While I may not agree with the politics I'd rather a different voice in the fanfic, even if I disagree with it, than no influence at all.

I suppose if you're writing K/G-rated youngster friendly fics then imposing your political views into your product is a bit dirty and disgusting. (Unless you're VeggieTales in which case God is on your side, so it must be okay.) But in fanfic? I'd much rather see an author's personal feelings and biases reflected in the story than ask them to keep them out. If they want to write one from a subjective POV that's fine too, but I prefer a fic I disagree with saying something over a cliched fic that doesn't stand out from any others saying nothing new.

 

I really have no idea what politics are you talking about. If it's about backward wizarding world who needs to modernize itself, than that's nothing new - many independant fics have this as Harry's goal for fighting Voldemort.

 

I'm not sure to be honest, but if I were to guess I think he was referring to the freedom of information with the goblins and the general idea that if someone else can take your idea and make it better, they should be allowed to go into competition with you and make more money than you.

No copyrights or ownership of knowledge essentially. We all exist and have equal say in concepts/ideas/practices.

Hopefully someone will correct me and point out to what he *was* referring to.

 

. . . Wrong thread.

 

I wondered when I would recieve my first criticism about the political side of things. I should say that I'm a reformed Randian who still hold Atlas Shrugged as his favorite book, but with the realization that the theory was outdated and hypicrytical. This story will be about reforming a backwards wizarding society, but not as much as it will be about defeating Voldemort.

The common theme: freedom. I find Rowling to be very hypocritical in her fight for freedom from Voldemort while ignoring the un-free portions of the society she has created. I guess it's realistic, though, because it's extremely similar to what is going on here in the States.

Harry will be working to create a free society. Without giving away too much of the plot, I will say this: Utopia will not be achieved in this story, so you can lay to rest any fears about that.

I realize you didn't accuse me of being a neoconservative, but having it mentioned in the same review will leave that impression on people's minds. I'm a Libertarian by party, but an individual in reality. My beliefs are my own, and I do not force them on anyone (except my fanfic characters, when it works.)

Thanks for your thoughts, and I do hope you will continue reading. It is your choice however

Josh

 

Josh,
I am learning very quickly this lesson. Write the story the way you want to write it. You will be happier that way. I am really enjoying your story even though I don't usually go for the super powered fics. Just do it well and the rest will follow.

Jim

 

Good to know that you like personal freedom's and don't mind putting them into your writing. Although personally I disagree with the pure capitalist market structure set up by Adam Smith in The Wealth of Nations because it lends itself to obscene abuses...

But I digressed a little bit there didn't I...

Oh and for the record, I really am annoyed with Americans because of their outright intolerance of almost anything Socialism related(this is coming from a "progressive"). But honestly, I am glad that you didn't make a Socialist! Harry. It just wouldn't work in the wizarding world, to radical of a change.

Also I will say that although I disagree with parts of your politics I hope you keep writing the fic the way you have been doing. Writing isn't any fun if you can't look at your finished product and say "I'm proud of that piece."

 

kinda love it

this story im reading because theres excellent writing style but ff.net just really sucks these days there are almost no good stories and the good stories the writers disappear. and the bad stories their updating like crazy but let me stop ranting i llike this story because its one of the only moderately good stories out there.
theres my input :roll:

 

I don't know, I liked this story initially and I guess his amazing intelligence that some of the others have complained about can be summed up by the title "Prodigy" but I felt it got a little bogged down when he got to Hogwarts as up until that point he had been almost entirely consumed in his work to the exclusion of most of his emotions and while it's not entirely feasible for a grade school age child to live his entire childhood by himself I can live with that. What I didn't like though was that you had established his character as one type then when he went to Hogwarts he did almost a complete 180 and spent a few chapters stuck in his emotional quagmire. And while I understand that it can be explained that it was because he was suddenly around so many people after living in exclusion for his entire life but as opposed to actually accepting and dealing with all of these feelings I think that in real life he would have most likely just tried to ignore all these new outside stimuli and just bury himself further in his work to ignore these new emotions that he doesn't want to have to deal with. But I do like the H/Hr pairing as I seem to be one of the few supporters of that ship out here in fanland but oh well keep writing, listen to what I say, don't, whatever. It doesn't really matter in the end anyway.

 

its better than some retarded Harry fics that I've read. I like it.

 

An 11 yr old kid becoming a prodigy, ok fine. But not an ultra smart one like you did. Maybe if the kid was a few years smarter than his age it would be fine but this kid here is so smart its turning into one of those super harry cliches.
Checklist:
No slash -- H/Hr
Decent novel length -- yup
Interesting ideas -- yea..
Original and exciting plot -- nope, not in this lifetime
cliches -- supersmart harry = super powerful harry not much difference

Rating out of 10: 8/10 mainly for effort.

 

I really don't understand what the hell you're on about.

Not an original plot? Where, pray tell, have you seen genius!Harry before...and even if you have, i don't see how you can put this down when its an excellent fic.

The plot IS exciting...you have the savior of the wizarding world rearing himself. Not only did he write those parts well, but the psychological effect...the introvertedness...was also done very well.

And how do you rate it 8/10 purely on effort? I find that to be a rather odd way of rating things...even the crappiest fic out there would net a 4/10 by that scale solely because the author put in the effort to write it.

jmcqk6: well done. This story isn't exactly my cup of tea...i don't like genius!Harry, but you HAVE written it very well, and in a very believable manner.

 

Hey, trident, why are you rating this story like that when yours isn't even half as good? Super smart does not equal super powerful. There is a huge difference between being really smart and really powerful, at least magic wise. This super smart Harry is completely different from those other super powerful Harry fics because this Harry actually took a lot of time to figure out how to do stuff. Also, this Harry still doesn't have the power that a super power Harry would. And how is the plot unoriginal? How many stories can you tell me right now that have Harry accidentally warping himself to his parents's house and then learning magic? How is that plot unoriginal? And how can you give something a good rating based on EFFORT alone? That just doesn't work, unless all stories that seem to have decent effort put into them deserve an 8/10. Okay, I'm done now.

 

I agree with Lutris, while it in unbelivable that he is so smart at such a young age so do I love all the theories and even the computers.

 

ah, an update, yea!

bonus: prodigy harry quiddich omake

I have re read about half of the posts on this thread.
Has anyone seen a story were tom riddle is the bump in the road,
and the wizarding world (political/cultural) is the real problem?

Once harry puts his mind to beating Tom would be easy,
but not while he is being pecked to death by different factions
of wizarding england?

I think this could turn into a nice potboiler intrigue kind of thing
if the author wanted to steer it that way.

 

I think that the fact that you have to skip over the authors politics(if said opinions offend you) INSTEAD of mindless filler/Ginslut fluff/Clichés/Plot Holes etc. speaks volumes for the quality of writing in this fic.

Yes, I will admit it that this whole 'oh hello I'm Harry Potter! Nice to meet you, would you like a cup of tea? Oh and by the way, I've just now solidified the theory of quantum gravitation and found a cure for cancer (while juggling a 7 tuba’s).Pass the Scones would you?’ thing gets a little old.

But for God’s sake it’s Original! If taken a few chapters (or not) at a time it’s highly enjoyable. The only real complaint I have is the wait between updates but that’s just customary bitching. Keep it up Josh!

 

Only thing that annoys with me with this story is his political views being put into the characters and the WAY to smart kid.


Other than that. It's fine. I suppose.

 

I liked this story initially very much, but now I start to wonder what the plot will be, it seems to me that Harry has no real challenge anywhere but with his social skills.

He is still in the second term of his first year and allready the H/Hr starts, I like to see Harry work for what he achieves. It all seems to easy for him there. And how will he want to make politics if the author developed a main character that has social skills as his main/only weakness? Thats as if I wanted to study maths at uni if I get best marks everywhere and regularly fail in maths in secondary school. And every character needs weaknesses as much as strengths. The only weakness he would have left would be being whipped by Herman.

These objections aside it is very well written and the Hr character is luckily not the uber-boss type.

I look forward to see how you want to make Harry think like a politician. He will need more then sympathy on his side to make such big changes.

 

Thanks

Let me start by saying thank-you to those who have spoken up about enjoying this fic.

Now just a few quick replies, mainly addressing things that will not be addressed in the story itself. I know people are probably not going to like this, but when you think about it, it makes sense. Harry is showing signs consistant with a development disorder called aspergers, which is a form of autism. I actually didn't even realize it until another reviewer pointed it out. However, Harry does fit the bill for being a type of Savant. It's different isn't it?

Also, if you look at historical child prodigies, you will notice that Harry pretty much fits the bill. The claim that he is smarter than he ought to be, may hold a little water, but I think you should familiarize yourself with RL prodigies and rethink your opinion.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_child_prodigies

As to my politics, I suppose I could apologize for bringing them into the story, but I'm not really sorry. Your religious beliefs (if any), your philosophy, and your politics should all be reflected in how you live your life. This is a basic belief for me.

For the record: Harry Potter is making mistakes, you just have not seen them in the story yet. We are still building up to the action, and I'll tell you right now that it's going to be full of it when it hits - there will be a jihad of epic proportions. This is necessary.

Harry will never be a politician. He doesn't care about politics at all. To him, he would likely agree with Mal Reynolds who says that a government is just there to get in the way, which is absolutely true in his case.

I am confused as to why social difficulty is being portrayed as Harry's only weakness. Do I need to work harder in pointing out that his dueling skills absolutely suck? That being as smart as he is can be a burden as much as it is a gift because he ends up over-thinking things? Please let me know.

You all will probably hate this fic after this post, but that's ok, I guess. I'm writing this for myself, after all

 

Excerpts from the wikipedia list of Child Prodigies:

Akrit Jaswal India's youngest university student. He did an operation when he was 7.

Tathagat Avatar Tulsi - Undergraduate degree at age 10

Song Yoo-geun-Physics prodigy who entered university at age 8.

* Murray Gell-Mann - Nobel laureate who taught himself calculus at seven and went to Yale at 15.* - Harry did it at around 8

Steve Wozniak - Started developing complex electronics while still in grade 5. Went on to develop the worlds' first screen and keyboard desktop computer - Apple I.

William James Sidis - Corrected E. V. Huntington's mathematics text galleys at age of eight and entered Harvard at 11.

Srinivasa Ramanujan - Indian autodidact in mathematics, particularly number theory

By looking at some of these, Harry is actually a bit behind...