Beware (but not too much)
Sep. 5th, 2012 01:31 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
karenhealeyI am reading Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality, which is a very long, very interesting and totally hilarious fic, which begins with the premise that Petunia Evans married an Oxford professor and the orphaned Harry James Potter-Evans was duly adopted and brought up Harry James Potter-Evans-Verres.
Surrounded by books, very bright, encouraged to follow whatever intellectual pathways he found most interesting, and brought up as a rationalist.
Who then discovers, after the arrival of a certain letter from a certain school, that magic is real and that despite everything he knows about neurochemistry and the Conservation of Energy a woman with a prim Scottish accent can in fact turn herself into a cat.
And trips off to magic school armed with the scientific method.
I LOVE it.
I should mention though, that I have a few quibbles with the style, which leaps from overblown prose to contemporary speech patterns without a pause, includes a ton of too-clever-by-half cameo references, and uses "the young girl" and "the young boy" far too often for anyone who flinches at the casual use of descriptors instead of names; i.e., me. Also some of the anguished philosophising tends to drown the plot.
Also, a lot of usage of "insane" as "deplorable and wrong!"
Oh, and much of the plot and dialogue and character musings comprise outright preaching at the reader, but since it's preaching things I mostly agree with I don't care. If you are allergic to didacticism in your entertainment, do not read this fic.
But it's very gripping, and poses a number of questions about the original 'verse that I have chewed on myself, and there are three things that are the most awesome ever (SPOILERS APPROACHETH):
1) At the beginning of the story, Hermione Granger is untutored in the methods of rationality, and I narrowed my eyes and waited with a sense of despair, because if the story was making Harry the smart one, then what was Hermione going to be…?
The EVEN SMARTER one, that's what, who is still the most brilliant magician of her generation.
2) Oh yeah, and she decides to be a hero in her own right, not a sidekick, not even to a boy she likes and respects.
3) And asks other girls if they would like to do same.
So YES, I like this fic a lot, and recommend it to all Potter fans, or, you know, other nerds.
However, in checking links for this post, I have realised that it's a freaking work in progress (HOW, at nearly 500k words, I do not know) and it was last updated in APRIL. So, you know. Enter at your peril.
Surrounded by books, very bright, encouraged to follow whatever intellectual pathways he found most interesting, and brought up as a rationalist.
Who then discovers, after the arrival of a certain letter from a certain school, that magic is real and that despite everything he knows about neurochemistry and the Conservation of Energy a woman with a prim Scottish accent can in fact turn herself into a cat.
And trips off to magic school armed with the scientific method.
I LOVE it.
I should mention though, that I have a few quibbles with the style, which leaps from overblown prose to contemporary speech patterns without a pause, includes a ton of too-clever-by-half cameo references, and uses "the young girl" and "the young boy" far too often for anyone who flinches at the casual use of descriptors instead of names; i.e., me. Also some of the anguished philosophising tends to drown the plot.
Also, a lot of usage of "insane" as "deplorable and wrong!"
Oh, and much of the plot and dialogue and character musings comprise outright preaching at the reader, but since it's preaching things I mostly agree with I don't care. If you are allergic to didacticism in your entertainment, do not read this fic.
But it's very gripping, and poses a number of questions about the original 'verse that I have chewed on myself, and there are three things that are the most awesome ever (SPOILERS APPROACHETH):
1) At the beginning of the story, Hermione Granger is untutored in the methods of rationality, and I narrowed my eyes and waited with a sense of despair, because if the story was making Harry the smart one, then what was Hermione going to be…?
The EVEN SMARTER one, that's what, who is still the most brilliant magician of her generation.
2) Oh yeah, and she decides to be a hero in her own right, not a sidekick, not even to a boy she likes and respects.
3) And asks other girls if they would like to do same.
So YES, I like this fic a lot, and recommend it to all Potter fans, or, you know, other nerds.
However, in checking links for this post, I have realised that it's a freaking work in progress (HOW, at nearly 500k words, I do not know) and it was last updated in APRIL. So, you know. Enter at your peril.
no subject
Date: 2012-09-06 06:43 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-09-06 07:04 am (UTC)(I had actually managed to successfully block that, so I'll add a trigger warning - thanks for the reminder, though I'm sorry it got you first!)