It didn't really do a whole lot for me to be honest. I agree with the sentiments expressed by Amerision. 3/5.

 

Finally. I was wondering if I was going to be the only one to rate it less than 4 stars (even 5 for that matter) publicly.

 

Jeez, as soon as there is a sole dissenter suddenly there is a bunch of dissenters. Now it may be that the story isn't as good as the first reviews say but it is certainly odd that after one post the general consensus is that the story is mediocre.

Anti-bandwagon bandwagon strikes again.

 

I wouldn't call the two people who agreed with Amerision after his post a bandwagon. As for me, I made my views known yesterday morning.

Besides we four all rated the story 3 stars. Eternal Return is not crap, but it's not one of the best one-shots ever either.

 

I remember a fic from... a while back, with this same plot. The only difference I remember is that I think at the end, he

Spoiler

reincarnated as Dumbledore instead of Voldemort

 

Yeah, sorry, I missed your previous post. Buts its more the one liner "Yeah I agree with Amer" posts that annoy me. And they show up quite a lot...

Anyway, as for the story, first things first, it was brilliantly written. And very logically held together. So points for that. Also it took a concept that has been done similarly before, Harry is Voldemort, and took it in a new direction. Instead of Harry being corrupted and turned into Voldemort, Harry remains pure yet still becomes the evil monster he remembers.

It doesn't hold much suprise value granted, and it could be looked at as an exercise in writing. In my opinion it would have been more successful as a chaptered story, where the lack of a twist is negated by the storytelling aspect. Perhaps a series of oneshots would have been better, detailing certain points in the development of Harry/Voldermort and the vicious cycle. Pretty much expanding on the sections already in the oneshot.

So yeah, I'm gonna give this a 4.5/5. Excellent Idea, excellent writing and a good execution, only problem being the lack of any sort of twist in the story.

 

The twist isn't

Spoiler

that Harry is stuck in Voldemort's body. That's the plot premise - the starting point of the story. The twist is that Harry is condemned to repeat history over and over - like "Groundhog Day" in hell. Hence, the title "Eternal Return." Also, the developing plot line and secondary twist was the fact that Harry in fact is Voldemort, as it becomes revealed more and more throughout the story.

At least that's my interpretation of it.

 

That wasn't much of a twist. -_- Knothead pointed out the similarity to The Dark Tower and its ending. After reading that, it felt like the story was challenging the reader to feel shock.

Nonetheless, good one=shot. 4/5

 

Agreed.

I'll also add that I don't care much for the title. It was overkill and should have been changed to something a little less obvious like, well, to borrow from you, "Vicious Cycle."

 

I actually disagree that it would be better as a chaptered story. As knothead pointed out earlier, Harry remembers his previous life. Because of this, it would be impossible to blow the story up into a Steven King sized novel. Nor, I feel, would the story have been better as a series of one-shots; then, it loses any punch it has by letting the reader's imagination fill in the blanks. Even now, I appreciate the story less for its shock value and more for its smooth logical flow and good writing. Perhaps it could be taken as a writing exercise, but I feel Silver Pard achieved something that was not taken for granted, namely, answering why Harry would retrace Voldemort's steps. It was also done in a very readable way, which is why I rated this so high.

Just to add, this is sort of a nitpick, but Harry is not really trapped in a vicious cycle, just an inescapable one. That, and I feel that any title with the world "cycle" in it would have been a dead giveaway

 

The intelligent reader quickly figures out what's going to happen, but he hopes against hope that Harry will do something different to break the cycle. But that's just a pipe-dream, the outcome is unavoidable. This makes the story kinda creepy, in its own way.

4/5

 

Good fic, library worthy.

Agreed with Amer on that the "punch" of the story was delivered at the start of it. But what still kept me going was the chance that something would change.

But it didn't; which as a tragedy was pretty satisfying end.

Lucky thing this was a short. Otherwise the idea didn't have the strength to be stretched out into a full story.

 

Didn't really like it. Got really repetitive and boring after a while. 3/5, at best.

 

Well executed but nothing really resonated or left me feeling impressed. The supposed "anti-bandwagon" bandwagon sums up the limit of my complaints here. 4/5 feels too high considering I'm unlikely to recommend it or suggest it as worth the time. 3/5 feels too low for something written decently when there's not been much worth reading lately. Meh. I'm probably closer to the 3 than the 4.

But I will admit one semi-twist I would've much preferred to see...

Spoiler

When Voldie-Harry comes to Godrics Hollow and kills his own father and then mother because he fears changing the timeline, it really felt like the moment he became more Voldemort than Harry. And I was so hoping that after killing James, then Lily, and casting the killing curse on baby Harry... the baby would have just died.

And now a Voldemort who'd just fulfilled the prophecy was still there, at the height of his powers, and confused as all hell, right after killing his own parents needlessly. That's where I wanted to see the 'eternal' cycle broken and something we couldn't see coming might've happened. Because really, if you know canon, then nothing in this fic surprises you after the start.

 

I think the story that would follow the ending to this would be more interesting, as he would obviously know the fallacy of taking pains to make sure everything was the same, and wouldn't mind shaking things up a bit.

What was here was well written, entertaining, even if the twist occurred right at the beginning. 3/5

 

The entire point is that he doesn't. He's stuck in an eternal loop. Everything Voldemort did to Harry when Harry lived his life, was actually Harry as Voldemort but when Harry lives his life as Harry, he hasn't ever been Voldemort before.

 

Pretty good, but it doesn't make sense that he continued after Harry was born since it seemed that his original goal was to make sure that he didn't get erased by doing something wrong.

4/5

 

Interesting premise, good writing, and very enjoyable... almost had a surreal Fight Club-esque element to it that I liked. And I'm not gonna lie, it was a chilling fic, and rather disturbing on a few levels.

4.5/5 - it's not getting a five because it didn't totally blow my socks off.

 

Having re-read it the ending again, I concede defeat. I misunderstood it, and took the final scream of rage described to be Harry/Voldemort's torment that all the atrocities he let happen, were for naught as he was brought back to the beginning.