Taure, why is there no Ron the Death Eater among your competitors or Hermione the Hypocritical Witch? They'd be perfect for this.

 

Actually, I'd be against them. It would be cliche overload.

 

Other character ideas:

Gilderoy Lockhart who actually did what he says he did.
Moaning Myrtle who killed the basilisk and subsequently defeated Voldemort
Hermione who never became friends with Ron or Harry and became a Dark Lady
Alastor Moody who never lost his leg, nose, etc.
Ginny - watched Harry die to Voldemort and fought him the rest of her life
Sirius who fell through the veil into this shit
Frank Longbottom who lost his mind but not his magic and is insanely badass
Trelawney who has the second sight and can sense your next move
Hagrid, who had his wand snapped and... snapped.
Lupin who embraced his Lycanthropy.
Tonks who embraced her Metamorphmagusry.
McGonagall who loves Necromancy, not Transfiguration

 

My money is on, that Mia is an Eldritch Abomination

 

Should be hilarious. I just can't imagine it happening though, since this is a girl who went sobbing and bawling for a whole day, probably multiple times at that, when other people said mean things about her. The potential is probably there, but fuck, you could say the same thing for almost anyone with that reasoning.

 

Nearly fell out of my chair laughing, as that seems to be about his luck.

 

All in favour of making this a serious, collaborative idea?

My contribution is Cedric Diggory, returned from the Dead as a Vampire. Not the "Sparkling Fairy" type, I'm talking about the Classical Vampire, complete with the ability to turn into a bat and hypnotize people.

 

Some good ideas for extra characters here That said, in the original the idea was to avoid making it filled with all-stars of Harry's time at Hogwarts. It doesn't quite make sense for a consortium of mysterious inter-dimensional godlike beings to be only interested in the 90s.

On the other hand, some bias towards the present is reasonable, as present wizards have access to modern magical advances, so you have to be a truly special wizard to counteract that with pure talent.

 

Obviously Mia is both an American exchange student AND originally from a world where Harry Potter was just a character in a series of books.

And the fic's author also just happens to be named Mia and shoot me now.

 

What, no Merlin yet?
-Merlin Emrys, master of space-time manipulation, recalling the future to mold his past, who resolved the conflicts of Camalot and established a utopia through the wonders of Avalon that has lasted for over a thousand years. Death has been abolished, world-hunger sated, crime undone before the criminal even developed into the individual who would think to commit it.

 

One of the characters I considered adding was either a Dementor or a wizard responsible in some sense for Dementors.

 

You know Sirius would be the perfect source of humor in that story.


For miles and miles, all Harry could see was water on the horizon. Below him, the rockface of the wall stared imperiously back at him, as if daring him to jump to his death. For a moment, he strongly considered it, but he shook himself free of his rising depression; it would not do to commit suicide before he even knew if it was worth it or not.

"What the hell is this place?"

"I don't know," someone spoke up, coming to stand beside him at the edge of the cliff. Harry, who felt positively ancient compared to his much, much younger Godfather, did a double-take. "My cousin murdered me and now I'm here." Sirius glanced around, coming to virtually the same conclusion that Harry did. "If this is hell," Sirius commented, looking at the impressive scenery, "then Satan's got good taste."

EDIT: Obviously, if this is going to be a collaborative effort, I'd like to take Sirius' character OR Moaning Myrtle that beat the basilisk.

 

Out of the ones you posted, my favourites are:

I think Hagrid could do very well, at least in the early stages.

My initial idea was that every world has a veil leading to this one, so Sirius getting there through a veil works well.

Putting all the cards on the table, the original idea could have gone in two directions:

1. The organisers are a group of very powerful wizards from various universes, each one a winner of a previous tournament. The winner of this tournament is their next addition.

2. The organisers are in fact the House Elves that everyone is overlooking as servants.

 

I am... legit down to collaborate on this. That said, prior experience says too many authors won't work, three seems to be the maximum feasible number, and their roles need to be separated fairly cleanly, with something like the following:

one to write the bulk of the text
one to fix dialogue/descriptions
one to fix style, edit, proof, etc

Also this kind of story needs the obvious "good guys eventually team up and overthrow the tournament organizers ending" otherwise it ends up cheap, boring, and predictable, but that's already fairly used, and killing off the protagonist is an iffy choice in fanfiction (though do-able if you end up making it a character drama instead of an action fic), so it would take some real creativity to keep the readers guessing.

 

I was leaning towards a "overthrow the organisers" plot, yeah, but at the same time I think the real draw of the fic isn't the action, but rather the character interactions and learning all these character histories, etc, which obviously Harry doesn't know from the outset. He's going to go and talk to Dumbledore thinking it's his Dumbledore, for example.

 

My thought is that an older Harry wouldn't immediately turn to Dumbledore for advice, but I like the idea of him trying to approach Dumbledore and getting a "who the fuck are you, I am the greatest wizard OF ALL TIME" from him.

Based on those suggested, I could see Sirius and Gilderoy helping Harry. Sirius would remember young Harry (and vice versa) and Gilderoy is a good guy stuck in a shitty situation. Dumbledore would curb stomp everyone, Ice Queen Daphne would die first. Trelawney would be a wildcard... I'm imagining she would be someone you'd leave alive in order to use her to your advantage. Then, late on, she'd see you planning to stab her in the back, and she'd be able to prepare.

 

In order to prevent curbstomp and put character interactions/alliances at the forefront, I was thinking that the fic would work best if it used a magic system where even a wizard like Dumbledore can be defeated by, say, Auror Harry, Revolutionary Lily, BWL Neville and Sirius working together.

Of course, Dumbledore also has magical peers in the group like Voldemort, Grindelwald, Ravenclaw. It's an interesting reversal from the Hunger Games that here groups would be the underdogs and lone wolves the predators.

Because of the "one competitor per universe" I think Sirius would work best as a hitch to the organisers' plans - perhaps the factor that allows the competitors the chance to upset said plans. As he went through the veil on his own rather than being summoned, maybe Sirius has been surviving on his own in the massive arena for years, ever since arriving on this world. Harry doesn't run into him until after he's entered the arena.

Another thing I had in mind: Harry immediately considers BWL Neville a natural ally and places a lot of trust in him, assuming a similar history... this turns out to be a mistake.

Oh, and I was imagining Ice Queen Daphne as somewhat Elsa-like (as in, from Frozen).

And I imagined Merlin, or some variation of him, as a previous winner. Also among previous winners would be wizards who were at one time considered gods: Ra, Zeus, Thor, etc.

Originally the "entry requirement" was to have conquered death, which for most means immortality. (Though in Harry's case it was something rather more esoteric). Except for Mia, who ended up there because of an administrative error. The organisers feel very bad about it, truly, but not so bad that they'll let her go. They'll give her an awesome mentor, though.

Anyway, with the additional characters I don't think this immortality requirement can be maintained. Though maybe... Lockhart has achieved immortality via his fame and published works, Trelawney through her ability to see through time, McGonagall via necromancy. Sirius is there by accident, so he doesn't need to be accounted for. Hagrid is a problem... maybe cut him out, I dunno.

 

A few things:

I really like the Neville BWL turning on Harry thing. If it should result in the death of a character, particularly Sirius, you've got GOLD.

On Hagrid: what if no one knew who Hagrid was except for our Harry? He's this outcast half-giant, half wizard who never had Hogwarts (or Dumbledore) to turn to and has been forced to live amongst giants despite his kind nature. I could see him coming in to save one of the good guys and killing one of your BOSSES.

On Sirius: I like the idea of him living in the arena for years, but that would make him older than Harry and quite dark -- the antithesis of my idea, but potentially better for a drama like this is shaping up to be. Perhaps he's been hiding in his dog form to evade notice, but seeing Harry makes him think that this is finally his chance to get out of the arena.

On Ice Queen: I think this character is reaching, especially if you're going for Elsa. I feel the magic systems are too different unless Daphne just has an affinity for ice spells.

I also think that you should use the idea of teams -- bad!Dumbles (had to say it) teams up with some of the really bad ass wizards and tries to take out the weaklings first. Harry's team proves more difficult to eradicate, and they start to turn on each other. Dumbledore is the first to execute another team mate (per your stabbing Grindelwald in the back idea). I think it should be NecroMcGonagall.

On Mia: I couldn't help but think that this was Hermione (in disguise) from a universe where she never met Harry so she doesn't care who he is. Harry realizes it before the end, perhaps even as she's dying. He'd naturally be rather cut up about it.

In my eyes, it would work best if the characters we all know live to the last. Gilderoy should be redeemed, McGonagall condemned, everything should be really bloody and it shouldn't last more than 100,000 words.

Last but not least: Taure should write this and we'll beta for him.

 

100k is a little short to explore that many interesting characters (for other writers. My proclivity for extraordinarily dense writing would probably lead to something even shorter). 200k would probably be more appropriate.

 

Before anyone starts this, we should probably establish which Characters we're sending, along with at least a little Backstory behind their characters/worlds.

Also, please have Mia turn out to be the most dangerous Player in this Game.