I'd forgotten how much I disliked this one until I just saw a fic that did it: using 'alternative' punctuation marks to indicate thoughts, Parseltongue, spells, "mind speech," or whatever other bullshit the author wants to use this time round.

Brackets will never be an acceptable way to denote thought. I don't even know why you'd think of that in the first place to be quite honest.

 

1)- Politics in slytherin. These are children, they will not be playing political games, they will be playing games. Maybe in the upper years.

1B)- 1st year Malfoy instantly dominating all Politics when he arrives at hogwarts.

2)- 'Cool' Malfoy. The guy was joke since day one, and never had any good showings. How did this become a thing?

 

I saw equals signs on each end of speech on a radio or mobile phone in a fic yesterday

 

This has always confused me tbh. If people only like stories about in-character Harry, fair enough. If you turn Harry into a hard-working Riddle level genius though, he's pretty much already an OC in every meaningful way who just happens to have Harry's name and face. Doubly so if he's given adequate or better social skills as well.

I get why people write him that way, I would too given that I'm not a massive fan of canon Harry (whiny, lack of enthusiasm/dedication for learning magic, fine with blatant cheating/nepotism if it gets his buddy on a sports team, gets by mostly on deus ex machina, etc. Except in PoA which is my favorite in the series because of that.) It just seems weird as hell when people rate Harry in name only stories normally, then turn around and subtract points from others for 0 reason other than the main character not having the name and hair.

That's a meta pet peeve of mine I guess.

 

It's about the brand. FF is about exploring the world you already have a connection to. "Harry Potter" instantly buys sympathy because we like Harry Potter. An OC or a less popular character has to clear a higher bar. Such is the nature of fanfiction.

 

Exactly. There is zero real reason for Harry to be your protagonist, especially if you want a genius etc etc. I think fandom just puts too much stock in the prophecy/canon events, so of course Harry must be the one to fight Voldemort.

Even if you want the prophecy and such to matter, Neville is a better choice to get creative with (and remain Neville in more than just name and features). He's got the "genius (in one field)" thing; Herbology is criminally underused in fanfic as it is. He canonically pursues his academic interest outside of required classwork and when it's not literally a matter of life and death, so it's not too much of a stretch to portray him as a hard worker. He canonically gets over his initial...Nevilleness and develops into a pretty badass and grounded character, so you can simply accelerate his character development or extrapolate it a bit further. He actually has direct ties to (living) pureblood culture, so you can imagine all the mansions you want. You have a reason to give him a fancy new wand that isn't just "to escape le evil manipulative Dumbles" or some shit. Hell, he doesn't even have much of a connection to Dumbledore so you don't have to come up with convoluted bullshit to have him go "independent". And personally I think he has a much more powerful reason to take up arms against Voldemort than Harry does; you can't miss what you never really had, but Neville has a constant reminder of what Death Eaters did to his family.

...why do people write about Harry again? Give me an increasingly savvy Neville going up against a complex and actually competent lieutenant!Bellatrix any day of the week.

 

chaosattractor, it's not so much that Harry has to be the one to fight Voldemort. It's more that Voldemort is probably the staunchest believer in the prophecy in canon, so he comes after Harry. But if you write that Bellatrix vs Neville fic, I will read it.

 

I believe the answer can be found in Tom Felton's looks.

 

Ah actor/actress looks, responsible for so much bad fanon. Cool Malfoy, short Harry/Ron, hot Hermione, etc.

(With that said though, Felton is a pretty ordinary looking dude IMO, as are most of the actors in the series save the dude who played Neville, so I still have no clue where cool Malfoy comes from)

 

I think that's your answer right there.

 

The Draco in Leather Pants cliche started before Tom Felton even started puberty. It's because, in the minds of certain people, blond+rich+antagonistic=ZOMG hot aristocratic bad boy. Since there was a big Buffy following at the time, I'm willing to hedge my bets on Spike fangirls.

My current pet peeve is the three months summer vacation (that's not the result of messing with a time-turner, though that's just as bad). This is apparently a thing in Murrika, but not in Hogwarts.

 

Actually, I have no problems with Voldemort winning. It'd be nice to have the antagonist win for a change.

 

Tom Riddle is supposed to be brilliant and naturally charismatic. Voldemort, who has spent more than a decade as little more than a wisp of smoke, is, by all accounts, fully entitled to wonder furiously how a child could have beat him when he was the strongest wizard alive and on the verge of everlasting life.

Taking that into consideration, what little humanity is left in Tom would have been warped by his experience living as a sickly, malnourished shell of a man. His followers forgot him in the wake of his fall, and left him to search Albania aimlessly to sustain his life. In his shame and rage, he would have become even more demented than he already was and slowly, he would place the blame at the boy's feet.

Voldemort is solely focused on retribution.

He has logical reasons for being twisted, both before and after his fall. He is awe-inspiringly powerful and certainly more knowledgeable than young Harry, but his fractured mind causes him to lose sight of the bigger picture and make mistakes that can easily be exploited, if one has the courage to do so.

 

Chamber of Secrets being panic room in case muggles invade Hogwarts. First, chances of muggles even finding Hogwarts are slight. Second, if it was panic room, why would it be a) near lake, which could result in illness and spoiled food ( though magic could probably deal with it) and b) why would it contain enormous statue of Salazar Slytherin, that releases violent and dangerous monster when words " Speak to me, greatest of Hogwarts Four'' ( paraphrasing here) are spoken in Parslentongue? If anything, it is temple to Slytherin, known racist.

 

This totally depends on the history being provided by the story. There's no reason that 1,000 years ago muggles may have very easily been able to find it, in that particular fic.

In canon that does seem to be the case, though our knowledge is limited in that area. Here you're triggering another pet peeve which is acting as if all canon facts apply to fanfic for some reason while at the same time, I assume, being completely ok with other changes from canon you deem more 'right' in the fic. If a fic wants to write him differently it can absolutely do that. Mind you, that doesn't mean it can't be done very poorly, usually it is.

 

The Dursleys, or more often just Petunia, suddenly becoming nice(r) to Harry without reason. Like, Petunia somehow faking hating him for all his life because reasons, or straight-up telling him she loved Lily and mistreated him because she missed her sister.

Of course, the opposite, when they're über-evil and torturing the shit out of victim!Harry, is even worse, but come on. You can't have read the books and not understand they genuinely disliked Harry for several complicated reasons (well, Petunia's were complicated at least).

 

I'm sorry if I came off as harsh or elitist. Probably should have provided context. This reasoning, in my experience, most often comes in fics which claim to follow canon, yet completely ruin it. So, Chamber of Secrets looks completely same ( except containing books of magic that make Harry most powerful mage ever after reading them once) and nothing from book two is changed, yet basilisk was harmless animal manipulated by Riddle, Dumbledore is evil maniac.... It is probably because of me, as I mostly don't approve of such canon changes.

 

Well, Rowling gave us the same excuse with Snape.

 

Except he didn't mistreat Harry because he missed Lily, he mistreated him because he looked like James and Snape is kind of a bitter grudge-holding dick.

Like if anything it's the opposite, that he wasn't a total asshole to Harry because he missed/whatever Lily.

 

Unironically requiring robots in a sci-fi story to follow Asimov's Three Laws. More hate if the author tells readers to go "look them up" or "read some classic sci-fi". Clearly the author hasn't done the reading themselves if they mention the Three Laws in such a manner.