Title: Emperor
Author: Marquis Black
Rating: M
Genre: Adventure
DLP Category: The Alternates
Pairing: Harry/OC
Chapters: 42
Words: 619,123
Updated: Dec 25, 2014
Published: Apr 18, 2010
Status: WIP
Summary: Some men live their whole lives at peace and are content. Others are born with an unquenchable fire and change the world forever. Born into anonymity, crowned an Emperor, this is the story of Harry Potter's journey from humble beginnings, to a career as a renowned officer, and finally to his destiny as Henry I, First Emperor of the European Empire.

Link: FF.net

This is a pretty massive AU that assumes several changes in human history around/after the WWII era (the changes you need to know about are detailed at the end of the prologue) such that the events in the summary happen.

The prologue is basically a scene showing Harry after he's already accomplished his ascendancy of power, but the actual story details events from around Harry's birth and onward.

Basically, James and Lily end up fighting off Voldemort and flee Britain with Harry to avoid becoming mouthpieces for Ministry/Dumbledorean propaganda; they spend several years moving around to different places and finally Harry takes an assumed name and joins a (muggle) boarding school. Harry vows to become powerful enough to resist the magical world's demands on his family, and his initial path to power is through enlistment in the British Army and a rise through the ranks as Britain becomes embroiled in a war with Spain.

While magic hasn't really emphasized that much up to now, the author is clearly setting the stage for magic to have a huge role in things (this is extremely evident at the end of the second chapter).

I'm probably doing a horrible job at selling this, but the quality of writing is top-notch and I was definitely suckered into this story from the very beginning. The prologue was intriguing, and then the first chapter grabbed hold of me and kept me reading until the end of the second chapter. This may not seem like much, but the story already has a wordcount over 60,000 words, so I thought that I might as well submit it to For Review.

I'm going to have to give this a 5/5. I think this may not be to some people's taste (it is a pretty big AU), but it's incredibly well-written and you should definitely give it a shot.

Edit: This has magic in it.


Checked by Minion, June 22, 2015

 

You've sold it well enough that ill check it out. Will review when I'm done to let you know what I think. Hopefully ill be on my desktop and not my droid
-------------------

Now that I've finished the first three chapters, I'll start by saying I liked it, but it is not without its faults. Other people have summed up the majority of the problems I've noticed. From the overwhelming amount of raw and sometimes dry military battles, to the fact the mages took so long to noticing (hugely dark) magic.

What peeved me as I was reading the second and third chapter was the influence I kept picking up. I'm not sure if it's just me but the fangirl thing seemed borrowed from Naruto, and the finger snapping fire starter reeks of the major from full metal jacket. Those and the schooltime romance that mirrored his parents cliche just kept popping out at me.

That being said, while I like the story, I'm pretty sure it was because I took it more as an original story heavily influenced by the hp verse as to happening in the hp verse.

3/5 chewed threw my reading hours for me but doubt ill add it under favorites or follow updates.

*I do believe this was my first review a true pain in the arse on the droid keypad lol*

 

Fics frustrate me more than they have any right to, and that's a damned disappointment, because I really liked this fic. The atmosphere was solid, the story was detailed and well-told, the writing was engaging, and the characters, while not gripping to any degree, were at least interesting.

However, a lot of this fics' greatest strengths will also be its greatest weaknesses. First is the premise - good god, the premise. It's good and engaging and interesting and all those wonderful words, but it doesn't feel like Harry Potter - at all. If anything, it feels like what would have happened if The Skitterleap crossed over with Tom Clancy, and then crossed over it again. Between the way the magic was approached and how the opening scenes have panned out (particularly those in Godric's Hallow), it doesn't feel like Harry Potter.

Second is the blatant juxtaposition of enemies. Don't get me wrong, the international enemy is... well, interesting, but I don't agree with the switch of main antagonist from Voldemort (whose neutralization was pathetic, to say the least) to Dumbledore (whose seems to be poorly characterized from my POV). The story hasn't engaged in full-fledged bashing yet, but any sort of message that this story is attempting to deliver has been blunted by the switch and the knowledge of where said message might be coming from.

Third is a technical complaint, and a BIG one - this author's got a severe problem with wordiness (and when that's coming from me, that's saying something). Particularly his 'war' scenes. Sure, they appeal to the strategist in me, but even I got bogged down at points. And yeah, I felt I had to skip huge segments of the opening chapter because the dialogue was so formulaic and unnatural, but the primary complaint is that the user doesn't know how to write concisely. Sure, he did a good job of encapsulating the scenes well, but the scenes are so crammed with raw data that it's impossible to take in the story for what it is.

Sadly, I wish I could like this story, I really do. But the highest I can give it in good conscience is 3/5, with the potential to go up.

 

I actually agree with everything you've said, Silens. I had a feeling that this fic would be somewhat polarizing; if you're able to get over the issues you mentioned, then you're probably going to like this fic a lot.

Personally, I'm not bothered as much by the "not feeling that much like HP" bit, and I'm intrigued enough by the author's direction that Voldemort et al. isn't as important to me. I do hope that Voldemort won't be overlooked entirely, though; I think that there's a chance that more of the magical world will be focused on starting with the third chapter. It would definitely be a disappointment if Voldemort was defeated almost immediately.

I think I'm most sympathetic to your point regarding wordiness...it gets more tedious than it needs to, especially in the war scenes, and it's annoying for me to have to look up all of the different places he mentions in order to get some sort of frame of reference.

While complaints 1 and 3 look like they will continue to be valid, hopefully complaint 2 will be addressed appropriately.

Regardless, I think the story is enjoyable and worth reading (I certainly think it's original), and I'm optimistic regarding the story's future.

 

It's interesting enough, though I wouldn't particularly argue for it being well written. The ridiculously long chapters are stupid though, there's enough scene breaks in them for them to be far shorter and less intimidating and just pure easier to navigate.

It's a very interesting AU though, though with the high political content I can't help but feel it'll start to fall apart when the author reaches the near future, it's much easier to write these things with hindsight.

The characters too feel as though they need more rounding, aside from Harry and his OC girlfriend, you never feel like you're penetrating more than skin deep, despite the 60k or so words written.

4/5 for sheer originality and an engaging plot.

 

Well, that was definitely one of the most unique and original plots I've ever seen in a fanfiction. Even though it is obviously hardcore AU, it still doesn't disappoint since it uses a realistic and slightly dark version of a muggle-wizarding confrontations.

Though it does have a few large letdowns such as Harry strangely siding with the muggles, and not being noticed by any wizarding person during his wandless magic practice. Also, the fact that during the war he blatantly used magic and not one person from the Spanish Ministry of Magic even bothered to care. Only when he went back to England did the any magic official decide to do something. I just don't see Spanish wizards doing nothing as Harry used Fiendfyre(Dark magic) to fight a war. Also the love interest kind of makes it strange, as he is supposed to become an Emperor.

Hopefully the author doesn't decide to take that path that most do in this time of the story and make the non-magicals somehow win. Realistically magic would utterly destroy any technology we can put forth at this present time. Imperio Curse, Teleporting, Transfiguration, using just those 3 one wizard can take down a government. Though one could say some wizards would join the muggles, but I don't see a few stragglers making much of a difference against the entire whole. In his defense it is a hard story to write since if done completely logically, he'd have to let Harry die and well you can't become an emperor if you're dead.

All in all it is an interesting read and I'll rate it a 4/5 for now, though it could go up or down depending on how the story proceeds.

 

Feels like the same story like the other one he wrote.

The novelty seems impressive until you've read a real story of this sweeping nature, like Skitterleap or Collapse, by an REG Omega. Marquis Black has only been aspiring to match them for basically his entire fanfiction career.

Even the "inspiration", Tyrant, is mediocre, and I'd surprised if mediocrity begets anything other than mediocrity.

The killer was the speech at the ending of the first chapter. His Harry didn't come across nearly as charismatic enough to warrant the reaction from the audience. Juvenile speech too with only parallelism being used, about what I'd expect from FFnet.

Is that not the most rote, standard-issue speeches you've ever read?

A big pet peeve of mine is when writers do something like this:

Hate it hate it hate it when authors write something and call it eloquent when it actually isn't. It's almost as bad as writers having one character make a fail joke and then have someone literally rolling on the floor in laughter, when it isn't actually funny.

What made it elegant? What is it the "in the making" phrase? "last leg of the journey" expression? Very elevated language.

The writing style is devoid of actual aesthetic beauty.

His writing style is taking the basic idea, and artificially substituting words to complicate it.

Again he's aspiring to a standard of writing like that of Amerision or Apocalypso-33 and falling short.

I considered the non-HP feel a positive, but still -

2/5. I guess it's hard for writing styles to impress me, and this is a little plain.

Edit: His duel scenes aren't actually duel scenes.

 

Meh. Criticize it for its flaws (which are plenty), but "he's trying to write like your favorite authors do but you like your favorite authors better" pushes the bounds of subjectivity just a little bit.

I can actually sort of buy this. Think about how utterly disconnected from the Muggle world mages are. Arthur Weasley's mind is blown by a fucking telephone. Muggles have jets, cruise missiles, howitzers, mines and RPGs. That it would take a while to realize that, of all the thousands of explosions going on across Spain on any given day, there are a few that are exploding due to magic instead of some weird Muggle weapon is plausible to me. I would imagine the wizards are attempting to stay the hell away from it all.

Anyway, the first chapter was pretty crap. Obviously this story/author have their strong and weak points, the speechifying being bad and the romance not terribly hot either. But I think he's done a very good job of world building and a fairly good job of putting together an interesting story. Most importantly, after reading the third chapter I was annoyed to see that there was not a fourth chapter, so I guess I'll give it a 4/5.

 

Whoa, what the FUCK?

Spoiler

With a nod, she raised her wand and pointed it at Voldemort—who was unknowingly standing smack dab in the centre of it—at the same time that James did, a spell forming on her and James' lips before the Dark Lord realized what was going on.

"Signus Fulmens!" the two cried out, just as Voldemort raised his wand in a final, desperate attempt to take one of the two down with him.

"Avada Kedavr—" the word died right on the last letter as Voldemort then began to scream, his concentration shattered by the runic spell the two Potters had cast on him, causing millions of volts of electricity to race throughout his entire body. Within seconds, his body began to emit smoke as the electric current running throughout him burned him from the inside out, until all that was left was a smoking carcass on the floor, its skin completely charred.

LOL

Not even Spiderman would let himself get fried by Electro.

I said standard of quality, not the fact that it was not completely identical to them, and gave my analysis of his writing style, that's it.

 

It gets better. Really.

 

Ahahahahaha, Marquis Black. Yet another fic in his eternal literary masturbation over Britain and the British aristocracy.

This isn't a story, this is the author correcting everything he perceives to be wrong with international politics. As can be seen from the significant lessening of magic's importance in a story about Harry Potter.

Edit: That said, it is a decent read. His writing style has got a lot better since his earlier stories, I quite like his characterisation of his OCs, and the overall plot is quite fun to see unfold, even though it is somewhat predictable. There are only really two problems with the story:

1. It really wants to be an AU historical fiction, not a Harry Potter fanfiction. The inclusion of magic feels out of place. The Muggle vs. Wizard elements of the story distract from the main plot of international politics and Harry's rise in the military and political scene. The HP elements of the fic are badly done (one dimensional Dumbledore, cliche Ministry, Voldemort storyline swatted away as an irritation). The story would be better without magic, or at least without Harry Potter magic. Some kind of AU magical world would work better, one where wizards are much rarer and have no kind of centralised government.

2. I suspect that it is only really interesting to read for British people or people who like Britain. I can't see Americans enjoying the jizzgasm over GB here, or continental Europeans.

 

I agree they wouldn't exactly hear it through the typical grapevine that some random mage was in the war, however, my thoughts where more along the lines of them having devices that show when the really bad magics are used. I'm a bit too lazy at the moment to look up the exact quote, but while he using a magic detecting spell it mentioned that the ministry has ones on a much larger scale for underage magic detection. So in my mind it's not a great leap that the ministry has a few for detecting the dark arts.

 

I'm with Taure on this one. A more than decently written story, but too much of a british imperialism jerkoff for my tastes.

3'5/5

 

Good fic so far, how good I think will be established depending how the author decides to go about converging the magic and muggle worlds in the next chapter.

 

That speech was copied word for word from the Total War game, even the whole "burn it" part:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zUDCg9bHzVg

 

And as my first post in this forum (which pretty much establishes the entire reason for this account), I'd like to respond to the latest comment.

Yes, it is. Not word for word, of course, as I had to alter it to fit the circumstances, but that was indeed the main impetus. It was also, by the by, the reason I was even inspired to write this story to begin with. You'll also find that it's been mentioned in the general disclaimer posted on my author profile.

Cheers.

 

Interesting idea, though this Harry Potter certainly has drawn strong inspiration from Roy Mustang, the finger snapping, fire magic and the political aspirations, maybe Harry will lose his hand or go blind later too. However, I don't mean that as a criticism, I personally enjoyed it as well as the rest of Harry's characterization. One of the reasons I liked Marquis Black's other fics was due to the strong, interesting and compelling main character who drove the plot forward and I think Emperor has succeed in that regard.

I know some other people mentioned the pro-imperialistic-Britain stance in this fic, and other fics by Marquis Black but it's hardly a good enough reason to dismiss the story as entertainment. It is after all, fiction, a rather well written one and interesting one. I think it would take a rather immature or deeply nationalistic person to dismiss this fic based on it's plot which is centered around Britain and Europe (for now at least) and present them in a somewhat positive light.

 

You have no idea how much it tickles me that you pointed out the Mustang association. You are now the second person to have actually mentioned it.

The irony of the Anglophilia accusations, which also amuse me, is that when I first started writing this story, I hadn't intended on making Harry gain his seat of power in England. France, Portugal, and even Ireland came to mind, before realizing the the French would probably sooner die than submit to an Englishman (especially in this AU, where they stand as the most powerful European nation) without a fight, I know very little about the workings of Portuguese politics, and Ireland has a population of about 4 million people--not nearly enough to warrant being a threat to most European nations. After that realization, and the fact that I understand the British political system much better than any other European nation's, I went with the easy choice and stuck to the UK.

If it helps, though, this isn't about "Rule Britannia" and the like. Harry's Empire is an entirely new political incarnation of imperialism, and the fact that he's going to have to incorporate other European nations pretty much establishes that he can't go the "Become British or DIE" route without incurring widespread revolt.

 

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