Deal breaking clichés, aka clichés that make me stop reading the moment I see them, regardless of all other content... this could easily become quite a long list.

1. Inherited marriage contracts.

2. Harry possessing more than one landed title.

3. Harry having a hyphenated surname.

4. Potter Manor

5. In fact, Harry inheriting any manor house.

6. Any person possessing an amount of gold that exceeds tens of millions of galleons.

7. Letters to Harry from his dead parents.

8. Harry being emancipated.

9. Harry being able to vote in the Wizengamot.

10. Any special laws which give significant legal powers/privileges to a magical aristocracy.

11. Non-horcrux soul bonds.

12. Adults allowing Harry to berate them publicly.

13. "Wise Harry" dispensing sage advice to people that he would only be able to give if he knew the future.

14. Any conversation in which it is stated that Muggles would beat wizards in a war and that wizards should be scared of them.

15. Any serious use/inclusion/mention of firearms.

16. Excessive use of legal authority which ignores de facto politics (e.g. Harry using any kind of legal authority to overrule Dumbledore within Hogwarts... not going to happen).

17. In fact, let's just put down excessive use of legal authority in general.

18. Pretty girls lining up to convince Harry to fuck them.

19. Harry needing to be convinced to fuck pretty girls.

20. "Harry's so noble and such a gentlemen, he never shows any sexual interest in me at all, he is respectful to the point of absurdity because it's inconceivable to his low-self esteem that a girl could have sexual desire for him... and that's why I want to fuck him! There's nothing more attractive to me, a teenage girl, than an insecure eunuch."

21. Veela mate.

22. Fleur being a Veela, rather than a mixed race girl with Veela ancestry.

23. Any penis length over seven inches.

24. "Slytherin solidarity"

25. Voldemort torturing his followers as routine, rather than extraordinary punishment for massive fuck-ups.

26. Voldemort lacking any kind of strategic plan to actually take power, and instead spends all his time making random attacks until Harry decides to kill him.

27. "Voldemort is actually misunderstood."

28. Evil Dumbledore.

29. Harry at any point going into a monologue, spoken or thought, assessing previous events and coming to a conclusion about the "real" interpretation of those events (includes both manipulative Dumbledore and realisations of True Love).

30. Wizarding society depicted as having Victorian dating sensibilities.

31. Political marriages.

32. Wizarding world being depicted as having significant gender discrimination.

33. "Magical Britain is a backwater."

34. "Hogwarts is below the international magical standard"

35. "Pup"

36. Prank wars.

37. Magical education being referred to as "training" rather than "studying".

38. "You should dodge instead of using a shield."

39. In fact, any kind of acrobatic Harry who is hopping and skipping around while duelling.

40. Harry becoming a magical genius over the space of a summer.

41. Ability at practical magic being depicted as entirely independent of magical theory.

42. Friendly Goblins. Did I really not mention that yet? This should have been number one.

43. Dobby becoming Harry's slave.

44. House Elves need the magic from a slavery bond to survive.

45. Custom wands.

46. Harry ditching Ron and Hermione as friends.

47. Excessive smirking.

48. Horcrux destruction without the destruction of the physical container.

49. People casting wand spells without a wand.

50. "Harry likes flying, not Quidditch."


... I could probably keep going for a while, but 50 seems like a good round number to stop at.

 

To be fair, Taure, dodging while casting an offensive spell would probably be a good option to shielding. At some point, we really should make a list of all the HP clichés that Jim Butcher does right in Dresden Files.

 

It comes down to whether successful dodging is actually possible or not. The way I see it, 99.9% of the time a person tries to move out of the way of a spell that is already on its way, that person is going to be hit.

 

Some spells are probably instantenous unless blocked.

Also, some spells perhaps chase after the target.

 

Why not? Girls lining up to slip Harry love potions and fuck him is canon.

Isn't this what most of magical Britain does? Why is it wrong if Harry does it? Not every version of harry has to befriend house elves, you know.

Forging the Sword

Why not? Surely Harry's grandparents lived somewhere. It makes sense for Harry to have inherited their house. Admittedly, this has become tired and overused, but it does make sense.

What's wrong with that?

Perhaps. But not every version of Harry has to have a good relationship with Dumbledore.

Most of these are standard cliches, but surely you can't find all of them 'mortally wounded'.

 

The house in Godric's Hollow, perhaps? The house may have belonged to James' parents, and a normal house in a quiet village suits Harry better than a big mansion with million acre grounds.

 

We know spells can miss, they are not seeking their targets or have auto-aim. We also know that even the killing curse can be stopped by getting a broken piece of a staute in its way. So, you try to seek cover, throw off the aim of your opponent, make yourself a smaller target and yes, dodge. To keep moving is smart. To stand and trust to shielding when there are spells that go through shields is stupid.

 

The key word there is "convince".

I think you've missed the point. It's not bad because it makes Harry immoral (though that is also a consideration. It's bad because it totally contradicts Dobby's character. "Dobby is a free elf!"

Everyone lives somewhere, very few people live in manor houses.

Political marriages secure political alliances via marriage. This requires parental control over their children's marriages, and women essentially being property of their father/husband. That is, it requires a feudal society. But given that the magical world had a female Minister for Magic as early as 1798, it's clear that the magical world has less gender discrimination than the Muggle world, not more.

Missing and dodging are two very different things. Dodging implies reaction: you see the spell, then move out of the way. Missing, on the other hand, is always a case (in the books) of the intended target already moving at the time the spell is cast.

Also there's one one spell we know of that goes right through shields, and a pretty big deal is made of the fact that it can, so it seems likely that it is also the only one.

 

How much dodging do you see in these duels?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UunqBAHBDo8
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rLtZmKyeW6g
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zwCsbVrNZnI (on this one skip to 2:18 )
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YPNh7VzHpIQ

 

Ah, but Harry gives no fucks about Romilda Vane and her entourage in canon. Harry does not fuck Romilda because he does not want to fuck Romilda. So, the "convince" word still applies.

Harry is no more immoral for owning a house elf than any muggle would be for owning a domestic animal. Anyway, you missed the point. Harry does not need Dobby's consent to own him. He could buy him off Lucius, for one.

Weren't the Potter's supposed to be an old pureblood family? Living in a manor is quite plausible for them.

I'm not sure how the second is necessarily derived from the first.

Is it ever hinted how fast spells actually are in canon? Whether spells can be dodged easily or not is directly dependent on that fact.

 

If done in The Lurker at the Threshold/haunted house manner it could work.

 

The movies are not canon.

 

That simply means that to keep moving is still much better than standing and shielding - especially for Harry since the killing curse is kind of the trade mark of Harry's personal nemesis.

 

It's a feeble one, but one might make the argument that two very inexperienced duellists may be more apt to dodge their opponents' spells upon spotting a drawn-out wand movement, or even hearing the first phoneme of an incantation... guess it would be a case of throwing one's opponent 'off their game' rather than actually moving out of the way, though.

As for deal breakers, variations of the name Harry. Unless it's massively AU (and even then, there's little excuse) Harrison, Harold, Hadrian... I'm gonna have a bad time.

I can somewhat tolerate Henry for some reason. And then there's Prince of the Dark Kingdom, but that doesn't really count.

 

I hate magical oaths. I, blah blah, swear on my life and mag- NOPE.

 

The Unbreakable Vow requires three people in a specific setting. Everything else is just words.

I really can see firearms work on unprepared wizards, and since Fred & George's items imbued with the Shield Charm were such a success, we know that there are many wizards unfamiliar with it, therefore vulnerable to surprise lead injection.

 

Does that include vows like the unbreakable vow?

 

My headcanon for the unbreakable vow is that it can only be used to promise performance or non-performance of a future action. It can't be used to warrant the truth or falsity of statements, nor can you make unbreakable promises regarding the past.

Arguably this is not so much headcanon as it is a very strict interpretation of canon. Basically I'm saying I will not accept uses of the unbreakable vow that we didn't see it used for in canon.

 

It does render a lot of - admittedly usually stupid - difficulties suchas being branded a liar or unjustly punished easily solved. Though I am not sure how easy it is to actually make the one magical oath we know in canon, the unbreakable vow. Didn't get the Weasley twins in trouble for trying to make ron take an unbreaklable vow when they were kids, or was that a fanfiction invention?

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"I swear I will speak only the truth as I know it for the next 30 minutes." should still be covered by even the strictest interpretation of canon.

 

the unbreakable vow involves 3 people