Er yeah, typo. I'll correct that.

 

I really like this story's Neville for the most part, but I was really thrown by the line about how Harry "would be a cool guy some day" (in the chapter where Harry defends him from the Slytherins). It was too aggressive for Neville, even when he was angry about how hard Harry yanked his arm.

 

You, my friend, need to read the rest of this thread.

 

Unless I don't consider PMs as private as you. Then I have nothing to fear, nor anything to do for myself. I already know that private messages aren't really that private, because I'm aware of the convention that people don't treat them as private, and therefore don't put personal details in there.

You can't argue from definition here. "They're called private messages, therefore you must keep them private". This isn't COBRA. Keep yourself in context.

This is a case of netiquette getting a bit stupid. A PM is the internet equivalent of a letter. Letters aren't private. People publish the details of what was written to them all the time. In fact, this is one of the primary purposes of letters: if you want something to be formal, official, and provable, you ask for it in writing, so that it may be publicly aired.

 

​

Thread/Drama Over. Discussion of the merits of writing a story while not writing a story over. Yo Dawg Over.

Fascist, totalitarian Staff Begin.

 

I had the same impression. In some way it's quite similar to Partially Kissed Hero in a certain compulsiveness to write some kind of meta story. Quite fascinating that both have so many reviews.
Not sure though if I would give it a 3/5, maybe for shear effort or so but it surely hasn't entertained me for more than a few chapters at the beginning. The smugness which oozes through every sentence makes it too difficult to endure.

 

3.49/5, rounded down to 3. It's a funny story, and that's what it's aiming to be. The fact that the Author is a far bigger douchebag than can be found roughly anywhere here on DLP is irrelevant to the fact that for all intents and purposes he's actually got a quite a few point and is a decent author. Almost worthy of the Library.

That said, there are a hell of a lot of fics better than this one. I find it difficult to actually stop reading it, and it's a good way to waste time when you want to do so especially when you consider the very fast rate (comparatively) at which the story updates. The story may actually become better as it progresses... But judging from how much of a arrogant dick the author seems to be, I doubt it.

Now, I did say that the fact that he's arrogant doesn't make this an inherently bad story. What it does do is make it difficult for him to correct any errors he might commit, or actually improve his writing.

That said, what really ruins it for me is the fact that despite long chapters and a frequent update rate, nothing happens. Ever. It's already at the 34:th (29 if you wanna get technical) chapter and it's still the first year, and it's not even at Christmas after 220k words. Jesus fucking God incestuously.

 

I find it difficult to believe that the author is going to both keep up this level of detail and go through the full seven year march, as that sort of thing would probably end up around 2 MegaWords. At the same time, people are right in saying that not much has happened, and all this research into the nature of magic seems incredibly long term. Lastly, the author seems to enjoy basking in the praise of FF.net way too much to abandon it, and I doubt the pacing will dramatically change in the near future.

So honestly, Im a bit flummoxed as to what the fuck is going to happen with this, as either its getting abandoned, its gonna be two million words long, its going to end mid-Hogwarts, or the pacing is going to dramatically change. None of these seem really likely, but one of them has to happen.

 

I can see this becoming millions of words long. The author has enough things he wants to plug, and I doubt the number of reviews will ever go down enough for him to throw a hissy fit and leave.

That said, I'm still reading this. The author admitted to being a troper and just writing for the hell of it, so it's at least entertaining to read. The best part about him trying new things is that if it doesn't work, he's likely to just drop it the next chapter.

 

My main complaint with this story is the fact that, while there isn't anything really wrong with it, it's not much fun to read. All of the Rationality being presented is coming off as merely pseudo-philosophy and more than a bit pedantic. I can understand and appreciate the effort and creativity that it took to weave those elements into the story, but the story gets lost in the background noise.

He's building all of these rules and theories about how the HP magic works, which takes away a lot of what I enjoy about the HP universe and the fanfiction based on it. Don't get me wrong, some theorizing and postulation in a fic is often necessary to flesh out the incredibly vague universe (and the stories are often better for it). But LessWrong seems to take that idea too far. It almost takes away from the fact that it's magic. Yes, it should have limitations, but it shouldn't be shackled to the ground. Call me a bit simplistic in my view of things here, but there's a reason that one of my favourite stories is Wastelands of Time, and that's because the whole story, from the plot and setting through to the magic used, is so epic (and I like big explosions).

Basically what it came down to was the fact that I couldn't sympathize with any of the characters (I in fact wanted to kill Harry for being an irritating swot), and I wasn't having any fun while reading it, ergo I stopped.

I'll give it points for the idea, as it has merit. The execution, however, wasn't something that appealed to me. 2/5

 

Honestly, it's really been a chore to read the past few chapters. The whole 'war games' plot arc was really stupid imo. I ended up skimming most of it, stopping only when I spotted something interesting, which really wasn't all that often. I'm not sure how much worse this fic can get; some of the chapters were horrible, but these last few were damn near unbearable. Unless this guy sinks to new lows, it should probably go up from here.

 

Thank you. I wanted to rate it last week but couldn't because it was locked.

I have some concerns about the story. There are obvious flaws that have already been mentioned by others. That being said, it's a good story that makes me want to read more.

4 stars.

 

I'm starting to have a real problem with this story - I'm going to try to keep reading, because there are some elements I do enjoy, but there is a great deal wrong here (pun on author's name, I suppose).

1) Padding, filler, pablum - there's a reason this story is 220,000 words and only halfway through Year One. Actually two - one, the author hasn't exactly read all the books, and two, there is a ridiculous amount of just nothing added. Sometimes it's dialogue, sometimes it's that insipid war story plotline that was serpentine and useless in explaining the logical underpinnings that I would have actually appreciated had they been presented better.

2) The repetitive style - The same style is used consistently for dialogue and description, to the point where it becomes a bit annoying. It's a kind of back-and-forth didactic style I recognize as typical for "how to teach something", so perhaps it's worse for me. But it seems like the whole story is like:

3) The romance - I mean COME ON. My hatred of the Harry and Hermione ship aside, they are ELEVEN AND TWELVE YEARS OLD, respectively. They should not be seriously talking about dating and marriage. And the parents talking about wedding bells? That either expressed serious mental defects (if intentionally part of the story, kudos to the author) or plain nonsensical characters.


However, I do like the idea of a set of bad guys that don't fall under the stereotypical "Bad Guy" cliche set.

But here's my worry - I worry that this story hides the author's sincere disdain and condescension to the source material. And unlike some people (even on this forum), I actually really like the HP books. All of them, actually.

And I don't like being condescended to.

 

I opened it, read the first chapter, found the writing style annoying to no end, and despite this being enough for me to leave any story immediately, often in the first paragraph, I forced my way through the entirety of it.

I hate it more than any other coherent* story I've ever read.

1/5

* Coherent meaning anything other than shit like my immortal and all the other shit on FFN that contains so many grammatical and spelling errors that I actually can't read them

 

Yea it even seems your typical FF.net crowd is starting to dislike this story.

Earlier chapters (like chapter 20) have 3-4 times the reviews as the latest ones.

 

I was worried about that too; it seemed seriously, amateurishly premature. On the other hand, *Harry and Hermione* haven't 'seriously taked about dating and marriage', have they? It's just the parents, jokingly commenting on their children from the lofty perspective of adulthood.

In any case the chapter turned around with the reactions of the kids themselves. I was really impressed by Hermione's handling of the situation and how she presented her family perspective to Harry - they're her parents, they can't grasp the extent of her intellect, they love her anyway, she understands & reciprocates. I think Hermione displays a maturity beyond her years, viz this and her captaincy of the war games ... way beyond Harry. She gives him a 'peck' and he responds like a typical eleven-year-old boy.

In one respect they're acting like an 'old married couple' and the parents can recognise this. In another they're still just kids - and the latter came through nicely at the end of the chapter. Thus ameliorating your complaint, I think.

(As a Harry/Hermione fan I hope the author isn't playing with us and that these two will end up in a proper relationship by the end. Hermione certainly appears to be the best partner for this 'rationalistic' Harry.)

Don't worry about the author's *hidden* motivations; just analyse what's written!

I know what you mean; but as someone who thoroughly detested the simplistic and flawed treatment that Rowling accorded her universe with the last couple of books I'm all in favour of a fanfic which highlights all the mistakes ... which he's done so far without making his story a comedy; he's still taking the wizarding world quite seriously. I can't wait until he gets to books 6 & 7, though!

 

Good luck with that because

A: He (the author) hasn't read them

and

B: By the time you get to book 6, at this pace, the story will be around 3 million words.



I know that I personally don't feel like reading 3 million words of this shit.

 

I doubt this story will reach book three, let alone six or seven. Of course, if it got to six or seven, the plot would be completely different, and would likely resemble Harry Potter even less than it does now.

Also, three million words of this is a concept that terrifies me to my very soul. It would be like the necronomicon, but written on less human skin. Only slightly less.