Ok, here is the problem I am having.

The fic in question (here, shameless plug) is primarily action/adventure to start, but the Romance has started.

The pairing is Harry/ Rowena Ravenclaw.

Therein lies the problem, canon Rowena is essentially a Mary Sue from the getgo, being 'one of the most beautiful and intelligent witches to ever live'.

She just really does not have any major characters flaws, but I did not intend for that to happen, it just is.
In my story, she is not more powerful that Harry by any means, but she is far more skillful. I write her as attractive, because that's what she is (and Harry deserves the best obviously). She is scary intelligent, but Harry is not a complete retard and does not feel outclassed as he would being lectured by Hermione.

She is not antisocial either, being good friends with the other founders, but she probably does get absorbed into her research. The advancement and complete understanding of magic is one of her longterm goals, the other one has already been fulfilled (passing on the knowledge (Hogwarts)).

Being a skilled witched is a given (but being good in combat could be debated). She will be joining up with Harry and following him around on his adventures, starting in c13(the one I am currently writing).

She is not bossy, but she is not afraid to speak her mind.

No real trauma in her past that is haunting her, she was too young to fight when the last war broke out. Parents are dead but she was never really all that close to them as she grew up and founded Hogwarts.

She has no 'unpaid debts' or past homicidal lovers that she is on the run from or anything like that.


I guess I am just trying to add some depth to her without making her seem like there is very little wrong with her, but it is hard/impossible.

The only flaw that I can actually think of is one that is shared with Harry; not knowing what love is, and not sure how to respond to affection, but that is something they will both be exploring together. (that sounded so lame).

Help/advice/tips/suggestions appreciated.

 

Rowena is considered the most beautiful witch of her time when hygiene meant you didn't mind standing in the rain.
The average height for a well-fed, well-trained knight was 5'4".
If she's been absent for the past thousand years, her easiest-to-understand language will be Latin.
She would have to be willful enough to make a name for herself equal to her contemporaries despite entrenched misogyny, and smart enough to invent magic with a lasting value equal to Aristotle's works. Rowena was admired for her intelligence first, then her beauty.

Comparably, it'd be like Janeane Garofalo transported to Picard's Enterprise.

Now why would this mother of a tragic child reappear in Harry's time ready to date a boy with self-confidence no better than a stable boy?

 

That would make an awesome crack fic if you're looking for ideas. Rowena Ravenclaw arrives in present day Hogwarts and believes Harry to be a stable boy. She tries to give him her horse and lulz ensues.

OT: I imagine she would be very proper, old world manners and all, and maybe even a bit snobbish. Not like the Malfoys, but definitely a noticeable edge to her demeanor.

 

Harry is actually back in the founder's time, I guess I should have pointed that out. The reason behind it is cliche, but the rest of the story is anything but. Muggles had poor hygiene, but with magic hygiene should be just fine. Oh, some peoples hygeine are not too good in modern times either, but I do know that common practice was to simply empty your chamber pots out the window into the street below, if you are a commoner.

Not to give too much away of the plot, Harry first meets Rowena when he asks to teach a course at Hogwarts (and being the first non-founder to teach there). Eventually plot happens involving Horcruxes and Salazar, shit goes down hill, Harry kills Salazar, Harry leaves country in pursuit of one of his sons who has his research, comes back several years later and hooks up with Rowena who stopped teaching at Hogwarts when Salazar went apeshit on Godric. Elves (pre-house-elf) shaman, druids, dwarves, and of course, ancient magic, Hallows, immortality and Horcruxes abound.

 

I haven't read your story, but one way you could do it:

A thousand years is a long time for history to be rewritten. Retcon the whole founders history and have a go at it. Make Ravenclaw be ruthless and acerbic, a la the reputation Slytherin had acquired by Harry's time. Let her be the one of the four to delve into the blackest of magics, into mind control (inventor of the Imperius curse), into soul magic (horcruxes).

Slytherin was actually a master of healing (his familiar was the snake, as on the caduceus) and potions and, generally, a decent man, save when pussy-whipped by a domineering Ravenclaw mistress. Let Rowena have agendas upon agendas, a master manipulator who doesn't care whom she shatters on her way to prominence and power. Let her see Harry as a powerful cat's paw whom she can manipulate and control.

At least initially, until he proves too strong for her wiles (and her Imperius). Let them hate each other before they learn to respect (and later, love) one another.

 

I always defined a Mary Sue as a flawless OC.

They don't actually need a tragic childhood in order to counteract that.
In my opinion, small things tend to be enough to display them as realistic characters, like writing them to be hotheaded and jumping to conclusions.

Of course that wouldn't fit with Rowena's intelligence and calm demeanor, but you could give her an irrational fear of lightning and develop that into a humorous/romantic scene or something like that.

Most of the time that's sufficient to make these characters three dimensional enough for my taste.

 

Well, the story is an epic in my opinion. I have 12 chapters and 80k words already posted, so none of those ideas would really work for my story as I am well past the role of the individuals founders. Rowena is complete neutral as far as magic goes, she researches and uses the killing curse (for reasons you will have to read in the fic ;p). There is more than one way to cast the AK, canon being 'desire to kill the target and saying the incantation', but instead of the brute force desire/intent method, you simply go with the tried and true method of using the actual wand movements. One of the underlying themes in the story is that there is multiple ways to cast magic through all the various disciplines, and the when enough magic is gathered in one place, it becomes semi-sentient (Hogwarts, room of requirement). On a side note, Rowena actually invented/discovered fiendfyre in the story, but does not call it as such. She needed a super hot fire to melt a magical metal, and no pre-existing spells could do it, so she invented one that could.

Slytherin was a normal bloke until he started messing around with magics that he could not comprehend, trying to discover the difference between muggleborn and pureblooded wizards. He wanted to comprehend them, so he did experiments, and slowly warped his mind and soul, literally. Slytherin makes the first Horcrux, and in doing so suffers great personality changes and becomes extremely off-putting.

Spoiler

It is Harry's quest to destroy Salazar's Horcrux's, and all his research pertaining to the foul bit of magic. He does destroy the horcrux, but could not recover the research in time before other wizards got hold of the information. All Harry can do after that is damage control.

Harry himself is immortal because he has the hallows and is 'the master of death.' Rowena eventually becomes immortal through the use of the fountain of life and magical symbiosis. The story eventually starts to skip years while playing out major battles through the 1100's -1900's and then merges back to the normal timeline, with old Harry and young Harry.

I would like to post the story in the WBA thread, but as it stands I already have 12 chapters posted on ff.net so I am not sure how that would work out if i just posted c13 and no one would know wtf is going on. Also, while the story is original (only two minor cliches that I know of), I don't think the first few chapters give a good impression on the later ones, and most people would judge it just by how the story starts and not bother to read through the better later chapters

 

That's a whole different flavor of apple.

Harry the monkey wrench comes back with skills and theories about magic that the founders haven't even considered- of course Rowena would get curious. For all that she's considered the demi-god of wisdom, she's just a woman with a keen mind and magical ability. Being a pushy know-it-all in her time would have earned her too much trouble.

I can see her putting up an image of confidence and competence, but beneath it she's always waiting for the wizards to turn on her for exceeding her station or something. She wouldn't be trusting of others, not being good at detecting lies- her analytic mind may be good for magic, but not great with understanding people.

Given the standards of the time, Rowena probably wouldn't be physically weak but she wouldn't have any combat skills to speak of (outside of magic). She respects the other founders for the ways they excel that she can't- she's not exceedingly brave, cunning or friendly. She may even loathe the more mucky disciplines (Herbology, Potions, Creatures).

I would predict she's a Raven animagus, thereby earning her House name. There's much you can draw from that, personality-wise.

 

Except wouldn't her house name come from her, you know, name being Rowena Ravenclaw?

Then there is that bit about their mascot being an eagle and not a freaking raven.

Sorry, that's just a pet peeve of mine.


As far as Rowena in that story, it's been awhile since I read the early chapters but I don't think anything about her really jumped out as overly Mary Sue.

She's one of the Founders of Hogwarts and is considered one of the greatest witches of all time. I believe canon says she was even considered one of the greatest witches of her time while she was alive.

To purposely make her weaker and less intelligent would be to do her character a great disservice, I think.

Mostly you just need to make sure that she doesn't become so great that she has a answer for everything, can do everything, and never fails at anything.

Basically, just make her human. Even if a particularly clever one.

The most important thing, though, is to update and get Harry back to England.

 

Most of this analysis is spot on. Harry has no idea what the founder's do and don't know, and despite how careful he tries to be, things slip. However, the situation is not that awkward as at the time, Hogwarts is only in its fourth year of operating, and much of the lands magical knowledge is handed down through families and not in the public domain. However, if you were the scholarly type and could read old languages, the Azkaban library could be the place to go (has not yet been turned into a prison in my story, but soon!). Harry teaches the founder's what he knows (not that much) in exchange for some private tutoring from the other founders. Rowena's curiosity does get the better of herself though, when Harry tells her what he is looking for (Horcrux).


Socially, I think Rowena would do fine. She has friends and teaches kids at Hogwarts.

You are correct that Rowena's combat skills do not go beyond waving a wand and dodging and there are no plans to change that.

As for the animagus form, definitely not. Animagi are nearly unheard of in this time period, but Cliodna does make an appearance. There is nothing in the story that requires Rowena to be an animagus, so she won't be one.

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I am not planning on making her weaker or less intelligent, It just seems that the way things are happening that she has no flaws, but i don't want to purposefully create flaws either.

Also, Harry is back home. Last sentence of c12 "With a swirl of his magic, Harry apparated back home."

 

Well, he's in the process of apparating back home at the end. He's not home until I see (read) of him being on English soil.

As for flaws, just make her human. You could easily make her a bit obsessive with her work, she's already shown that a bit in the earlier chapter with her spell research.

Just because she's knowledgeable and a talented witch doesn't mean she's a great duelist. There is a lot more about duelling than knowing a bunch of spells and being powerful. It's about picking the right spells and such.

Rowena would strike me as somebody whose extremely knowledgeable about many areas of magic, but perhaps lacking that extra flair that makes one truly great.

It's like Hermione vs. the Half-Blood Prince. Hermione's extremely intelligent and understands the the science of potions making but unlike the HBP she doesn't understand the art or have that natural flair to be great.

There is a scene in an episode of Stargate SG-1, one of them with McKay in it. Either 48 Hours or Redemption Pt. 2.

Anyway, in it he explains to Carter how he wanted to be a concert pianist. He talked about how he played the piano to get away from things (I think something about his parents, forget exactly). Anyway when he was young, early teens or so, his teacher told him to quit. He was perfectly good technically and all that, but he didn't have a feel for the art of it.

He then talks about how he went into science but that he had the same problem. While he's a genius and certainly on par with Carter in terms of knowledge, he lacks the art. While they may be equal in talent and brains and all that, she has that extra flair that allows her to come up with some crazy idea that ends up saving the day.

So, if you get the meaning of my ramblings, you'll see that it's you can make her flawed while being brilliant at the same time. Sometimes brilliance itself can be a flaw.

 

Someone ought to write this. I'm going to go out on a limb here and say it would be the only founders-era fic worth reading.

 

I see the argument are saying is the book smart versus street smart one. It fits a little bit. Thankfully for us and the readers, Harry is skilled in the art of 'making shit up as you go'.

Rowena's role throughout the fic is that of a main support character. I cannot see her being a one on one duelist, but more of a mass destruction kind of person, using the most effective method possible to get the greatest effect more efficiently. I can almost imagine her having a role similar to Q from James Bond or Orange/Apple kid from Earthbound. Of course as time goes on, after a few years of Harry and Rowena living together I can see their skill-sets rubbing off on each other. Harry became a great fighter and leader through necessity, and maybe the same thing could happen to Rowena out of necessity because she is living with Harry and that is the lifestyle he lives. I think I mentioned it in one of the earlier chapters, but I know I have written more of Rowena's past in the upcoming chapter. She has not had to fight in any wars, as she was 10 during the last tribal war, whiles Godric and Salazar were old enough to fight. She has led a relatively peaceful life, all things considered, but I suppose that is all going to change when Harry comes around .

 

If you are having them live all the years till the present day, could you not somehow tie them in to the Flamels or something? Many fics have done something like saying that the Flamels simply change their names, they don't actually die (Cockrot and Hetty Bogrash, lol). It would take some nifty storytelling, but would be potentially awesome.

 

Well, I'm not really sure I'd call it booksmart vs. street smart.

Street smart is what I would think of as knowing how to get things done. Perhaps not efficiently or anything, but hey, you get it done so that's that.

Booksmart is, of course, knowing everything there is to know about how to get something done and knowing the most efficient method of doing it.

What I was talking about was more the having the insight to see things where others can't. The ability to connect the dots where others wouldn't think to look. Just a natural ability to look beyond the mundane and make something out of nothing.

It's sort of like Harry and his ability to survive. Same sort of thing.

---------- Post automerged at 10:18 PM ---------- Previous post was at 10:16 PM ----------

I actually think LA hinted at doing that in the 'vision' sequence in the last chapter.

Or maybe that was my hope?

 

In all fairness, just look at her horse; her horse is amazing.

 

I did hint at something with that scene, but it was not Harry being Flamel. Harry watched himself through the vision watching Flamel and Dumbledore have a chat. Harry and Rowena are not the Flamels in any way shape or form. The Flamels do have to learn their art from someone though, right ?
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Thankfully Rowena doesn't ride horses, play piano, or know how to ballroom dance. And her voice doesn't sound like the tinkling of a bell.

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That was awkward to read, seeing how this thread is about a founder's era fic that has gotten nearly all positive reviews There are a few decent founding of Hogwarts story though over at hpff.com.

 

I don't believe nmb's intent was to hurt your feelings, so much as encourage someone to adopt this germ of a story idea.

I should have clicked on your link in the OP and seen how far along you were before I wrote my post. I had wrongly assumed your story was still in the early planning phases and not several tens of thousands of words along. My apologies.