Thats it? Why not give some examples, or rules of what not to do or what must be included? It would make it a vastly better challenge.

 

I think this idea has been mentioned a few times, and I am sure that there a plenty of fics about that do that.

 

I've read a few fics that have done it and, although it can be quite funny to begin with, it gets boring after a while. Even with the comedy there I can sometimes still be annoyed by the obvious cliché.

What I wouldn't mind reading though, would be:

a) A parody fic based on a lot of clichés that all somehow manage to go wrong. Something like Harry makes friends with the Goblins, an indy cliché, and then the Goblins won't leave him alone because they think of him as their 'friend.' They follow him around all day, visit him at random and inconvenient moments or something more subtle like 'helping him' by giving him long, complicated and annoying pieces of advice.
For an azkaban story, when Dumbledore insists that it was 'for his own good', it actually was. Show everywhere Harry has ever lived having been attacked, everyone he knows i skilled and the only reason he was safe was because he was in azkaban... that sort of thing.

B) A normal fic, but one that takes obvious shots at standard cliché. This has been done a couple of times, but only in passing. I'd like to read something like harry visits gringotts, discovers he has many more vaults and that they have been 'stolen from.' Then he later finds out that there is no money in the extra vaults, because his family's poor, and the 'stolen' money was actually taken out for reasonable things. Hogwarts expenses, repairing damaged ministry artifacts. An obvious shot at the standard 'my family's rich but dumbledore and the Weasleys have been stealing from me for their own gain' cliché.

 

I think this is a great idea!

Here are a few examples (of cliché's) I'd love to see ridiculed:

- Emo!Goth!Harry
- Porn-Star!Harry
- Cutting!Harry

A one-shot would do the job fine.

Edit: I'm not sure if the Porn-Star!Harry one is really a cliché, I just meant to poke fun at the idea. Like ...


"Who the hell are you?" Harvey asked, sprawled over the lavish silk sheets. "Santa Claus and Mary bloody Poppins?"

Albus was startled. "What's that, Harry?"

Harvey pouts, playing along. "Have I been a bad boy again?"

Minerva and Albus exchanged a ponderous look.

"And what are you gonna do, huh?" Harvey rolls over to his stomach, laughing. "Oh, just spank me - I know you want to."

"No!" Albus cries, shielding his face from the view of Harvey's ... thingi. "No, we don't want that!"

"Oh?" Harvey asked, thinking hard. "What about this?"

He mimed.

"NO!" Albus and Minerva chorused.

"Well what do you want, then?" Harvey raised an eyebrow, looking Albus up and down. "Dresses are more your thing, right?"

... anyway, you get the picture.

 

I think we've done something like this before here. It was called "How to write the best Independent HP story" or something like that. It was a basic outline that used every cliche out there..