You took the words right out of my mouth. I was about to write this, but I had to go back to re-read the original one more time.

 

No, no, I get the point, to help the author improve, but often times the scene was fine in the first place. I prefer an agile method to writing anything, it helps keep the creative juices flowing. I was merely stating my opinion that it was fine and really didn't need to be improved. Should he be happy with it he can just continue on, rather than getting stuck on 1 scene. In short, give us MOAR not better. It's already better than 90% of the drivel that comes from the majority of fanfiction.

As to the second part of your post, I quite agree, but see my first paragraph for reasons not to correct it. Or to just to revert it to the previous version.

 

Out of thumbs up but, once again, what Sesc said .

I'm also slightly confused about the botched enchantment imparting living properties to a non-living object. Doesn't a simple transfiguration do that too?

Edit:

You're missing the point even more than I thought you were. In short: no, we want quality; being better than 90% of shitty fics is not good enough. This story is already doing much better, and DLP will do it's best to help it along.

Edit no.2: There's also the slightly confusing fact that the enchantment makes the pillow agressive, but it loses that property after the transfiguration (shouldn't it keep it?), and gains it back after the switching spells.

 

Not at all what I'm saying, I'm saying I found the original scene to be perfectly well. As it appears did some of the others, comparatively to the rewrite. Thus if he is going to get stuck, I'm telling him to just move on. Perfection is impossible, there are too many conflicting opinions on what it is. If the authors opinion is that he wrote it well the first time, well bugger all to the rest. I'm not saying criticism is bad, I'm saying in this case, I felt it unwarranted.

But alas, I shall drop this subject, no need to further muck up the discourse. To the furtherance of this fic, it is quite good, one of the best dark Harry's I've found.:toast:

 

On a slight side note. This is a Darkish Harry fic and ever since reading The Greater Good my opinion on using Dark Magic has changed a little. I noticed at the start of this year you had Calypso teaching Harry to fuel his spells with negative intent, but it was kind of left short.
Basically I think at some point I would like to see a little more expansion on the effect using Dark Magic has on the caster. I mean boxing makes people more agressive (and I don't care what anyone else thinks- it does). Surely this does too.
Personally I don't think there is some great warping in a person's magic. I think the effect is in someones mental state (way more dangerous.) In Summary I would like to see a little more of the Dark Arts besides curses.

 

Why do the Dark Arts have to have some sort of negative physical or mental effects, like falling to the dark side in Star Wars? Horcruxes I understand seeing as in tearing your soul you are ripping apart your humanity, but every use of a dark spell does not need to turn you into a monster or drive you insane. No act in and of itself is pure evil. An example is the act of killing, we kill animals all the time for food & will kille other people when threatened...but the unprovoked killing of another human being is murder & thus wrong...but killing in itself is right or wrong depending on the situation. The Dark Arts being pure evil is something I find ridiculous, rather I see them much in the same way science has been looked...a branch of study demonized because powerful elements in society do not want to accept them.

But I do whole heartedly agree with the idea of branching out with the Dark Arts, all we ever see are spells...what I would like to see is an entire Dark branch of magic: healing, warding even transfiguration or charms.

 

Rape, that is all.

The thing is that use of it isn't corruptible, WILLFUL use of it is. I agree with your points on this. It's like anything really, I can be trained in a martial art focusing on limb disabling and causing injury. That doesn't mean I'm going to go out and dislocate peoples arms everyday.

Certain things however, like crucio and the trauma curse, deserve to be banned. Simply because they are cruel enough to warrant it. Think of it this way, someone tosses a book at you, do you, A:Throw a book in retaliation, Bunch them, C:Grab a knife and play the poking and slicing game, or D:Jam your fist inside their anal cavity repetitively, then spit on them while calling them worthless.

If you answered one of the last two for anything but the lulz, you might be a sociopath. If you would actually carry out that action, your probably a psychopath.

As would I, I have an attraction to well designed systems of magic.

 

I liked the first one more. This time Harry was actively trying to change the laws of magic and succeeded where as before he just was doing some off the cuff experiment to get his transfiguration grade and stumbled upon a discovery. Which is a better characterization for a smart twelve year old. Now instead of having the issue of why hasn't anyone tried this before, Harry just intentionally out-thought every great which and wizard who ever experimented with switching spells.

Also if the enchantment was what was needed why couldn't Harry just preform the switching spell without the transfiguration?

 

Shouldn't Calypso be getting some credit for Harry's discoveries?
It seems like she's doing at least some of the work, so maybe she could get mentioned by Harry?
Awesome chapter. Both versions are awesome.

 

I like the new scene better. If you don't want it to be over-kill, just have the professors comment that in higher grade levels, you learn that everyone already knew that living things maintain a connection with their switched parts, but hey, holy fucking shit, you just discovered an exception to the rule!

 

"His plan was to transfigure" - this isn't the first time the "t" in "transfigure" is a different color. I really want to know how you manage to do that.

 

I prefer the new scene over the original because the explanation behind it feels more solid - even if it was slightly info-dumpish - but on the other hand that different approach to the experiment really doesn't fit with the actual content of the experiment.

It feels botched: like you've mishmashed the two together and it doesn't really fit because of it. I'd say either stick with your original scene or rewrite this one so it focuses on the idea of the botched enchantment and how it affects the transfiguration rather than trying to explain your earlier scene with Pers's approach to it.

 

^

I think it's clear that the rewrite wasn't very solid. Santi inserted the bit that Pers gave without bothering to think about the consequences or what would have to be changed for things to make sense.

Also, I'm going to disagree with everyone here who says the first scene is better because it's more in-character for the smart 12 year-old that Harry is. If you'll recall, Calypso asked Harry what he had in mind, and Harry hesitated before explaining/doing the experiment with her. He clearly had a farfetched idea that he wanted to explore. Unlike how some of you seem to think, Harry doesn't make the discovery entirely by accident.

Basically, if you're going to object to the second scene on the grounds of Harry upstaging all the previous scholars, then you should object to the first scene, too.

As the scene is currently, Harry does appear way too intelligent for his age in that he's made two new discoveries. I would suggest incorporating Pers' suggestion in such a way that it appears to be an interesting discovery, but one that's not so groundbreaking that Harry gets the magical Nobel. The original discovery didn't make much sense; you would have expected someone to have come across it in the past. But a botched enchantment being applied to Transfiguration? Not necessarily.

I think you should assume that the original discovery is already part of the accepted literature and then test something based on the idea that failed enchantments can impart lifelike properties. Can anyone elaborate on this/come up with a better idea? :\ I can't really think at the moment.

Of course, all of this is up to you, Santi, and I obviously don't have any idea where you intend to go with your magical theory...so feel free to do whatever the hell you want. In the grand scheme of things, this is a minor issue and I'll accept whatever you decide to do.

Side-note: I wonder if Mr. Weasley's car counts as being alive and is subject to all of this.

 

I have no problem with Harry being that intelligent. In real world we have kids who are making him look stupid and to make discovery you also need luck so everything is all right in my opinion.

 

The problem isn't the level of Harry's intelligence, its the way that intelligence is presented. I noticed it on my first read through, the rewritten scene is very similar to what Pers suggested. Its not beyond an intelligent 12 year old to realize there could be potential applications of a 'botched' enchantment. What is beyond an intelligent 12 year old is to explain this/have it written in the voice of a middle aged physicist. The writing style is what needs the most revision here, not the content.

 

I have no problem with him making two discoveries because one is dependant on the other.

It is often the case that when there is a ground breaking discovery that there is several other discoveries connected to the first that are like low hanging fruit, anybody could make those discoveries once they know about the first discovery.

The discovery about the animals having a connection to their body parts is unavoidable once he makes the switching spells work. He showed his brilliance with the switching spell, he showed that he is not a moron by noting the connection.

 

I don't agree with that. As my examples showed you can have twelve year old kid who earned a Master of Science and I think he could definitely write/explain this in professional way, not in 'everyone reading this knows it was written by 12 year old' way.

Harry is in this story prodigy, let him be. Tom Riddle when he was only in his 5th year at Hogwarts, managed to create his first Horcrux and because it's not stated differently in books, I'm almost certain that he did this with almost no information about whole process. So Harry making minor discoveries in Transfiguration when he is ending 4th year of this subject isn't really that impressive .

 

I liked the original version, and had no problem with it. It seemed like the type of thing where no one would have really bothered with it, and the people who had probably didn't think it was noteworthy.