Magic is too mechanistic.

Author needs to spread out and show stuff, not tell. This story rings my SI bells and I avoid those on principle.

Like the summary says Voldemort is OC, and it is not for the better. He's just a common criminal with human weaknesses, while in canon and most good stories, he becomes inhuman.

 

I mean, originality is not proportional to how good something is. A large amount of fanficiton, by nature, is extremely derivative and lacking in 'originality' in the common sense. I actually did give the first fifteen chapters of this a long hard read, but that's only cause its several hundred thousand words and I thought it deserved it.

So, whew where to start man. This story had a few good points. Some good points. It honestly, from what I read, actually just had one redeeming thing going for it. The writer is technically skilled at writing and composing sentences. Which in all honesty is a great thing to have but it really can't make a story on it's own. Their prose is excellent. I feel like maybe they just started this story as a joke or something, because it's so obviously lacking in character that I have trouble believing that someone that can write this well managed to finangle themselves into writing this.

The first issue is the exposition. I know ppl say show don't tell but... yeah man it's true tho. Like, if I wanted to read a long ass thesis of some fictional magic system I'd go read Taure's MHP. I'm not tryna get into an essay. A story is supposed to be driven by a narrative, something that moves it forward, not just 24/7 writings on a system of magic this dude likes.

Also, I can understand that Voldemort acts like an OC. IMO, canon Voldemort is retarded. Anyone writing any fanficion should try and work away from that image. The problem is that Lily acts like an OC. That Bellatrix acts like an OC. Wormtail, Dumbledore, Frank, Alice, Snape; the problem extends to the entire cast. That's fine if the world is an AU and some handwavey explanation is given but as it is the story just falls flat. I really just keep waiting for the inevitable redeeming death arc for Lily but it never came and I just couldn't keep going. I can see how someone might really like it, from the POV of the magic system that is (arguably) 'nice'.

As for rating it? Even at my most generous I wouldn't give this more than a 2/5. There's just no reason to give it any thumbs up except that (1) the writing is good(ish) and (2) it's really long for a fanfic.

 

@Outsider A lot of people on this forum ascribe to Taure's extensive analysis and interpretation of canon magical theory, and have been exposed to mana-like and leyline systems ad nauseum by this point. Vague assurances that "it gets better" aren't going to work when there are thousands of examples where it didn't get better, and started exactly the same way this fic is starting. If you want to convince people to read enough to see where this gets better, you need to actually convince us. All you've done so far is give lip service to the fic with no effort to substantiate your claims, and no one is going to do that for you when the beginning of the fic is such a drudge to go through. You say that it has 250k words written and it's unfair to "judge a book by its cover," but it's also unfair to expect someone to read 50k+ words of mostly inane fanon theory retread to find out what's on the other side, if there is another side.

For what it's worth, I skimmed the first few chapters and although I'll refrain from rating, I agree with everything Deltox said.