Has anyone ever read something that was like 150k+ words, it was actually written really well and there's a lot of build up for the final fight. But Harry actually loses the confrontation and Voldemort takes over and rules Britain?

I'm just curious if any writer was this much of a dick. I also find the idea hilarious because of the amount of frustration from all the readers.



Thought of this because I was just thinking about how you always KNOW Harry will win in the end, which breaks some tension. You're SORT of on the edge of your seat for what will happen next, but you know that in the end it's going to work out.

 

Ah true, I doubt I could give up all that good work. I am a sucker (more than a lot of you probably) for a "everything works out for the good guys" ending.

I'm not saying everyone has to die though, just that the "good" side loses and is rules by Voldemort, hell, it's even better if they don't die but are put at the bottom of the social ladder.

I'd probably break my monitor if I ever read something like that but all the same, it would be interesting.

 

Wow... I did not think of it like that. That could actually be kind of cool. However it wouldn't be my cup of tea because,

Unrelated: Fuck you for making me google a story that was H/G

 

The one I know that is fairly close to what you describe: MeghanReviews's Unsung Hero. When it was updating, it was for its time about the only tolerably written wrong-BWL twin-fic worth following. (By today's standards, it'd be at the lower end of Almost Recommendable, as it featured comically evil James, Lily, Dumbledore, and Twin, but for a 2006 story folks were still reading it.)

Then, in the last chapter...

Spoiler

Voldemort is defeated by Harry, but not before Hermione (Harry's best friend, love interest throughout the story, and then wife) is slain. Harry's brother Daniel, a spoiled asshat and principal antagonist throughout the story, is saved by Harry during the Voldemort showdown in a misguided effort to "do the right thing" and prove somehow that Harry is better than the Potters. Or something similarly retarded.

Later, Daniel comes to the hospital, spouting bullshit about Hermione being his promised prize, vows "vengeance" for her death, negates Harry's magical prowess with a plot coupon, and hits him with a Killing Curse.

Fuck you. The end. And all to set up a harebrained premise for a sequel that nobody read and that the author abandoned shortly thereafter.

There was another story (on SIYE of all places) that basically began with the standard HP conflict with Death Eaters and Voldemort taking over the magical world, only for a pivot near the end of the story to go to some very weird places. I don't remember a lot--just that at some point, Ron and Cho turn into feral Vampires and haunt the Forbidden Forest.

Then, out of the blue, the Muggles unleash nuclear armageddon on one another. Magic protects the Wizards from fallout for a short while, but then magically protected places start to fall. Diagon Alley is wiped out. The Forbidden Forest burns. The Ministry collapses. Eventually, everyone living comes down with acute radiation sickness and starts dying.

In the end, it's just Harry, Dumbledore, and Ginny as the last three people alive on Earth. The story ends with Ginny dying and Harry holding her hand.

Nukes fall, everyone dies. The end.

 

Wowwwwwwwwww. Yeah that's pretty close to what I was talking about. I'd always put that story off because I wasn't interested in reading something where Harry is either not the BWL or had a sibling. But that solves my eternal struggle every time I scroll past it looking for new fics.

....Wowwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww.

EDIT: And that took 4 years to finish too? After all that time and you get kicked in the balls for reading it. Dayum.

 

For what it's worth, Backward With Purpose and sequel are quality writing, worth a read despite the pairings. (It's in the Library.)

 

A lot of stories that Voice of the Nephilim has written have "bad" endings (I feel like this is implied by the "horror" category, but very often horror stories have good endings). Not all, but a fairly large number.

 

Good doesn't always conquer evil.
Why should Harry losing to Voldemort be the "bad" ending?

I've never read a decent fix which had the Order losing and the Death Eaters winning.
The closest thing would be Dark!Harry who has joined Voldemort.

 

The reason bad was in quotes was because I didn't mean the ending was bad so to say, just that it isn't the expected "the hero wins" ending.

 

That was literally my first thought on reading the OP. God that story was awful.

 

I'm impressed any of you made it to the end of Unsung Hero. I gave up after a few chapters.

 

Never tried Unsung hero, mostly because I don't see the point of Harry being the brother of the BWL.

Because, why would he save the world if he wasn't the chosen one....

 

In the case where Harry's twin brother (or just brother) is the BWL. The Harry in that story isn't really Harry Potter.

The character that is Harry Potter is defined by his BWL status (his personality too but it can change a bit and he's still Harry), if he doesn't have that then he's just an OC that probably doesn't even use canon Harry's personality (because rarely is that ever used in FF).

The only difference between him and any other OC is that he becomes the hero for...some reason.

I mean that a character's name is potentially the least important and defining part of that character.


EDIT: I mean really you're just writing an OC and using the name Harry to get readers.

 

Basically it's about Harry who has a brother who has his personality and name.

 

Unsung Hero? In that story Harry is the BWL but everyone thinks it's his brother. Also his brother is nothing like canon Harry from what I remember.

 

Well, Santi does the whole Harry is the brother of the BWL in, guess what, Harry Potter and the Boy Who Lived. It's pretty popular and still very good (I re-read it a few weeks ago) even though it was last updated in 2010 and is for all intents and purposes now abandoned.

 

I disagree that Harry is defined by his status as the BWL. Much of his development and growth in canon was his struggle to define himself outside the terms of that title, and his resistance to those who tried to sequester him within it. He wanted to be himself, wanted to make his own destiny and decide who he was for himself.

Daniel, in that story, is actually what Harry might be like if he did allow himself to be defined by the title of BWL: an asshat.

 

True, in canon Harry is by the end of the series more than just "the BWL". But I'm saying if you want to start a story before any of the canon stories (or at the same time as the first) you don't have that, all you have set in stone is that he is the BWL. Perhaps that he is timid if you want to leech off the first few chapters of Philosopher's Stone.

So if you start a story at either of these times and he's not the BWL, he's not Harry Potter.


In my opinion.