Aurelius_8. I think you're confused.

This story was published way back in 2007. You say you started reading it in 2012.

Considering this story's success, I'd assume that by 2012, people would have read this fic, and as is norm with our world, people wrote more fics like that. Duh.

 

If you consider when this was written and completed, it was insane good. If you keep in mind when it was written, it still holds up. It's cliche now, but was ground breaking at the time. There weren't that many Harry/Fluer fics back then. And honestly, the hat is still funny.

 

I finally got around to read this and while I can agree that it's an amazing piece of writing, I didn't really connect with it. The story just didn't pull me down the rabbit hole.

Though I did enjoy Hat

 

I first read this about 2010, when I was first getting into Fanfiction. It was one of the first HP fanfics I read, out of what is most probably thousands of fanfics and still my my favourite Harry Potter one's.

From the tone of a lot of stories I read later, It really had an impact on what else was being after.

 

Everyone says that this was good for its time but not so great compared to modern fics. What are these modern fics that you're comparing them to? Which exact fics do you see this one as having a big influence on?

 

It's not necessarily that there are better modern fics, it's more that a lot of the elements of the fic are now far more commonplace, and borderline overused. Which makes the fic feel far less unique, and thus less good. Take, for example, that it's a GoF rehash, back then this wasn't that common, but nowadays you see these fics everywhere.

 

Lol at TLIL being a GoF rehash. That's like saying Renegade Cause is a rehash of OotP.

 

I quite enjoy Jbern's writing style and depiction of action(dueling, flying etc) but his weakness, in my opinion, is how his character deaths have very little impact. Or at least, they get killed, mentioned in the next chapter, and then never mentioned again.

On my first read I was blown away, but by second read I realized I had glossed over some faults. Lily cheating on James with Remus? What the hell?
And then there was Remus and Dumbledore dying in rapid succession...again, their deaths having little impact.

Really, I just reread TLIL for the action scenes. Transfiguration in dueling opens up a plethora of possibilities. All in all, I say, this is certainly better than To Fight the Coming Darkness, which is another can of worms(and meaningless character deaths) entirely.

 

TLIL definitely ended rather abruptly, which I presume was in part due to JBern's breaking into the kind of authorship that pays (and not having followed that in a few years, Amazon seems to suggest that he's become reasonably prolific).

 

It's been years since I read this fic, but if I recall correctly he talked about writing a sequel.

 

I first read this a couple of years ago and I thought it was fantastic. Even though many of the elements of this fanfiction have been incorporated by many other people, this stands out as one of the most original pieces I've ever read. Plus, who would've thought the sorting hat would play such a great role

 

Read this fic yeeeaaaars ago, enjoyed it.

Reread this fic a while after, still enjoyed it.

Reread it recently, still good fun

 

Read this a while ago. The idea of having a sorting hat as one of the main character, as well as having it have the sort of attitude and vocabulary it has in this fic was a fresh breath of air. A great laugh too.

The writing style itself is great. Dialogue flows incredibly well and the characters feel alive, having a carefully crafted personality of their own.

Had this story not been tagged as Harry/Fleur, it would have been quite hard to judge which way the fic would go in the romance building. The pairing wasn't rushed and instead fleshed out, making it one of the top in the pairing category.

I did have some moements of skepticism about this story, though. The Wizarding World in general is presented in a lot more grim fashion, and not in a good way. It's as though everybody has no mind of their own and is seemingly 'less aware' that Harry himself, as well as anyone he hangs around with. How the politicians seemingly rule the country with a swipe of their pinky because they are obviously corrupt and have lots of cash. It could just be me, as I've even found the canon's Wizarding World a little skeptical with how they seemingly accepted everything thrown at them.

The story has also end quite abruptly. There was apparently a sequel planned, but I've no idea if one will ever be released.

On the whole, a 4/5 from me.

TL;DR

+ Great characters
+ Great writing, dueling is written very well
+ Good Harry/Fleur pairing
+ Sorting Hat

- The 'Everyone is sheep but I'm awake' sort of vibe
- Ends a little abruptly

 

I have several problems with this fic.
Lily Remus affair: Only possible in bizzaro world.
Sarah Underhill subplot is never resolved.
Harry is not Harry in any sense a complete personality transplant.
Weasley twins Angelina poor villainisation.
The whole Gryffindor turns on Harry plot.
Swearing Sorting Hat.
Incompetent Dumbledore.
I rate it 2/5. Its bad.

 

How can an affair only happen in a "bizzaro world"?
Is there some needed resolution to the thing with Sarah Underhill? As far as I saw it, it was Harry holding a particularly dark part of Snape's life over his head and not some intricate subplot requiring anything to be done about.

 

You must have missed the characterisation of Lily as someone capable of such, rather than as here usual 'perfect' fanon personification.

You must have missed the explanation of what had happened, how Snape had slept with her, and how he used his Death Eater influence to fully 'resolve' the situation.

You must have missed the point of the entire novel, in that Hary had a 100% personality transplant addition.

You must have missed the part where the twins are triggered into pranking Harry because of the perceived slights he gave their sister, and how then the rivalry escalated due to their pride being hurt and the 'James' personality giving back as much as they gave.

You must have missed the details that Harry's entire year voted to let him remain in the house; and how many of the other members were bullied by the twins' threats.

You must have missed the part that establishes how many of the Hat's bad traits are mired in a thousands years of frustration, decades of home arrest and how its formative years were spent in the middle ages.

You must have missed the parts where Dumbledore catches HJ's small slips; finally nails him down to reveal the truth; and manages to mentor/coach Harry while still obeying the Tournament rules.

 

review

Solid Fic. Would recommend to anyone new to the Fleur/Harry Fandom. The Hat is a good plot device to help provide comic relief for the audience also while also lets us know what Harry is thinking without the narrator implicitly stating it. Can't believe so many people shit on this fic on reddit.

 

First off the summary is pretentious.

What? As it should have been? Yeah steal ideas from Jo and claim to make it better. :facepalm This itself gives me a bad impression of the fic.

Chapter 1 here we go. Wow first person Harry suddenly has a sense of humor but jbern fails at humor here. Homophobic jokes seriously? Ok it gets good now cool descriptions on Quidditch. Ok now Harry is now flirting but jbern fails at that as well because how the hell would wizards know about Batman? Ok decent first chapter I will give it a 3/5 as of now its not bad but its not good either.

I will edit this post as I continue reading it.


Chapter 2 starts of with needless swearing. Jbern again fails at humor here. Moving on I like deeper aspects into Harry the first person really works here. Points to Jbern for that. Nice original take on Dobby. Excellent take on the Sorting hat. Jbern's humor really works well here. Excellent chapter. Its 4 as of now with potential for being better. Minor flaw with Dumbledore being straight but that can be excused as it was written before that info was released.

 

I am aware that this is a rather old thread but I wanted to out on my 2 cents.

I found the base concept of James contributing to be a good one and the effect he would have had on a childs mind to be believable for the setting. I wasnt a great fan of the last few chapters but I get that when a story is Incomplete such as I felt this was.

 

While this fic is enjoyable, I have to admit agree it has its problems, namely the sorting hats randomly filthy mouth and the bashing of so many Gryffindor characters. The sorting hat really is an interesting character and if it's vulgarity had been more restrained it would have been a great portrayal. Instead it comes off as a bad OC written my a teen trying to be clever or edgy.

In regards to the random Gryffindor nastiness it just does not make sense. Why does HJP suddenly loath members of his house in both lifetimes? Why is he so vicious and cruel despite having good relationships before? True the Gryffindor house was cruel first but there reasons are sort of hand waved. Fred and George especially seem to turn evil and mean spirited for no reason.

It is a testament to the author that the story is engaging despite the flaws. The new tasks are interesting and the relationships that are developed are well done. Even the OCs are fun to read. Overall I'd give it 3/5, passable and fun but not great.