Suspension of disbelief is a key part of enjoying any fiction. I agree that clear plot holes should be bitched about but this isn't really one. Both options offered work fine, the original is less complicated, easier to follow and works well, but it leaves the questions the readers here had, the second one is more in depth look into the subject and avid fans of the universe will surely enjoy it more. If you're writing for mainstream go with the original if you're writing for "geeks" go with the revised one.

How often do we miss the obvious in real life, I mean there were only a few people who predicted the crisis in the banking sector and nobody listened to them. If we take that to fiction it's not really too far out there that people believe what they want to believe. Call it Granger syndrome or something in HP world, if it's written and something you want to believe in you're not likely to challenge it.

I truly applaud your efforts in this story, it is great. But the method of chapter by chapter critique is at the same time as good as it is problematic. Many professional writers push out over 20k words a day, but it's really rough material that need a lot of editing, but when you just write and let the editing being taken care of later you won't get too bogged down on the minor details.

 

I disagree. I think you need to stop thinking about the corrupting effect like that in star wars.
Just imagine the use of Dark Arts in a purely psychological context.
You actively use the most negative of emotions from your worst experiences to produce a powerful sensation. Then you have positive reinforcement from authority figures from it. You won't ever move past the negatives in your life this way, as you constantly reinforce them, even exaccerbate the emotion that they provoke in you.
All this with a bunch of teenagers. I mean no wonder people fling curses like dirty looks in the school.

Quote from The Weapon Revised

"Made yourself invisible, have you?" Someone said over the noise of the wizards' fight.


Harry had barely recognized the threat in the sentence by the time he'd thrown himself on the floor, reacting by habit to the feel of a killing curse heading at him.


Someone can cast a killing curse without a known target? Harry thought as the wall behind him burst open beneath the spell. The idea was horrifying. Who could hate so completely?

End Quote

How do you hate so completely? By constantly practicing and holding on to your negatives. There is no way that person would be able to live a normal life.

 

You seem to have missed the underlying thought there so I'll clear it up. This revision was 'written' by Pers not Santi. That is what is breaking the immersion.

 

Santi wrote it but incorporated Pers' idea.

 

Wow, this thread inspires a lot of discussion.

I'll repeat what I said before: the second version is much better, because it offers an actually believable explanation as to why such thing has never been tried before. I don't understand how any of you can see it as a bad thing.

 

The debate is not really about what was written, but how it was written. Although I still think that making two discoveries (in a single scene) is a bit too much...

 

You are right - I missed what you meant. Thanks for explaining.

Also I was thinking what we will see in next chapter and had this crazy idea - what about duel between Tom Riddle and Harry? It could even be quite interesting fight if Diary's Riddle knows only as much as original when he created one.

 

Santi could always just separate the ideas. Have Harry try his original idea only for him to fail. However, either through a comment from calypso or from a mental connection he makes, he decides to try the second idea involving enchantment . That way he appears intelligent but there is also a great deal of luck involved.

 

The first scene skipped over the issue so fast you hardly had time to recognize it. This does offer a mediocre explanation as to why, but it also draws excess attention to the issue with statements like

The explanation is steeped in theory which forces the reader to digest the issue and think about what is happening. Theory is boring to read about in the first place so its another negative that the other scene didn't have.

Finally the actual explanation I find half baked and reliant on the stupidity of other wizards.

So either Harry is the only wizard to have screwed up an enchantment into giving an object living properties or no one had ever thought to apply a living enchantment to a switching spell.

We have already seen enchantments that give inanimate objects life. His charms professor has suits of armor playing chess. This theory, just like the last one, takes an explored branch of magic and relies on the belief that no one transfigured an enchanted object before.

Hell, if you want to say that those are enchantments that only mimic life then the big discovery should be that you can actually enchant objects into life. Not that you can create life then preform a little switching spell. Who wouldn't want to play god?

 

Harry loses to Calypso all the time, and Calypso loses to Kira half the time. Kira is a fourth year and is not considered a prodigy, just good. Tom Riddle was a prodigy, and the diary contains a sixth year version. The protagonist is not at all ready to fight a sixteen year old Tom Riddle, unless he has canon!Harry's character shield, but that is boring and (it seems to me) the main reason for writing this fic is to show a protagonist who does not rely on a character shield to win.

 

But the Tom Riddle in the journal wasn't fully corporeal. Ginny didn't die, if you forgot.

 

I thought that it contains fifth year version. And I didn't say it would be fair fight, just interesting. Harry would definitely lose to Riddle, and in the end it would be Nathan destroying diary that defended Tom, but I was thinking about it as first life and death experience for Harry. Right now he is more of scholar. Having been almost killed by Voldemort would be a great motivation for him to try be much better at dueling. Beside I doubt it will happen anyway.

EDIT: Forgot to add 'almost' before 'killed by Voldemort'. Being killed wouldn't be great motivation at all, unless he would be back in some manner.

 

Is Nathan still going to get the Marauder's map like Harry would in cannon?

If he does and Harry learns all about it from his Dad,Remus and Sirius it could be an interesting project for the next year or two and would probably get him an M in charms and spell creation if he doesnt break the record this year.

 

If Harry got his hands on it, it would be an interesting way for him to keep tabs on his brother. Not to mention he'd be fascinated with it and likely try to make a Durmstrang replica.

 

Interesting idea. Also, I've always wondered how was it possible that no one else thought of something similar for teachers. I'm sure that Dumbledore could make few copies if he wanted.

If Harry was to make one for Durmstrang, I have feeling he wouldn't show it as his project, at least not before he ended school for good. This kind of map would gave him to much great advantage over everyone. I can already see Calypso or Kira getting frustrated that they can never surprise/annoy him with their unexpected appearance or that he always knows where everyone is, and them not knowing how he is doing this.

 

I prefer that very little in the way of "luck" contributing to Harry making this discovery. I'm glad he made this discovery because he's smart, talented, and made an educated connection between botching a charm and getting around a switching spell.

However, I don't think the maintained connection between switched parts should be anything new to anyone.

 

I doubt anything that you can come up with will be something no one has tried before.
So best to go with scene 1, and gloss over the details.

 

Something to just throw out there:

We have no proof whatsoever that the wizarding world has ever undergone a scientific revolution. Yeah, names like Flamel and Dumbledore pop up as having done something, but they're hardly pumping out new ideas and theories and setting the culture on fire. Flamel quite literally cures death and seems content to spend immortal life chilling in France (which to be fair, I think I'd probably do the exact same thing, peasants be damned).

The point is though that western culture went through centuries of just taking everything the ancient Greeks assumed to be true and rolling with it, even though most of it turned out to be bullshit. Just because wizards have been 'studying' a field for however many generation or hold so-and-so in high regard doesn't necessarily mean they know half as much as they like to think they do. For all we know actually giving something enough faux-life to make it interact like an actual animal is something only the most powerful and knowledgeable wizards can do. So long ago some highly respected figure claimed x was impossible, a few other people tried to disprove it with no luck, and everyone else just rolled with it, considering it a closed case. Harry steps outside the box, and yeah, he's clearly got the power to do it, but it's more because he was willing to test the hitherto impossible that he succeeded, not that he's necessarily the magical answer to Newton.

I understand Sesc's complaints that the new scene is too technical, or Pers arguing that the first was too incredible, but let's take a step back and look at the culture we're dealing with. Whether you agree with the exact way Santi has worded it, what he's done here is more than within the realms of possibility, and enjoyable to read to boot.

Personally, I prefer the first version, and we'd all be better off - Santi included - if he wasn't forced to waste a day and however many words going back and redoing what was already pretty damn good, and could focus on writing what all of us actually want - Moar Updaetz.

 

what He said. ¨^¨