"most Gab fics"
Eh, what? I know of roughly four H/Gabrielle fics (Rating: All, Character Harry, Character Gabrielle, Genre: Romance) and while my memory of them is sketchy at best (not very well written, I don't think), I doubt they are like that. But anyway, I'm pretty sure you will like Hope, despite the whole fairytale romance thing.

 

I never said I hate Gabby. I just don't see what the appeal is.

I mean, with Tonks you have cheerful nature, shape-shifting and auror skills. With any Slytherin chick, you have love/hate relation, sarcasm and constant danger. With Luna, you have loonyness. With Gabby? You have lovestruck 8 year old girl. Wow, what a catch...

Seriously, I know you can have her grow up and develop her a real character, but really, she's only slightly better than using an OC.

 

She's better than an OC? Hmm... to me that's all simply personal preference. I think an OC could be better than most canon characters.

Gabby as a lovestruck 8 year old = beyond squick and disgustingly illegal. She's got to be older for one, because that's not love that's a childhood crush and adoration. 6 years different in age is not much often times, but between 14 and 8 it's an impossible gap. Even this fic knew that and Gabby never said anything until she was 16 and Harry would be potentially willing to accept it.

With any girl, (Tonks, Luna, Ginny, Slyther-wench, Gabby) you only have like 2 or 3 things in canon to even deal with. It's all the other crap authors put into it. fem!Blaise can be a metamorph if you want too. Maybe fem!Blaise graduated ten years ago and is an undercover auror assigned to earn Draco's trust and keep tabs on the school. Now Tonks and fem!Blaise are practically interchangable.

Hell, we know more about Gabby than we do about some members of the DA. For a gabby fic you have to deal with a new country, a different school, an age difference, a new language, an older sister, and of course Veela. That's more than we know about say, Hannah Abbott, Megan Jones, probably most of the D.A. (Do they have brothers or sisters? Do they have any special powers? Are they even remotely attractive?) It's all up to the author to mold the characters taking the tiniest snippets canon has to say on them and then adding in everything else. Hell you can turn Susan Bones into a redhead fangirl growing up sticking her elbow in the butter dish and write a fic that's as disgusting and rancid as the average Harry/Ginny slap-filled fluffbucket. It's just our perception at the fact that at least it's not Ginny.

I'm not saying, don't hate Harry/Ginny. I hate Harry/Ginny. But it's more the aspects of a wretched!Ginny are in the fic 95% of the time, and it's only about 5% defined by canon. And we change that 5% all the time. Whether it's Pansy being secretly pretty, Ginny being secretly bald, or Cho being secretly a man. Use a pairing to skim down options because there's too much fic out there to read it all, but don't use them as absolutes. Gabby's 5% overlaps with Ginny's in that both were saved by Harry. And that's about where the similarities end. Before Harry saved her, we know what Ginny thought of Harry. After she saved him, we know from at least HBP what Ginny thinks of him. Gabby we know nothing about. Maybe someone could write a fic where after the 2nd task and lake, she turned nine for god's sake and started hating Harry. Before you can introduce romance between Gabby and Harry you have to grow her up and give her something she did. Whether it was pine for Harry from afar or completely forget about him. She's a snooty french veela who probably always gets her way. All the tasty things about Slytherins can be attributed to her easily, and we've got canonical evidence this one's going to be a hottie. Veela?

 

I read the first chapter and liked it. I will never bash another Harry/Ginny fic again.

On another note, could anybody else stand to read it in Comic Sans? It hurt my eyes when I tried.

 

With canon characters you have at least some background - already built relations with other characters, looks, personality... With OC's, you first need to waste pages and pages on developing their relationship with other canon characters and generally defining OC's place in the world and THEN build up OC's character itself.

So yeah, you can write a good OC, but IC characters, regardless how minor they are, always have at least a slight advantage.

We know all that from the fact that she's Fleur's little sister. Gabby herself don't carry much weight on her own.

--

Bottom line, yes you can make her into an interesting character. But the point is that she doesn't have much of an foundation to build on.

There's that anoying hero-worshiping, which needs to be dealt with, because I think we're all already sick of relations like that. And then there's the fact that she's a pre-teen veela, which means you need to de-age Harry or move the whole thing into the future. And even if you manage to do all that, you'll only end up with a carbon copy of Fleur (blond french veela). So what's the point of going through all that trouble when you can simply use Fleur, who has much better developed character anyway?

So yes, good author can develop any character into anything and make it work. But that doesn't change the fact that Gabrielle, as a canon character, doesn't offer much material to work with.

 

So far in reading all 9 chapters of this story Jeconais has done a good job of over coming the lack of material from cannon.

 

This is one of my favourite fics at the moment, and i don't really mind the long update times. And now for something worth reading

I think the authors idea is not everybody knows just how powerful Harry really is. the Harry potrayed in this fic seemsto be highly intelligent, and thus wouldn't let his opponents know what his limits ( or lack of ) are, hence the subterfuge. To him, this would be the perfect chance to downplay his abilities. Anywayz, thats how i see it.

 

I finally buckled down and read this story. I was a good fic over all. At least the author isn't going for "love now an 4ever since I saw u" thing. Well written, with good plot and nice character development. Jeconais stopped himself from falling into the Mary-Sue trap that inadvertly happens when introducing a new/background character and bringing them to the spotlight. Hell. JKR fell into that trap with Ginny. Wonder if she would consider using Jeconais as a ghost writer.

 

I find it quite funny to be honest...i think if JKR had posted book 6 as a fanfic it would get hell loads of flames. I've seen fanfics way better then her piece of crap...she should have given the ideas to a proper author 'cause shes a crap one. Every1 petrol bomb her house!

 

Yikes. Petrol bombing is going a bit too far, me thinks . At least, I hope you're joking. Anyway, she is a 'proper author'.

About Harry's power in this story, I daresay MoPhire is correct, because there really is no way in hell that four Durmstrang students would beat this Harry. Just one more chapter to go, should be good. (both the last chapter and to see what Jeconais' will get up to next)

 

Yeah, I think you're reading way too much into four students fighting him to a "standstill".

Hell I could box the heavyweight champion of the world to a standstill as long as he didn't want to hurt me, kick my ass, embarrass me, and he was merely trying to assist in a classroom exercise and teach me something without a desire to win.

Doesn't mean I could beat him or that I even did. The superest Harry of them all can fight to a standstill by not fighting at all. (Mr. Black on the other hand would undoubtedly accidentally beat his opponent.)

 

i find this particularly funny. shes not a good author? then what the hell are we all doing still talking about her story. were writing FANFICS about her story. shes benn KNIGHTED because of her stories. that is not indicitvie of a bad author.

 

JK's a great author or was now what she writes just doesn't appeal to some of us as much as it used to.

 

Yea most h/gab fics are very poorly written with plenty of grammatical errors that takes virtually the same plot as Hope, but speeds up the romance a bit before getting abandoned about four chapters in. There needs to be a good h/gabrielle fic where there is some action, less "lovey" romance and more of a real bf/gf romance, and a good author. Nonjon is write gabrielle is too young, however, it's called fanfiction for a reason, hell we bitch out authors that follow canon too much yet we want authors to follow canon on this h/gabby pairing. We can't authors who really wanna see h/gab happen make her age two years behind harry? Then it might work better. But nonjon was also right when saying we know more about her character than about someone like hannah abbott. Lastly the pairing is all what the author gives you, if the author is shitty, then a harry/underused character pairing will be shitty. If the author likes h/g but wants to do something different than it is plausible to say that that author will just write harry/whoever just like they would h/g. The author is very important when reading a pairing in my opinion..

 

her 5th book was good and after finishing it i was expecting some action or something to keep my intrest till she finished the books. but it felt to me like she got lazy and half assed it while she toured around getting her ass kissed.

 

i agree with that. her sixth book was one that was to heavily influenced by the media, but i think to call her a shit writer, or w/e he called her, is a seriosuly incorrect hyperbole.

 

Hmm yes, she's not a shit writer she just let the media get to her head and decided to let public opinion sway her decisons. Not a very wise path but those beloved by the media rarely are.

 

I dont care if the author is a male or a female. It's well written and I think it has a decent plot, as well as NOT overused pairing. That and the original quidditch team coming back didnt hurt the story at all. I liked it.It's very good read.

 

This is simply a fantastic story.

I thought that the pairing was excellent the way it was written, especially with the veela mating, ect.

Also making Harry a quidditch star was a nice change from the usual "Harry becomes the best auror ever seen as soon as he gets out of school and kills Voldy", It isn't as common as I would have thought.

I could go on about this story for much, much longer than my short attention span will allow, but I would not be able to express mt thoughts half as well as many of the people that have posted before me. So you could just read all the positive reviews about this story and assume that I agree

 

I only read the first chapter. It seems like the beginning of a good story, but I don't like much Gabrielle's character, somehow (and I simply hate it when some call her 'Gabby'. She's not a Gabby. >_<). She's too serious, too solemn and too sophisticated (in her speech) for a 16 years old. For instance, a monologue like the one she says at the end of the chapter strikes me as unnatural and completely forced.

That said, she is an interesting character; quite different from the other Gabrielles I've come across to (a grand total of... two, I think) but somehow less likeable. I also think the author emphasized too much her Veela side. She's only quarter Veela. Therefore saying she's not human is very exaggerated; as are her Veela powers.

Her 'stalker' side annoyed me a little too, and made it difficult for me to interpret her feelings for Harry as love; it looks more like a teenager's infatuation for a famous wizard, than genuine love. That, coupled with her way to manipulate everyone into getting what she wants (by mating Harry, she basically condemned her family to help her to get him unless they want to see her fade away or go crazy) irked me a little. Granted, she made a very rash decision when she was only eight; but she doesn't seem to be regretting it, or wishing she had waited. She's still convinced she fell in love with him, deserves him and has to get him.

On the whole, I don't know what to think. On one hand, she looks serious and mature (and quite precocious, as far as magic skill is concerned); on the other hand, she strikes me as a stubborn little girl who hasn't grown up since she bound herself to Harry when she was eight.

As for Harry: good characterisation, nice depiction of his thoughts and feelings, and an original way to describe his post-Hogwarts future. I only have compliments to make about the way the author wrote him.

Otherwise, a few (small) incoherencies... If wizards could learn French in only a week (allow me to burst out laughing at this assumption ), why didn't Fudge learn just enough Bulgarian in order not to get embarrassed at the Quidditch World Cup? Actually, it would have been more logical to have Harry teach the Beauxbâtons students in English; in all French schools, we start to learn English at 11 whether we like it or not. Given the apparent predominance of Great Britain in the wizarding world (cf. Dumbledore as the most powerful wizard in the world, or Hogwarts as the best wizarding school), it would be logical for the foreign students to learn English. All those from Beauxbâtons and Dumrstrang who came to Hogwarts for the Triwizard Tournament could speak English.

Ah, I'm picking at details. But strangely enough, I don't like the idea of Harry speaking another language than English. I don't know, it just feels... off.

Anyway, I'd like to express once again my absolute hatred for online translators. They suck. Plain and simple. Online translators need to be infected with all the virus existing upon earth until they implode, choke or die in one way or another... All this to say that I don't exactly know what the author meant when they have M. Delacour say 'Alors', but it's certainly not 'alors'. Sorry, I have my pet peeves...

Writing style: nothing in it struck me as particularly deserving a comment; good, neither awkward nor boring, flowing, but it doesn't make me fall on my knees and stare up at my screen in awe; which I sometimes do, with some authors (cough Thalarian, Yarrgh cough).

On the whole: certainly better than the average HP fiction; good characterisation, original plot and good style. But, as far as personal tastes are concerned, it's the kind of story I will read when I have nothing else to do.