Title: Scion of Gryffindor
Author: Crys
Rating: T
Category: Action/Adventure
Chapters: 48
Words: 166,373
Published: September 20, 2005
Updated: July 19, 2007
Status: Complete
Pairing: Harry/Tonks
Summary: Harry receives a visit from Godric Gryffindor which alters the direction of his life.
Link: http://crys.fanficauthors.net/Scion_of_Gryffindor/index/

A rather interesting story I read this evening.


Checked by Minion, Nov. 25, 2012
Fixed the link: Thanks to SoS for the info.

 

This author is a mediocre one at best, though the fic itself would be OK if only the author thought before they wrote.

 

im inclied to agree with srispg ... the first chapter IS a bit too unbelievable... and its got the whole hermione turning on harry "for his own god" thing going on...but aside from that ... id say its decent... ill check for updates periodically i think...

 

I'd just read this and I'm climbing my soapbox...

One could say that this story has everything - action, adventure, humor, fluff, angst, politics etc... and all of this wrapped up in a nice package of crisp writing style and constant updates.

In short, this is exactly what we should expect from the group of authors gathered around Jeconais and his site "fanficauthors.net" - technically perfect but basically shallow mix of different styles and genres, designed to appeal to the maximal number of different people, with different tastes and likings.

These authors are basically doing pretty much what the modern musical industry is doing with their releases - taking underground music, removing all the artsy/hardcore/uncomercial elements and sounds, wrapping it up in a nice package and selling it as some variant of pop to 1000 times greater audience than the original genre had.

Unfortunately, when you make a lemonade like this, no one is truly pleased with the results.

Sure I can read all the politics and training parts and scroll through all the angst, fluff and confused-but-noble!Harry bits, and call that an interesting read, but I'll never be quite as pleased with this story, as with some true hard-core independant story. On the other hand, I gather that the fan-girls will sigh and cry at all the beautiful love and angst parts and skip all that confusing stuff about politics and ...yuck!... violence.

In the end, none of us will be TRULY satisfied with a story like this. But we'll all still be reading it... and leaving reviews like this.

I gather that, for the authors of stories like this, that is more than enough.

 

it's funny isn't it. there is no such thing as the perfet independent story. one can never be satisafied with what they have no matter how good the story is.

 

I can see what ip82 is saying, but I think you're making some unfair generalizations about the author and the website the fic's hosted on. If you want to continue the music industry comparison, you're assuming that it's the industry executives who are changing the styles of music and cleaning them up. When it's simply band A is making some incredibly original progressive underground music. And now band B also likes that music and is influenced by it. But band B's sound is much more pop friendly and polished. Industry big label executive can't sell band A to the masses, because they won't appeal to the 8 year old fan girls and their grandparents equally. But band B is clean enough and carries enough mass market appeal that it gets far more recognition and popularity. Of course small market 'true' fans will complain about how band B just ripped off band A and isn't half as good. Through no fault of band B, simply because that's their style and they're just making the music they want to, also, like you, being a fan of band A.

It's not some conspiracy. There isn't a coalition making the authors at that site write fics that try to appeal to everyone. The authors are writing the fics they want to write. Naturally, considering they collectively choose who else to offer a place at the site, they choose other popular authors *they* like (with similar styles often). And they like excessively high quality fics, that have been edited to near perfection with stories that appeal to them. Authors like Copperbadge, Kokopelli, or Mr. Intel I have the utmost faith in that their fics are of a level of quality that a great many others could not meet if they tried. But their choices in plots, subject matter, and how they deal with it don't hold a lick of interest to me. The summaries just don't sound like anything I would enjoy. I'd prefer what ip82 would call a true hard-core independent story. But people like me don't make up a majority of the fandom. This fandom doesn't even have a majority, it's so spread out in tastes, interests, age ranges even.

And I would agree with your assessment that this fic seems to have everything: action, humor, fluff, angst, politics, etc... To me, I'd call that something of a Bobmin syndrome. This is the exact complaint I have with Bobmin's fics. Decent or good across all genres. Great in no genres at all. And I'm always voting to completely toast the fluff and romance. Angst should be done in moderation, but you can never have too much action. That's my personal blend of tastes in genres. Be nice if there were ratings on genre levels, and you could filter things like an equalizer.

That said, I am enjoying this fic. I find it curious that it's taking so much longer for this fic to get going. We're 30 chapters in. Less than a hundred thousand words, because these chapters are so much shorter. Crys's last fic I read much of was only 7 chapters and over 120,000 words. He'd killed off Voldemort by chapter 2 in that one. Admittedly it went too thick on the Harry/Ginny love, romance, fluff parts then and lost my interest. But it's almost a complete reversal on the story's pacing and updates. And this fic is far better, even if it is essentially crawling towards it's upcoming battles.

But this isn't any active choice on the author's or website's part. It's merely his style. And his style is in line with the site his fics are hosted at. And to be honest, I'm surprised that particular site hasn't become more of a target from a majority of this board's users. They represent so much of what this site can't stand: Harry and Ginny, long-winded well written fics, and often a more polished and popular version of ideas that may have existed elsewhere first. But they also represent some of the best talents in the fanfic community too.

 

I wanted to say exactly what nonjon had said, only I couldn't be arsed to type that much, so I went for the shock effect.

But seriously, I don't think there's any conspiracy going on there - the authors that had started fanficauthors.net have been inviting authors with writing styles similar to their tastes (with notable exception of Draco664). I'm not saying that fanficauthors.net are some sort of evil empire (that's fanfiction.net ).

They are more like an elite clique of the show-biz - moving in the same (closed) circles, having similar tastes and producing neat, shallow and above all, comercial products to sell to the masses. Many people talk behind their backs, gossip and bitch about them, but they are all still eagerly expecting their next releases.

I'm just saying that most of FFA stories are like this one - technically perfect and with steady update rates, but extremely mild and crafted so to appeal to the widest possible spectrum of FF readers... Since unfortunately, your average HP fanfic reader is a 13 year old teenage girl, that's why we get so much slash and fluff.

This particular story is rather good, actually, for an independant!Harry attempt coming from that bunch. It could have been much worse... Like "White Knight, Grey Queen", for example, where action/thriller/politics parts, that were supposed to be the core of the story, were maybe 20% of the plot, while the rest was fluff, fluff and more fluff.

So, compared to some other works, Scion of Gryffindor is rather good attempt at making a mild and tennage-girl-friendly version of Independant!Harry story. I'll never truly like it and I'll always whine and bitch about it, but I'll also keep reading it... which, once again, is the whole point of writing lemonade fiction like this.

 

I find myself comparing this one to Harry Potter And The Summer Of Change by lorddwar as the two main HONKS WIP fics with regular updates at the moment. And I think a lot of your problems can be illustrated by comparing the two. Lorddwar puts out a better than 10,000 word chapter every two weeks (although he's said todays will be pushed back a day or two) with pretty solid regularity. Lorddwar has some cool ideas about Unspeakables and training Harry in that way, but both feature sappy drippy romance fluff with Tonks, semi-political action, manipulative (not outright evil) Dumbledore, a secret Potter manor and we're figuring out just who can be trusted. And where Lorddwar's seems to have some more progressive original ideas, Crys's fic just feels more polished and cleaner. I think that may be simply an author with more experience too, as Lorddwar has a summer only fic that's already way over 200K words long.

But Lorddwar's style and writing just isn't of the level and professionalism FFA.net folks have. It may have some truly gag-worthy romance scenes and way too much mushy fluff that I skim, but I think I may enjoy Lorddwar's more, despite being consciously aware Crys's fic is much cleaner, better, and more accessible.

Authors like Abraxan and Viridian feel like semi-typical Harry/Ginny authors writing stories with really good ideas that don't interest me in the slightest to read. Viridian or S'Tarkan's Nightmares of Futures Past from what I've read was totally nothing new. But it was written better and more professionally than any of the other fics in it's genre (old Harry back in young Harry's head). I'll still recommend it if people ask, but the story wasn't able to hold my interest. I wouldn't recommend it to IP necessarily, but I would to average schmoe until I have a better idea of what they like.

I should shut up as I feel like I'm arguing with arguments we all agree with. I guess it's just there's a lot on FFA.net that is good, but generalizing them all because they are all more polished and professional seems unfair to me. Kinsfire is practically the godfather of Harry!Harem fics. His wife's Fidelius isn't my cuppa, but is original and interesting according to almost everyone. Draco664's stuff is fantastic. Jeconais' ideas are almost always well thought out planned and unlike just about everything else out there. A lot of times it may not feel that way as so many seem to copy or be influenced by his stuff afterwards. Ruskbyte is a master of the craft. Full Pensieve's Years of Rebellion was one of the best first angsty, independent sorts of beginnings (though since it seems to have lost some direction).

As for the rest of the folks on there, meh. They're stuff doesn't interest me so much. The Dangerverse and whydoyouneedtoknow I've never even given a shot. The summaries told me all I cared to know. Ditto for most all the rest of the H/G stuff like Mr. Intel, Kokopelli, Abraxan. Musings of Apathy has a decently funny H/G fic that I enjoyed. Not spectacular, but I didn't mind skimming the fluff and reading the rest. I think being persecuted by fanfiction.net is the main pre-requisite aside from being hugely popular. But I would never assume simply being on FFA.net makes a story good or bad. Too many authors I love are there, and too many I could care less about.

Any fic with this much romance, at this point in my fanfic life, I won't ever love. Enjoyable, entertaining, and far better than most stuff out there, but I've met my quota on reading romance. For the rest of my life.

 

Author updated again, though I truly wonder when the author is actually going to get to the action instead of all these constant balls and social parties. It's getting boring

 

His fic is alright.Lorddwar's fic I like better.To much dialogue,need more fighting.

FFA seems to be home to H/Ginny shippers.Jeconais is like the only Author who shops around different pairings instead of H/Ginny.

 

I do acually like this story even if there isent enough action and harry seams to have a tendency to whine. He killed one Death Eater in self defence during a Death Eater attack and he is all broken up about it, Im not saying that he should stand laughing over the corpse, ok maybe I am but that is not the point

The story would be much better if something finally happened, about the only thing that has happened is the Death Eater attack when harry kills the Death Eater.

 

Nonjon, Ip, you guys are making some long reviews there which I and i bet most of the people who saw the thread just skimmed through it. Care to summerize all that in one sentance? No? Ill do it.

Basically these writers at the site write long high quality works with a little bit of everything, and not a lot of one thing so everyone can read and enjoy it.



Summary for the people who are too lazy to read the ten pages about what nonjon and ip wrote! :mrgreen:

 

Link is down, looks like all /index.php links from FFA are now /index/ links.

 

Yeah, I already came across a few of them. Fixed.