Harry tries to walk the narrow path that doesn’t lead to Dark Lord Harry, confronts bullies and apologizes like a bad ass, and get A TIME MACHINE!
Original chapters, written by Eliezer Yudkowsky, can be read here and the audiobook chapters, recorded by Eneasz Brodski, can be found earlier in this podcast feed and on the website.
In next week’s episode, we will be covering chapters 15 and 16.
Album art courtesy of Lorec from The Bayesian Conspiracy podcast’s Discord. Thank you!
Coy on the same Discord manages an RSS feed that compiles the relevant audiobook chapters with the WW MoR counterparts. Just copy and paste that link into your favorite podcast app in the “add by url” option. Thanks, Coy!
Omeleto episode where a man discovers his lazy boy is a time machine.
Brian’s cousin’s X-Men Podcast: X-Aspirations
Podcast: Play in new window | Download | Embed
Subscribe: RSS
RSS – All Posts
iTunes
Stitcher Smart Radio
Google Play
Email – Episodes only
I wanted to say that Brian was quite unfair to Slytherin when he said that the Snakes->Slytherin->Death Eaters->Voldemort connection should be obvious to people within the story.
Even if every single Death Eater was a former Slytherin, the vast majority of now adult Slytherin are not Death Eaters. I mean, as far as I understood the original books, all houses of Hogwarts are roughly equally populated, meaning that a full quarter of Magical Britain is Slytherin. If a quarter of all mages were openly known to be evil since hundreds of years then why the hell is Slytherin still existing? Instead it would have suffered the fate suggested in this hilarious video: https://youtu.be/qDgk8RAckCE
Really frustrated with Brian’s thinking on the Slytherin message.
It’s not clunky to have your message delivered during sorting to people matching his criteria. It’s an artifact important to the school function, and what more impactful way to have your message delivered than after the qualified person is sorted into Slytherin?
It’s also absurd to think that a Snake Deatheater connection would take precedence over the Snake Slytherin connection.
Just wanted to also make it clear I am enjoying the podcast, though, and am excited to have it for the next few years ;)
Exactly! I was close to pulling my hair out over this (and I have precious little left).
At this point in the story, a reader who has read the original books is expected to understand that this is a message from Salazar Slytherin to his future heirs, which has been spoken to every Slytherin student for centuries, but only understood by a handful of parselmouths. The last one of those WAS Voldemort, 50 years ago, but Harry does not have the necessary information to be able to deduce that, unless he suddenly starts pulling impossible prior knowledge out of his arse like the original Sherlock Holmes.
Neither Harry NOR the reader is supposed to draw the (completely wrong) conclusion that this is a message from Voldemort about Nagini.
Upon re-reading, the words “If you would seek my secrets, speak to my snake,” have a whole new layer of meaning, for spoilery reasons, but there is really no big mystery to unravel here. Your intended take-away is, “Oh, so that’s how Tom Riddle first got on the track towards finding Slytherin’s Chamber of Secrets, back in the day,” and not some elaborate conspiracy theory that Harry is somehow supposed to instantly unravel without any relevant knowledge. Harry is a BIT of a Marty Stu, but not THAT much of one.
Yeah Brian talks up how he wants to show his nerd cred but he doesn’t know Harry Potter canon as well as he thinks he does :D
Second shoutout I received on something I liked, so thanks for that =)
Anyway, a time turner’s limitations are known (maximum of 6 hours traveled back per day), and working mechanics can be made up on the spot, something like this:
Time travel puts stress/harm on the time traveller. For every unit of time traveled back they have to spend 5 units of time without travel to destress/normalise. The time turner is able to detect the current stress level of anyone traveling with the time turner. A safety mechanism prevents travel back further than the maximum stress threshold (turning 7 times still sends you back only 6 hours). Breaking this safety mechanisms probably leads to magical malady (compare w/ splicing for apparition).
This would allow the following:
dd:hh:mm
00:06:00 Wake up
00:08:00 Morning classes block A
00:12:00 1st Lunch
00:13:00 → time turner -6 hours (=-360 minutes) to 00:07:00
00:08:00 Morning classes block B (current time stress: 348 minutes)
00:12:00 2nd Lunch (current time stress: 300 minutes = 1 h TT recuperated)
00:13:00 Afternoon classes (current time stress: 288 minutes = 1:12 h TT recuperated)
00:18:00 Dinner (current time stress: 228 minutes = 2:12 h TT recuperated)
00:22:00 Bedtime (current time stress: 180 minutes = 3:00 h TT recuperated)
01:06:00 Wake up (current time stress: 84 minutes = 4:36 h TT recuperated)
01:08:00 Morning classes Block A (current time stress: 60 minutes = 5 h TT recuperated)
01:12:00 1st Lunch
01:13:00 → time turner -6 hours (=-360 minutes) to 00:07:00
01:08:00 Morning classes block B (current time stress: 348 minutes)
I don’t remember if there were limitations to the increments for turns, if every turn was 1 hour or something, but this might again be a safety feature to prevent accidental turning (each turn would go snap-click or something) rather than inherent in the functionality of time travel.
This mechanic would neatly explain why one could time travel only six times per day and six hours per day. As I’ve written here one could, theoretically, travel more often than the six times, but the magical debt / time stress would still limit one to 30 hours subjective for every 24 hours objective time.
Just a note on Abra Cadabra
Abracadabra = Abarah Ki’davarah, which is Hebrew roughly for “I will create as I have spoken”. It is less from “cadaver” = dead bodies, and more sourced from the Hebraic and biblical context. It’s taken from the biblical creation story which, within the context of religion, is arguably the greatest “magic trick” of all.
Steven: “Side note — I desperately love those movies. (Avengers Infinity War & Endgame)”
Sure… But do you love them 3000?
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead isn’t a book, but it was a play before it was a movie.