Agreed. It isn't only out of character, it often confuses the reader and (more often than not) adds unnecessary anachronism to a story that probably sucks to begin with.

If it plays a relevant part in the story, fine. The author had better damn well either have first hand experience with British teenage pop culture in the early 90s, or they need to have done thorough research.

Interestingly enough, I opened the thread expecting to see a discussion on magical pop culture. While it plays a fairly minor role in canon, there is potential in magical pop culture that I haven't often seen explored in fanfiction.

 

I could go for a passing Dire Straits Comment over some gay rapper from LA any day.

 

Exactly. Which is why I like pop culture/music references in fics, in that it lets me know exactly when to hit the X.

That is true. Sadly, a majority of stories will instead make out a band of moderate fame to be immersed in both wizard and muggle culture ("teh Beatles are Squibs, didn't you know?" James Potter said, etc.). Plus, I feel like pop culture references are only a step above the Yule Ball in fanfiction - if the story is about fighting/surviving a war, who cares who's on the magical Billboard top 100, y'know? I guess it all depends on when your story is set.

 

I'd be careful who you call 'a band of moderate fame'

I think pop-culture of the magical world could become a valid point if it has something to do with the alienation of muggle-borns. It'd have to be AU, but imagine if the Wizarding World had a Colisseum and full magical gladitorial combat - to the death. That'd make for a great conversation (and when I say great I really mean moderately better than most of fanfiction) between Ron and Hermione.

'But teh slavery is wrong'

'BUt it's like our culture'

Actually scrap that thought... The concept needs a little more work

 

You know, this makes me wonder. What's the point of HP being set in the early 90s? Does it actually change anything? Given that virtually everything is set in the Wizarding world, I can't see what would have been different if she'd changed the dates at the beginning to 2001 instead of 1991.

 

I think the fact that JKR started to write it in 90 or 91 might have something to do with it- paying homage to the genesis of the series by setting it at the same time she started to write it.

 

Anyone here read Third Key? That was a bit of a pop-culture fest, but somehow it didn't piss me off. Lots of Star Trek (Away Team, Redshirts) and Red Dwarf. I can imagine it being irritating to people who've never seen any of the series, but it was relatively mainstream stuff so it kept it user-friendly. Thats the kind of stuff we need to see. When pop-culture is used properly, it can be bloody hilarious.

/Offtopic: I have the fic in a rar file (You can only DL it nowadays) for anyone who wants it - its long, its very very good, and nearly everyone dies in tragic (read hilarious) ways.

And Ginny is traumatised. Thought DLP guys would like that.

Come to think of it... Ron has a ton of bad things happen to him too.

 

But of course, your realizing that most of the fanfic authors who use such devices are rabid fangirls of the bands themselves. And they have a similar taste for fanfiction so they try to combine the two.

A band being relevant to a plot-line almost NEVER happens. 9 times out of 10 it's just filler. And bad filler at that.

Probably the worst case scenario I've seen is HighBrass' Identity. In which not only is SIMPLE PLAN of all fucking douchebaggery in the story, but Harry suddenly is able to PLAY their songs on the guitar even though Harry has never had any musical training, and never even heard the band before. And they attend a "concert" at Hogwarts of all places. Never mind that they're American, never mind that they were probably the student's age or younger when the canon time line for HP was set; lets just throw them in because in the authors opinion, which clearly means dick, they rock.


Plain and simple. Harry is British. Harry was born in 1980. Therefore his fifteen year old self should be listening to mid nineties Brit rock. Nuff' said.

 

Or Prodigy, which should duly corrupt him into being a pyromaniac . Fire always makes it better after all.

Aekiel

 

To the timeshift thing, I don't really see how it affects the story that much. KiP did it, and despite the hate the story recieves from members here, he managed to pull it off. Theres very little that mentions what year Harry was born, a comment about a playstation was all I can remember before DH.

 

I'd heard somewhere on this forum that 'playstation' was a generic name for any videogame console - don't quote me on that though. If that's true, then the playstation could've been any number of early 90's machinery.

 

I like the idea of pyromancer!Harry.

His overall skills are pretty mediocre (like canon), but he has an affinity for magic involving fire. When you think about it, there's tons of potential fire spells (in HP canon, and from other fantasy series) and ways to manipulate heat and temperature that could come in handy in many, many situations. You could do it as small as Harry's incendio being really powerful, or do the works, ie having Harry flinging around Fiendfyre, DD's ring of fire, black/purple fire that we see a few times throughout the series, massive fireballs and flame walls, blasts of superheated air, etc. For a good example, Dresden uses fire pretty damn effectively in DF, both small and large scale.

We know there's the Flame Freezing charm, but the mental image I got from reading that part of GoF is that it only works on normal fire, not magical fire, or fire spells designed to burn/incinerate an opponent cast from a reasonably strong wizard. Like you couldn't use the charm if someone cast a fireball or a big stream of fire at you.

I also don't like protego as an 'all in one', 'the only shield you'll ever need' type spell. It's pretty overpowered in canon, stopping pretty much all spells besides the unforgivables, and I think it stops physical objects as well. I don't like it because it removes a lot of skill out of a duel. I like it when fics feature lots of different types of shields, barriers, and counterspells/protective magic that can only be used in certain situations or against certain spells. This ups the ante. So if an opponent casts a spell at you, you would have to be knowledgeable and skilled enough to come up with the effective counterspell/shield on the fly, rather than just using a single spell (protego) to protect against virtually all magic.

 

Heliopath!harry????

 

Half-heliopath Harry would have infinite amounts of win. Have him take over the Ministry, with Luna waving the Quibbler shouting "I told you bitches! Nargles are coming next!"

 

I lol'd irl.

Seriously though, If a good humor writer picked that up it'd be worth a read....Or five.

 

I adhere to the notion that if something isn't relevant to the plot, or works towards defining the character of the characters, it isn't worth including.

In other words, don't say there is a sword on the wall at the Burrow, unless said sword is going to be used to decapitate members of the Weasley family in a couple of chapters.

I often find that the inclusion of pop culture works towards satisfying the author's tastes, such as "OMG, I LUV thre nwe Ipod!!!!!!!!! Harrrye muty hab one!!!! *&*&" OMG OMG OMG". A small exaggeration, but I did for the purpose of argument.

Music, especially is a sensitive topic. What the author likes, the readers might not, and one must ask if it is truly relevant that Harry listens to Boy Band 3737373737. The inclusion of technology which has not even become mainstream or invented by the times of Harry Potter bothers me specifically.

If I wanted to read about Harry's ultra slick laptop that is used to determine the location of Death Eaters which have been tagged with the ultra uber transmitter fresh off the lab desks, I would have read Ian Fleming. The inclusion of useless Muggle technology in a world of magic seems superfluous. I want to read about the magic, not the Aston Martin DB9 (not that I have anything against it, great car.)

What I recommend and encourage, is the creation of serious, proper Wizarding culture, without the idiotic names that JKR seems fond of. Immerse Harry into a new universe, make him appreciate it, despise it, like some things but hate others. I put much more stock into well thought out new cultural elements than Harry listening to the new Emo band 88888 song.

 

MWAHAHAHAHAHA!

 

Right! (Uh oh, Methene, you've inspired a rant.)

It's almost the Chekhov's Gun school of thought, except we're not asking that the sword be used by the third act, we're asking the author to not include the damned sword in the first place.

I've seen stories where Harry discovered a home his parents owned and it came equipped with a DVD player, huge flatpanel TV, surround sound system, a collection of DVDs, and the latest game consoles... even though James and Lily FUCKING DIED IN 1981!

Maybe if you're lucky, they left behind some 8-Track tapes for Harry, a film projector, and some old film reels of Disney movies. "Holy shit, Harry, it's a disintegrating copy of Swiss Family Robinson! That looks like the Weasley's house, except with running water and people who have enough breeding to know how a piano works."

Even if you set your HP story in the present, that still puts Harry's parents dying ten years before Harry's first year and fifteen years before the point the majority of stories (post OoTP) begin. No secret hideaway loveshack that the Potters owned is going to have an X-Box or PS3, because they were dead before any of that existed. Not unless Harry's sixth year is taking place in 2016. What is this, fuckin' Buck Rogers?

In one particular story, that I recall off the top of my head, that was guilty of this nonsense, the house he found full of DVDs and shit, was in Hogsmeade.

Hogsmeade... Where there's no fucking electricity, stupid douchebag!

--
Anyway...

This revolutionary notion of not including stuff that isn't relevant to the story also applies to the magical claptrap that some people insist on saddling Harry with, just because it's cool.

Some authors (and I use the term loosely) would do well to take a close look at their story (and I use- Aw, you get the idea) and ask themselves, "What is Harry going to do with these three animagus forms I've given him?"

If the answer is 'Jack Fuckin' Squat', then lose the extra animagus forms. Shit, if you have no scenes at all where he uses even one animagus form constructively, take that form away too.

Same goes for the Ice-Breathing Tiger that he miraculously found in the pet store beside the friggin' pygmy puffs, those two Shadow-Teleporting Wolves that are bound to the Black Family bloodline, which he is now head of, and the basilisk which hatched from a basilisk egg that Harry shat out of his god-damned magical arse, then bonded with Harry by biting him.

Seriously, what the fuck is Harry doing with a whole zoo's worth of magical endangered species following him around every day? He insists he can't date or have friends because he doesn't want them caught in the crossfire... They're humans, there are shitloads of them and some countries will let you buy them! But Harry's one-hundred and two pets? Fuck 'em. So what if they're endangered species or the last of their kind, they can be his furry little meat shield when the AKs start coming.

So I ask again, what is he doing with all these animals?

If you can't answer that question, cut them from the story.

If you can answer, but that answer is 'brag that he has the coolest endangered magical talking pets', cut them from the story.

If you can answer, but that answer is 'they'll bond to his girlfriends as familiars and grow from cubs to horse-sized monsters in the span of an hour and hold sarcastic conversations with Harry and each other that you think are clever but the readers couldn't care less about', cut them from the story.

Then take an anticoagulant and cut yourself. Multiple times. Out of reach of the phone.

That may sound like the standard complaint about employing clichés, but it's not. It's about actually making use of the shit you include in the story. If you're going to include it, then do it for one of four reasons:

1 - It contributes to the character development (the supposed cool-factor of Harry owning an iPod full of Blink182 doesn't count as development).

2 - It contributes to defeating Voldemort, or whatever the goal of the protagonist is.

3 - It's specifically there as a red herring to make the reader think it might contribute to the protagonist achieving his goal.

4 - It contributes to the humor or fun factor of the story enough that it actually merits inclusion in the story (which usually has a way of going back to the other three reasons as well, especially number 1).

If you can't manage that with your shitty Hot Topic shopping trip reference, iPod, three magical tattoos and five piercings, and the menagerie of magical pets, then don't put it in the story.

No, seriously. I don't want to hear about Harry buying 'bondage pants' unless it's because he's a serious and enthusiastic purveyor of actual kinky sex. Even then I probably (read definitely) don't want to hear about it, unless he somehow uses those pants to kill Voldemort, or throttle Malfoy, or scourge the flesh from Snape's bones.

If that ridiculous consumer whore masturbation fantasy you've cooked up with the Potter's forgotten house of tech gadgets doesn't lead to Harry choking Voldemort to death with a special edition DVD of Four Weddings and Hugh Grant's Shit Eating Grin, then you need to shoot yourself, or stop posting to FFnet.

 

It would also make him step out of his Pussy!Harry shell and lay down the law to those irritating females he calls friends.

*Hums Smack My Bitch Up to himself*

Prodigy ftw

 

Agreed! Though fire is a bit overused as an element, Chidori anyone? (just joking...)

Dodging? And just overpowering (Anatagonists POV) the shield should work too. (Adult Death Eaters against a Fifth Year)

Or conserve energy and dodge... (You would think that using over 9000 shield charms per duel would leave you a bit tired no?)
And also, think back to the duel at the end of OotP, Dumbledore vs. Voldemort, Voldemort used (I think) one or two different shield spells, that were definitely NOT protego...