Harry Potter and the Worst-Case Scenario
It is written: “Every change which strengthens the protagonists requires a corresponding worsening of their challenges”. In Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality, Harry Potter has been strengthened over his canon version to an extreme degree in many ways. And while he has already faced challenges that rival the worst of his challenges from the novels, I don’t feel like his challenges have yet been correspondingly worsened. I feel like there is a time soon coming, perhaps a long time, where “All is lost” won’t seem to cover it.
One of the first pieces of rationalist advice Eliezer and Harry gave us in this story was to always try to anticipate the worst possible thing happening, to try to undershoot reality, so that we are pleasantly surprised by what happens. With so many dominoes falling in the Taboo Tradeoffs arc, I think we should all do this for Methods now, before things get too much worse.
Allies
Canon Harry relies on his friends and allies to a fault. It’s not a large exaggeration to say that Dumbledore hands him all the information he needs, and Hermione casts all the spells he needs cast. Harry’s only real strengths in the books are his goodness and, occasionally, his courage.
Rationalist Harry doesn’t use his allies the way Canon Harry does. Yet he does have them and gets some good out of them. Hermione and Draco each in their own way keep him focused on staying away from his Dark Side. Dumbledore gives him wisdom all the time, if only Harry would listen to him.
Quirrellmort’s plot in Taboo Tradeoffs certainly seems to be to rid Harry of his allies. We don’t know how successful Harry will be at averting Hermione’s doom in Chapter 81. But regardless of what happens in that one chapter, I think to be properly pessimistic, we need to consider that a time may be coming where Harry has to go it completely alone.
Harry knows precious little about Voldemort right now. He’s had hints from Quirrell, but he doesn’t even know the word “Horcrux” yet, and at the moment he considers the Horcrux concept to probably be a specious part of Dumbledore’s “religion”. Imagine, then, if he were to somehow lose Hermione, Draco, and Dumbledore for a while or forever. He would have to figure out everything he needs to defeat Voldemort himself, from scratch.
“He would still have Minerva,” you might say. But what if Harry is responsible for neutralizing Dumbledore? What if one of the Taboo Tradeoffs involves him sacrificing Dumbledore in some way? (Not a literal blood sacrifice, but maybe getting him sent to Azkaban, or making it so he has to go into hiding for a while.) If he were to turn on Dumbledore to achieve one of his goals, his Light side allies, including Minerva, would desert him immediately. And this is precisely the sort of thing that Quirrellmort would love to make happen.
Goodness
One of Methods’s primary themes from the beginning has been Harry’s struggle between his Light and Dark sides. The first big climactic moment of the story was in Chapter 10, where the Sorting Hat begs and pleads with him to go to one of the “warm” Houses because he’s such a ripe candidate to be the next Dark Lord.
But this hasn’t really been that much of an issue for Harry so far. He’s had some minor struggles with Darkness, but the longest he’s ever been in his Dark side was for five minutes, and he was dragged there unwillingly by an external force (the Dementor). He went a bit more subtly Dark during the Azkaban breakout, but that was also due to outside influence, and he was able to Rationalitize his way out of it in a few seconds.
All the above is kids’ stuff. What we really need to make this a story is for Harry to actively choose to go Dark for an extended period of time. I think this is Quirrellmort’s secret purpose behind his plotting. Dumbledore thinks Voldemort is neutralizing Harry’s allies to make Harry an easier target; I think Voldemort is actually doing it to sever Harry’s ties to his Light side, to cause him enough pain that he willingly goes Dark forever. Voldemort isn’t trying to subvert the prophecy by defeating Harry; he’s trying to do it by making him a permanent ally.
At the very end of Chapter 80, Harry goes fully Dark to try to rescue Hermione, “offering his dark side anything if it would only solve this problem for him”. I think we must prepare for Harry’s Dark Side to make good on his offer.
Waiting
Methods has been getting steadily darker, but I don’t think it’s quite there yet. All is not and has never been lost. If all the above happened — if Harry went Dark, betrayed Dumbledore, lost all his friends, ran off to be Dark with Quirrell, and had to overcome all that by himself to even get started defeating Voldemort — then we might be to an acceptable level of challenge for our favorite Jedi Frodo. I think an irrevocable, permanent loss of at least one ally — say, if Dumbledore died or Hermione got Kissed by a Dementor — would definitely do it.
Unfortunately, while that may be enough challenge for Rationalist Harry Potter, that’s not quite enough challenge for Rationalist Harry Potter’s readers. Because we have an additional challenge, an additional foe, that is beyond Harry Potter’s wildest, most pessimistic imaginings: Eliezer Yudkowsky’s brain.
Through the Author’s Notes we’ve seen his struggle in motivating himself to write new chapters in a timely manner. This happens to everyone when a fun project becomes an obligation to people, and even at his Rationality Level he is not immune. He tried setting hard due dates for new chapters; he tried making sure he never had due dates for new chapters; he’s created new litanies and mantras (“People like my writing even when I don’t. People LIKE my writing EVEN WHEN I DON’T.”).
But Eliezer has foes, as well. Ungrateful and impatient readers needle him with hostile reviews, accusing him of toying with chapter publication dates to willfully tease his audience. And as for his friendly readers… well, if I saw legions of ridiculous, cockamamie theories about my story get treated with absolute seriousness on web forums and TV Tropes, I might purposely spoil the ending in my sarcasm-dripping condescension. I certainly could not graciously smile to myself and mutter “Just you wait.” like Eliezer seems to.
Eliezer’s stated current strategy is to write long arcs over the course of several months and release them within a month or so. And so not only might we have to see Harry succumb to Darkness and turn willfully evil for a time, not only might we have to see everyone we care about die a horrible death, but we might have to see all that, and then wait half a year to see things get better again. We may have to think about Methods for months on end with a sick feeling in the pits of our stomachs, knowing that Hermione is an unthinking vegetable and that Harry will do much worse to many more people before it’s over.
I certainly hope I’m being properly pessimistic.