Title: On a Pale Horse
Author: Hyliian
Rating: T
Genre: Humor/Adventure
Library: The Alternates
Chapters: 20
Words: 47,720
Updated: Feb 6
Published: Sep 12, 2014
Status: Work in Progress
Summary: AU. When Dumbledore tried to summon a hero from another world to deal with their Dark Lord problem, this probably wasn't what he had in mind. MoD!Harry, Godlike!Harry, Unhinged!Harry. Dumbledore bashing.

Link: https://www.fanfiction.net/s/10685852/1/On-a-Pale-Horse


Just to clear one thing up. This story doesn't feature Godlike!Harry, it features God!Harry. And MasterofDeath!Harry means Harry actually is Death, who spent some millenia devouring souls - or helping them pass along. Of course that comes with a few downsides.
Uniting the Deathly Hallows didn’t just unlock further abilities or another level of magic. It completely changed and turned over the nature of the Being Harry. It took a lot of time to adapt to the situation, but now Harry has left his own humanity behind a long time ago. For him mankind means nothing more than some entertainment for his boring existence.

And now, in another universe, Dumbledore doubts that their own Harry is up for the task to vanquish Voldemort. So during the summer after Sirius’ death he is looking for some 'external' help. And that's when Death!Harry suddenly meets normal!Harry.


The definition for ‘Master of Death’ is quite different from most stories I have seen so far. It might be similar to the definition used by CarnivorousMuffin in “Lily and the Art of being Sisyphus” – but in that story, Lily already is ‘Death’, even before she gets her hands on the Hallows. It’s this concept that had me hooked up and the author manages to handle it well. She isn’t entirely consequent but mostly manages to keep Death!Harry in character.

Of course a god is absolutely overpowered compared to the usual villains. Thus someone who is looking for an action packed story will be disappointed. There aren’t any epic battles or awesome showdowns – Death!Harry knows about his abilities and uses them.


The story, as far as it goes by now, can be divided into two parts: Chapters 1 to 15 and then chapter 16 onwards (and that’s where the Dumbledore bashing mentioned in the summary really starts).

Spoiler

Part 1: The summoning and dealing with Voldemort,
Part 2: A stereotypical indy!Harry plot but with Death!Harry guiding Harry and apparently cleaning up some of his problems.

The chapters are rather short – so about 1,500 to 3,000 words – but come at a decent update rate for now. The author claims she doesn’t have a plan for the story, and sometimes it actually shows. She submitted some actually great parts, but there are others I could have done without.

Chapters 1 to 15 work on their own. I rate this part of the story with 4/5 and really recommend it for anyone interested in ‘Master of Death’!Harry.

The – for now – further 5 chapters aren’t that great and come at a solid 3/5. Though some hints at how Death!Harry deals with Dumbledore sound promising.


At least for now the first part definitely outweighs the second part and altogether I see the story at 4/5.


Edit for emphasis:
If you want to avoid most of the bashing, just read up to chapter 15. That chapter works really well as the end of the story.

 

This has been a guilty pleasure of mine for a while. I will tell anyone who knee jerks out of character bashing stories (for good reason) to go along with this one. It will be entertaining.

 

I've read this one a few weeks ago. First few chapters are entertaining, but then it gets repetitive. I stopped reading around chapter ten because of sheer boredom I felt. 3/5.

 

I've tried reading this a couple of times because I love MoD stories, but I couldn't quite get into it. There just isn't much of a real story to it. 2/5

 

I liked but I think I stopped reading in the chapter where Death is hanging onto Harry like a limpet after they had their little bonding session the previous chapter.

 

It was entertaining to watch Death be introduced to the world, and I even liked that beginning of bonding between Harry and Death quite a bit. But from then on the story seems to have dissolved into nothingness, and it's boring. Dumbledore is too stupid to be entertaining, the whole story falls over on manipulative tropes that don't suit it.

So, eh. I'd have given it a 4/5 if it was just the first few chapters, but now it's a low 3/5 and getting worse.

 

Perhaps something one could kill time with, if there nothing better was at hand, but this is in no way worthy of the Library. Barely counts as 'Guilty Pleasure', and only if it clicks with you. It starts on the wrong side of 'average' and only gets worse as time goes on.

2/5

 

It's super repetitive and it's not going anywhere since MoD!Harry clearly has nothing that could challenge him.

Was kind of cool reading him snub the Order at first but now there's nothing to look forward to but just rehashes of that.

 

"Prongslet"? Cartoonish Dumbledore? The recent chapters were terrible. It could actually be a good story, if for example the summoning spell seemingly failed and an insubstantial Death followed Harry and did things for him without him knowing. That could be an interesting story, this not so much.

 

A guilty pleasure at best, and definitely not one of this author's better works.

2/5

 

I found it to be an amusing time killer. Something about Death here reminds me of the reaper from Death Note, though I'm not sure why.

 

Well, I got through the whole thing, so it's not unreadable...but that's about all I can say for it. There's just nothing interesting going on. This set up seems like it could be good as a nonjon style humor piece, but the story isn't very funny. You might also be able to make it work as a drama, with the AUverse Harry dealing with the fallout of his alternate self's arrival, but the story isn't that serious. I mean, it takes stabs at it occasionally but it mostly happens in these kind of awkward hurt/comfort scenes.

Death!Harry precludes most of the usual plot in a Harry Potter story, and it doesn't seem like the author has found anything to replace it with. I don't mind things being more character-focused, but there's not much going on there either. As long as you can tolerate some character bashing, there's nothing offensively wrong with the fic, but there's also no depth.

Unobjectionable, unremarkable, and empty. 2/5

 

Dumbledore bashing in the Library? Seriously minion?

 

Bashing of any character is incredibly stupid, and any story that admits to bashing in its summary even more so. There have been a handful of good stories in the past which do bash characters (Equal and Opposite bashes Ginny, for instance), but those stories have been good in spite of the bashing, definitely not because of it. If you can't write a character without your own biases kicking in, then don't use that character at all.

 

Yes, I mentioned that in the first post - and that's part of the concept of this Master of Death. Usually villain gets some small edge to use a certain disadvantage of the hero to level him, see: kryptonite.

This hero is a god. He doesn't have a disadvantage the villain can use against him. He swats the villains away and even toys with them.

As I mentioned before, the story could be divided into two parts. If you want to avoid most of the bashing, just read up to chapter 15. That chapter works well as the end of the story.

 

Hey now. Don't put people down for suggesting stories - we don't get very many library submissions any more, and there was definitely some worth in this story, enough to merit us taking a look at it.

Not to mention, our library was practically founded on Dumbledore bashing. It was the lifeblood of so many Indy!Harry fics up until like 2009.

 

This, really. I gave this a try a while ago, before it had so many chapters, and while the introduction was pretty chill, Death!Harry just intimidating yet not really doing anything made the fic boring. It felt a bit like a wankfest without any major changes happening. Dumledore is a bash!retard trying to manipulate a summoned god with a remnant vendetta against him, yet he's still alive. I remember wanting to repeatedly slap some sense into Dumbledore, and then being frustrated by Death!Harry, who didn't do anything about it. To some, it might be amusing. To me, it's frustrating, and basically half the content of the story. Laughing at the idiocy and incompetence of the people interacting with Death!Harry. The other half is his interactions with the human Harry, to which I can only sigh at.

This whole fic really, really reminds me of a rather genetic fanfiction trope where an author inserts his god!SI into the world, masturbates to how insanely powerful he is and waves that power dick all around, yet the characters never learn and keep being bashed. Nobody dies, especially the characters being bashed, and the ship isn't rocked too much, so that the OC!God can influence familiar events as much as possible.

I also have to admit that I'm not a huge fan of "this story gets good/shit after chapter x, feel free to ignore stuff before/after it".

I believe I got to chapter 9 on the first read, and skimming some of the later stuff, I mostly cringed at how the story was developed.

Overall, 3/5.

 

interesting concept, but got boring real quick.

 

I find it supremely humorous. Sorry! It helps that the description is strong in this.

4/5

 

I didn't like this story att all. it is well written enough, but I couldn't get into it.
3/5 from me