Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality

Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality

Eliezer Yudkowsky

📅 Finished on: 2023-11-05

🥳 Fiction
⭐️⭐️⭐️

Harry Potter if he used the logic and cynicism of an intellectual... Unrealistic and very long but nice

It sounds silly: Harry Potter using logic. It will either make me laugh or make me cringe; it should be something like The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. I’ll give it a chance; if it does not work by chapter 10, I’ll stop. Reviews are very mixed.

I have to say it intrigued me, I read about 200 pages and it is a very interesting take on inconsistencies in the HP world, but

  • Potter talks like a philosopher, unrealistic and annoying
  • Flat characters, elements only there to move things forward
  • 2,300 pages are not bearable
  • Nice ideas to overturn the original story, but some are too forced

I loved ideas like the Comed-Tea and how it upends Draco’s racism, I might continue in the distant future.