Title: Honour Thy Blood
Author: TheBlack'sResurgence
Rating: M
Genre: Drama/Romance
Status: Complete
Chapters: 21
Words: 307.702
Library Category: Romance
Pairings: Harry/Daphne
Summary:
Beginning in the graveyard, Harry fails to reach the cup to escape but is saved by an unexpected person thought long dead. Harry learns what it is to be a Potter and starts his journey to finish Voldemort once and for all. NO SLASH. Rated M for language, gore etch. A story of realism and Harry coming into his own.
Link: https://www.fanfiction.net/s/12155794/1/Honour-Thy-Blood
Remastered Version: https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13290222/1/Honour-Thy-Blood-Remastered
Added/checked
-Sesc 12/19


Just finished reading this fic and knew I had to post it here. I already know that many of you are screaming cliche with the pairing and the title but give this a chance. The first Harry/Daphne fic that I have seen that happens to be realistic. No crazy contracts in this once.

Also, Harry is a lord, but that does not mean much in this story. It is not a richest guy alive!Harry story.

Harry is powerful in this but it is by handwork and he still relies on other.

The length is long enough to let you enjoy it while still not dragging on forever.

The pacing is also good.

5/5 from me.

 

It's alright, I suppose. The prose had a severe, clunky overly expository quality that makes it seem a bit juvenile. There are many technical errors that also distract from the story. The characterization is off and not right; a lot of casual profanity, unwarranted for the most part. Many characters don't seem like themselves. The point of view is switched too often and makes the prose confusing.

Eventually, I just got bored. 2.5/5

 

I'm going to withhold from rating as it's fairly late and it might just be the mood I'm in, but I had an extremely hard time getting in to the first chapter. I disliked how various characters were.. characterized; almost everyone just felt off. Much of the prose and especially some of the dialogue felt clunky as Jeram stated above. While it may be an interesting premise to some, albeit used to death, the story failed to suck me in and because the chapter length is so long I didn't bother finishing the first chapter.

Meh. Probably won't go back and try to get through it to give a proper rating.

 

There's actually a reasonable bit about this that I liked. I liked Arcturus Black, I liked Charlus Potter, I liked the backstories.

I liked him actually training and improving, even if it was packed full of cliches.

I did not like the romance, it added functionally nothing to the story.

The action scenes were passable, the writing was passable.

The story was just thoroughly okay, and pretty much the epitome of a "maybe worth a skim" time passer that just wasn't as good as it maybe could have been.

But I guess fundamentally, saying "I didn't hate it, and don't super regret reading it" isn't high enough praise for the library, and I'd probably give it about 3/5.

It wasn't bad, really.

It just wasn't memorable in any way outside of the Arcturus Black/Charlus Potter early story stuff, and that was more due to being unique than being amazingly written. Rare to see much of anything done regarding Harry's grandparents.

 

The story did have its problems and a few to many cliches, but when comparing it to other stories that follow the same kind of plot line, I cannot justifiably judge it to harshly. Its no were near a 5, but defiantly more than a 3 when you look, not at the past works of other writers but things that are being writien today.

Something I've noticed others talking about is how the characters felt to the reader*, and I can agree that massive changes did happen, yet anyone who has read this kind of story before would know that the author would do so. Thankfully the changes that were made were fairly smooth and I feel somewhat believable.

* I have to wonder if that's more to do with our own bias and visualization of the characters that we have spent years building and rebuilding with every fanfiction we have read since the books came out, I know I felt fine about Ron until one particular story, after which things started going down hill. At the end of the day any writer will end up changing the way the characters feel and interact as JKR her self has done both during and after the books.

The romance was... Expected. Removing it from the story would have taken away from it, but it was far from flawless. The again very few writers can do a 5/5 romance scene.

I would suggest it as a enjoyable read (if a little heavy at times.) especially if you are an anti-Pottermore reader, that said do not mistake it for a casual read.

Some polish and streamlining would improve it, but as a whole it is everything I expected and wanted from it.

4/5

 

I got 3 chapters in and I just couldn't take it any more. The story might be great, but I personally couldn't get past how terrible the dialogue was. We're told what they characters are feeling, but it's never evident in how they talk, and conversations always read like this:

This weird stilted mess. If it gets better, someone let me know. Until then, it's 2/5 from me.

 

I'd say that Honor Thy Blood is good for a quick skim and no more, unless you find you really like it. My overall impression of the story is that it is tolerable. The romance adds very little, and the story is full of cliches. I thought that the characterization felt off, and the plot was unrealistic. I'd only recommend the fic for someone who is desperate for a new Harry/Daphne fic. It's not quite bad enough to be a straight 2, so I'll give it a 2.5, rounding up to 3.

 

Opening it up again near the middle I can see were your coming from, the author dose tell the reader what the person who is talking feels a lot. Almost reminds me of the use of classical Greek drama masks, with each emotion being purposely conveyed.

Personal I had no problem with it, so failed to take it into account in my review, but I can see the annoyance with the continued breaks in conversation.

 

Can you clarity this statement? Are you saying that FFN.net's quality is getting better or worse?

And this story is a 2.5 for me.

 

Before I get to your question I just have to start out that this is all 'In my opinion' but back to your question.

Better, but not as good as it used to be. About three or four years ago I'd say FF.net reached a point were almost no new HP plot lines were being made, and the few that were new, were being abandoned. At that same time another wave on 'I can right to' author came along, and its only in the last year or so that the average quality has started creeping up again, that's not to say nobody is re-using the same old plot lines, but most are now putting new spins on them .

p.s. Before someone bans me for spelling write as right in this post, it was done so as an example of the quality of the authors I was talking about.

 

It was another Harry becomes more powerful and smarter than everyone else and takes in several years worth of training and education in a few months fic. The writing was a bit more decent than most of those types of fics but it was balanced out by how much was extraneous and skippable.

2.5/5

 

It's a fine read, but not something I would consider reading more that once.
The general idea of Harry going to train to become powerful has been used before and while this one was a little different, it didn't detract from the cliche all that much. It's not a problem to have Harry going to train to become powerful, the problem was, that for the most part, it was all that the story had to offer.
The story is listed as a romance, the romance was poorly executed and could have used any generic nameless character and the story wouldn't have changed.
Daphne comes out as a very weak character. She has little to no impact on the plot and you simply can't connect with her.
The author would have been better off if they had avoided the romance.

 

Jeram hits it pretty much perfectly. It's not awful and I was able to read a good bit before it just got boring. It's like the author is trapped in 2007, where writing a story with Daphne would in itself compensate for a lot, and the fact that the prose is readable if not particularly good would make it great.

But time has moved forward. Ideas that were cliche-but-readable are now utterly stale. Daphne is just your Harry/Slytherin-but-not-Pansy.

I feel kinda bad for not rating this higher, because I know full well that I would have been one of the people cheering this fic being added to the library. But that was a decade ago(!) and what do we do both as individuals and a community if not improve our standards?

This belongs in the 'almost recommended' thread as an HP/DG guilty pleasure for those who can tolerate the OC ancestormentor.

2/5 for sake of the vote, but a note that it's at the top of the two-star stories, for what that's worth.

 

HtB is one of the better written HPDG fics, but ironically the romance counts as a weak point. The story could easily be adjusted to a General fic with minimal impact. Daphne’s role in the story is a moral crutch, a reason to win the war. Some cynical people may view her role as a prize, in the same vein as Princess Peach.

The story follows the Indy!Harry plotline and contains many of the typical cliches; from inheriting Potter Manor and all its riches, to exceeding the qualifications of an average British wizard in less than a year. Fortunately, character bashing is kept to a minimum which is often prevalent in fics belonging to the Indy category.

The writing style is detail heavy and often devolves into exposition. This considerably slows down the pacing. Now that the story is completed, this is not such a problem, but when a reader is waiting for the next update, this can strain their patience.
Note that the plot is somewhat dependent on this; the author has decided to introduce several OCs that play a major role and hence needs to develop and characterize them accordingly. The exposition did pay off, and the OCs Arcturus and Charlus in particular are very engaging.

Overall it was an enjoyable read.

 

While many fanfiction cliches are prevalent in this story, personally I find them quite tolerable. Perhaps it's because I've only been reading fanfiction for 8 months, but either way I do think that Honour Thy Blood introduces new concepts that I haven't come across before, namely a kickass Charlus Potter and surly but strong Arcturus Black.
Granted the story could use some polish and as others have said previously the author does tell the story through a lot of character thoughts and opinions but overall I enjoyed this fanfiction. I love a kickass Harry and anything where Sirius is a main character. I give it 3/5.