Just to provoke a little discussion, what makes a fem!Harry?

In my mind, there are a few different kinds, though they all arguably deserve the title.

#1: Harry is born a male, as in canon, but, somewhere along the line, he is transformed into a female on a permanent or semi-permanent basis.
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This is what I think of first when I think of fem!Harry, and I tend like this concept the most, since a story using this concept can start anywhere along the canon timeline without affecting what came before it. We know this Harry, how he thinks, and what his upbringing has been like. It also presents some unusual challenges and decisions for Harry as to how he'll handle things from there on out.

Uh, off the top of my head (and don't mistake any of my examples as recommendations)...

Examples: Effects and Side Effects and Snake's Skin

#2: Harry is born as a female, and events may or may not have gone down as they did in canon.
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Obviously this has the potential to change Harry's upbringing, the way he's treated by the Dursleys (they might be more reluctant to abuse a girl, and/or Petunia might actually overlook some of Harry's freakishness in light of the fact she has a girl to fuss over, instead of a male only child and a James Potter clone).

I'd speculate this one is often done by female authors to allow for self insertion/wish fulfillment purposes, without resorting to an OFC (a magnet for Mary-Sue comments), or upstaging the main character (Harry) by promoting Hermione or Ginny through half-assed devices like prophecies that suddenly make one of them more dangerous to Voldemort than Harry, who was fated to fight him since before his birth.

(Yes, ladies, I know there's plenty of male wish fulfillment in the land of fanfic, too, but that should be pretty obvious. In fact, more than a little wish fulfillment probably gets exercised in #1.)

Stories in this category that start well into the series, but leave the reader with zero information as to what, if anything, this gender swap may have changed, from canon, are infuriating. This is usually done due to the author's sheer laziness, and the reader is left to believe that NOTHING changed from canon.

Examples: A story you may or may not have heard of, but I refuse to link to, where the books are retold practically word for fucking word ("What's plagiarism, Precious? It burns us! It freezes!"), except Harry is a girl, and a druid, and spends most of her time being naked and perfect with her naked and perfect friends, and she wears a pornographic dress to the Yule ball and, like, somehow totally gets away with it, and all the other bitches must have been Sooo jealous! Like, for sure!

An alternate version of this is Harry being born a girl, but placed under some sort of spell that changes 'her' into a boy until wherever in the timeline the fic starts, upon which time she (and everyone else) discovers she was actually a girl all along. This, in essence, is just fem!Harry version #1 in drag (to use a seemingly redundant euphemism).

This one opens up the door for some real dissonance between who Harry sees himself as and who he really is, given that he was really a girl all along, and may lead to him wondering just who the hell he really is and how he feels about that.

Now, Holly Evans and The Spiral Path...

Spoiler

I hesitate to call it an inversion of the "born a girl but disguised as a boy" sub genre, because there seem to be other factors in play, such as how much of her is actually Lily, and the fact that she can pretty much choose whether she wants to be male or female at any given moment and, either through psychosis or virtue of actually being a dual entity (through the aforementioned Lily business), apparently thinks like two separate people, one male and one female.

Holly Evans the story, much like the character herself, is its own beast, and defies categorization.

#3: Either canon!Harry travels to an alternate reality, a fem!Harry from an alternate reality travels to the 'canon' reality, or because two or more realities merge. The end result being that at least one Harry of each gender ends up in the same reality.
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In some ways, this combines #1 and #2. The POV is usually dominated by the male (that is, canon) Harry we all know, while a Harry that was born a girl is added to the supporting cast. A story like this may (Across the Mirror) or may not (Who cares about those ones, though, right? Lulz.) end up containing a Harry/fem!Harry pairing.

Examples: The aforementioned Across the Mirror, Harry Potter and the Distaff Side, and Harry Potter & The Girl Who Lived (the original... *shudder*)

#4: Harry is canon!Harry, but either through Harry's own actions, or through Dumbledore's/The Ministry's meddling (usually in an attempt to create a backup Boy-Who-Lived), a fem!Harry is created (with the fact that it's female usually being an accident or a limitation/flaw of the creation process).
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Examples: An Army of One

Warning, near-pointless blather about my unposted horseshit ahead...

Spoiler

With one exception, listed above, I have only seen examples of this last one in my own twisted writings, with Harry being the (directly or indirectly) responsible party in at least two stories, and Albus or the Ministry each being responsible, respectively, in various other plotbunnies.

Of those first two stories, the first one is 82,954 words so far and, amazingly, doesn't have a H/fem!H pairing, and doesn't dwell too long or too often on the fem!Harry character's existence, with any continuations of the story -9,190 words- or AU offshoots -6,936 words- of the plot contained in other files. The second story is a crossover currently at 28,257 words and -probably- eventually H/fem!H/Hr.

In at least one of the plotbunnies where the Ministry is the guilty party, it would probably be more accurate to refer to the fem!Harry(s) as Harry's daughter(s) than direct clones, considering how the Ministry made them...

For comparison, I've also written an example of #1 that is currently at 39,303 words, no examples of #2, and various takes on #3, with the largest being an underwhelming 7,473 words.

I can't really say the wordcounts are equivalent to my interest in each sub-genre since, for instance, the 80k+ story doesn't actually revolve around the fem!Harry aspect, while the 7k+ one does, very much so.

I've always liked statistics.

If I had to guess, I'd say most fanfic out there (in the fem!Harry genre) falls into category #2, and that most of category #1 is devoted to weak and improbable attempts at making Drarry pairings more plausible.

 

I knew someone would mention Keiran Halcyon's masterpoop eventually. Fem!Harry may be a small genre, but with that story it can proudly lay claim to having produced one of the worst fics in the history of the Harry Potter fandom, as well as its most ridiculous Mary Sue.

I disagree about keeping it unreferenced because some of the summaries of it did amuse somewhat, but for God's sake, don't try reading the actual fic. :facepalm

It has its own TVTropes page, plus this LJ post. And finally, some of the user comments here, where some dude manages to write a short fic that almost makes the character sympathetic - an astonishing feat, really.

 

I always look back on intentionally shit talking members when I'm sober again and wonder what the fuck I was thinking.

Drunk moments... :facepalm

I actually kind of liked SP, but from what I remember there was some scenes that made me cringe and add /hate for fem!slash to that and I stopped reading. Maybe I'll try it again.

 

And the corruption spreads!

My love for TV Tropes is probably more than a little self destructive, but I don't care. I save each of its pages I visit, so my folder for it currently has 7,406 files and weighs in at 490mb.

If I could just DL the site as a torrent, I'd do it... but, then again, it's entirely possible that I'm a madman.

And nice MSTing link (if only the people at the HMS STFU weren't a bunch of self important, H/Hr hating cunts who think all fans of the pairing are blindly rabid Harmonians, and hadn't taken the time to proselytize their beliefs in the midst of their MSTing) :awesome; I do so enjoy a good pig roast. I even have a monogrammed skewer for just such an occasion. I'd almost suggest having a section for them here, but then people might accuse DLP members of being mean.

My favorite moment (disregarding the typo).

Ouch! Fuckin' bull's-eye!

 

Fair enough. [To alcohol! The cause of ... and solution to... all of life's problems! - Homer]

I wouldn't recommend re-trying the story if you're not keen on Fem-slash, as it's a primary trait of the heroine. Don't needlessly torture yourself. I wouldn't push a Drarry on anyone around here for the same reason, even if it were the next 'Razor's Edge'.

 

Not to plug a story that hasn't been updated for awhile, but The Zealot is technically a Harry/Fem!Harry story, though that won't happen for awhile. It's also only something like 15k words long, so don't read it if that frustrates you.

I really would like to finish this one at some point, though.

 

I went ahead and read this one . . . and while I did kind of like it . . . sort of . . . one thing about it bothered me in particular:

The reversal of the gender roles doesn't particularly make sense. I suppose I could understand a world where men are born without any aggressiveness, and maybe they don't develop the physique we do in our reality - but there needs to be something that causes the reaction mothers in this universe have to their sons' virtue being taken. Perhaps some sort of irreversible imprinting? Although in this world, girls can play fast and loose and dump their babies on some guy - as it is implied heavily - it might make more sense that a guy in that world would imprint onto the girl and would basically be unable to get it up for anyone else or something - even if it wore off after a period of several years - maybe just long enough to ensure that he raised the kids to puberty with that particular girl - but the girl does not similarly imprint upon the guy.

But the author doesn't do this. They have all the same biology we do but none of the consequences. This Amazonian world is only such because of purely cultural reasons that have no basis in biology. Also, the author presents this as a world-issue, not a magical issue: Hermione's parents are similarly affected in this world by the same reversal of gender roles.

Stuff like this irks me because although the idea is interesting, it shows a lack of in-depth though about not only the consequences, but what brought about this system in the first place - which might have other consequences that would also make sense in that context. Furthermore, because no thought went into it, the biology of our world makes the cultural norms of their world make no sense whatsoever. There's a reason Amazonian societies are extremely rare in our world . . .

 

I asked Clell about that, and his response was to stop questioning and enjoy it.

I choose to believe that this universe is connected to a lot of other universes (like in The One) and that this one is the only one that is gender-flipped. So the souls of the girls are dominant because they are accustomed to being male, and thus dominant.

 

This was a story that I only liked, sort of. It was teetering on the edge of the precipice, and a response like that from the author just made it fall over the edge.

 

I've been here for about a month and decided to join officially basically so I could comment on this... even though it probably doesn't need to be bumped.

I'm intensely intrigued by the possibilities of reversing gender roles in the Potterverse and thus, I've basically read every story in the Miss Potter community. In my perusal, I've not found a single author that's managed to create a really gripping story... and that's probably because it can't be done.

In descending quality, here are the ones that I've found qualify as substantial stories with real plot that aren't cross-overs with naruto, twilight, or some other fucking nonsense: 'Equal and Opposite,' 'A Butterfly Effect', 'Phoenix Tears', 'Harriet', 'Holly Evans', and 'Lady Malfoy'.

But there are problems with all of them. 'Equal and Opposite' is badass, well-written, clever, and engaging; typical DLP material, but it doesn't actually fit the niche of reversing the gender-roles. 'A Butterfly Effect' is shockingly well-written and stylishly dark, but the thick coating of H/G fluff is unbearable to read and I had to stop halfway through. The femharry in this story is a rather interesting character, but Ginny is still an obnoxious little fangirl due to the author's obsessive loyalty to canon. "Phoenix Tears" is an interesting premise, but it's a poorly written tale about a mary-sue... and that always ruins a story. 'Harriet' is a full on genderbender of the trio... and that's all I'll say about that. 'Holly Evans' has gotten a lot of beef on this site. Some of it is deserved, but some of it isn't. Sure, the diary format is awful, the smut is overly intense, and the characters are contrived... but the plot is at least original, if a bit boring and nonsensical. 'Lady Malfoy' is a non-magic AU story that has a semblance of quality plot, but quickly falls short of the mark due to excess clichéd romance about a quarter of the way through.

I suppose my point is that if the "best of the best" femharry stories fall short of the mark, maybe Harry just isn't meant to be Rule 63'd. Turning Harry into a girl stretches the believability of balanced archetypal character relationships. Not to mention that the het romances make everything feel slashy.

 

You... sorta have a point. Neverthless, I feel a fem!harry can be done properly - I think the reason so many authors fail is that they try to make fem!harry act exactly like Harry, which doesn't work because she's a female and he's a male. Modifying her character traits to at least a medium degree would lend a degree of plausibility to the story that so many lack. While I realize all of the one's that you listed do that, they take it to rather extreme degrees. Equal and Opposite features quite literally evil!fem!harry, A Butterfly Effect features a fem!harry with a whole host of psychological problems, Holly Evans features a fem!harry who isn't Harry at all, and I can't claim to have read the rest.

 

Well, here's hoping someone writes one that does exactly that because I'd really like to see it.

 

Yeah, me too.

 

If one was going to try and stick to the lines of canon when doing a fem!Harry, the closest thing I see would be Ginny wanting to be 'Harriet's' sister or something (like how Ron became Harry's best friend), and Ron be the one with the crush on Harriet.

Hell, Malfoy might even try to hit on Harriet for status/fame, etc.

If they were friends with Hermione, it's likely that they'd be some tension between her and Harriet because of JKR's weird fixation with the canon pairings. (Apparently, Hermione wanted to hump Ron's leg ever since second year).

Then again, it's more likely that the Harriets life/psyche with the Dursleys would of been a lot different, so aside from things shared by Lily's sacrifice/Prophecy (such as the capabillity to 'love' that stops Harry from being a Tom Riddle mkII), she would be a vastly different person to Harry...an OC, really.

 

This pretty much describes the interpersonal dynamic in 'A Butterfly Effect', with the exception that Harry and Ginny have a 'thing' for each other beyond friends. Similarly, Luna's been dropped in early to express a confusing catalytic carpet-munching conundrum.

That's what makes it both a good story and intolerable to those who'd rather hear about plot than relationships. Also, it has a healthy dollop of NC-17 level horror and a related expansion of the story between Albus and Gellert.

On a related note, I was considering posting the second phase (non-Journal style) of Holly's story in the Mature Work by Author section, but I'm unsure whether it would get constructive or destructive criticism. Opinions?

 

Exactly. That story comes so close on so many levels to being awesome... but the fluff is suffocating. It just... fell short.

 

I've never understood the appeal of fem!Harry. It... just seems like a pointless change to me. What difference does being female really make? Why should it make a difference?

Perhaps I simply do not care about relationships enough to enjoy the sub-genre.

 

Some guys have a weird fetish... cough

 

A Butterfly Effect actually does do an exceedingly admirable job of explaining it; little changes like the main character's slightly submissive personality and increased intelligence, along with themes stemming from different psychological outcomes of abuse, lead to big changes... hence the title.

Like I said, it's shockingly well-written, but the author goes overboard with relationship detail. It made me want to light myself on fire. :fire: Despite the quality, by the end of the 'second book' I was just like... enough already.

Holly Evans tries to make a similar attempt, but fails miserably. Sorry Wordhammer... :/

 

Some guys just want to be girls.