I would agree that the weight of politics in the story is distracting.

I don't really care, though. Wonderful characters, world building, horror, action, romance, update rate... 5/5

 

Andro basically said it all. From the story (and from the extended summary in MattSilver's profile), it is implied/stated that the wizarding community didn't feel a big impact from the zombie outbreak. Sure, London was lost, and therefore all the wizarding buildings/areas around there, but their school is still running, their ministry is still running, their hospital is still running, they still have all their separate communities (The Burrows, Godric Hollows, Hogsmeade), etc.

The number of 1000 living wizards may sound ridiculous, but the clusterfuck of numbers that is canon has already been discussed to death without any satisfactory outcome. The important fact, at least for me, is that in this story, while the muggle are post-apocalypse, the wizards aren't, and their whole population to begin with wasn't much more than the 1000 we have right now. If you can't deal with that mindframe, well then that's a real pity, cause it's decreasing your enjoyment of a damn good story.

EDIT:

See what I said above. My impression from this story is that the muggles are in that apocapyptic state with most of them dead/undead, while the wizards actually still live quite normally. I don't know about the Burrow, but Malfoy and Bones manor for example still exist, are lived in, and are secure.

The whole thing is somewhat paradox, but I quite like it. While most of Britain is in fact devastasted, and the muggles are forced into two remaining (well, only one now) cities, the wizarding community is still intact, because they're so isolationist. And the numbers, see what I wrote above.

 

Malfoy is also filthy rich, and of the upper crust of the wizarding world. Bones also seems to be in the upper classes. They both live in manors behind substantial protections. It's not at all reasonable to judge the rest of the wizarding world from the conditions of the Malfoys. It'd be like judging the condition of the average person in the United States from how Bill Gates lives.

And I'm sorry, but you can't just handwave away the population size of 1000. If Matt wants that to be the actual, normal size of the wizarding world, then it's a dumb number and he should adjust it. 1000 people is tiny group of people, basically a village. The politics, government and bureaucratic structure are overbearing and way too developed for such a small population. Added to that, its well below even the smallest number than makes sense with HP details. If it's not the normal state of the wizarding world then my point about significant damage, etc. still stands.

 

This story is a very enjoyable read. However, I'm surprised at the level of loss the magical community has taken. Once they knew to recognize and avoid the walkers I would expect a wizard or witch to cast a standard shield charm and/or apparate to a place warded against unwelcome intrusions when in danger. Of course, its possible for the infection to reach them if an infected person apparated inside the wards.

Enjoyed the politics in the story. That's the best part.

4/5

 

Oh, I do understand your position, and I think perhaps we would have been better off not knowing it was completed, and just settle for being completely surprised every two weeks. I do agree with releasing it in stages too, just the whole two week interval seems like an arbitrary number to me.

A chapter pretty much gets the biggest inundation of reviews in the first day or two it was posted. Then the third day it will half of that, if lucky, and then the 4th, a third, until the author is getting just a fraction of the initial reviews for the second weeks. Sure, in the beginning this will be different as people are just learning about the story, but when everyone and their mom has it on their alert list, it's just going to be 10 days of stagnant feedback per chapter. Not to mention that if it took him 2 or 3 months to actually write it, why take twice as long to release it? He would honestly probably get more reviews if he released a chapter once a week, as the story would stay current and not stagnate.

And then there's the whole 'having it completed' thing itself. Clearly, there are drawbacks. Sure, it's a luxury, sure, I'm a greedy prick, sure, I should be on my knees and worshiping Matt for having a wellwritten story already completed for the DLP masses. But already, there's already some people pointing at some of the flaws. And if an author puts so much heart and soul into the story, just for some people to say it's not perfect to begin with, it may give him cause for wanting to redo some scenes, to make them better and streamline them. In the long run may effect the entire story as a whole, and give him reason to have to redo a lot of what he's written, or just scrap whole chunks of the story itself. I'm not saying that's the case, but having a whole story written already isn't always a good thing, especially if the possibility of just having to write a bunch of extra stuff exists. But hey, who are we to say the author is right or wrong? It just seems more of a headache than it's worth.

I'm just of the mindset where I don't want to have to reread a story every other month just so I can remember what has happened previously.

So yeah, you can flame me for being a greedy prick, I don't care, but if the author is going to write a story that is going to create the urge to want more, then damn straight I'm going to bitch about wanting more, because I want more, and he has more, and he's not giving more. rageface

 

Dynamic author entry.

So... some things to address.

But first off, thanks to all those who gave feedback, and I'm glad the story's been positively received - except for those two things I better address here - even in these early stages. To be a tease, let me just say that the next three chapters introduce a few more plot elements before the blender's turned on and doesn't quite stop mashing people and politics and zombies into a bloody pulp... Should be a fun ride.

Okay, first off, the politics. Numbers wise, I won't lie about it being a bit of a clusterfuck. Maybe it's just the vagueness from canon that's thrown me off, or because I want to say a thousand's a big enough number, or that the world being, you know, wiped out, makes it a big number. Andro's right about it being a willing suspension of disbelief, and while I'm open to suggestions as to what number I should change it to, at the same time I don't think it's that far of a stretch. Regardless, the point was that it's such a small number that civil war will destroy it, and that's supposed to add to the weight of the politics.

Also, should point out that the number was mentioned in Chapter Two, not just the extended summary: "Sixteen in a population of less than a thousand"...

Anyway, the point of the number is to reflect off of the Muggles, more than anything. Before Liliford was destroyed, the Muggles outnumbered the wizards. Hence, the disclosure wanting to bring them together, that's why it's such a big deal. The hows and whys things are the way they are and why the Wizengamot is important even when it shouldn't be are explored later on, but really, the wizarding world is stagnate and sticks to tradition. Notice how we have ex Death Eaters walking around? The implication (Which, again, is later outright said) is that the end of the second Voldemort war was much like the first, and not even zombies can change things that much.

Ultimately, the politics were always going to be a major sticking point, but... I still wrote them. They influence a lot, push a lot, give reasons why the plot moves in certain directions, give character arcs a push, and even after nearly a full week of rejigging after my first draft, my story wasn't the same without them. I wrote them because I wanted to see if it could be done, because it hasn't been done, because I just wanted to stretch my legs in something I haven't tried before.

Rest assured, even if you skim the politics parts and it takes a good point or two off your final review scores, there'll be plenty of zombies and fun stuff like that.


Okay, issue two. The update rate.

All my previous stories were written ahead of time. It wasn't a big deal - I'm just a meticulous fuck. The fact was that I didn't want to be one of those authors who start something and never end it. So I write ahead of time, and when it comes to posting and an issue comes up, I'm able to fix things and know exactly what it affects. Breach of Contract, my last story, had a different ending because of feedback here on DLP, and I was able to know every facet I had to change ahead of time, because it was done, because I knew. Again, meticulous. The one time I didn't do this - Tis The Season Of Summertime's last two chapters - you know what happened? My update rate went from once a week to three months later. Not cool, me.

Okay, with a bit of history out of the way, you know why I wrote this all beforehand (See also, the fact I've got 160k of unfinished other stories sitting around, including that Harry/Fleur one). Of course, it was planned to be 80k words at the beginning, but words make fools of us all... So it's finished, complete. 16 chapters, each more than 10k words, a few hitting 25k, and that's a lot of words. I revise and self beta, have Lutris and pals look it over, and with everything else in life, the two weeks space seemed best. Also, I may have wanted to have another story ready and written by the time I was finished posting this one, but eh, no loss. Two weeks was the rule, but, given feedback, I've decided it can be changed.

So options are as follows: once a week; once a week with super cliffhangers granting two weeks because I want to be a tease; as is, with two week gaps, barring one week exceptions with chapters that were split up and would be better put out within a week rather than two; or, I get my ass to WBA, post half the chapter one week and the rest the next. Once a week is probably the most viable and I'm sure y'all would like that better, so I'm leaning that way. Just because I love you guys and all that.


So, I hope that's addressed the major issues. Again, I'm loving the feedback and the reviews, and would love to hear more. For example, on the characters you're liking thus far. Two reviews mentioned Malfoy - I won't lie when I say writing some of his later stuff was just epic - but I'm interested to know who else gets the love, and who you're looking forward to seeing more of. Cricket bat-wielding Ron, Astoria, any of Harry's gang, the Muggle OCs... Just curious who's catching the eye and stuff.

Thanks again, guys.

 

So... I read this thread before actually reading the story.

And I've got to say that the story aligned with my expectations so well it's almost scary. That's a good thing, mind you - I don't like it when a zombie apocalypse is turned into either a horror story or a comedy. Politics is great, even when the reasons for it existing are stupid (note: it's like that in real life a lot of them time too).

4.5/5, rounded up.

 

Well the politics have been hashed to death, so I'll just say one more thing and move on. I think, that in the scenario Andro and co outline, (and that if I read Matt right was his intent), where the wizarding world is stlll normal then the politics illustrate the themes of the story very well and are ok, though not great. The issue I have is that when I read the story, I just don't get the picture of a wizarding that should still be operating as "normal." For all the reasons I mentioned before (as well as other more subtle hints, such as Harry mentioning that that Astoria was married to Malfoy because of the plague, and that no matter what else is going on she's at least safe now) the picture of the world that the story draws in my mind is one thats very much in disarray, thats suffered catastrophic damage, etc. And I can't reconcile that world with the politics. To me it's politics from a story of an undamaged, or not badly damaged world, mashed in with a world that has actually suffered deep losses and huge changes. They don't fit together.

But obviously not everyone got the same read, including some people I very much respect. So it is what it is. It certainly shouldn't stop anyone from reading the story.

The other thing I noticed when I read, and I'm not sure its intentional (but if it is, it's brilliant) is a moral ambiguity about Harry's character. He's on the "good side" the "saving the Muggles side" but there's hints throughout that, despite his protestations to the contrary, on some level he does see the Muggles as inferior and less important than wizards. It seems its more important for Harry that peace be maintained in the wizarding world than that the last Muggles in Britain be protected. (I could be wrong, of course, but it certainly seems that having to choose between the two, he's choosing stability in the wizarding world. Add to that his description of Malfoy as "not a monster".

He thinks Malfoy is part of a plot/group that in cold blood slaughtered hundreds (thousands?) of people for no other reason than too advance his campaign for a wizard only world and to marginalize Harry. (Thats ignoring the chained up zombies (that is ex-people) that Malfoy is delighting in torturing.) What exactly does it take for Harry to consider Malfoy a monster? Would he consider Malfoy a monster if it was hundreds of wizards his group slaughtered? I don't know for sure, but I tend to think so.

So the picture of Harry that I get is an ambiguous one; he's trying to help the Muggles, but at the same time in his subconscious it seems that maybe he agrees about the "lesser status" of Muggles, but he suppresses that in his conscious life and actions. This view, in turn, brings up all kinds of delightful questions that Andro mentioned, about what it means to be human; what the "greater good" is, whether its more admirable to fight against your subconscious beliefs (Harry) or embrace them (Malfoy).

So maybe I'm reading too much into those little hints and things Harry says. But I prefer to believe I'm not. And either way, I fucking love the characterization, beautiful writing, and subtle hints that fill the story Matt.

 

This has to be my favorite zombie apocalypse story. I do however have to jump on the bandwagon and wish that it updated faster. 5/5

 

I'm not so convinced about the background with all the dead magic people but since when have zombie stories well established backgrounds.

 

Lovely-jubbly, Matt! You had me hooked straight off the bat, and I simply cannot wait for the rest of it. Since I'm not the most politically-savvy myself, any gripes I may or may not have had about that don't matter, particularly in the face of so much awesome post-zombie apocalypse action.

I'm also more than a little looking forward to a Mrs Malfoy-stealing Harry... or however it plays out.

I'm going to reserve my rating for once the story is complete, but it's certainly pushing for 5/5 territory at present.

 

I find this really boring so far. Everything just seemed so predictable and it was tempting to just skip a ton of parts.

It also seemed like you kept on and on pointing out how little influence Harry has and how the purebloods have more votes etc. I can see that you need to do this for world building etc, but if you're going to keep pointing it out several times a chapter over extended character discussions its going to get even staler quickly.

On top of that, Harry killed Voldemort, so why on earth is it that he has just about 0 political influence. The canon wizarding world would take anything he said as gospel, not to mention elevate him into high office with ease, if he rallied for it. At the very least I'd expect marginalizing the purebloods and their views would be fairly easy, since they could probably rally the public with "don't you see that these guys views = Voldemort's?"

I'm not going to rate since we're only 3 chapters in and I'm guessing there's a good chance you have a nice explanation for all this.

 

Yeah, I noticed that too. There was a section where Harry said that his Boy-Who-Lived status could only be cashed in for free meals and the like, not pay the bills. I overlooked it, but in retrospect it's actually the most ridiculous thing.

His reputation alone is more than enough to not only pay the bills, but let him live in opulence. If he became nothing more than a parasite to society for the rest of his life, they would let him.

 

Yeah I mean like, who the hell are Robards and Selwyn, as far as political capital go I would have expected that unless he went through a massive slander campaign after the war, he would have pretty much no one close to his level of influence, let alone being an ineffectual player himself.

If you re read the end of DH, after he saves Malfoy's skin however many times and it kinda gets implied that his word saved their family from Azkaban, but that they still lost nearly all of their influence since everyone knows they were legitimate DE's at some point, could you really ever imagine Harry going on from there to become Malfoy's personal healer, of all things?

 

His influence as an 11 year old who defeated the Dark Lord before he could even speak should be vastly different from the acclaim he gets for beating him in front of most of wizarding society as an adult. I would think, following that if he were to so much as give an interview saying "Selwyn is evil, his goals are the same as Voldemort's" it would hold a lot of weight. Not to mention that if he were to run for Minister etc it should be pretty easy. I'd compare to Dumbledore, not Lockhart.

Certainly I wouldn't have expected him to go from defeating Voldemort to becoming one of Malfoy's personal attendants.

I also don't really get how these particular people have any kind of power at all. I would have expected them to have barely avoided Azkaban following the war, not retaining some of the most prestigious social positions. Disregarding that, I still don't see how they could jail Harry or whatever.

If he's much more connected to the public than they are, there would be enough of an outcry that the 12 or so of them shouldn't really be able to go "well we have the votes, so tough".

 

You're assuming that the Wizarding World in the UK was a democratic system where the people's votes matter at all. We've seen no free elections for governmental positions in HP canon at all, and the only vote we've ever seen happen on-screen is the Wizengamot ruling Harry innocent of all charges during his trial in OoTP.

We've not seen how Ministers are chosen aside from the fact that they ARE elected into office (whether it's a public vote or just a vote within the Ministry or the Wizengamot cannot be said), so your assumptions, while within reason, cannot be supported. True, public opinion does seem to be important, as evident in Fudge's immediate sacking after the revelation of Voldemort's return at the end of OoTP, or the treatment of Dumbledore in that same book (his office of Chief Mugwump being rescinded, amongst other things).

However, this is precisely the reason the Ministry, as seen by the reader through Fudge's actions, always attempts to retain a tight control on what information the public receives and believes in by way of the Daily Prophet. It stands to reason then, that with a significantly smaller population (just about the student population of Hogwarts during Harry's school days), it becomes less a matter of publishing inflammatory articles in the premiere newspaper, but more a matter of doing whatever the fuck they want and rationalizing it as an attempt to preserve and rejuvenate wizarding society.

This is exactly what the quote-un-quote Pureblood Agenda seems to be doing within the framework of Incorruptible so far.

Also, building on top of what Sesc has presented:

I doubt that this is truly the case. Defeating Voldemort would indeed lend him quite a bit of influence- but I argue if that influence would truly matter in the Wizarding World as it is now, with a vastly undersized population. Harry, for all intents and purposes, is metaphorically, the workaholic dad that goes to do his job all hours of the day so he can put food on the table for his family and send his kids to school. He's just not at home enough for the kids to truly appreciate his actions, no matter how honorable and self-sacrificing he is.

Harry's off helping the Muggles, and he's going on raids more often than not. On top of this, he seems to have been generally uninvolved with the Wizarding World in the past outside of his job as a Healer (the fact that the he hasn't really participated in any Wizengamot meetings until the story opens is indicative of this), and this tells me that he was less of a public figure and more of a "I-want-to-help-whomever-I-can" character. In short, it seems to me that he's looked at the canonical saving-people-thing and taken it to heart, in the most appropriate profession available. Given that this Harry WAS canon!Harry right up until the moment the Final Battle ended (Matt's given me that much, at least), I should think that this is a reasonable assumption.

The point is, is that Harry seems to have: 1. Not capitalized on his fame and prestige following the defeat of the Dark Lord, at least in the sense of political power, and 2. Become genuinely interested only in his own agenda, of which we the readers are still only privy to his goal of saving the Muggles in order to prevent a Wizarding civil war.

Additionally, to address the issue of why 'these people have any sort of power at all'.

They've always had power. This is fucking canon. Lucius Malfoy was able to buy his way out of a prison sentence following the first War, and then kept on slipping enough coins in the right places to cement his position at the top of the elite. By the time canon rolls around, Lucius has a Minister of Magic in his pocket, sits on an influential position on the Board of Hogwarts Governors, and generally comes and goes in the Ministry as he pleases. Other purebloods were able to do the same. Karkaroff became fucking Headmaster of one of the most prestigious schools of magic in Europe after being tried for being a Death Eater.

tl;dr, I think you're full of shit, IBG.

 

The idea that Dumbledore's political capital comes entirely from defeating Grindelwald has always annoyed the hell out of me. Sure thats part of it. But Dumbledore is also over 100 years old and has been in politics for the majority of that time. He's accumulated a wealth of personal favors, of proteges, and of people who owe him in that time---in other words all the things that make politics go round and that are required to advance your agenda.

He's also been the Headmaster of Hogwarts for something like 50 years--thats half a century of the opportunity to be one of the biggest influences on the minds of the people who grew up to run the country. They, whether consciously or not, will always associate Dumbledore with their education, with being older/wiser, etc. Dumbledore was also reknowned for being a magical genius and intellect without peer before he killed Grindelwald. And his duel with Grindelwald was legendary. Harry.....yeah he doesn't have that.

Harry doesn't have the repuation for magical prowess and wisdom that Dumbledore had. He doesn't have his years of experience, connections, and favors owed. He hasn't taught nearly the entirety of magical Britain like Dumbledore did. Comparing Harry's position to Dumbledore's is ludicrous. Harry doesn't have near the level of pervasive influence and near universal respect/fear that Dumbledore did.

And, and I think you're overlooking this, it was relatively easy for Fudge and his supporters to reverse the publics opinion of Dumbledore, to strip him of his government positions and influence, and generally marginalize him in OOTP. If you'll remember, he was a wanted fugitive at the end of the book. It's not just the young and naive Harry that the Ministry easily reverse publc opinion of and turns into a crazy madman, its the legendary Albus Dumbledore.

So it's not at all not in keeping with canon to have Harry's political position be precarious. It's often overdone in fanon, but the fact is, in canon the wizarding public is basically powerless, quiescent, sheep who follow along with whatever the power structure is currently telling them. They adapted apparently easily to Voldemorts, takeover, they change opinion on Harry/Dumbledore at the drop of a hat, etc. etc.

And I don't remotely understand how you can have trouble believing the ex Death Eaters still have political sway. Have you never read the books? It's exactly what happened after the first war. Money to buy your way out of prison, money to retain and extend your influence, and because the Ministry says you're innocent, the rest of society doesn't utter a peep. There is a proven, literally straight from the books, example of this happening. Why on earth should killing Voldemort magically change the corruption in wizarding society?

As a final thought, it was fairly obvious that Harry is Malfoy's personal healer solely because he wants easy access to Malfoy Manor. That has nothing to do with his lack of influence in the world. It's a tactical move that the story spells out for you.

Edit: Ninaja'ed by Lutris while typing

 

Yeah, I'm basing this on the idea that the wizarding world doesn't magically get better after Voldemort dies, because you know what? Canon didn't exactly paint that picture either. The Malfoys got off scot free (Though here I at least imprisoned Lucius for a plot point), and if the end of the second Voldemort war is anything like the first, it is seriously not that far of a stretch to believe that most of the purebloods will dodge Azkaban. Corruption and gold runs the wizarding world, and with things are they are in the story right now, Harry's lucky it's not worse. He has political support, he has Robards and Ogden on his side, but the purebloods have and will demonstrate exactly how much influence they have. Things are always on the edge of total annihilation, and the exact hows and whys have in-story explanations to be revealed later.

Also, also:

Is it bad I want to hear exactly what will happen next from your perspective, if it's so predictable? I'm actually interested to hear something like that, you know.

And Chapter Four beta work is coming along nicely. The chapter's got plenty of politics, with some big ol' speeches from all sides, and should help paint the picture of the world a bit, but probably not in the way everyone seems to want (more purebloods in control moments). Although, I'm not entirely sure what reactions will be, so we'll just have to wait and see.

Thanks for the feedback.