Title: The Abyss
Author: Jeconais
Rating: T
Genre: Angst
DLP Category: General
Pairing: Harry/Ginny
Status: Oneshot
Summary: "He who fights monsters should see to it that he does not become a monster. And when you stare into the abyss, the abyss stares back into you." -- Friedrich Nietzsche
Link: http://jeconais.fanficauthors.net/The_Abyss/The_Abyss/

I'm honestly surprised that this isn't already in the library since it's so old. It's one of my favorite oneshots, although it's pretty old. Very good characterization considering it's only 4k words, and a Ginny that I can deal with. It is pretty typical Jeconais writing though, which I know tends to be fairly polarizing. 4/5

 

Plot-wise it's bad. Harry killing a dementor by touching it on the forehead with his finger and transmitting happiness, the crazy levels of melodrama, the spell to kill Voldemort happening to be found easily by Harry in the Hogwarts library, all these things are very fail.

It's annoying how much Harry-is-a-weapon is shoved down the reader's throat. My sympathy is inversely proportional to how much he complains about it. I'd describe this Harry as self-conscious of knowing he's a tragic figure.

Ginny's I-made-Harry-that-way moment is very painful to read. It feels uncomfortably like the author fantasizing himself as a tragic hero, complete with the girl feeling remorse after he dies. Jeconais is like the Chow Yun Fat of Harry Potter fanfiction.

Token Nietzsche quotation at the end - no, seen that waaaay too many times. I'd prefer he choose a completely obscure quote from poetry or another philosopher.

And Jeconais still finds time for bashing the usual characters, Draco, Ron, Dumbledore, and those moments detract from an already thin premise.

But these things are all besides the point. It's more a mood piece focusing on Harry's despair or state of being broken. The first-person present is nicely written.

And that still isn't enough to merit a place in the library in my mind, even acknowledging these things. Perhaps a couple years ago, but now, there's nothing worth reading here. According to the author's note, he just tossed it off to see whether he could still write angst, so without much going for it, recycle bin.

3/5.

 

Kind of reminds me of the story where Hermione uses this spell to make Ron's prick really long, wrap it around himself, and put it in his mouth. Harry tries to get Hermione to apologize to Ron after that, and she smacks him for it. She gets expelled from Hogwarts, and Harry later kills her with the Unforgivable A.K. I think Lavender, or maybe it was Victor? Gave Ron the horrible insult of "MoRon".

 

This

I find the fic to be very unbelievable with scenes like the Dementer's death and finding the 'ultimate spell' that was banned a thousand years ago in a school library. This made the fic very hard to enjoy .

2.5/5 because as the OP said it is quite old (2004).

 

This Harry is not human anymore, he's



And that kills even my suspension of disbelieve. 2/5

 

@Richardc269: Link? That story sounds hilarious (if bad).

As for this one...well, pretty much what Andro said. Lots of fail, excessively angsty (Jeconais can rest easy on that score, at least), but technically decent. 2/5

 

If you have to start your review with this sentence, the story is probably going in the recycling bin.

 

I don't have the story in my favorites. I don't remember the name of the story anymore. Pretty sure someone could find it though.

 

Jeconais painted this one by the numbers, and that's a shame because he could have probably done so much more with this but decided to just be lazy instead. The issue isn't so much a question of whether or not he was capable, we know he is capable of doing this story better, much better. He just chose not to.

Andromalius pretty much said it all already, but the bottom line is he didn't even try in this one and you can tell. A better fic of this type of story also written by Jeconais is Despair, readers should give that one a look and leave this abortion alone. It is this fic that when held up against The Abyss you begin to see how far it falls short of the quality Jeconais is capable of. Of course it is an older story by him, so some allowances have to be made, but phewee! This reminds me of the stinker he pulled early early on with a fic where harry and Draco travel to ancient Greece and become bestest buds... I can only hope he decides to hide his old shame here like he's tried to do with that one.

--bornagainpenguin

 

I vaguely thought I remembered this one and now I wish I had left it that way. Not one of Jeco's better attempts and as said by nearly everyone, we've all seen or something extremely similar dozens of times. 3/5 for readability.