Um, what? Also, can't wait for the story Matt.

 

It could easily be done if, instead of Harry just saving Gabrielle, he sticks around and saves Fleur from the Grindylows too.

 

Hey Anarchy, ever think about picking up For Victory or Death again? I found that entertaining.

 

Some day, I'd like to see a soul bond fic done well by a decent writer.

 

I seem to remember a shitty one. Oh wait, somebody already mentioned it:

QFT.

Fuck you, TLIL was awesome.

I disagree. In fact, I think that a post-DH (but w/o the godawful Epilogue, of course) is about the only way to make H/F work without a fundamental change to Harry's character.

I'm still upset about losing my black friend...

Actually, every harem fic I've ever seen involved suppression of the gag reflex.

 

What would a really good author be able to do with a soul bond? Characters who get instant deep love are basically aliens. How do you get a reader to care about a protagonist that experiences the world so differently from the way humans do?

 

Why does a soul bond have to induce instant deep love?

 

I agree. Anyone else read Darth Marrs' Bonds of Blood? It IS H/G, which might put a few people off, but it's an alright piece - the soul bond doesn't make them fall in love instantly, and it is an interesting read.

There was another one I read recently, The Power of Two or something like that, but it wasn't on ff.net, and I don't remember the author, nor whether it was that good or not.

 

Everything can be done well. That is a fact.

The problem with soul bond fics is that too many authors pop the soul-bond revelation way too prematurely. I mean, where do you go from there? How do you top being connected at the fucking soul? Revealing two people have a soul-bond is an endgame move, and the shitty reputation soul-bonds have is from shitty authors throwing it in there in the third chapter or whatever in a completely irreverent manner.

Harry and Ginny are in love. Harry and Ginny had a soul-bond. They knew because Griphook the Friendly Goblin pricked their finger/sliced their palm open/OOH GOBLIN BLOOD RITUALS LOOK I AM EDGY at Gringotts and so now they know and wop wop they're in true love and can spam love beams like fucking Sailor Senshi.

Soul-bonds require a lot of planning and subtle Chekhov's Guns hidden throughout the story. I would suggest not even using the word 'soul-bond' at all - talk about transcendent synchronization, the origin of horcruxes, anything but 'soul-bond'. And god help you if you actually say the word in-story. Even an idiot reader will catch that foreshadowing. You sit on that reveal like it's a fucking nuclear code.

Unless you're a shitty FFN author, in which case, you blast us with your GOLDEN LOVE PATRONUS which can kill dementors and drive off haters.

My 0.02$.

 

*cough* my fic *cough*

That said, I don't think I'd write a soul-bond fic involving Fleur. It's entirely unnecessary for either a healthy relationship or conflict within the story, and why add it in there when you don't need to?

 

This was my subversion of the Soul Bond trope. I believe it's about as insane as one can make a Soul Bond and still make a semi-coherent story out of it. (Be warned, the Harry/Ginny Soul Bond becomes Harry/Molly after an accident of time travel. General fuckedupedness ensues).

A couple people asked in PM or email and since this thread is active again (and on my alerts) I thought I'd mention that Misericorde and Lily (sequel to Dagger and Rose and still Harry/Fleur) is progressing. I'm guessing that it'll be the end of Jan./first half of early Feb. when I start posting. I'll start soliciting betas after I complete the first draft.

 

There's something similar to a soul bond in The Song of the Trees by Tinn Tam. I always saw Harry's encounter with Daphne as a nice twist of the cliché, decently described and well explained. What makes it really work is that, instead of driving the story, it becomes a clue/set-up in regards to a greater plot.

A by-the-book soul-bond story should be written with the same idea, IMO. It shouldn't revolve around the cliché. At least, I can't imagine myself reading one otherwise.

Uncle Stojil

 

Yeah, it's on my list of things to do.

Have you ever reread the story? I tried, and I couldn't stomach it. I ended up writing like 10k+ words in reviews listing all of it's downfalls. A lot of the concepts were just bad in retrospect. I mean, Harry get's past the age line just by using Occlumency, and that's just the tip of the iceberg.

I just don't like it because it doesn't take place in the books. They are both older, eliminating half the problem with the potential relationship, and instead, forcing the author to essentially create a convincing post-Hogwarts world from scratch, which I haven't seen yet with H/F. Whenever I read a Harry/rarepairing story that takes place after Hogwarts, I am always sort of disappointed. I like the what-ifs that a new girl in Harry's life would cause in the canon story line, but none of that can occur if the relationship begins after the fact.

 

At the time TLIL was original and remains one of the most influential pieces of FF out there (you could argue that that story started the whole H/F craze). The characterizations in that story are great, especially the hat and Aimee, and the progression of H/F's relationship was realistic. The whole point of TLIL wasn't the relationship but a "what if.." situation. JBern took arguably the best book in the entire series (GOF) and vastly improved it by making the Triwizard Tournament relevant. The complaint you listed (the Occlumency thing) was original at the time, it is cliche'd now because so many authors have used the idea since.

EDIT: It's also worth mentioning that the characterizations of Fred and George Weasley as mentally unstable, dangerous, jealous pranksters is incredibly well done and refreshing.

 

I don't think Jbern needs you to defend his story, as I'm sure he couldn't give two fucks. But if you're really that bored, go through all the reviews I posted (I think there are 20 or so) and go write defenses for all of them. The story isn't that old, and he had two hugely popular ones out before that (BITJ, TFTCD), so that excuse doesn't really ring true. Maybe if it was written in 2003, when occlumency was first introduced, then it would be original and could be excused. I really enjoyed the story the first time I read it. I thought it was one of the best as well, but a year later when I went to reread it, I couldn't even finish it.

But, I'm pretty much beating a dead horse now. There are many things I didn't like about the story, but as it was written several years ago now, it doesn't really matter and I don't think yet another discussion about the story needs to be had in this thread. Maybe when the long-promised sequel finally pops up.

 

I don't think sirius009 realizes that Fleur was introduced to us over 10 years ago.

 

Fixed

 

My first instinct was to call bullshit, so I looked it up. Release date was July 8 2000. Holy shit, I still remember standing in line, waiting for the bookstore to open up.

I'm old.