@Taure

After reading this thread (and the ones before it), I think it is fair to say that anything ever introduced by fanon is wrong, bad and stupid.

 

Hm, that's true, there could very well be stories where Harry does need to know why he can trust Snape, and if that's the case, he's at a point where he needs to go and ask Snape himself whether he can trust him and why.

I mean if he REALLY needs to know that he can trust him he's probably "running a war" by this point and should be old enough/mature enough to ask the man himself not Dumbledore. If he's not running a war yet and is still at school then he really doesn't need to know. He would only need to trust him if he needed him to do something, or believe that he would do something. Apart from marking his work fairly I can't really think of anything there.

Wow, I've never really thought about it that way but you're right. He doesn't seem to have a reason for making Harry miserable that we're ever informed of. It's always "how do I get Harry back under my control, what went wrong!". That makes half the story completely pointless...

Yeah, that's a pretty safe assumption, most of these fics are not made by professional writers and are more a form of wish fulfilment I think. So the plot points end up making questionable sense.


On the frying pan issue, I don't remember the exact text, but I'm pretty sure it says something along the lines of "he ducked under the frying pan his aunt swatted at him on his way out", in much nicer words. It was never mentioned again either (I think), nor was any other case of the elder Dursleys "trying to hit him" with something, there were instances where Vernon used his hands to grab him though I believe.

Stories where Harry breaks his arms/legs multiple times really annoy me, what are they gaining by making him "more abused". It's like their writing skills suck so much they need to make everything extreme to make sure we get the point, "YES YOU SEE, HE'S BEING ABUSED!".

 

Do you remember offhand which story that was?

Well of course they do! Don't you know that all readers are so stupid that they wouldn't comprehend the fact if it weren't made blatantly obvious?

 

Nope.

Only that it was in was in wba and, I think, by a DLP author. It's been awhile.

 

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/6256154/1/The-Unforgiving-Minute

 

Could you elaborate? I'm curious what that fic has that you marked the entire thing as a pet peeve.

 

Well it has Ginny. That's all I have to work off.

 

Not sure if sarcasm...but I think klackerz is responding to mknote and dmacx...

 

Pretty sure that was the fic that dmacx said Harry killed Snape and things go downhill, seeing as on the first page Harry killed Snape. I might be wrong, though.

 

Oh... my bad. Sorry for that.

 

That was the one. I can't believe I forgot that fic.

 

I'm back.

Stupid Dark Lord Names

'CharacterX is actually a Dark Lord in training! The Light should fear the Dark Lord Filldeserp!' (Obviously an anagram of Peed Frills. I'm assuming there was some kind of childhood issue there)

OCs are always a minefield because people suck at names. Dark Lord names are so much worse. I don't think I've seen a single one in any fanfic ever that hasn't made me want to cringe.

Oh-My-Dad-Is-Voldemort-I-May-As-Well-Become-A-Dark-Lord

This is when Harry finds out his 'real' [Dad/Mum] is actually [Voldemort/Rabastan Lestrange/Rodolphus Lestrange/Fenrir Greyback/Bellatrix Lestrange] and figures 'Oh well, I'll just discard all my deeply held beliefs and morals and go follow in dear parent's footsteps.' It happens. I am not amused. Extra points if you give him a moronic Dark Lord name as well.

 

It really was done? Though I encountered this "Hermione is secretly pureblood" with analogous results so I should not be surprised.

 

Can't remember seeing Hermione is secretly pureblood...maybe once and I think she was adopted? Probably born daughter of Dolohov I can't remember.

Hermione is secretly from a family of squibs descended from Ravenclaw is disgustingly common.

 

I've seen this way to many times and I cringe when I see it.

"I'm Hermione and I was raised in a muggle household and taught in a muggle primary school where I learnt democracy, hard work, and integrity. But wait, I suddenly discover [I'm Bellatrix's daughter]/[I'm Voldemort's daughter]/[I'm Bellatrix's and Voldemort's daughter]/[I'm Draco Malfoy's lost twin sister]/[some other dark heritage] (cross out what does not apply) and now I know this I'm suddenly going to abandon all my beliefs for the evuls."

Usually at this point Hermione falls in love with Draco (If she's not related to him and sometimes when she is) or Nott, or Parkinson (yay, lesbians).

 

Oh god no. Totally called that this would be followed by a DM/HG relationship too...

 

Count yourself lucky.

It's usually done so that she can also suddenly discover that she has amazing magical powers due to being a pureblood, and so there's absolutely no reason she can't date Draco...

Thus destroying the moral of the books and the character of the female lead, in one fell swoop.

Bingo. Now, I haven't seen Hermione going evil as often as I have her either just kind of accepting the evil behavior of Draco (or whoever) because being all up on his jock is more important than principles, or Draco suddenly turns out to be a good guy and, what do you know, so are his parents. It's like the Malfoys never were involved in that Chamber of Secrets thing, never tried to get Dumbledore booted from the school, didn't act like asses at the World Cup, didn't take part in the DoM fight... Makes you wonder why NONE of the plot has changed, in those fanfics, when they try to tell you the Malfoys never did any of that shit. How'd they get to the same, exact, situation as canon, then? Oh, right... lazy/stupid writing.

Oh, or they were spies all along (how many REAL followers does Tom even have?), and Draco's just a really convincing douche-bag.

Still, this brings me to the points I always make when this shit rears its misshapen, ugly, head.

A: One of the central notions of the series is that racism is bad, m'kay? And that there is no physical/magical difference between purebloods, halfbloods, and muggleborn. The only thing that separates them is their upbringing. By making it so that purebloods have special powers that the others don't, you legitimize their elitist attitudes and fears about 'race mixing' diluting their pure blood, if not the actual discrimination in which they engage.

B: Hermione is so passionate about equality, that it even extends to other races. Even if she discovered that she had been adopted, and her real parents were purebloods, she is not going to suddenly start dating Draco.

Presumably, the idea is that Draco wouldn't want Hermine as a mudblood, but if she's a pureblood he'd jump at the chance to tap that ass. That totally ignores that even a newly-revealed-to-be-pureblood Hermione would want nothing to do with Draco because, in addition to just plain being a mean-spirited, cruel, little shit, in general, he's also a racist. Hermione is not going to stop hating his racist beliefs and behavior, just because she's no longer personally the target of them.

That's like if Martin Luther King Jr. got his skin lightened, then said, "Racism's not my problem, anymore. Party at George Wallace's house, tonight!"

I'm certain his dream meant more to him than that and, though she's fictional, I'd like to think Hermione's stance on equality and racism meant more to her, as well. That's a legit comparison, too (albeit to a fictional character), since she is basically the face of the equality movement in her country, and does go on to have a hand in the creation of new legislation in canon.

C: This setup also ignores (because most of those pureblood!Hermione writers can't think past their noses) the fact that no pureblood supremacist worth their death eater mask would touch Hermione with a ten foot pole, even if she turned out to be pureblood. Why? Because, as I stated above, the only difference between purebloods and muggleborn is upbringing, and Hermione was raised by muggles in the muggle world. Maybe they'd bang her, just to humiliate and dump her, then rub it in her and her friends faces (if she still has friends after mysteriously deciding to date Draco), but they certainly wouldn't want a real relationship.

Conceivably (pun intended), if one wrote an AU where purebloods did have extra powers (which, again, undermines the most central themes of the canon), Hermione might be in demand purely as breeding stock... and even then, she'd be considered an irritating bumpkin due to her upbringing: Slave or concubine material, not girlfriend/wife material. This is especially true of people as class-conscious as the Malfoys.

Basically, if you're so dead set on hooking Hermione up with Draco, just reform the little shit, and leave Hermione's parentage alone! And don't go reforming his parents, too.

The "they were good all along" shit is a hackneyed cop-out, and the Malfoys are not all going to turn over a new leaf, just because their son has lost his mind and decided to abandon their ways in the pursuit of someone they view as being on the same level as particularly loud and annoying cattle. You're not going to go to the trouble of writing away their involvement in nearly every bad thing that happened in canon, anyway, so just don't bother making them good, you Malfoy-rimming rich-fuck wannabes. That shit doesn't work in real life, and it really doesn't work when the recipients of your envy and sycophancy are fictional.

---

Finally, at the risk of people pointing out that I've already answered my own question (having stated above that these writers are lazy and/or stupid), why is it almost always that Hermione is related to one of the families of a classmate (usually Slytherin)?

Firstly, Slytherins aren't the only purebloods at Hogwarts, though that may require too much imagination or research for the average masturbatory fic-writer to muster. Secondly, why not a family of someone who isn't in Hermione's year? Why not a family that doesn't even currently have a child in Hogwarts because, duh, somehow their kid ended up with a family of muggles? :facepalm

The old "daughter of Bellatrix" shit is almost as tired and insane as the "daughter of Voldemort" dreck. Who believes that fucker ever so much as felt the desire to get his dick wet, let alone had kids? And then the plot tends to revolve around him finding out he has a daughter and wanting her back... as if he needs or wants an heir, anyway. If anything, he'd simply want her dead: Too many stories where the king/god is offed by their offspring. Plus, these plots tend to require all sorts of baroque nonsense where someone got the kid away from the parents, usually without Voldemort even becoming aware he had a child SOMEHOW, and then Albus or the Order sticking the kid with some muggles.

The ones where she's a Malfoy are even weirder, because how and why would someone have snatched that baby away from the Malfoys and stuck her elsewhere? No good, feasible, reason. And, if you're doing that, why not also grab Draco? It's just makes no sense. Likewise, if she's with the Grangers because the Malfoys themselves put her there, presumably for protection, why not Draco, too? Again, it makes no sense. So convoluted...

Also, one wonders how the Grangers may have reacted, when she first started doing accidental magic, if she were adopted. The first thing out of their mouths would probably be about how that shit must have come from her real parents because "We can't do this stuff," and then the cat would be half out of the bag in regard to the "You're actually adopted" surprise, years before it happens in these fics.

Ugh.

How about a story where, yeah, Hermione was adopted from purebloods, and the reason no one knew is because the ignorant fucking purebloods went out into muggle London, didn't have the sense god gave a jackass to look before crossing the street, and both got creamed by a lorry? Hermione miraculously survives by luck, by accidental magic, or simply by virtue of the relatively larger ground clearance of your average delivery truck, and gets adopted by the Grangers, because they're far too interested in dentistry and ski vacations to piss around with shit like fornicating and gestation periods, in order to have their own kid... and later they can shirk housing their daughter during large swaths of school vacation time. No grand conspiracy. No wealthy, aristocratic, birth parents. Just a truck and a fuck who was too dumb to duck.

Even better, how about a story where Hermione (as muggle as they come) is NOT actually an adopted pureblood, but a group of purebloods PRETEND she is, going so far as to fake records that say as much, and plant fake proof that her muggle birth records were merely fabricated and the Grangers were bewitched into thinking she was theirs.

Why?

Because purebloods are supposed to be superior, and this mudblood bitch started outperforming their inbred little crotch-fruits in school on every conceivable level, mere months after she was told magic was even a thing. It's not only humiliating that this uppity mudblood is making their kids look like half-trained jarveys, but it's in danger of discrediting their supremacist propaganda. Everyone's in serious danger of vomiting up their own self-congratulatory Kool-Aid.

So, they fake everything they can to make it look like she's actually a pureblood. Sure, the house elf rights shit is still embarrassing (as if they want freedom or rights... or, you know, deserve or could handle having either), but at least if she's "one of their own" she's not just some mudblood who's proving that all that cousin fucking was for nothing.

Shit, Lily Evans was bad enough: Thank Merlin she didn't survive along with her son, or pureblood supremacy would be relegated to a mere discredited legend, like the Deathly Hallows and that whole Muggles in Space claptrap...

Maybe Hermione is suspicious from the start, and spends the story trying to figure out the truth, while purebloods try to swallow their bile and be nice to her, and some family tries to claim guardianship of her. Maybe there's a scene where the conspirators are trying to decide who has to 'volunteer' their precious son to approach the girl for a date (thinking this will somehow strengthen this ridiculously elaborate ruse), and nobody wants to do it, so they draw straws.

Call it a comedy. If people are going to write this laughable pureblood!Hermione shit, they could at least supply some genuine laughs.

 

To be fair, Hermione did become sufficiently wizarding that she often spent holidays away from her parents and was happy to modify their memories without feeling much in the way of regret. By the 7th book I don't think she identifies much with the Muggle world anymore. By the time she's 100 the Muggle world will be as alien to her as to pure-bloods.

Hermione turning about face overnight is of course absurd, but I think discovering that you're really a Pureblood could definitely have some seductive power to corrupt your morals. In the Voldemort era it's basically the wizarding equivalent of winning the lottery -- an all-access pass to immunity from Voldemort, so long as you don't actively oppose him.

Over a period of time you could easily find yourself sliding down a slippery slope of making injustice not your business.

 

Writing that would require the kind of insightful thinking that... well- Look, I firmly expect to receive my Hogwarts letter before I see a skillful deconstruction with realistic and in-character portrayals of this process in action.

I could see that. But, in this 'genre' of story, the only slippery slope Hermione ever slides down is the prick of a blatant racist.

Your theoretical story could exist, of course.
Full disclosure: I wouldn't read a well-written version of this genre, either, though. If I want to see Hermione acting like a hypocrite and then becoming romantically involved with someone who doesn't respect her heritage, I've got these hardbacks on the shelf. Six and Seven would do nicely...

 

This would actually be hilarious, but I doubt I'd read it myself.


My biggest problem with a story where with her behaviour doing an easy 180 you mentioned and suddenly realising that Draco is actually Adonis isn't even how disgusting it is. My first and largest problem with it is that YOU ARE NO LONGER WRITING ABOUT HERMIONE GRANGER.

You have now created an OC, Hermione Granger is a Muggleborn with, like you mentioned, extremely passionate beliefs about equality. Despite those beliefs often becoming irritating.

When you change the basic make up of a character that much I refuse to believe they are actually that character any more. Or at least, if you change it too quickly. This is soooo common too, too often the only thing that a writer's characters have in common with the original characters is their name. Which is basically false advertising and annoys me.

Wow, I feel like this is ignored too often, or maybe I'm just reading the wrong fics, but you're right. Hermione, and most people that become part of the Wizarding world, leave the Muggle world behind and pretty much forget about it. In fact, apart from the summer I don't think the Muggle world is really ever mentioned in the books. Because who cares about that boring place anyway, we have magic here.

I wish more stories would implement this idea, I'd love to see less about the muggle world in well...all of the fics I read.

I cannot honestly remember if this is canon or I read it in a fic somewhere, it's been too long. But somewhere Hermione says something like (after she's of age), "My parents asked be to get something out of the kitchen and I just summoned it without thinking", to Harry/Ron. She was pointing out that she no longer thinks like a Muggle because being a Witch is who she is now. I think it bothered her a little to no longer have something in common with her parents.

If it was canon then great, if not, I think it was a pretty good line anyway.