True, I've always wondered what it would be like on the big screen, only with decent actors to replace the Trio etc.

Meh, my argument holds no grounds but still; it's a waiting game. Jono could keep us waiting as long as he wants, it's his call. I personally think he has at least another chapter or 2 ready, or are in the beta process, he just won't tell us.

But I'm not fussed, I have other fics I can re-read untill Promised i updated.

 

Can someone please post Chapter 5 & 6 of the "A Stranger in the Promised Land". According to his yahoo group, these are finished but he hasn't posted it on the ff.net. Is there any other location where he posts his fics.

 

For those of you in the Yahoo Group, Chapter 7 is up; http://f1.grp.yahoofs.com/v1/gEDJSJ50muotTbnalH6ety_hGgq5V2sMxpIklCLqY1aASFb_KF3tw1IJpUnVKrCVJJxx2zAJGlt2XJ0vEO_3uR4QmDFGQuQ/Stranger%20in%20the%20Promised%20Land/chapter07.html

Chapter 5 has yet to be uploaded to FF.Net though.

 

Rofl. About time.

*Goes to read*

 

Annnnd there goes my diligent studying.

 

It's probably gonna happen, but I don't know if it'll necessarily be Promised Land's Katie. As in: he'll start up something with Promised Land Katie, ditch her when he finally portals out, and start paying more attention to his own world's Katie.

 

Pretty crap chapter. Starts off okay, but there's just too much wrong with it for me to call it good. Where to start...

Firstly, we have more of the retconning that I posted about before:

If the Dark Knight knew about the Trace, Harry should.

If the Dark Knight knew it was more than a normal sword, so should Harry. He should know all the spells that the Dark Knight placed on it, and in fact recall putting them there.

Firstly, the same thing applies: if the Dark Knight did it, Harry should know how and remember doing so.

Secondly, at the end of Unholy Land it said that Harry himself upgraded it the second time, not the Dark Knight.

All this is just lazy story telling, as well as extremely annoying, for the reasons I gave in the other post, linked above.

Next up, Harry's disdain for the French... no idea where this came from. I have a feeling that the author was trying to be funny, but he failed utterly. For a start, Harry showed no such attitude during GoF. Secondly, it's not in Harry's character to be blindly prejudiced.

The other major problem is this whole "Battle for Harry's soul" thing that's going on. It's a complete non-issue and the author is trying to make it the main theme of the story. Yes, Harry is a soldier. Which makes sense, given that they're in a fucking war, a fact that none of the other characters seem to have realised. Solders kill in war, that's kinda the whole point.

Stuff like the following is just stupid:

This mystery guy (whom I suspect is a horcrux brought to life, like CoS Riddle) has been a thorn in Harry's side for the entire story so far. And now Harry passed off the chance to kill him. He even wants to go back to fight him again, but what's the point in fighting if after you've won you just let your opponent up again? The whole thing was just completely retarded. If Harry had killed Grindelwald's lieutenant then it would have turned the mission from a victory (getting the horcrux) into a rout.

This links into the rather odd characterisation that this chapter was full of. Even compared with previous chapters (already all over the place in terms of characterisation) this one was off the mark. The author apparently has decided to turn this into a hurt/comfort story.

Seriously, it read like one of those stories in which Harry is abused by the Dursleys so that the author can write a story about Daddy!Snape coming to rescue him. Only instead of Snape, we have an incredibly annoying Katie. He's pussifying Harry immensely just so he can have him have an emotional break down so that Katie can build him up again.

HE WAS PERFECTLY FINE AS HE WAS.

Finally, the entire premise of this story is beginning to break down. That is to say, Grindelwald instead of Voldemort. It could have worked. It could have been great. But the author decided that he wanted to keep it exactly the same as canon in terms of history and setting, only with Grindelwald as the bad guy, and so transplanted everything about Voldemort onto Grindelwald. The names of his followers, the decisions they make about horcruxes, the Dark Mark, the whole deal.

And not only is Grindelwald's character raped (had the author not been lazy and thought it though then the events of the first war would have been different had it been a continuation of Grindelwald's reign) but the Order is too. I speak, of course, of the complete bullshit story fed to us about why Sirius was Katie's Godfather, and why Pettigrew was their secret keeper. It was ridiculous, and all the time the author had the audacity to have Katie insulting Harry for (reasonably) not grasping such a far-fetched idea that just goes to show how much the author is willing to sacrifice good story telling just to get things fit.

The whole thing just doesn't work.

 

Meh.. I think it was pretty good.

I won't go into great detail but still, I liked it, worth the wait IMO..

Katie - liked how she was written, believable and well.. how I sort of imagined her, only briefly when mentioned during Quidditch though.

As for the Dark Knight - Harry only regained a few memories through nightmares. I still think memories of the Dark Knight will be coming to Harry even though the Cap was broke in In Unholy Land - if it all came back at once, surely his brain would implode or something?

As for the disdain for the French - It's just a British thing, I think anyway, being British myself. I don't know why, we've just always had this thing against the French. Maybe because they surrender too easily, maybe because we beat Napolean, I really don't know..

The new DADA teacher was a shock too, but if you think about it, it makes sense due to the whole 'Parallel, but different universe' - eagerly awaiting chapter 8.

Oh - About the Mysterious man with the mask, I can see what you mean Taure, about Harry beating him & then not killing him; but I think it's kind of showing that Harry's trying to.. I don't know, quench the Dar Knights fury, try to show Kaite & Riddle that he's still human, even if it is only just..

Just my thoughts & i'm probably wrong, but still..

 

Um, no. Apparently you didn't read my other post:

We also know from earlier chapters that Harry was absorbing and thus gaining control over the Dark Knight's skills by absorbing his memories via Occlumency, taught to him my Nicolas Flammel in the Room of Requirement, so that rules out the "He has his skills but not his memories" line of argument. Which would be a silly line of argument anyway, since the skills and the memories are inexorably linked.

I too am British, as you would see if you saw my Location to the left of my post. And hating on the French isn't a British thing, it's a British cliche. There's a difference. Even when we do do it, it is done in jest, not in the seriousness like in this chapter.

I mean, come on. Harry making ridiculous "jokes" about the French in the middle of a mission?

The author seems intent on turning Harry into a COMPLETE FUCKING RETARD. Katie in this chapter is right - Harry is acting juvenile, and like a small kid. This doesn't make me like Katie though, because it's clear that Harry being juvenile was put there solely to make Katie look more mature in comparison (because she's a girl, and thus of course has to be more mature than Harry, despite the fact that he is a war veteran).

And if you liked Katie in this you have serious problems. Her moralising wouldn't be so bad if it weren't written as if she was actually right about it (the narrator definitely sides with Katie's viewpoint).

 

*Frowns* Well excuse me for not trawling through another post..? I suppose I should have read it in hindsight but there you are.

Location - It's rare enough I read the names of people who comment because I just tend to read comments & carry on scrolling down as usually, I don't post my own comments.

Still - Harry obviously has some knowledge, maybe something changed between Unholy & Promised? Highly doubtful but eh.. I don'w know. Maybe Jono's going for a different approach with Harry? Sure that'll piss people off, but people change.

Harry in a way, eventually had his own war to fight in Unholy, whereas in Promised he didn't have that much of a problem untill the whole 'new Prophecy' thing with him & Katie intertwined.

Ok, so maybe Harry was too ofensive to the French, but some are more so than others? I really don't know, i'm probably missing the concept somewhere or it's just getting too late for me to comprehend or understand much.

As for Katie - what's wrong with her? The main Beta is a female, so it would make sense if it seems like Jono is siding with Katie. Ok, so an author shouldn't be biased towards a character in a story, but i guess it happens sometimes.

At the end of the day I'm just glad the chapters out. I'm sure others will tear it apart, dislike this, like that, but it's just opinion.. more people will most likely support your points & shoot me down, but there we go.

I'm still hopeful that the story will pick up as it goes along like Unholy did, but I guess in a way there are more aspects to look at, plot-holes to include.. ok, that's bullshit but still, I was going somewhere with this before my mind wiped.

Edited for my god-awful spelling & grammar - I blame having an ancient keyboard with broken keys.

 

I posted on his group:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/stranger_trilogy/message/6713

HULK SMASH.

Her character is forced (her reactions and viewpoints don't stem naturally from her experiences - the author wants her to be a certain way and so she is, despite the fact that she shouldn't be), her ideals are a thinly veiled sermon from the author, she's bitchy, whiny, self-centred, self-righteous, unable to consider the idea that she may be wrong and others may be right, she has warped the story and all the other characters in said story around her like a black hole (e.g. Harry's character has been changed just so the author can indulge their hurt comfort fantasies with Katie; to make her look more mature Harry has been downgraded into a 6 year old), she's the female cliche.

 

Hmm, fair enough.

Personally I think it's kind of spot on with modern day society teenage girls, but that might just be me thinking that.. probably why i'm miles off actually. But either way, at least she's not as much as a pussy as canon-Harry, so I think.

Still, mayb she'll change as the story goes on & start to 'man up' a bit? Here's hoping anyway. I'm not too fussed about Promised unless something in it serves a major important point in the third part of the Trilogy, which of course it will, stupid fool that I am.

I really want Harry to just snap into perma-Dark Knight in the third part, but I guess we'll see.. best be off, sadly education's a bitch & I need an early night =\. Good points Taure, i'm often too narrow minded to look at chapters in deep thought & wonder what seems different or wrong.. i suppose I just like to read what's available & be happy about it =\.

Cba to edit for grammar & spellings till the morning so forgive me.

 

At least Umbrella is better than Team America, which was the song at the beginning of this chapter. I think he actually took the lyrics seriously too.

When you're taking Team America seriously, you know something has gone wrong.

 

And here I was expecting more pointless nothing in this thread.... (Even if I was part of it...)

/me scurries off to read.

 

I haven't read the entire chapter because I actually got fucking bored halfway through (at the Riddle/Katie scene).
Most things have been said but I want to add a more general complaint about the author's writing:

First of, he writes way too much for what he wants to tell. The current chapter is over 40,000 words and could be reduced to about 15k without losing plot or flow.
He explains every action and every fucking thought five times. It's the whole "show, don't tell" problem. Explaining is almost always bad style.
This was a very minor problem with the first story, but it gets out of hand.

Secondly, he writes useless scenes. For every scene an author should be able to answer the question "What is it good for?". So I ask, what is it good for to write 3-4 pages about some muggles visiting Versaille?
The same goes for the Order meeting. We don't need to know about everything that was discussed.

Thirdly, the Katie-Riddle dialogue: I don't need much action and love good dialogue and character scenes, but this was crap. It's never fun to read a scene where one character just explains something all the time, because it feels like he was explaining it to the reader. (He did the same with the Binns scene) See my first point.
And it very much feels like a self-insert where one character just says what the author feels.

About Harry/Katie: I still think it could be good or even awesome, but only if the author gets a grip on the story and makes the chars more natural. We all now what he is trying to pull of with the whole Katie saves Harry from going dark and emotionless thing, but he is trying to beat this thing into the reader with a sledgehammer.

I will read the rest of the chapter, but not yet.

I think we should have seperate threads for the two stories as I believe the overall rating would be vastly different.