Jbern's Turn Me Loose and Lens Of Sanity's An Old and New World both have the Goblins joining Voldemorts efforts because Harry either out-maneuvers them (TML), or calls every goblin he meets Griphook (O&N).

 

Hahaha, I hope he does that disingenuously. That sounds hilarious.

 

You guys are the utmost douches.

Obviously one prefers a happy medium in their stories, but I stick by the assertion that (most) dialogue becomes stale without some type of emotion being injected by the narrator.

"Search your feelings," Don said, thoroughly disappointed with some of the website's comments. "You know I'm right."

 

It's so much more powerful when an author can leave those things unstated and have the reader pick up on them anyway, though. The reader actually feels them, as opposed to being told what to feel.

Take The Very Secret Diary. It's an exquisite piece of Fridge Horror, because long after you read the whimsical, very much children's fantasy Chamber of Secrets, you realize that something like this version of events must have played out between Ginny and Riddle. And it's entirely in diary format - 100% conversation, 0% description.

Thus, when Riddle is being particularly vicious or clever and it goes over Ginny's head, there's no, "he said, cackling menacingly," or, "he said, obviously manipulating the scared little girl." No, all of that takes place in your mind, as the reader. If you can pull off that kind of thing, I'll discard pretty much all of my specific HP fanfic likes/dislikes and read your story, because doing that is 90% of what makes writing powerful and compelling.

 

We can agree to disagree; it's not that one or the other of us is wrong anyway. I agree that dialogue can be handled that way, but its the exception that proves the rule, isn't it? The reason that particular story works is because you already know something bad is coming from reading the novels. There is no need to explain Ginny's emotions because we already know what they are. A very good author would not need to say "Ginny's hand trembled as she waited for Tom's words to appear" but its particularly tedious to write a lengthy amount without some narrating.

Being as its a diary, it worked. But for most stories (horror and humor aside), it would fail, I think.

 

I want to know what the Goblins actually use gold for.

EDIT: More specifically, Wizard currency gold. Why do they like/want it exactly? Do they use the same currency?

 

I remember reading a fic where the goblins respect you if you have the balls to insult them to their faces. It basically started with Sirius walking into the bank and calling the teller shitface.

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I'd like to see a fic where at the end of the Battle of Hogwarts the goblins rebel.

 

Goblins as a race have a kink about gold, and every vault is really just a giant orgy room for goblins. Except for the Weasleys. Broke ass bitches. /s

Realisticly, having control over the gold is probably something that they won as concession during a rebellion/war, and acts as a safeguard against any wizarding aggression. I doubt they have any practical use for it, other then a currency (and really, does that make them any different from us).

 

Money, the same as we do/did.

It cannot be made by magic (appart from the philosopher stone which is one of a kind and does kind of break the system).

It is limited, it can be readily traded and does not diminish.

Gold only has value because we choose to give it, and we give it because we need something and that fills all the stated requirements.

 

Maybe it has something to do with Goblin-Magic, which as we all know is infinitely cooler and better than Wizard-Magic.

 

If it where, they would succeeded against the wizards in the fuckton of rebellions the pulled off.

 

I can't really say this is flat-out wrong, since it's mainly a style thing, and even if you do use it, the books themselves do as well (sparingly), but holy god am I getting sick of Mars and Venus Gender Contrast.

Even if it's played for laughs, it's just not funny. The comedy of men not understanding women and vice versa had been pretty much mined out by the time that 90's standup acts took the idea and ran it completely into the ground.

If I read one more fic in which an otherwise-normal Harry becomes literally retarded if put in a romantic situation, to the point where he is utterly baffled when he comes back from summer break with the standard package of "I needs to work out for my Magiks" / "this saleslady is flirting with me i will buy ALL THE CLOTHES / "my hair is long and i got contacts for some reason" and women are falling all over themselves lining up to flirt with him, and he's like, "I don't understand what's happening," I'm going to lose my freakin' mind.

Also, I could do without scenes where a Confident!Neville (can easily substitute Bill or Charlie Weasley) claps Harry on the shoulder and gives him a "mate, you could live for a thousand years and not understand witches..." speech.

Or scenes where a gaggle of suspiciously attractive girls (either OCs, or the 2nd-teir girls in Harry's year, Lavender/Parvati/Hannah/etc, tease him and flirt over his head and make him blush while dressing him up, while Sirius and/or Remus look on, fondly and say things like "James would be so proud," and the girls ALL love Harry like a brother, and there's no jealousy or hard feelings, and the girls act like this around literally no one else. No, Harry is their mascot, or their idol, or something, because he's a Perfect Gentleman and a Hero and they're women so that's basically like a beautiful alien to them. And Harry would never take advantage of them because he's missing the part of his brain that can hit on girls, so to him they're this strange species that jiggles pleasantly and makes him blush and it turns out that one of them is his True Love. He'd never be able to figure it out himself, but he's pretty sure His Girls will point him in the right direction, and when they do, and send him off to her, they'll make quippy little comments about how cute his ass looks in those pants as he stumbles towards his destiny.

Just, no. Men aren't monosyllabic apes. Women aren't aliens. We're more interesting than that.

 

I know what you mean. However I would say in the world of anime this problem is even more pronounced. I also think that the authors that tend to do this the most are the younger crowd that have yet to enter a real relationship.

 

This is the biggest understatement in this thread so far! Almost the whole of shonen has this problem, which is one of the reasons, why I shun this genre almost entirely, cause they can't write decent romance to save their damn lives, besides a few other things!

E.g. the whole bunch of broads over at Pit of Voles who write... try to write yaoi and fail.

 

Shonen is ridiculous, there are three types of characters, tsudenres (while to some degree I find it amusing it get's annoying really fast), the yamato nadeshinkos (the quiet/moe/cute/supremely bland and boring one) and the weird one (the japanese equivalent to the Maniac Pixied Girl). If the girl fight, she is Tsundere. If she is LI, she is the Yamato, if she is a part of the comedic part, the weird one.

Reducing a strong headed and willed person like Harry (who let's remind you, took charge of his romantic life even while 14 and doing things most teenagers would die first) to some blushing mess, or the girl's mascot, or something equally ridicolous is just damn frustrating.

People seem to forget just because he didn't wave his cock around, he was pretty good, asking a very pretty and popular older popular girl out in public, wasn't opressed or very impressed with a gorgeous girl (Fleur, where at his age most men would become either a mess or tried to do everything to impress her), went out with Cho even with those very messy feelings, kissed his best friend sister in front of everyone, including her ex and best mate, without knowing how she would react, made out with her on her house where he family was...

Damn impressive record, Harry has his defects, but low self-value and steem is not, methinks.

 

It also doesn't hurt that Harry Potter was kind of written for kids. If Rowling wrote it for a more adult or even young adult audience, you bet your ass you would read about just how Ginny knows what Harry looks like shirtless.

 

"Not many people know it" or alternatively "Not many people in Britain know it but everywhere else they do because they're enlightened qizards, but Grindlewald wasn't killed during his duel with Dumbledore in 1945. He survived and then Dumbledore secretly locked up his former lover in Nurmengard."

Usually at this point horribly!transparent!manipulative!Dumbledore's secret is revealed and everyone is scandalised that he didn't kill the magical equivalent of Hitler.

I dunno, something about this plot line annoys me.

Edit:

Not really related to Harry Potter, but in fics in a military setting.

Being in a relationship with someone in your military unit is a fast way to get discharged. Being in a relationship with a commanding officer is also a fast way to get kicked out of the military. Unfortunately, nearly every fic that has co-gender units, the writer nearly always has a female (and it's nearly always the female character) having feelings for someone they shouldn't have, being horribly transparent about it, and then trying to pursue this relationship.

No one in the military who actually cares about their military career would jeopardise their career like that. No one. It's fucking irritating.

I suspect it's linked to the common trope where characters of opposite genders simply can't be just friends in TV and Movies.

 

Is the fandom so tapped for creativity that Hermione always has to be "bushy-haired"? I mean, there are other words. Wild, frizzy, untamed, whatever. Describe her as having "angry hair" - that's at least an interesting image.

Why does every H/Hr fic describe her in the summary as "a certain bushy-haired Gryffindor"? Is that supposed to be coy or something? Like, do we have to guess who that is? Just say Hermione. We all know Hermione.

 

Phrases like this in FF have made me hate the word certain.

 

I don't know why, but I read your post and the first thing which came to mind is that she has pubic hair on her head. Just sayin'