Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality/YMMV

"Hermione: I'm getting tired of hearing people talk about the Boy-Who-Lived like you're - like you're some kind of god or something.
 * Author Tract: Definitely, but it's not necessarily a bad thing.
 * Awesome Ego: Harry is this trope in spades.

Harry: Same here, I must say. It's sad how people keep underestimating me."

"God he loved his Time-Turner and someday, when he was old enough, they would get married."
 * Cargo Ship:

"Harry was in love. It would be a three-way wedding: him, the Time-Turner, and Professor Quirrell."
 * Don't forget:

"Harry was in love. It would be a three-way wedding: him, the Time-Turner, and Professor Quirrell."
 * Crack Pairing: . Unsurprisingly, it apparently didn't end well.
 * Draco in Leather Pants: At first it appears this is going to be the case, with Draco and Harry getting along pretty well, but then Harry jokes about commiting murder, and Draco not only isn't opposed to it, but doesn't understand that it was a joke. He then says he's gonna rape Luna Lovegood someday. Draco in Leather Pants quickly fades.
 * He's still a Villain Protagonist at worst. And there's a little "pantsification" when Harry points out to himself that Draco is not a psychopath -- he's just the product of a very old and familiar culture in which nobles are above the law and in which you don't treat enemies as people. One of Harry's major goals after all is to "turn" Draco. And while that may be rationally excusable, Harry at several points implies he considers Draco a genuine friend, despite him never having renounced the whole child rape thing.
 * Chapter 72 shows that
 * Chapter 28 takes a jab at the fandom's tendency to do this to Snape.
 * And chapter 77 delivers the finishing blow to his fanon sexiness
 * Fan Nickname: Quirrelmort, Harryzer.
 * Genius Bonus: ... where do we start?
 * How about Chapter 17, in which Harry attempts to factor the product of two prime numbers using the Time Turner? (More generally, he comes up with a method to solve NP-complete problems, that is, problems where you can check a solution quickly, but finding that solution requires searching a gigantic solution space.)
 * Techically NP-complete problem can be solved quickly iff P=NP.
 * Or Chapter 4, with its off-hand mention of how someone could make a lot of money by exploiting the difference in the relative prices of silver and gold in the Muggle and Wizarding economies. (Buy gold from wizards, sell it to Muggles, use the money to buy silver from Muggles, sell the silver to wizards, and end up with more money than you started with. Or, if the imbalance is in the other direction, buy silver from wizards and sell it to Muggles for gold.)
 * In chapter 26, Harry and Quirrell have a discussion in a scrying-proof location called Mary's room.
 * The "Slytherin System" described in chapter 63 is a version of onion routing, the anonymous networking technique used by Tor.
 * Ho Yay
 * Did you know that Draco is "courting" Harry? Everyone in Slytherin does.
 * Also:

"The First Law of Fanfiction states that every change which strengthens the protagonists requires a corresponding worsening of their challenges... The Mary Sue is not defined by her power, but by her lack of an even more powerful opponent."
 * Also in-universe: first action the Comed-Tea gets: "BOY-WHO-LIVED GETS DRACO MALFOY PREGNANT". The Quibbler, of course.
 * "Romantic? They're both boys!"
 * Hype Backlash: Some find the fic somewhat pretentious, and some readers interpret the narrative of Snape and Lily's relationship to be sexist.
 * In Name Only: Most of the characters who differ from their canon selves do so by way of an Alternative Character Interpretation, but Harry and Quirrell are simply nothing at all like their canon counterparts. Being raised by an Oxford professor is a rather weak Hand Wave for Harry being a freaking Child Prodigy with a completely different personality. If you want to get any enjoyment out of the story, you pretty much just have to accept at the outset that Harry has been replaced by a different character for the sake of a "rationalist in the Potterverse" plot. And canon Quirrell was decidedly not a Badass and, in fact, was basically just some sucker manipulated by Voldemort. Methods Quirrell did have some of the character's canon traits early on, but they're quickly dropped after becoming The Artifact.
 * You could regard this as authorial incompetence. Or you could have a bit more faith in the author's drive to create a consistent universe, and take it as a riddle meant to be solved.
 * It's not really intended to be a puzzle. Word of God says
 * Magnificent Bastard: Draco took lessons on how to be one, but so far he's only a beginner. The true Magnificent Bastard of this fanfic is, of course the one and only Professor Quirrell. Without spoiling anything:
 * Exhibit A: The Pioneer plaque
 * Exhibit B: The remains of a beautiful blue beetle are seen in his office.
 * Exhibit C: Bellatrix Black
 * Marty Stu: Carefully avoided. In fact, this fanfic has several powerful and intelligent characters who are more competent than most Sues out there, but aren't Sues themselves:
 * Harry may be very intelligent, but his immense over-confidence, limited social skills, and temper have led to many What the Hell, Hero? actions that he's called out on, usually by McGonagall.
 * That fact that people just kind of go along with it instead of reacting in a more realistic way, though...
 * Professor Quirrell is even smarter than Harry and is a powerful wizard on top of that. His character flaw seems to be his ruthlessness and also disregard of Muggle science, which Harry holds so dear.
 * He may be enraged by the recklessness of science's openness with dangerous secrets, but he's more than willing to exploit Muggle technology and resources in ways "no blood purist" would think of. (e.g. )
 * Some reviewers, somewhat surprisingly, accused Hermione of being a Sue. True, she is a much better student than Harry and manages to get the better of him more than once. But her blind faith in books is her limitation, as is her naïveté.
 * Yudkowsky actually discusses the phenomenon on his profile, in regards to the 'First Law of Fanfiction':
 * Yudkowsky actually discusses the phenomenon on his profile, in regards to the 'First Law of Fanfiction':

"If you transfigure your hair blonde it will fall out. If you transform your skin to be clear...you will be very ill and spend a long time at St.Mungos."
 * This is also lampshaded in an Omake in Chapter 11, which points out that if Yudkowsky had increased Harry's intelligence, but not the intelligence of anyone else, he could have solved the entire plot of the series within days of arriving at Hogwarts. This unfortunately leads to a case of Failure Is the Only Option where Harry very rarely succeeds with any of his plans. Indeed, the Sorting Hat is literally made smarter while on Harry's head, leading to a rather ignominious scene where Harry is outsmarted by a magic item.
 * And of course, if this is done badly, it may just end up as a Mary Sue being "balanced" by a Villain Sue.
 * Memetic Mutation: Chapter 13: YOU HAVE LOST THE GAME (Probably unintentional, but who cares?)
 * Misaimed Fandom: The author, like a lot of readers, seems to have missed the point of Ron, and "sees no reason for him to exist". Canonically, Ron represents emotion, as Hermione represents reason. Largely excising him from the story leaves out some great opportunities for character development for the hyper-rational Harry. On the other hand, their friendship was founded largely on Harry not being kind of a jerk.
 * Read chapter 31; the "no reason to exist" comment was meant to set up a flaw of Harry's- namely the assumption that he is always the smartest one in the room and as such no one else can contribute. Harry (and Draco) tries to run his army by himself while Hermione uses the strategic genius of Ron (and others) to make up for any shortcomings of hers.
 * It's also a bit of Fridge Brilliance. If Ron really does represent emotion, then there is at least less need for him since this Harry isn't as emotionally damaged as canon!Harry.
 * Not as damaged, but still sorely lacking (more than in canon, in fact) and unwilling to recognise it.
 * To put it more succinctly, Ron's purpose in canon is to be The McCoy to Harry's Kirk and Hermione's Spock. The fact that this Harry is Spockier than Hermione makes that dynamic (for better or worse) impossible. If there is a Freudian Trio in this fanfic, it's Harry (Spock), Hermione (Kirk), and Draco (McCoy).
 * Nightmare Fuel:
 * McGonagall's speech about the dangers of transfiguration.
 * McGonagall's speech about the dangers of transfiguration.
 * McGonagall's speech about the dangers of transfiguration.

""And in the slowed time of this slowed country, here and now as in the darkness-before-dawn prior to the Age of Reason, the son of a sufficiently powerful noble would simply take for granted that he was above the law. At least when it came to a little rape here and there. There were places in Muggle-land where it was still the same way, countries where that sort of nobility still existed and still thought like that, or even grimmer lands where it wasn't just the nobility. It was like that in every place and time that didn't descend directly from the Enlightenment.""
 * The terrifying Welcome to the Real World Omake in Chapter 64.
 * Ron the Death Eater: Subverted. While early on, Harry is very dismissive of Ron and it looks like he's going to be written out of the story, in chapter 31,
 * Tastes Like Diabetes: Harry's "romantic" first date, organized by the rest of the girls in his class. He is not. Happy. At all.
 * Toy Ship: Harry and Hermione are eleven/twelve years old, even if they don't act like it. Everyone believes they will end up together - except the 'loving couple'.
 * Unfortunate Implications: Quite a few instances, most explained by the author as Harry not having all the facts at his disposal. Not all readers were entirely convinced. See the discussion page for debate on some of these.
 * The apparent take on the breakdown of Snape and Lily's friendship has drawn some flak, causing Yudkowsky to irritatedly point out that 'views expressed by Severus Snape are not necessarily those of the author'. He later admitted that he had been labouring under certain misconceptions regarding the nature of their relationship prior to the whole 'mudblood' incident.
 * And then there's this bit from Chapter 7, which was actually toned down from a previous version after that one engendered even more umbrage:
 * And then there's this bit from Chapter 7, which was actually toned down from a previous version after that one engendered even more umbrage:


 * Some readers were offended by the seeming implication that this sort of thing never happened anymore in Western countries, and was automatic in non-Western ones, which they saw as privilege blindness. Again, see discussion page.
 * Also, the crack about Padma Patil, 'whose parents came from a non-English-speaking culture and thus had raised her with an actual work ethic'. Also a case of Self-Deprecation, but could just as easily offend English-speaking cultures rather than non-English-speaking cultures.
 * Apparently, the only thing keeping Petunia with Vernon Dursley in-canon was that she didn't think she was pretty enough to get someone better. Never mind that the canon indicates that they sincerely love each other and Dudley, this Petunia has enough strength of character to leave Vernon after he wants to give their future child a silly name, but not enough to even try and convince him otherwise.
 * What Do You Mean It's Not for Kids?: "Writing a children's book is much harder than writing a story for grownups. I can't do it. Therefore this is a story for grownups..."
 * The Woobie: Poor, poor Bellatrix. Quite remarkable, considering that her characterization here is merely an expansion upon her characterization in canon.