Title: The Weapon (Revised)
Author: QTuani7
Rating: T
Pairing: None
Chapters: 47
Words: 300,801
Updated: January 4, 2011
Published: August 26, 2009
Status: Complete
Summary: After Sirius's death, Harry devotes himself to learning magic in a desperate attempt to protect the people he loves. Warnings: Profanity, Extreme Violence, References to Non-Con --Not of Main Character--, Dark/Questionable Harry
Link: http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5333171/1/The_Weapon_Revised

A great story that I've been following for almost a year now, both the original and the revised version. I'm surprised it hasn't been recommended already (I looked).

[The following review contains no spoilers for specific parts of the story, however it does give away the general direction of the story.]

The story looks at first like a traditional post-OotP story, and it retains many thematic elements of that genre, but it lacks many of the cliches (trunks, shopping trip of doom, etc.). It also features realistic characterisation of all characters, and doesn't engage in bashing. Harry's relationship with Dumbledore is strained but cordial. Harry's characterisation is especially well-done, and his descent into obsession is gradual and easy to believe. It can get a bit frustrating for the reader (Harry's obsessive behaviour a the height of his obsession), but rest assured that it pays off.

The fic is roughly split into the two arcs. The first, which is the majority of the fic so far, focuses on Harry's characterisation. The second, after the resolution of the first, shifts focus to the war proper. The way the war has been covered so far has been very good.

My two greatest criticisms of the fic are as follows:

1. The first arc of the story goes on a bit too long before it is resolved, and can anger the reader towards the end.

2. Voldemort's characterisation is a bit off. He's a bit too cliche villain, too easy with his Cruciatus curses. I prefer a characterisation of Voldemort that is similar to the first chapter of DH.

Overall, especially taking the latest chapters into account (the war really gets going), I give this 5/5.


Checked by Minion, July 29, 2013

 

I've read through this a few months ago, and I also give it a 5/5.

 

Really mediocre so far as of chapter 4. A lot of angst and typical indie cliches (reads 30 billion books, masters Occlumency in like a week or two, plans Dursley escape, etc.), and it just really drags on. I'm sure it gets better, but I'm not all that motivated to continue on with this.

3/5

 

It was so-so until about the bit where harry turns into an addict. Fken hard to read on his idiocy. Im sorry, but this is just too unbelievable that harry is so... stupid.

 

Ah, I remember reading this through a week or so ago.

Cliche post-OotP setting, sure. His gradual descent into obsessiveness was realistically done, but dragged for horriby long. I actually liked the potion idea at first, until he turned into a raving addict with obvious mental issues. Using polyjuice to hide his corpse-like body pissed me off, too. I can see how people would like this, and it was an above average reading experience for me too.

Characterizations were surprisingly well done. People think Harry of a 'rebellious teenager' way too much, though. Remus was especially annoying here, though that was probably what the author wanted. Moody was <3 in this fic.

Some stuff is just off, though. With both Death Eaters and OotP people numbering in the thousands, the chess game with Snape at the end...

While it has several well-done parts, and while I did read it in its entirety (boredom, mostly), it made me want to just skip ahead or even drop the fic more than a few times.

3.5/5, 3/5 for rating purposes.

 

This fic is full of cliches, along with obsessive, addict Harry, to top it off there is a war described on the scale of a small country.(3/5)

 

How can you call this realistic characterization? Dumbledore isn't such a fucking wimp in canon, Moody isn't fucking insane (he's paranoid, but with a good reason) and neither is Harry.

Author seems to have trouble keeping things proportional. 12k Death Eaters (ffs, how long would it take to brand all of them?)? 4k Order Members? 1000Galleons coins? Well, that's definitely not for me.

Besides that, this story could really use a beta (or one more, in case there already is a beta). I've seen "gunna" dozens of times, I've seen "Author" instead of "Arthur", I don't think that "scourgify" was spelled properly even once and never mind the interchangeable use of "you're" and "your".

The only thing good in this story is Harry's ruthlessness.

I have hard time rating this story. On the one hand there is sheer ridiculousness of characterization, inconsistencies with canon and clichés. On the other, there is pretty well done ruthless Harry. 3.5/5 I guess.

 

By realistic I mean believable, not canonical.

The 4k figure for the Order is a lie - misinformation spread by the Order. Their actual numbers are more around 100.

The 17k figure for the Death Eaters is (a) specifically mentioned to be not just marked Death Eaters, but sympathisers and supporters as well (b) not just a figure for Britain, but all of Europe, constituting 17% of the wizarding population of Europe.

Agreed on the beta (or really, the patience to read his own chapters before posting them). There are many simple typos and spelling errors that could be removed.

 

I don't know what to think, really. I've added it to my alerts, but I'm kinda split about ever reading those first few chapters again, that's for sure. And since this is a review of the whole story, and not just of the better latter chapters, I have to put that down as a negative. Also in the negative column would be the lack/crappy skills of a beta, the exaggerated Moody, Remus and Dumbledore characterisations, Harry's angst, the Snape chess game that was probably supposed to come off as intelligent but instead had me spending too long trying to figure out their conversation between the chess talk.

Harry polarises me - the early chapters make me want to smack his head in, and that culminates in some god awful stuff in the Hospital Wing with Pomfrey, but the ruthlessness and general "walking through wards and going on a killing spree" thing is sort-of impressive. Actually using the skills he almost killed himself for, but then we get back to the angst and I find myself annoyed. Annoyed at the angst mind you, and not really at Harry. You see, the author's shown his work and evolved Harry from angsty teen to teen struggling to become The Weapon to teen in a balance while going through a withdrawal. He'd sacrifice anything, and I have no doubt the character will evolve as things go to hell again.

So I'm torn - love some bits, fascinated and intrigued in others, enjoying the evolution in some other parts, then hating that it's taking angst to make that happen... Then we have another Harry-Dumbledore scene with Harry's repetitive commentary about every word spoken out of Dumbledore's mouth...

Long review short, I'll stick with KrazQ and Clerith's estimate numbers (3-3.5) for lack of anything original to call my score. I might be rating higher if I wasn't constantly thinking that this story reminds me of Taking Control at most times, followed by some other post-OotP cliché storms out there other times. Just bad timing, I guess.

 

Generally I say it's a good story. The angst gets annoying pretty quickly but the training elements have some interesting twists along with a fairly interesting and in-depth look at some aspects of magic. The characterizations, as mentioned earlier, are also interesting and mostly believable which certainly adds interest to the story.

I'm rather hoping that the angst will slowly become marginalized and that the scope of the story will focus more on the magic, the war, and mayhap include a modicum of politics with the war. I agree with Taure, Voldemort is too cookie-cutter evil, if similar characterization could be applied to him as was done with Harry and Moody the story would improve by leaps and bounds. For now I say (4/5).

 

Well, this was quite a bit better than most of the crap I run across these days. The writing style was fairly good, the dialogue flowed for the most part, and the characterizations were nicely done. Especially Moody and Dumbledore.

Personally I think that spending almost a whole year trapped in his whole trunk would likely have pushed the paranoid auror over the edge and Dumbledore caring too much about Harry - and everyone else- to be a good general, seems fairly plausible, to me.

Harry's decent into obsessiveness was realistic and I for one don't think it dragged on for too long, or that it's done and dealt with yet. I'm sure we'll see more of it and more consequences thereof.

There were, however, a whole lot of cliches, though in this case they didn't bother me all that much. Plus uncountable typos, and the author also messed up the time-line quite often with the most obvious instances being when

1. He asks for the Mandrake Draught instead of the Polyjuice he wants (and that entire dialogue repeated word for word when he did in fact later want a Mandrake Draught, later); and
2. when he mentions hearing Trelawney's second prophecy in SECOND year, respectively.

Overall, I'd say that I really liked this story, and most certainly will be looking forward to updates.

4/5 from me.

 

I've been following this story for a long time now, and I really like it. This is addict Harry done in a very convincing and realistic way. I'm also rather impressed with the way Harry handles the war because he is generally willing to sacrifice anything to accomplish his goal be it is own sanity and free will or his friendships. I think that is probably the most canon characteristic this Harry has shown in this story.

The author also does a fairly good job with characterizing a lot of the other people in the story. You have a very firm grasp on where they are coming from. The only real complaint I had was the author just randomly shoving Ginny into the middle of the story as the only person smart enough to weasel her way into the hospital ward to see Harry.

As for the typos, I think the author needs another beta because he already has one (or at least he used to have one). I don't know if the author reread his own work before posting it that it would look all that much better. I mean I'm shit at editing my own writing, but I'm fairly good at editing other people's work. My mind just automatically fills in the typos and mistakes when I read my own writing so much so that I don't even notice them consciously.

4.5/5 for me.

 

Kudos to the author on writing a Super!Harry believable and with warts, too. I especially like that Harry is a remorseful killer. I don't particularly care for Dumbledore in this, but meh...no big deal.

The magic descriptions and explanations were pretty unique and I might try to figure out how to borrow some of their concepts. That's as big a compliment as I can make.

4.5 stars.

 

It's....

not bad. Not great, but not bad. The 'Warts' mentioned seemed a bit more like a lazy eye to me. Something you have no choice but to notice, but try not to mention.

A cut above average, but not a four star.

3.6ish, just so I have to round up.

 

Good so far. Harry is an angsty bitch, especially at the start, but it's necessary for him to start low given that it's a fic about improving himself. Unlike others have commented, I don't think his characterization of Dumbledore is off at all. It seems pretty accurate.

Similarly, I liked Moody being a paranoid crazy. It makes sense, and he is referred to as such in canon plenty of times- this story just takes that a bit further and makes it mean more.

The same goes for Lupin: yes, he's annoyingly over protective and condescending (though with the best of intentions). That's exactly what the author wants, and it makes complete sense for him to be that way.

One thing that bugs me is how Harry is left and right disovering entirely new things about magic. Sneaking through wards, wandless magic (it would be better if there were a book on the subject or if people didn't react with "O my god only dumbledore and voldemort know wandless magic and they are shit at it but you're amazing") Of course, I'm exaggerating the problem a bit there, but it still bugs me. The same goes with the sensing magic stuff: even though there are books on the subject readily available, it seems people thought that it was impossible before Harry could do it (Pomfrey, to a lesser extent Bill).

Anyhow, those problems are realtively minor. The author needs a beta, because there are some errors that seem to stem from re-using portions of his old story (the polyjuice potion is never actually bought or made, he buys mandrake drought twice, etc). I'm enjoying it all the same though, and waiting for more, so 4/5 from me. That's rounding up a bit.

 

Despite the cliches, the sort of manic intensity to Harry's POV gives the story a very distinct feel, and his slow decline into madness, while overdone, was at least rather engaging. The second part of the story is indeed much more enjoyable, though one wonders how Harry is going to do very much good in a universe with the odds stacked so heavily against the order.

I'm of two minds about the descriptions of magic that the fic does a lot with. On the one hand, they're well detailed and consistent, and I always find in depth explanations of magic interesting. On the other hand, I've always disliked the idea that magic use was based on skill alone, and that raw power was simply a constant (though I'm aware that the canon leans towards that viewpoint). It's always seemed strange to me that one could either be a wizard or a squib, and that there was no sliding scale or middle ground in terms of available magic. I'm also bothered by all the wandless casting being more or less without penalties as long as one could focus properly, as I prefer the interpretation that a wand is both a focusing agent and a power amplifier.

I liked the psychotic Moody, if only for the amusement factor (The "Does he think someone is going to apparate into his desk?" line made me lol). Dumbledore seems rather damp and ineffectual but that's hardly surprising, and the fic is at least free of any unabashed and senseless bashing of anyone in particular (with the possible exception of Ron, though he seems close enough to character to me).

All and all it has some visible flaws, but it also has a good deal of length to it and is good enough that I'll look for updates every once and a while.

4/5

 

How on earth did you guys get past the sheer angst in chapter one? I hit the close button faster than I usually do.

 

Don't know why you guys seem to like this fic, but ive struggled to chapter 16 and it seems to be going nowhere fast, also predictable, cliched, and flat out annoying most of the time.

1/5

 

This isn't bad. There are some mistakes, as KrzaQ and The DarIm mientionned, and the first part of the story can get annoying at times, especially towards its end.

But it's worth it. The idea is interesting, well executed, and getting to the second part is really gratifying, as Taure said in the OP.

Plus Insane!Moody is awesome.

4/5

 

It is a good story but with all the references to Author Weasley I wonder when Blaise Zambini will make an appearance.