I was going to reply to this, but you pretty much nailed it. But I'll add a couple of bits that I felt you missed:

Notice-me-not charms: Actually the least offensive of the bunch, depending on how it's used. I actually rather like the idea, but it's a cliche even outside Harry Potter fanfiction. See Doctor Who's perception filter and Terry Pratchett's 'Fading into the foreground'. However there's actually some basis for this in canon: The Leaky Cauldron, the Knight Bus, etc. But I don't know why it has to have such a retarded name.

Lordship system: There are no Lords in Harry Potter save Voldemort and he makes it up. I don't know if this is some weird obsession/confusion with the House of Lords, but there evidently is no system at play in canon that emulates parliament. Fudge was able to invent whatever bullshit laws he fancied as Minister and arrest people on whatever spurious charges he felt like instituting. Unless you assume that every single member of this system is either corrupt or grossly incompetent, you have to assume that the entirety of Wizarding Britain is essentially run to the whim of the Minister and his retinue until people get bored and vote him out.

Nargles being real: Because it's an easy cop-out. Luna is a delusional and fragile headcase. Adorable, but mental. You've only got to read most of what she says in order to know that she's either living in a fantasy, or is the world's greatest troll. When she goes around espousing her views on Crumple-Horned Snorkacks, Stubby Boardman and the Rotfang Conspiracy, which are evidently bullshit, why should nargles be any different?

 

Thanks for responding, guys! (I agree with most of what you've said, I just thought I'd throw out a prompt to get you talking. I like me some articulate tl;dr rant every once in a while.)

Re: Notice-Me-Not Charms; I've first seen the idea in Phillip Pullman's His Dark Materials and I suppose my liking of it has sort of transferred across fictional universes. It can have some interesting uses, though; I was just pondering this case where, if you could cast the spell on someone else, I imagine it would get used a lot by Hogwarts kids to make their peers feel like shit; the victims would walk around for an entire day thinking that their friends are ignoring them on purpose and they'd start wondering where the hell they went wrong. Just a silly thought.

On topic: Meh. I never really got a lot of exposure to many of the cliches, because I don't usually tend to reach the point in a fic where the cliches begin to appear. A general impression of bad writing or specific pet peeves noticeable at a quick skimming will drive me out of reading a story before I even get to the parts that tend to repeat in a lot of fics. (Oh, also: DLP has been my introduction to fanfiction and the forums do a wonderful job of filtering out the worst of the shit out there. Since I got, and still get, most of my links to fics through DLP as opposed to FFN search, I haven't been faced with too much horrible cliched fanfiction in the first place.)

As far as I'm aware of them, I do like to see them subverted, though; those scenes in a story that are a clear shout-out to fanon, and that turn it on its head -- true, they could be interpreted as breaking the fourth wall, but those ones I usually find funny. (See the WTF-ish scene with Hermione's parents "Danielle and Emilio" in... VINCET (?), if my memory serves me well. Or in Alexandra Potter, with the goblins.)

 

I like cliches more then your average guy, but the well executed ones are usually found in canon. Fanon is just lazy.

 

Actually I have to admit this, though for different reasons. In the period where a lot of the often complained about cliches were in their heyday, I didn't actually read a lot of HP fanfiction, at least compared to most people here. I read even less of it now. I'm following like, three stories from Harry Potter. A lot of these cliches I've only heard about secondhand. So I actually don't have a problem with the idea of Harry having a trunk like Moody's from Goblet of Fire. He's got money, and they seem useful, especially given the sort of traveling they were doing in Deathly Hallows. Having a whole house in there stretches things though, and I guess that's the real problem with the idea.

 

I fully started reading FanFiction around 2008, so I completely missed the Big Wait and all the terrible magical cores and indy!Harry abominations.

 

2. We agree here about the usual bad usage of the Lord concept but there is a quite simple explanation to have some aristocracy. Lords are part of any feudal society and I can't really see the magical world as anything else than a feudal society. The books itself have no real signs of any kind of modern form of society.

I get your point of bureaucracy in its impersonal ruthlessness could add its own flavor of atmosphere but I thought the representation of the Ministry in the OOTP/DH films just didn't match my internal picture of the society. How their clothes looked and how they behaved looked like some alternate past history form of the Muggle bureaucracy. I consider that a real flaw of these later films which really annoyed me.

5. I would consider Blood Oaths as oaths made for/by a whole family than anything personal.

 

Why? I can't think of anything that implies a feudal society. Other than perhaps the lack of industrial production, but that doesn't mean feudal.

 

If by feudal, you mean Victorian?

 

Let's not forget how JKR, herself, originally drew him.

So, basically, this is how he actually looks in all of those smut fics. Especially the SS/Hr ones.

There may be more of that, since the movies, but there was at least some manipulative Dumbledore out there, tons of H/Hr where Hermione was depicted as drop dead gorgeous, and of course the mountains of Draco in Leather Pants fics.

However, what little Bellatrix there was out there in the fandom before the movies (because there hadn't even been much of her in the books at that point) was virtually ALL hot Bellatrix.

Okay, maybe some of the crazier Dumbledores have been inspired by Gambon...

Bingo. If I had to choose between the notion that Voldemort has any interest at all in sex, and the idea that his resurrected form doesn't even have the capacity for sex, I'll choose the latter. In my opinion, it's more believable.

And, while I'm the last person that would insist on stymieing creativity in favor of slavish devotion to classic themes in writing and mythology, you have to admit that in most instances the tradeoff you make for immortality is often an inability to sexually reproduce.

Horny Greek gods being an exception.

You left out the Somebody Else's Problem Field from the Hitchhiker's Guide series. :awesome

Futile: Sometimes that's what explaining things is.

 

Feudalism.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feudalism#Historiography_of_feudalism

Though in the context of a magical society the old "Rule of the Land" concept might have been more a "Rule by Might" which fits again with Voldemort's Ministry statue "Magic is Might".

If you look at Draco and his relation to Goyle/Crabbe I can only see some kind of vassal or even only a peasant relation. Voldemort's relation to his inner circle is like a lord to his vassals who bound them to serve their lord.

We've probably all thought while reading about Draco, what an arrogant douchebag. But in the context of Lucius's position in such a feudal society I would consider it normal behavior as it would be his perceived reality.

In the context of the muggleborn/pureblood conflict it would only be natural for the privileged class to be anti muggleborn. Their existence endangers their privileges because they won't willingly accept the seigneurial privileges as they are alien to their upbringing.

 

I think you're making a mistake to state that this is evidence of some sort of existing societal obligation. Lord Voldemort was, to all intents and purposes, nothing in the Magical World. He was, firstly, a half-blood and secondly, raised as a muggle. Any credence to the idea that this is a feudal society is fundamentally revoked by the fact that he became, momentarily, the most powerful man in wizarding Britain. This isn't how feudalism works.

Instead both instances you highlighted are merely examples of the influence that charismatic and powerful people exert over those that, in turn, desire power and influence. This happens all the time in the real world, you don't need to explain it with a formal system that is at odds with the way that politics is displayed in canon.

 

I said Lordship, I meant House of Lords. Sorry. As a flimsy excuse to have Harry become boss of the universe by claiming himself as the head of ten different families (a dodecalord?) it's shit, but there are interesting interpretations of what goes on in the wizarding political system and the influence of old families.

Never saw Voldemort as anything but asexual, even as Riddle, but I can definitely see him hinting to Bella that he might consider making her the "queen" of his empire or some shit as a reward for faithful service. Not that he'd actually do it but creepy emotional manipulation is his specialty. Decent exposition on Bellatrix's backstory is usually creepy and disturbing anyway, adding a psychosexual aspect to her hero-worship is not unreasonable.

 

You know, I wonder if it even wholly matters to Luna whether or not they exist. The Wizarding world may be culturally Anglican (and not Catholic, as the Statute of Secrecy is passed post-Reformation), but I doubt traditional Christianity holds much stock with a population that can change water to wine with a wave of a hand. But as the Wizarding world nonetheless remains a chaotic place (perhaps more so than the Muggle world), I can see how Nargles et al. could be a useful and comforting explanatory model in the lieu of a system of religious belief -- with the important distinction that it is one that has been entirely self-constructed. I dislike the typical pseudo-Evangelical exchange between Hermione and Luna in these Nargles Exist After All stories in which the scientific Hermione exclaims in frustration that there is no evidence for any of Luna's creatures or conspiracies, and Luna responds with some exhortation about just having to have faith. I think Luna knows Nargles don't exist, and might cop to it under the right circumstances. But she just doesn't care because the idea of them allows her to make sense of the world, or even just makes her happy.

 

You remind me of something, and for the record I'm not answering anything you said. You know what else is cliché? When authors tag the British Wizarding World' culture with muggle concepts such as "Anglican", "Catholic", etc. It always comes with (or is closely followed by) the "muggles are better because 'X'", that is an awful plot devise. I don't like it at all. Because there isn't a single evidence to prove the tagging nor “the muggles are better” concept.

 

I think Luna's attachment isn't to the existence of any particular creature, but rather to the notion of open mindedness and being willing to believe in things that appear ridiculous. Word of God is that after Hogwarts she went on several expeditions and did actually discover new magical creatures. Not the ones the Quibbler had talked about, but nonetheless new creatures. Her love of new things is undoubtedly part of that success.

 

I've always thought it nice how fanfic writers tend to name Hermione's parents Dan and Emma.

And even if the aristocracy and Lordship system isn't officially in force in the government, I can certainly see a great deal of Old Money holding power, similar to Britain in the early 1900s.

EDIT for Nargles: Luna believing in Nargles is no different to, say, a muggle child believing in faeries. It doesn't matter whether they exist or not. As someone who believed in magic for a long time and spends a lot of time in his own head, the belief helps to prevent me from dismissing theories outright or becoming too attached to my own.

EDIT2 for Bella: I've always considered her as someone similar to Hermione from Screams - someone psychologically broken who enjoys the pain of others and attached herself to her Lord out of genuine loyalty because he provided it. Sex doesn't come into it. For his end, I think he does manipulate her, but not very much - he knows that as long as he treats her well and provides victims, she will always serve him. The twist is that he has no idea why - he's so far off of the deep end that he doesn't even know what loyalty is, just how to use it.

 

How about whenever muggles would hear of the prejudices of the Wizarding world and be disgusted by it. The muggle world still has a lot of racial prejudices, even now, and all the constant "oh the Wizards are so barbaric! oh the muggles are so much better" really irked me.

 

"A Saudi man has been beheaded on charges of sorcery and witchcraft, the state news agency SPA says." - http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-18503550

My main problem with this type of theme is that there is huge potential for interesting story that is always completely wasted. There are well done soul-bond stories and I have yet to find one that explores this theme properly without some sort of sad failure (http://www.fanfiction.net/s/8429437/1/The-Perils-of-Innocence is closest to this theme and so far avoided big problems).

 

It seems that Azkaban with the Dementors is the thing that most often causes this. Frankly, it's a fair point. A federal penitentiary is definitely not a nice place, but I'd rather be there than Azkaban.

 

I think that Draco "I am so happy that Mudbloods will die" in CoS may be also major source of this (and DE with Voldemort as magical!Hitler - but somehow this one is the most memorable).