How exactly did Tessa survive the Word and the following explosion completely unharmed when Harry only avoided getting sucked in because of the sword? I also wonder why Harry is considering the idea that the sword is out to kill him since it was only because of the sword that he survived. If it wanted to take him out, it would only have needed to do nothing.

The problem is that she was never shown or even suggested to be a true master of magic. She seemed to rely more on simple spells and physical attacks in Small Favor, and if she is really _this_ good and strong then why is it that we did not get scenes in earlier chapters where Meciel mentions how deadly she is with magic. Or something like that.

If you consider all that she is capable of here, she should have utterly crushed Dresden&Thomas in the first fight in Small Favor (The onlything she managed in that fight was to get her ass kicked, slightly dent a hummer and lose a denarian). In the second fight she again got defeated by Dresden and actually relied on a rifle to take out Michael.

How did she get this good and strong?

 

#1 Does it really matter?
#2 This is not Small Favor, Shezza can do what ever he wants with Tessa including making her more powerful.
#3 Why arent you complaining about Harry because in the cannon Harry Potter books he is a weak piece of shit and it seems to me that Shezza may have made him a bit stronger.

 

In so far as our purpose here is to offer constructive criticism in order to improve the story and not just be a load of fanboys, yes. Continuity and coherence are important in writing. More important, in my opinion, than "epic fight scenes".

 

QFT.

Also, where is this Master of Magic coming from? We've gotten absolutely no indication of Tessa being such a master at all. The only things she's been doing with magic so far is tossing around lighting bolts, manipulating force to either throw stuff or attract her to things, and some simple illusions; some talented Hogwarts students could do what she's been doing, the only difference would be the degree of raw power. We have no idea how she got through the Word, it could have been sheer dumb luck. Until I read about her conjuring a fucking meteor to smite Harry, please avoiding calling someone like Tessa a 'Master of Magic.'

Why shouldn't Harry be worried about the Sword of the Cross trying to kill him? Until a better reason is shown as to why the Sword altered the Word like that, the only assumption Harry can make is that God changed his mind half way through and decided 'Oh, never mind, Harry's more useful alive.' And if God can just changed his mind like that, what's to keep him from doing it again?

 

I guess that didnt come out has I wanted. I just dont get what the big deal about Shezza making Tessa stronger. I can agree with most of the arguments talked about, just not this one.

 

See Taures answer

True, he could also have Harry suddenly decide to give up Meciel, marry Amanda, and have a daughter named Vesper Verrine Potter and a son named Nicodemus God Potter.

But would that make sense and be good writing?

I just feel that Tessa is too powerfull and I am trying to give my opinion and explain my reasoning in an effort to try and give constructive criticism. Shezza is naturally completely free to ignore it if he so desires.

Harry being more powerfull does not feel wrong because we have seen his growth in power and skill from the beginning so it does not feel sudden or unexplained. Shezza has shown his progress quite well, he was far weaker in DR, then he got the book from Dumbledore and was shown practising and steadily increasing. Then he started getting training from Dumbledore in magic&Words and he has continued to become better. It all feels very natural, especially since this Harry has Meciel which the canon one did not.

Tessa however, (who Shezza took from Small Favor so there are certain pre-existing expectations about her) was never hinted at being this powerfull before.

If, in Denarian Renegade Harry had suddenly started throwing uber-magic around and crushed the Drakon with little effort and appeared more powerfull than Dumbledore/Voldemort without explanation or justification, I would have had the same complaint.

Still, perhaps Shezza has this all planned out, we shall see what he has planned.

EDIT:

Is it a huge problem that will ruin the story forever and cause me to stop reading?

No.

Is it a plot inconsistency that I think should be mentioned so Shezza can decide if there is some way to smooth it in order to increase the quality of the story?

Yes.


SECOND EDIT:

The point is that she seems to be crushing Harry here. The black hole is a prime example of this. Harry, with all his skill and power barely survives with the help of the sword, while Tessa is barely scratched. The general impression is that she is dominating the fight with better and more powerfull magic.

Given that we have seen Harry grow up to be a very powerfull wizard, having Tessa who was never shown or hinted to be this good, suddenly kick his ass feels weak and gives the impression that Shezza just made her this strong to make an epic fight scene, not caring if it was consistent.


Well, thats enough. I don't think ill bother with this issue any further. My opinion is known and at the end its not THAT big of a deal. Too much time spent on complaining about it already.

 

The problem I feel, is that Shezza wants to resolve conficts, but his story is at a point now that's it's so big, if he were to simply allow the Denarians to fall apart by Harry easily defeating their leader, it would cheapen the story. Like it wasn't really much of anything and that Harry had been dicking around for too long.

Without any sufficiently powerful enemies, Tessa just has to be lucky. I personally think she should be dead already, I mean Harry should have instant-killed her with his word technique (like that rainbow one).

The second problem is that we jsut had a Harry-pwns-a-bunch-of-people scene not too long ago. Remember the bank? Shezza made that chapter very nonchalant -- Harry had absolutely no difficulty breaking into and robbing one of the most secure places in the HP universe. It's come to the point where Harry just needs to fight Freeza already or we're going to be looking at a lot of seemingly-pointless epic-battles (Voldemort will be Namek if Tessa can survive a word spell + soulfire).

I think Shezza should concentrate on what he wants to conclude at this point. The major conflicts in this story are Harry/Society (where Harry is left to the Dursleys but Meciel saves him, since then he's been rebelling against people like Dumbledore and societal biases like "goodness"), Harry/God (where God is a manipulating bitch who needs to have his plans revealed or Harry's role in them ended), Harry/Voldemort (because that's his mortal enemy), Harry/Amanda (because that's the most "normal" person he's closest to) and finally Harry/Meciel & Meciel/Past (where we learn what Meciel has decided to do, if her revenge will be completed and how she fits with Harry for the rest of "eternity").

The Denarians, the Council, Verrine, the Winter Fae and anybody else at this point I think are only secondary concerns. Those conflicts above are significant enough to carry the story to its end, but at this point Harry should be coming to a realization as to whether he wants to be a messenger of god, an indulger, or a "normal" person (by that I mean, accepting Dumbledore's position at Hogwarts and becoming a sort of "neutral" character). Once Harry knows what he wants, the rest of these conflicts will fall into place.

That's what I think the problem is, anyway. Shezza has been throwing away all his good ideas into that bin of "I'll do them later" and I think he may be frustrated that his story is coming to that point of no return and he hasn't used any of them.

edit: Wow, I'm rambling. Whatever, I'm probbably dead wrong anyway.

edit2: Also, a minor criticism of the latest chapter: I think Harry mentioned that dumb tank too much. From the beginning he was like "Oh *moan* a tank? Why a tank? *moan*" C'mon Harry you've killed drug dealers, demons, and dragons - what's a stupid tank to you but a tiny fly? I'd look at a tank in contempt.

 

One more thing. This scene between Harry and Tessa has been going on for a while, yes, but the actual fighting? Not so much. The initial volley of spells before the Word could be compared to testing the waters. Seriously, it was like the Dueling Club in CoS. Compared to the Nicodemus and Vesper fights, where there was running, dodging, frantic spell-casting, stabbing, explosions, attacks above and below and in-your-face grappling, the actual fighting between Harry and Tessa is nothing impressive.

The 'black hole' is not a prime example of Tessa crushing Harry, it is a prime example of Harry crushing Harry. Tessa did not kick Harry's ass, the Sword and Harry himself kicked his own ass. We don't know yet how Tessa got through with only her clothes ruined, it could have been just sheer luck, she has so far in this fight shown no impressive magic. In fact, if you take out all their banter and the black hole part where they weren't really fighting each other at all, the actual combat between the two is very short; looking from that perspective, this fight has technically only just begun. To me, a large chunk of the recently posted chapters was not Harry versus Tessa, but rather Harry versus Black Hole.

Also, agree with Chime

 

We haven't heard about Tessa ever before (not counting DF), we've never seen her in fight. She comes almost out of nowhere, without even attacking Harry before (like Voldemort, Nicodemus and Vesper did) and we have their "final" battle, which, coincidentally, is their first. Simply put, she is too strong for barely mentioned character.

 

While I may agree with you, what would you rather have a decent fight scene or Harry AKing Tessa on the spot?

 

She's barely mentioned because she didnt really matter before. Before Harry was reacting to attacks by Nicodemus and Vesper. Tessa wasnt bothering Harry and thus he had no reason to bother with her. Now however with Vesper and Nicodemus dead, Meciel wants all the remaining Denarians dead. Tessa is simply the best of the rest.

Tessa would probably have been willing to stay out of his way seeing as he beat Vesper and Nicodemus. But Harry is the one attacking now.

She's putting a better fight than Vesper or Nicodemus thats without a doubt. But to me it's okay. Vesper was in a host whos body was slowly being destroyed by the coin, which was cursed. Nicodemus was acting in no way like Nicodemus; attacking openly, by himself, and against superior numbers. Harry beat Nicodemus with a fair bit of luck. I always saw Nicodemus as not being as his best as a result of having his mind altered.

 

AKing on the spot, or maybe piercing her with the sword, something easy enough anyway. Whole Order had standing orders to flee on sight, if Tessa alone was able to fight Harry at least to standstill, then with help of 20 or so people she'd kill him easily.

Besides, I don't really care for battle scenes.

 

The second one.

Lucky or no, you're not managing to refute the point that Tessa is amazingly fucking powerful for being a character who never once showed up before. Fer chrissakes, the Denarians ran from Harry the whole time, up to now. Sure, everyone else got their asses kicked, but look at this. Tessa isn't just winning; she's dominating Harry. He's just getting his ass kicked left and right, beaten up, fatal wounds. The fact that the Sword had to save him from the black hole, and Tessa turned out better with no help at all, is just ridiculous. If she's so damn strong, why the hell didn't she jump Harry with her crew of twenty Denarians? He'd have been totally gangbanged, without half of them being cut down in a surprise attack. She's just come out of fucking nowhere, and it feels artificial.

 

I do wonder why Harry didn't just apparate away from the "black hole".

Disagree. Harry's defeat of Vesper, the last opposing Denarian Lord, was where he won the battle for the Order of the Blackened Denarius. Everything since then has been clean-up. Far from this fight being easy cheapening the story arc, I think that this fight being epic cheapens it: it reduces Harry's victories over Vesper and Nicodemus, given that it turns out that the real power in the Order wasn't them all along.

The problem isn't really Tessa being too powerful. The problem is that she lacks foreshadowing. Were she this powerful, Meciel should have been mentioning her to Harry long ago. We should have been hearing about her all the way back in Denarian Renegade. If that had happened then no one would have this problem with her being so powerful.

It'd be like next chapter some random guy called John Smith stepping out of a portal and kicking Harry's arse. Sure, it's plausible that there may be some guy called John Smith out there who is capable of beating Harry - Harry isn't able to be aware of everyone powerful in the universe. It isn't, however, very good writing to pull that kind of thing on your reader.

 

Tessa does seem overpowered, but that was a problem just waiting to happen anyway. Not that Tessa being this strong was obvious, but that with Harry's growth in stregth and the (theoretically) strongest Denariens both dead, even before he reached this high, someone had to be very strong to have a decent fight scene.

It wouldn't be fun if Harry didn't have some strong enemies to keep him on his toes, but the Order.otBD was still hanging above his head and Voldemort and the whole Summer/Winter affair, too. You've got to start picking up somewhere, so, mostly gone is tOotBD.

 

I'm concerned about her mysterious ability to completely negate Fiendfyre. I mean, Dumbledore mentions Harry as one of the only two people (Voldemort) in GB able to wield it effectively. That implies that it's slightly more significant than the treatment it's getting here, when it is easily among the most potent magics available in the HP universe. It's supposed to be one of his most powerful weapons, and her being able to simply make it go 'poof' by shouting unintelligibly and waving her hands seems like a way to dismiss it as one of Harry's deadliest and most badass techniques for the sake of having the battle last longer.

 

Ok. The rest of Chapter 19 is up. Now that I have both chapters up and have a progression of events, I can start making in the edits without wondering if it'll have an effect. There's a lot of points here, so, without sounding like an arrogant twat, do people mind giving me the shortlist of what they think should be changed.

Btw, Afrojack, I changed that part of Ch18. All Tessa does now is make Harry lose control of the spell. She can't negate it but does make it so he can't manipulate it either.

 

Hmm. The sword has relinquished its "control" over Harry huh? Will this be part of the arc you were talking about?

 

Hm, I have but one concern for this story:

Epic fights have reached a point where it's difficult to gauge their difficulty for Harry anymore. I mean, Harry just threw a black hole at Tessa, destroyed the entire mansion, blasted her chest open...

The fights are just so destructive and all-consuming that I find it difficult to imagine what Voldemort could possibly throw at him. Most of Shezza's work in giving Harry difficulty is surprise attacks and simply missing a curse or something.

It's difficult to imagine Harry losing to anything in a realistic way, especially considering the way things just come together for him after his past fights.

 

I think he broke it. Used it as a personal weapon of revenge, rather than intended purpose, and now it's simply a Sword.

Tessa died.