Let's be fair with Ron here. He had two mayor arguments with Harry in seven years. Considering how both of them are when angry and how stubborn they can be, that is an achievement.

In GoF Ron had no understanding of how dangerous the competition is and from his perspective there was only glory there (after all, they made it safer and Dumbledore knows his stuff. He missed the fact that that also included the age restriction). So he can't see why someone would put someone else to compete when they could compete themselves so either Harry did it himself or someone did it for him as an advantage because he was the boy who lived, which played to his insecurities (his mother loves the boy, he couldn't help him that much since Philosopher stone, Harry already had quite a few achievements under him while he was Harry's sidekick). And if Harry did it himself and didn't tell him anything, even though they both joked about competing beforehand... well, he was angry.

No, that wasn't fair to Harry and he should have waited for him to explain. But after the first confrontation Harry was all "Fuck him, he can apology first and then we can talk it out" which complicated the whole 'having his back' thing and to Ron it looked like he dissed him when he wouldn't fall in line.

So I can see why and how the GoF thing could happen and I could see why Harry would dismiss it later because that kind of argument would be normal in a friendship between two people like them. Ron did have his back in pretty much every other dire situation except DH (with some minor disagreement on opinions and suspicions here and there) and it is normal to trust those who willingly go with you into live threatening situations in order to watch your back.

Which leads to a pet peeve of mine. When in a fic Harry has other friends and they somehow end up going into the same life threatening situations with him (Philosopher stone trials and chamber of secrets for example). Doing those things is not normal. I want to see a fic in which the new friends he makes (be it at the begining of Hogwarts or after he 'disses' Ron and Hermione) chicken out of it because most of the time bravery is not their defining trait.

It reminds me of a discussion I once had about having Harry in a game setting in which I was making an argument about how Ron should have a trait that made roll checks easier when trying to convince him to accompany you into a combat situation regardless of his Loyalty points. Like, you could try to get new party members with better skills but he was still a very good starting one because you could make dangerous quests sooner without needing a couple of years to build the friendship and loyalty points and by the time you got the others you had already leveled him and made his built for combat so you took him anyways.

 

Her ability to manipulate people.. Like when? Most major things that Hermione has done in a leadership position either completely failed (SPEW for instance, trying to help Ron and others in first year) didn't go terribly well. There were some instances where things went well because she was around (Hermione' time Turner for instance, but she didn't really understand what went on as well as Harry, the camping trip also went well because of her knowledge) but when she was actively in charge?

I can't think of any. My memory is a bit rusty though, but generally I consider Hermione a "second in command" kind of person, very good at handling specific situstions/issues, but not great at macromanagement. She isn't particularly charismatic either, and I never considered her someone that would be quick on her feet.

 

This.

I think what people forget most of the time is that really, JKR wrote the three of them so that they were very strong together as a team, but individually, each of them had enough faults that they'd never make it through those seven years on their own. It's one of those "the whole is greater than the sum of the parts" things.

 

But canon Harry is stupid though. I agree that trusting and relying on him after that (at least immediately) is kind of silly, but it was important for canon.

I think people also forget that they are actually kids, and kids are frankly, stupid. They get into big fights about who got the red toy car then don't speak to each other for days. (Ok, maybe those kids are a bit younger than 14 but you get my point). Taking what you said into context, it's not unbelievable at all that Ron had a jealous fit. And it's forgivable because he was a stupid kid.

The desertion in Hallows would have been much more severe since he was more grown up then if it hadn't been excused by the Horcrux's influence. The book later tells us that he tried to come back the moment he left but couldn't.

So really, those two particular issues are not good reasons for hating Ron. There are other reasons that could be good like his laziness and how it influenced Harry, but those two issues are not really issues.

 

Pet Peeve: Stories without romance. Sometimes there is a good reason - if the story focuses on pre-Hogwarts, or the early years - but once the cast hit the later years, romance or at least sex should play a major role. Not only are there teenagers, barely supervised, but the main cast is also involved in a war and facing death pretty regularily.

If you're writing about Eunuch Harry and Nun Hermione, and all the Weasleys having been brought by the stork, please state so in the summary, and mark it "AU".

It doesn't have to be explicit, or the focus on the plot, but it shouldn't be absent.

 

Romance really isn't all that necessary. What's more disgusting is when everyone starts getting paired off at the same time.

 

...Agree with you on the sex but can also see why some writers don't do it. IMO sex scenes should be scene closers (sex begins) or openers (sex ends) unless it's a lemon fic though. Often the writing sucks and it reads better without details anyway.

The idea that sex is a dirty word rubs me the wrong way though.


Romance is much harder, the trick is to make it important without it taking on the main focus of the story or causing drama for the sake of drama. MOST writers suck at this and don't understand relationships at all. When everyone just gets paired off early on in the fic and either has no drama at all because it's 'perfect', or drama that is ALWAYS resolved (and usually fickle) and everyone lives happily ever after I gag a little. People don't always stick together forever and I'd like to see a fic where that happens, it'll annoy a lot of readers that are invested in that pairing but it reads so much better. Or even better, people don't all get into 'serious relationships' at all (some might), but instead play the field with a lot of people because it's fun.

When did 14 year olds get the idea you have to find someone and only that someone to be with forever as soon as possible, and that you should latch onto the first person to reply to your "h-hi".


EDIT:

This too, it's like everyone freaks out when one pair of people get together so they all scramble for partners (which happen to be soul mates of course) and everyone live happily ever after.

 

Both great points, but I'm biased about stories without romance, since I love them in general.

 

That's bad romance. (Though I can see that happening as a sort of "everyone is pairing up, we should too" peer pressure effect on insecure teenagers, aided by happy couples trying to play match makers for their friends, but it should lead to quick breakups by incompatible couples, not quadruple-weddings at 16.)

---------- Post automerged at 13:19 ---------- Previous post was at 13:16 ----------

That as well. I dislike it when wizards and witches act as if they were arch-conservative catholics with regards to sex.

 

It's not romance, more that a story should acknowledge that pretty much everyone over the age of 12 has sexual desires. A character doesn't need to be paired off but they should at least acknowledge that they find someone sexually attractive.

"I am Harry Potter and because I have dedicated my life to destroying Voldemort I have no sexual feelings what so ever!"

I have to agree with the last part though; I really hate that. What's worse is when everyone is paired off in their small friends group. I remember reading a post-OotP story once that had Harry pair up with Hermione, Ron with Luna and Ginny with Neville all around the same time upon which they all became lovey-dovey and never having any relationship hurdles.
I remember in highschool that pairing off within a friends group isn't all that common, actually.

 

Because often people you find that those people are fun when you're in a group but alone...not so much.

 

'Voldemort' has the perhaps unfair advantage of first being heard by me when I was 11.

It seemed awesome then.

Most fanfiction romances fall into one of two pitfalls.

1) The actual romance wraps up in chapter 3 and the remaining 80k words are lovey-dovey fluff.
2) There isn't enough actual plot in the mix to slow the romance down, so the author sticks in a bunch of contrived dramas to break the couple apart (so that they can stick them back together again in the next chapter).

I like to differentiate between 'fluff' and romance. Fluff is googly-eyed love at first sight followed by the aforementioned 80k words of brain-rotting sweetness. Romance is 80k words detailing the journey two people undertake before becoming a couple.

Did I just write that? Urgh, I feel dirty.

 

Harry blushing at intimacy and sex, I see this happen a lot, especially in MoD!Harry stories, If he's over a century old, has battled many dark lords and seen horrifying, terrible things he should not blush at the thought of sex

The wizarding world are Sheeple shit, If the Government tells you that a antisocial, angsty 15 year old is a delusional liar then to 7/10 he is a liar

Bashing is stupid

Au fics where harry is randomly reborn in different points in time and that doesn't effect shit

Fem!Harry, most of the time especially with names like Iris Potter-Black, Fuck that

 

I can understand why some writers leave out romance completely though. A story about young adults should include it, true, but writing good romance isn't easy. And if done wrong, it kills off a narrative faster than not doing it at all. I've read enough stories where I would have preferred an asexual Harry. It might not be as realistic, but I can live with that if the other parts of the story are awesome. What I can't stand is a great story that gets bogged down by useless and bad romance.

That said (and all the complaining aside) to write is the only way to improve. I dislike stories like this, but I can't disapprove of the author trying. If something comes around by it at least, then--for the author--that's all that should matter.

 

I'm sorry, but BS.

It ALL depends on how you were raised and what you've been exposed to. Fighting Dark Lords has nothing to do with sexuality. They're two completely different issues and experience in one does not give you experience in the other.

I've seen people blush over much lesser things than that. Just because you wouldn't blush doesn't mean no one else would. Blushing is usually a sign of some form of excitement (most often embarrassment, but also anger or laughter can bring it on), and is often driven from being pushed out of one's own comfort zones on an extremely personal level.

So Harry blushing at any age because he's being confronted for the first time with something way outside his comfort zone (think what he grew up with, intimacy of any time is foreign to him) would be a very natural reaction.

 

What bugs the hell out of me is Harry (or any character) blushing at everything, even though they've encountered it fifty times before.

Post-DH Harry blushing repeatedly because some DMLE official tells him he'll make a good auror is bullshit. I think he's figured that shit out by now.

 

I'm 26 years old and have yet to even kiss a girl. Don't act like romance is a fact in every teenager's life.

This, incidentally, is also why I myself wouldn't write romance: how the hell can I write about something I have no experience in?

 

It's perfectly okay to be attracted to men. Nothing shameful there.

 

That'd be the other end of the spectrum, and yeah, that's quite irritating as well.

 

Unfortunately Fem!Harry fics can be divided into people who actually want to make a plot out of Harry being a girl, and people who use Fem!Harry as an awful Mary Sue and self-insert so they can write themselves fucking Malfoy/Snape/Voldemort in a similar way as to how teenage girls write slash.