Eliezer and I love to talk about writing. We talk about our own current writing projects, how we’d improve the books we’re reading, and what we want to write next. Sometimes along the way I learn some amazing fact about HPMOR or Project Lawful or one of Eliezer's other works. “Wow, you’re kidding,” I say, “do your fans know this? I think people would really be interested.”

“I can’t remember,” he usually says. “I don’t think I’ve ever explained that bit before, I’m not sure.”

I decided to interview him more formally, collect as many of those tidbits about HPMOR as I could, and share them with you. I hope you enjoy them.

It's probably obvious, but there will be many, many spoilers for HPMOR in this article, and also very little of it will make sense if you haven’t read the book. So go read Harry Potter and [...]

---

Outline:

(01:49) Characters

(01:52) Masks

(09:09) Imperfect Characters

(20:07) Make All the Characters Awesome

(22:24) Hermione as Mary Sue

(26:35) Who's the Main Character?

(31:11) Plot

(31:14) Characters interfering with plot

(35:59) Setting up Plot Twists

(38:55) Time-Turner Plots

(40:51) Slashfic?

(45:42) Why doesnt Harry like-like Hermione?

(49:36) Setting

(49:39) The Truth of Magic in HPMOR

(52:54) Magical Genetics

(57:30) An Aside: What did Harry Figure Out?

(01:00:33) Nested Nerfing Hypothesis

(01:04:55) Epilogues

The original text contained 26 footnotes which were omitted from this narration.

---

First published:
July 25th, 2025

Source:
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/FY697dJJv9Fq3PaTd/hpmor-the-probably-untold-lore

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

---

Images from the article:

Idea one: There's a single magical mutation and it spontaneously arises.

Idea Two: the magical mutation is more complicated. Most Muggleborns do actually have magical ancestry.

Idea Three: Magic is the default. Muggles have a magic-dampening chromosome. Muggleborns arise when the magic-dampening chromosome is damaged.

Apple Podcasts and Spotify do not show images in the episode description. Try Pocket Casts, or another podcast app.

“HPMOR: The (Probably) Untold Lore” by Gretta Duleba, Eliezer Yudkowsky

LessWrong (30+ Karma)