• skulblaka@sh.itjust.works
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    8 days ago

    The more I see him in the real world the more very upset I become that I genuinely really liked his story. HPMOR is a banger, possibly one of my favorite pieces of amateur literature in existence.

    I didn’t know the author was a wanker at the time of reading, and now that I do, I want to make myself retroactively un-like his work, but I can’t.

      • skulblaka@sh.itjust.works
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        6 days ago

        His social media presence is, uh… questionable.

        I did a little bit of digging around and I can’t find anything in particular that he’s done that I don’t like (actually he’s one of few people pushing back against AI which I do like), but I’ve seen some Twitter takes from him in the past that made me not want to be involved with him.

        Nothing heinous though so far as I know, though I can’t say I’ve kept up with it recently.

    • lime!@feddit.nu
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      8 days ago

      it is, based on most people who read it, actually very good. the problems start when you analyse it in context with the author. ironically, same thing is true for the source material.

      • uuldika@lemmy.ml
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        8 days ago

        the context makes it better, for me.

        Harry is the protagonist, but he’s not a good person. he’s a ruthlessly utilitarian sociopath who takes himself far too seriously, but it’s entertaining to watch his thought processes. again, much like the author.

        • lime!@feddit.nu
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          8 days ago

          i mean, as long as you don’t go into it expecting to sympathise with the main character and get immersed in the story, yeah. it’s not badly written, it’s just bad.

          • Schadrach@lemmy.sdf.org
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            7 days ago

            One of the key things to enjoying it is realizing that Harry is very often wrong about astoundingly obvious things because he’s not half as bright as he thinks he is and has massive, glaring blind spots. Rather like watching someone with a PhD who thinks that means they know much about things wildly far away from their specialty.

      • Impassionata@lemmy.world
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        8 days ago

        most people have bad taste. hpmor spreads vapid grandiose intellectualism and the people who like it should act more like skulblaka: they were trivially manipulated by a cult leader.

        to be fair, though, eliezer yudkowsky is being sardonic in the OP text.

        • jsomae@lemmy.ml
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          8 days ago

          HPMOR definitely has its share of problems – a mary sue main character for one. But it was incredibly unique at the time it came out, in particular for taking the world of harry potter down as many pegs as it could with such exacting precision. I think it’s one of the all-time greats (of fanfics) personally, but you definitely have to get past how full of himself the author is.

      • jsomae@lemmy.ml
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        8 days ago

        Roko’s basilisk is a really cool metaphor for fascism. If you help the regime come into existence, you are rewarded; if you fight it, you are punished but only if you are unsuccessful.

        • Fusselwurm@feddit.org
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          8 days ago

          If you help the regime come into existence, you are rewarded

          well don’t count on that. totalitarian regimes have a tendency to be paranoid and to enact rather unpleasant purges at every level of the organisation.