Is there a HP fanfic cliche that automatically prevents you from reading / liking a story, no matter how well written or how well executed? There are so many that induce an automatic cringe - helpful goblins, Lord Potter-Black-Peverell-Slytherin, Sirius the dogfather man-child, marriage laws, soul bonds, janky Veela love magic, etc...

It's always been my assertion that there are no bad cliches, only bad writers.

At some point, though, is there a plot point that's so tainted by association with terrible fics that you just can't do it?

Imagine an author you really like; maybe someone who has near-universal acclaim on DLP, like The Santi, jbern, Inverarity, nonjon, etc. Now imagine that author puts up something in WbA and says, "hey guys, I had this cool idea for a soul bond fic..."

So, is there any cliche where even the prospect of an extremely solid author writing about it would turn you off to the degree where you wouldn't even give it a chance?

 

As soon as a fic uses the phrase "Ice Queen", I leave. This is nearly without exception. This applies to Harry Potter fandom only, since I guess if you're talking about Mab or Elsa, then I guess it's almost a thing.

 

That's a great thread - lots of solid discussion.

I feel the need to refine my question, then: I'm not talking about cliche setups for a story, I'm talking about cliche images or plot points - I'm not exactly sure what the right phrase is.

"Harry has to marry X because of some law" is the setup for a story.

"Harry has a katana for some reason" is a small plot point that could happen in several kinds of stories.

I'm mostly talking about the second one - images, moments, small things that have become incredibly overused.

This is kind of a self-serving question - for my own fic, in the pipeline I have a couple things that I imagine will ping people's radar as cliche, and wanted to get a sense of what falls into the "acceptable if relevant to the plot and written well" category, and what falls into the "will not read under any circumstances."

 

I'm not sure if there is a cliche that will stop me from reading a fanfic simply because I've associated it with terrible fanfics. There are some cliches that I won't read but those are due to reasons besides any association with terrible fanfics. Draco the Male Veela whose mate is Harry Potter and both have to marry each other is one such cliche.

I can handle some terrible cliches as long as the rest of the story is decent enough to entertain me. Uber custom wand? Ron and Hermione on Dumbledore's payroll? I can ignore those.

 

Gender bending the protagonist.

Nope.

 

The only time it's acceptable for Harry Potter to be carrying a katana is if it's Fidelacchius.

 

I always thought gender-bending was one of those concepts that could be pulled off really well but it doesn't happen very often.

 

Stories that have Hermione abandon/betray Harry.

Stories that have a marriage law that's more than some financial incentive to have kids and somehow gets accepted and heeded by people used to fighting a guerilla war against mass murderers.

Stories that have Harry care more about the Malfoys than his best friends who saved his life several times so far.

Stories that wank to "Wizard traditions and culture" without actually detailing said culture and tradition.

 

Love potion Ginny. I am so fucking tired of it. If anything, Harry was the the one obsessed with Ginny for most of HBP and was more likely to slip her the potion; Ginny just didn't seem to give a fuck for most of the book. What makes it so irritating is how random it is- so many times it serves no purpose in the story whatsoever other than for people to vent their frustrations over the fact that their favorite pairing didn't make it in canon. Even good stories like Equal and Opposite use this cliche- Ginny acting wildly OOC and then dying a painful death seems to be one of the founding tenets of DLP.

If you want to use the love potion storyline, use Romilda Vane. I don't see why people use Ginny when there is a perfectly sensible canon character right there.

 

I tend to disregard most of what happens in books 6 and 7 since it characters are revealed as mere plot devices that act wildly OOC just to keep an increasingly insane plot on the rails. Potions and compulsion charms or curses are one way to explain the characters' actions, which may explain the "potion princess" trope.

 

If magical cores appear in a story I immediately stop reading.

Same with muggle-wanking or any form of muggle-centric stories. Harry Potter is a story about wizards and magic, if I wanted to read about muggles and their stuff I'd read the Economist.

 

1st year harry being in a serious relationship and I'm out of that fic fast.

 

I can understand schoolyard crushes and non-serious "girlfriends", but anything actually serious falls under horrifying category.

 

Mine would be Harry having a public argument in the common room with Ron/Hermione. Or just making a public proclamation in front of everyone.

It's an automatic nope for me. A clear indicator that this fic is a soapbox from which he shall comment on all the bits he didn't like in the canon instead of telling a story he wants to.

 

Deal breaking clichés, aka clichés that make me stop reading the moment I see them, regardless of all other content... this could easily become quite a long list.

1. Inherited marriage contracts.

2. Harry possessing more than one landed title.

3. Harry having a hyphenated surname.

4. Potter Manor

5. In fact, Harry inheriting any manor house.

6. Any person possessing an amount of gold that exceeds tens of millions of galleons.

7. Letters to Harry from his dead parents.

8. Harry being emancipated.

9. Harry being able to vote in the Wizengamot.

10. Any special laws which give significant legal powers/privileges to a magical aristocracy.

11. Non-horcrux soul bonds.

12. Adults allowing Harry to berate them publicly.

13. "Wise Harry" dispensing sage advice to people that he would only be able to give if he knew the future.

14. Any conversation in which it is stated that Muggles would beat wizards in a war and that wizards should be scared of them.

15. Any serious use/inclusion/mention of firearms.

16. Excessive use of legal authority which ignores de facto politics (e.g. Harry using any kind of legal authority to overrule Dumbledore within Hogwarts... not going to happen).

17. In fact, let's just put down excessive use of legal authority in general.

18. Pretty girls lining up to convince Harry to fuck them.

19. Harry needing to be convinced to fuck pretty girls.

20. "Harry's so noble and such a gentlemen, he never shows any sexual interest in me at all, he is respectful to the point of absurdity because it's inconceivable to his low-self esteem that a girl could have sexual desire for him... and that's why I want to fuck him! There's nothing more attractive to me, a teenage girl, than an insecure eunuch."

21. Veela mate.

22. Fleur being a Veela, rather than a mixed race girl with Veela ancestry.

23. Any penis length over seven inches.

24. "Slytherin solidarity"

25. Voldemort torturing his followers as routine, rather than extraordinary punishment for massive fuck-ups.

26. Voldemort lacking any kind of strategic plan to actually take power, and instead spends all his time making random attacks until Harry decides to kill him.

27. "Voldemort is actually misunderstood."

28. Evil Dumbledore.

29. Harry at any point going into a monologue, spoken or thought, assessing previous events and coming to a conclusion about the "real" interpretation of those events (includes both manipulative Dumbledore and realisations of True Love).

30. Wizarding society depicted as having Victorian dating sensibilities.

31. Political marriages.

32. Wizarding world being depicted as having significant gender discrimination.

33. "Magical Britain is a backwater."

34. "Hogwarts is below the international magical standard"

35. "Pup"

36. Prank wars.

37. Magical education being referred to as "training" rather than "studying".

38. "You should dodge instead of using a shield."

39. In fact, any kind of acrobatic Harry who is hopping and skipping around while duelling.

40. Harry becoming a magical genius over the space of a summer.

41. Ability at practical magic being depicted as entirely independent of magical theory.

42. Friendly Goblins. Did I really not mention that yet? This should have been number one.

43. Dobby becoming Harry's slave.

44. House Elves need the magic from a slavery bond to survive.

45. Custom wands.

46. Harry ditching Ron and Hermione as friends.

47. Excessive smirking.

48. Horcrux destruction without the destruction of the physical container.

49. People casting wand spells without a wand.

50. "Harry likes flying, not Quidditch."


... I could probably keep going for a while, but 50 seems like a good round number to stop at.

 

So, uh, breaking away from the house elf debate for a moment, I thought from the title that this thread was going to be about the life cycle, as it were, of clichés.
Which seems like quite an interesting topic, honestly, and while I recall there being consensus on DLP about the average readers of certain genres (teenage boys = Indy!Harry and so on), I can't quite remember clichés that ever completely disappear from HP fanfiction.
I mean, are people still writing about the portable, bigger-on-the-inside trunk divided into rooms? I'm pretty sure that there are still Azkaban!Harry stories being written, and I'm also sure that Weasleybashing or Dumbledorebashing will never die out.

Back on topic: something which annoys me a lot, are very, very tired jokes.
For instance, some wizard going "Dentists? Aren't they Muggle torturers?". Or claiming they're teh evuls. Things like that. I know it's pedantic, but still.

 

If we could move away from the house-elf debate for a bit...

Some of these make sense to me, some don't. Actually, sense we're talking about a matter of taste, they don't have to make sense to me. But you prefaced the list with -

And it seems like there are some very good fics that you'd axe. For example:

No more A Black Comedy - but I'm guessing your list doesn't apply to humor/satire fics? (Although A Black Comedy had enough heart that I don't think I'd consider it a crackfic.) I don't want to make assumptions, and you did say "regardless of all other content. Not trying to nitpick you, I'm just trying to get a better handle on what you're saying.

No more C'est La Vie (although Harry IS from the future, so maybe this is okay?)

Would nix Taking Control, I believe (although it's been a long time since I've read it, isn't there that big section up front where Harry's doing wandless levitation and summoning?)

Actually curious what you mean by this... like, the idea of making a wand specifically for a person rather than making one and hoping it matches with someone?

Basically it seems like your list is quite harsh, if you really meant the "regardless of all other content" thing. It seems like many of those could be foreshadowed, set up, and written well enough to work, possibly even in a creative way.

 

The list is exactly as harsh as it appears. I have read the fics mentioned and enjoyed them... in the past. If I were to read them today I would not be able to get through them (in fact, I tried to reread A Black Comedy recently and gave up).

Though I never liked C'est La Vie.