You know, this brings up a point that's really been bugging me: in 1995, when Dumbledore was demoted from the Head of The Wizengamot, he was also dropped from being the Supreme Mugwump of the International Confederation of Wizards after he made a speech that Voldemort was back...

Huh? In what universe that does that make any sense whatsoever? Dumbledore, for all we have heard in canon, is a highly respected wizard worldwide, so how could he be ejected from the International Confederation of Wizards unless England holds absolute sway over that body? Is Fudge's reach really so long that he can force a recall of Dumbledore (who is the Supreme Mugwump of that body, which I've always considered analogous to the UN) and not risk the international community raising questions about it, particularly given the fact that Dumbledore hasn't exactly been known to be full of shit? Or did he just end up getting screwed by the international community thinking Dumbledore was pulling a Bush-era 'War On Iraq' scheme?

I dunno, I think this is more of a peeve I have with canon than anything else, but surely someone else has had issues with this, right?

 

I was under the (really far-stretched) assumption that Albus was appointed/elected Supreme Mugwump from amongst his fellows, but primarily he's there to represent Britain in the ICW. By losing the one position (British Delegate), he lost the other.

 

Another pet peeve: people other than Harry and Dumbledore using Voldemort's name. Not even Mad-Eye calls him "Voldemort" in the books. Everyone's scared of the name, and more importantly they have good reason to be scared of it.

 

Yes he does when showing Harry the picture of the first Order, as do Remus and Sirius throughout the exposition section at Grimmauld Place.

 

Well, he's changed his tune by DH:

"All done in the name of your protection from You-Know-Who."

"However, this is You-Know-Who we're dealing with."

Smart man.

 

Dumbledore's death must have really shook his confidence.

 

Either that or JKR forgot that Mad-Eye used the name XD

 

Or Mad Eye was an experienced Auror who might have suspected that Voldemort may take over any day now, so better be safe than sorry.

 

On a related not, authors using the Taboo from DH as 'proof' that Dumbledore had some nefarious agenda involving Voldemort-related terminology. I happen to be of the opinion that the Taboo was something new, rather than a tactic he had used previously. Dumbledore would not have so unrelentingly encouraged people to call Voldemort by name if there was actual danger in doing so, or if the habit was likely to become dangerous when Voldemort returned to full power (as Dumbledore knew was likely to happen).

 

I always assumed Taboo was a ministry controlled thing, and Dumbledore encouraged people to say his name because he didn't think Voldemort would take over the ministry.

 

Don't know if it has been mentioned, but I am starting to hate author bios that are almost chapter length. A page or so is acceptable, but I don't want to see a full chapter before I can see the stories.

Also, regarding stories, the need some people have to give statistic blocks for characters/weapons/vehicles. Either explain in story, or just skip it, either you can show how it works in the story, or it is useless information.

 

Any story with statistic blocks that aren't some sort of easter-eggy-bloopery-for-fun-only kind of thing (Game of Champions, in example, doing it right) is bound to fail miserably.

Miserably.

@Mr. Merriman: haven't been reading much hpffn lately but is that actually a thing?!

 

Bashing. Just the word is, ugh. You can hate a character, but to just make him a retard/evil/pedophile is just so, petty and unbelieavable bad writing.

 

Bashing is a strange subject for me lately.

The purest form of nonsensical bashing from yea olden days? Cannot exit quickly enough. I don't want to read the billionth screechy raging fic about the evils of Ginny/everyone Harry has ever met and how poor widdle Harry is always such a VICTIM who needs guidance to social enlightenment/a lot of lawyers to protect him while the villain of the day spends the fic frothing at the mouth over money/power/control/jealousy.

But recently there's been an upswing where author's who are NOT bashing a character have been labeling their fics as bashing. Like any even vaguely negative portrayal of a character is questionable.

There was a fic somewhere that was labelled Snape-bashing. It wasn't. Snape was barely a secondary character, did nothing that could be considered absolutely evil or treacherous, and was only the same foul-tempered vengeful, sadistic bat in the dungeons that he was in the books. The author warned for bashing because her characterization didn't mesh with fandom's romantic version of Snape.

Better example: The Naruto fandom is rife with 'Sasuke-bashing' fics... that don't bash him at all, they just have him being the same inconsistent, vaguely bitchy jerk he is in the manga. Sakura-bashing has a fifty-fifty shot of actually being a fic where she's IC.

 

The problem, Platypus, is that many people, even here on DLP, have read so many fanon stories that they simply forgot huge parts of canon.

 

Yeah. That's a really big problem. Also, most of us aren't like Taure, who rereads all 7 books every month. Sometimes I think he does that just to win discussions here.

 

Gotta ask . . . you're just starting to hate them?

 

I actually haven't read any of the original books since 2007.

That said, before 2007 I had read some of them around 20 times, so...

 

E.C. Scrubb:
I managed to avoid most of them for a while, or just ignored them, but yes, it is only recently I found them a problem. Perhaps changed my reading patterns or search patterns, and ran into them more.

 

Pet peeve: The Dursleys beating Harry up. In canon, the worst they did was neglect.
Authors making the Dursleys force Harry to cook food since he was five. He only had to do that once to the best of my knowledge, and that was helping out with Dudley’s super-special birthday.
Is this thread Potter only, or can I rant about incompetent Anbu here?