps the same, like dumbledore, he explores in a new light which makes them seem different even though they are very similar to the original. The reveal that the 2 Dumbledore's are actually very similar(the exact same?) characters is central to understanding rationalist harry's deficiencies. > The fact that people like it is evidence of the bizarre incestuous nature of the community that produced it. Agreed but I think this says more about how crap HP fan fic tends to be than anything else. Yudkowsky saw unmet demand and used it to shoehorn his ideology in | |
| ▲ | fwip a day ago | parent | prev [-] | | Agreed. It's quite bad. Like, even for fanfic, it's not good. And a lot of fanfic is written by fourteen year olds. |
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| ▲ | irthomasthomas a day ago | parent | prev [-] | | What are your favourite quotes from it? | | |
| ▲ | HDThoreaun a day ago | parent [-] | | Let me be clear, he's no cormac mccarthy(my favorite prose is the passage from blood meridian describing the raiders). My bar for fan fiction prose is basically whether it annoys me, its a low bar. Most of what makes hpmor good is the cleverness with which yudkowsky subverts the original harry potter world to try to make a rationalist argument, whether that be by inverting a character or playing off the harry/voldemort relationship in thoughtful ways. '"Voldemort," said the old wizard. "I understand him now at last. Because to believe that the world is truly like that, you must believe there is no justice in it, that it is woven of darkness at its core. I asked you why he became a monster, and you could give no reason. And if I could ask him, I suppose, his answer would be: Why not? They stood there gazing into each other's eyes, the old wizard in his robes, and the young boy with the lightning-bolt scar on his forehead. "Tell me, Harry," said the old wizard, "will you become a monster?" "No," said the boy, an iron certainty in his voice. "Why not?" said the old wizard.' as you can see its nothing special, just good enough |
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