Author: Eneasz

I mentioned before that initially I didn’t want to involve anyone else in the podcast project, because I knew it would span several years and I didn’t trust anyone else to stay committed to it that long. And that this was first overcome by my longtime friend Drake Walker volunteering, since I figured we’d be friends for a long time still and I could show up at his door and refuse to leave if I needed more lines badly enough. :) I still didn’t trust unknown people enough to ask for submissions in the podcast.

This changed when I received an email from Jocee Cotton. Attached was audio of EVERY SINGLE LINE by Daphne Greengrass. Completely unsolicited. Despite the first appearance of Daphne being months away, and the real meat of SPHEW being a year or so away. It took me by surprise and completely blew my mind. It had to take a fair amount of time to track down every Daphne line in the text and record them all, with no assurance that I’d be willing to do anything with it. And if that wasn’t stunning enough – they were actually good! This was entirely usable! The effort a stranger would put in for something like this with no expectation of anything in return or any idea if I’d even accept it really restored some of my faith in humanity. I opened up minor roles to submissions because of Jocee’s initiative, and received Tracey and Susan almost immediately. Since then more and more people have been lending their voices and (in James’s case) helping out by tracking down available lines (pdf). The world is a better place than I thought a year and a half ago. :)

This was originally posted at Less Wrong in one of the HPMoR discussion threads, almost exactly one year ago. I had planned on pasting it here when I got to the SPHEW-formation chapter, and I’m still doing so. It’s interesting how I’ve changed over the past year… I would still have posted the same information if I’d written it today, but my wording would have been a bit different. I’ll comment further on the real-world SPHEW in next week’s notes.

Real World Effects of SPHEW

Raemon has written at moderate length about feminist issues in HPMoR. In fact, this post is credited by Eliezer as

High probability this comment had something to do with the surprise creation of SPHEW.

I don’t wish to speculate about these issues because I don’t feel I have the depth of knowledge needed to contribute meaningfully. However I do have a real life effect of SPHEW to report.

I produce the Methods of Rationality Podcast. For the most part it’s a solo project, but after receiving a few requests I’ve gotten comfortable enough with it that I’ve decided to integrate other voices as long as it doesn’t require much additional work from me. Meaning – just send me the audio file of you reading the lines and I’ll incorporate it if I can. I didn’t really expect much response from this approach, and for the most part I didn’t get one. Seems no one is really interested in doing Gregory Goyle’s lines. :)

With a notable exception. The girls of SPHEW. I received a complete reading of all of Daphne’s lines before I even announced I was willing to take other voices. It was one of the primary motivators for overturning my previous policy and saying I would accept others. Since then I also received all Tracey’s and the start of Susan’s with a commitment of a full reading. I’m still at least two months away from the first appearance of any of the SPHEW witches, and probably a full year away from their eventual official SPHEW adventures.

I believe SPHEW has indeed promoted heroism among witches in the real world. Regardless of what feminist themes may have been explored, it’s my opinion that SPHEW has had a positive real-world effect. :)

I find myself conflicted about the message of today’s chapter. Not everyone can be a hero, and not simply in the “because they don’t have the ability” sense. Even if every single person had the potential to be an actual hero, logistically most people cannot be heroes. Heroes are dependent upon others to grow their food, produce their clothing, and build their shelter. Luke Skywalker needed the factory worker who bolted together his X-Wing. Without a vast support crew, he’s just a kid swinging around a lightsaber on his uncle’s farm. If everyone was a hero, society would collapse. Heroes are great because they direct all of our effort, which we have focused into them.

I realize self-actualization doesn’t necessarily mean becoming a hero. It can just mean “be the best damn sidekick or factory worker or accountant you can be!” It is a worthy goal, and it makes life sweet, and everyone should strive for it. But so much focus is put on “being the hero” in all the media we consume that it probably pushes far more people into attempted heroing than it should.

But looking over the whole of the Self-Actualization arc, I don’t think the message is “everyone must be a hero, or they are a failure”. Hermione, ultimately, remains a support character. She simply becomes a much better Hermione. Maybe the message really is “be the best you can at what you are”, and her focus of not being trapped in Harry’s shadow constrained my view of the situation. I tend to over-empathize with fictional characters.