I find it kind of humorous how close to home you hit with the analogy. Is he a beta?

At any rate while I agree with most of what people have been saying it doesn't really bother me much. Perhaps we'll see more reaction out of Harry next chapter when he's in private.

I think the main reason Harry wasn't made a champion was because he'd have won and Santi wants to revive Tom this year. I was always looking forwards to the DoM more than the TwT. He'd better have Harry there.

 

Unlike most I'm not that bothered with Harry's meh reaction to getting utterly and completely humiliated with the wizarding world as an audience. Sure it bothers me, but my suspension of disbelief can explain it away with him being severly doped up on prozac-potions and pushing his occlumency to the limit. The rage can come later once he's had time to stew and overhears some ravenclaw fuckhead mocking him behind his back.

What pisses me off is that Harry's cunning plan relied on there being no one there to either distract or interfere in any way, so he decides to do it during dinner, just minutes before the selection, when every single student and teacher is there instead of when the place is deserted. He even went as far as having Nathan disillusioned and silenced so he wouldn't be reminded of his brother and thus break the spell, what about Ron and Hermione then? Shouldn't seeing his brothers best friends remind him that "Oh there's my twin's best frienWAITWAT?!" *TILT*.

There's no other way to say it, having Harry stumble and fall on the finish line because of one measly second is retarded. Michael Bay levels of retarded. It's the epitome of all last-second bomb defusals and 'haha i had one more round in the clip', a plot-device that is as clumsy as it is stupid.

Advanced magic and lots of interactions with the masses is a very poor substitute for defeating a dragon, rescuing a damsel, and outwitting a horde of magical beasts in a giant maze. Because at the end of the day he'll still be that guy who failed getting selected because he was stupid and wanted to show off in front off an audience instead of playing it safe.

"What's that you say? The brother of the BWL got another A on his test? That's nice, hey have you heard about Nathan?! He's winning all of the Triwizard tasks and he once defeated a Dark Lord!"

Harry Potter, Slayer of Exams and Special Projects doesn't have quite the same ring to it.

 

While I am a bit disappointed, I feel we first have to wait how things are going unfold in the next chapter before crying out "ruined forever!".

Personally, I don't think this is that big of a deal. As mentioned before, if this had been the canon triwizard tournament, it wouldn't have been that interesting to see Harry deal with them. Sure, I believe Santi could have put some very interesting and more importantly original spins into the tasks taking Harry's skill and mindset into account, for better and for worse but overall, the true importance lies in Harry's interaction with his peers and families and that will still happen.

On the other hand, if this Triwizard tournament is going to be a completely different one with original tasks, like Jbern did, well, we are still going to see Harry deal with them but in a much more restricted and challenging way. Juggling his responsibility between Krum and his brother is bound to be interesting.

So, yeah, a bit disappointed but overall, not really worried. Can understand the overall reaction though.

As to Harry's mellow reaction, well, I also saw it that he was simply too exhausted/sleepy/drugged to throw an epic tantrum or start screaming and raging. He is going to react to this once he is back on his feet.

 

Both can afford to, Harry has plot armor (not that he knows that) and Dumbledore is just so good that he can disarm every other wizard he would possibly face. The rest don't have those kind of protections and as such they would naturally seek to even the odds out to keep bad things happening to those they love.

 

Santi did say that this was in his original outline, and really, I feel like it's too early to judge if it was a bad or a good decision. He said that hopefully there'll be an update around new years - I'll reserve judgement till then. It seems like a lot of people are overreacting, and assuming just because he wasn't chosen, that he won't end up in the graveyard, or that he won't be able to play a major role in this year at all.

 

I think it's not the fact that Harry hasn't made it into the tournament that is bothering everyone, it's how he missed the opportunity by 1 sec. It just sounds like a really cheap plot device to make sure he is not selected.

 

Really? I honestly thought it was an excellent plot device. One of BWL!Harry's preeminent characteristics is his intelligence, his skill with magic. To have him simply fail to get through the age line would of been far worse than having him fail by seconds.

Dumbledore himself actually explained what had happened to everyone watching, he explicitly told everyone that Harry in fact had beaten his age line, and had only barely failed because of time. Definitely helps him save face, though he doesn't know it at the time.

 

But Harry kind of HAD to lose by a few seconds - if he didn't manage to cross the age-line, he wouldn't live up to his promises, and would appear incompetent, or at best, he'd be treated as a normal kid who wanted a try, and got outsmarted by good ol' Dumbledore.
If Harry had managed to get his name into the goblet, it's likely he would have been picked. Whether or not we take the earlier conversation with Dumbledore as fact or not (what defines a champion), Harry would likely be a better champion than Viktor.

This only leaves Harry managing to get past the line, nearly managing to submit his name, but failing due to his ego. And really, what other reason would he have to submit his name at the very end, when EVERYONE is there to see him (unless we saw something about the Goblet becoming weaker nearer the end, I can't remember if that is this fic or not)?

 

Harry failing to enter by a second is no better than MacGyver disarming a bomb with timer at 00:00:01.

They clearly knew that they had to hurry, yet we didn't see them hurry at all. I know that, if Harry is to pass the line, there is no other elegant way of having him fail, but it doesn't make this any better.

Same thing goes for his lack of rage and bitterness. In case of (impossibru) failure, I expected Harry to rage as much as fanon Ron when accused of being a dark wizard. Or more. And if he was heavily influenced by drugs, I'd expect narrator to tell me that...

That said, I remember my thoughts when I read about Santi's idea before he posted first chapters of BWL - I didn't think much of it, to say the least - and, so far, the story turned out to be pretty awesome. When Harry moved to Durmstrang, there was a lot of nay-saying, and I think it's safe to say that Santi's Durmstrang is awesome, while still believable. That's why I believe him when he says that year 4 is going to be awesome.

It still sucks that Harry failed. :[ I wish it was a troll update like the one with rocks killing Harry in Denarian Lord.

 

Are you seriously saying that the plot device used in literally every action film with a bomb scene ever is "excellent"?

Hint; It's not.

To have him fail to get through the age line would've meant he couldn't surpass an age line made by Albus Dumbledore. There would've been no shame in that.

Instead, he literally could've, I don't fucking know, NOT done any of a million random things he did that day, gotten there 3 seconds faster, and managed to put his name in.

Or actually went to put his name in the Goblet the second he figured out how he was going to attempt to get past the age line, like any person with a IQ higher than a chimps would do.

So, he fails spectacularly in front of all three schools, and then the man everyone knows is pretty close to Harry and his family just ups and tells them "It was really awesome, and it would've worked too if it weren't for those meddling kids!" and that saves him face? I don't think so.

We've been reading the same story, right? The one where Harry foes to a cutthroat school like Durmstrang and is constantly in danger, no matter how many times he fucks up his peers? They see Harry fail, it's a weakness and they don't think "Shit Dumbledore said it would've worked... better not mess with him!"

And now they also see that Nathan is in so they start wondering, maybe Harry isn't the most talented Potter boy? Maybe he's been mooching off Nathan somehow to get ahead in school?

I understand most of you love this fic so much that you will argue any point, but honestly? This latest chapter is a fucking clusterfuck with a BIG amount of flaws.


EDIT: Has it ever been specified WHY the Killing Curse rebounded from Nathan? Seeing as he didn't have his mothers blood protection, I think it's kind of a big deal.

 

This man is a winner. Anyway.

In order to resolve the massive let down of Harry's failure, The Santi has to cook up something that is greater than or equal to the Triwizard Tournament in magnitude and general awesomeness.

While I'm sure whatever The Santi has planned will be decent enough, I doubt it will compare to the stuff happening in the TWT. I guess we'll just have to wait and see.

 

This is essentially my problem with the whole thing. Even if there is something of equal magnitude which isn't likely given what the tasks are, it probably won't be in the eye of the public on the grand stage for the world to see. This makes it less impressive for all intents and purposes. Harry needs to prove himself the best wizard of his generation in front of his former house.

It is essentially useless. Even if he unmasked the fake Moody before the final task, it wouldn't surpass the TWT. I simply can't imagine anything plausibly giving him the opportunity to surpass the TWT. I expect more of the same from the Santi...grand magic and character interactions, but that only works for so long in a story that promised more. Eventually, you have to do something different.

 

Just after the first task, all four dragons escape and it's up to Harry to tame them and save everyone at Hogwarts... Wait, you said plausible. Never mind then.

 

Already done, Celestin, in the GoF version of Sacrifices.

 

Yeah, but we can easily come up with a more spectacular failure: getting thrown back from the Age Line with a beard, like some common Hogwarts maggot. Now that's a result he'd have trouble saving face with. Especially after Dumbledore all but told him it was possible to bypass the Line, and gave him free rein to try. This way really is the least harmful to his fragile teenage ego; the fact that it might seem the most annoying from the reader's point of view doesn't mean that it's the worst from Harry's point of view.

(the third option is Harry succeeding, only to have the Goblet choose Viktor instead. Wow, that one would have fucked Harry's ego right the hell up)

With the way you typed this, it sounds like you think it's a problem. I disagree. Yes, Harry is an arrogant ass who will not respond well to that sort of criticism, if he gets it. But I'm just not seeing why that's a bad thing.

It's true that if he had been chosen as Durmstrang champion, he would have gotten fellated by many of the students, and would have had to deal with the jealousy of others. We've seen that pattern before: it's called "The First Three Years of Santi's Story."

After Santi said that he had planned this all along, and that there were "hints," I tried to think if there was some unifying axiom for the plot of this fic. I could be wrong, but I think I've got it. It seems simple enough that I should have rationalized it out a while back:

Santi!Harry will never parallel canon!Harry's (i.e. Nathan's) path. He will only intersect Nathan's path from time to time.

What does that mean? For starters, it means no TWT, because that's canon!Harry's bailiwick. On the other hand, he might find his way to the graveyard; it would just have to be via an entirely different path from Nathan. If he does, I don't expect he'll be tied to a gravestone, or otherwise do things that canon!Harry did that night.

Next year he might find his way to the Ministry of Magic while Nathan is there (or might not; I have no clue). But again, if he goes there it'll be by way of an entirely different path, and he'll likely have different goals.

He will probably cross paths with Nathan/Ron/Hermione in 7th year, if this story is still following the basic pattern by then. But he certainly won't be camping with them, hunting Horcruxes, or doing anything that would actually parallel their path for more than an instant.

Like I said before, I really hope this story gets to the exciting, critical event stuff soon. I don't want to read seven years like the first three. But I am now more confident than ever that whatever adventures Harry has, they'll be unique to him. This has not been - nor will ever be - a story where we see how much better a superior!Harry deals with canon challenges.

Time will tell if I'm right or not.

 

Your post would make more sense if you didn't give canon challenges as examples.

For me, this is very much fic about superior Harry facing the same universe->challenges. Or has been till this update.

 

To the author, great update! I might've been a little happier if the rush of those final moments was made more apparent - their movements more frenzied. They were almost at the end of the time limit, after all. There was no way for them to not have realized that.

Other than that, I'm glad that the story is taking this route, to be honest. BWL!Harry is really a completely different character from Canon!Harry and as pointed out in the post immediately before this one, his challenges should similarly be different from those seen in canon.

As it stands, the author has taken a cliche idea and turned it completely on its head - and the resulting story has been excellent so far. He's said the fourth year's tale is going to be awesome and I don't see any reason not to believe that.

 

I won't lie. I've never been a huge fan of this story and I always thought it was quite overrated. I would never say I hate it, as I did like it to begin with, at least some of the parts, but as is the trend with all my past reviews, I think it just keeps getting worse.

I think you keep digging your plot and characters into a bigger and deeper hole with every chapter that passes, and you've already gone past the point of recovery. That ship sailed a few chapters back.

It's hard to pinpoint exactly how it happened, but I think it's a combination of elements. You are constantly having Harry learn more powerful and difficult magic in every chapter, just so you can set up a single scene where it will be useful down the road. That in itself is tedious, and not even necessary.

I think you are killing yourself with your attempts to be original. But originality doesn't always mean good. They are not synonyms.

This story had one major thing going for it, one trick that made it really popular, and that was Durmstrang!Harry. I have no complaints (and no praises either) for how that has been portrayed at all. It's everything else that really bugs me.

Your handling of Dark Magic was average at best, and average in the ffn community is sadly awful. It's a shame that's pretty much the entirety of the new magic Harry has been learning. Obviously, learning how to make an inferius is for the betterment of mankind. It's all a bit contrived and I don't think that most it would actually work if it actually played out this way. It's all a bit contrived, and so far all the conflict it has caused is a bit shallow, forced, and heavy handed.

And that brings be to the logical nature of this story. You are clearly steering your plot through some ways, and none of it really makes any sense. Book 4 is my favorite to read and write about, and it would make or break this story. I honestly think your writing talent is falling you. You are delving into the dark depths of your mind to come up with 'original' ideas to make the story more exciting, in the hopes that you will win all our hearts back with awesomeness in the upcoming chapters, but really, the last chapter was just utter shit. I think you are falling back into the same pitfalls that ruined your previous story. You are like some of the other authors here, where you think you can take a well used cliche and do it properly and make it awesome, and I think you are missing your mark by quite a large margin, and when you do actually try to write something that is awesomely clever, that fails as well, so it's twice as worse. Of course, there are a hundred fanboys out there who will disagree with me, and try to discredit those post with random bits of halftruths and shit I don't care about.

All your logic behind the Goblet of Fire and Harry having to 'prove' himself, and the solutions you come up with that... the logic is so faulty that it has more holes than a colander. It just doesn't work. The whole Legillimency/Occlumency was played out past the breaking point chapters and chapters ago. No matter how many of your fanboys try to defend and explain that part of the story, it just doesn't work. It's a shame that pretty much ever word written for this story for the past three months has focused on that, just for all of it to be thrown out the window anyways. Waste of time, I think, despite the forced plot of Harry learning some 'hard life lessons'. You overcooked it a bit.

Everyone knows what you are trying to do. A nonparticiating!Harry has never been done before (not true, I know), and you want to prove to everyone that it can be done, and it can be done properly and awesomely and in some hugely grandiose manner that ties the whole story together and pulls out random things from chapters long past. And you want to show that no matter how much contrived, malicious, pointless, Dark Magic Harry learns, he will never be like Voldemort because he cares about his family and friends. Well, congratulations. Now we have a Harry who knows the meaning of failure, will be even more determined, etc, etc, yawn, don't care. I'm not even interested in the possible subtle, gradual conversion of Nathan to use the Dark Arts. I'm not even remotely interested in which scene you have picked out to have Nathan finally realize there is no other option.

Luckily, I didn't have high hopes for this chapter anyways after the subpar last chapter, so I'm not surpsied that this story has finally divebombed itself into the ground. I'm not disappointed at all. This story is going exactly where I thought it was going; down the drain.

 

I thought this update was pretty much par for the course as far as this story is concerned. Harry hasn't really done anything as described in canon so far, so why would he start now? If I wanted to read yet another TWT tasks re-hash, I may as well just read the book again.

You seem to have mastered the art of saying absolutely nothing with a huge block of text.

 

I would argue that being chosen as the legitimate champion for Durmstring on the basis of Harry's own merits and cleverness would not be mirroring Nathan's(orginal Harry's path). As Nathan's path is one of becoming a champion of a non existent school with Nathan as the only registered student. You could make a far stronger case that Harry would be mirroring the original Krum's path if he became Durmstring champion.