I can't imagine such a character.

 

The main problem is, that any given character can only be so cunning/smart as the author himself/herself.

 

Strongly disagree.

 

Why?

/10char

 

My bad, I was on my cell earlier. You don't need to be a criminal mastermind to write one as a character. You don't have to be particularly good at sex to write a good sex scene. Maybe knowing the details of one crime, say robbing a liquor store, or one sexy moment, a liason with a co-worker, in an entire life is enough to write your story.

Oh, of course it makes it more believable if you are, usually, and a having a lifetime of experience as a cop might make for a better depiction of walking the beat, but don't we write about wizards here? I'm certainly not a wizard.

 

I think he means that if the author is not clever enough to think of cunning ways a character can behave, how can the character behave that way.

 

I think one of the reasons it is so hard to write a cunning character is that cunning is all about deceit and subtlety. This means that a cunning plan will usually be unseen and with the majority of authors not being good enough to show instead of tell they have to resort to these ham fisted tells. I see these glares or smirks as the book equivalent of the 'evil' character smiling behind the good guys back.

The authors also want recognition for their incredibly clever plan and so - rather than leaving the plan and it's effects in the background like what would happen IRL - they bring it to the forefront of the story. This results in the back-patting and the main character being given 'street cred' in the eyes of the genius!politican!slytherins.

 

At this point I'd settle for Harry with a plan that involves at least one non-obvious step and ends in silent satisfaction, not the usual "wow. Such cunning. Very slytherin".

Sigh.

 

i agree with Don E. Delivery in one aspect. As an author you can take a week to think about what a characater might do in ten seconds, so to a certain extent you can make your characters smarter than yourself.

However most authors don't do that, and so for all intends and purposes you can say: a character can never be smarter than the author.

 

All those friendly goblin fics. Where Harry finds out that he inherited insert-famous-wizard/witch vault, then the Generic friendly Goblin tells him that the Vault has been collecting interest for 1000 years(Or what I read today that somebody helped found Gringotts 1400 year ago) when the first bank was created around 500 years ago. This has been annoying me for a long time.

Same with the Wizengamot seats. He inherits seats from 1000 years ago, when the current goverment format that the Wizarding world uses has been around only for a few hundred years.

 

I honestly don't understand how interest could work in Gringotts, even if it could I REALLY doubt the Goblins would offer it.

The time fuck up can be explained by making it a little AU though. Still not a big fan of Wizengamot seats, I've never really seen them used for anything interesting.

 

I haven't seen one fic where Wizengamot seats actually mattered, and neither did the buttload of gold Harry inherited. It also raises the question, "Is Harry the first ever Potter to take a blood test?"

 

How about how Harry instantly manages to earn the goblins' love, loyalty, and respect by being polite to them one time.

I don't know what bothers me more about that: Harry being the first wizard ever to be nice to goblins, or how the goblins are reduced to puppies desperate for someone to love them.

 

It all makes sense now... Who would have thought all they wanted was a friend.

 

Do they even exist? huh

 

Blood testing is fannon. If it was real there would be no questions in canon who the pure bloods were.
@Altram
Have you read 'Black Comedy'? That seems like a fic where gold and wizengamot seats matter.

 

Seeing as the Blood Quill is an Umbridge invention, it might make sense for the goblins to test blood through a contractor: if you want to know your lineage, you'll have to let the vampire/blood connoisseur Valerian Ventrue take a taste and see what he thinks.

"Hmm... more Peverell than Black, with a hint of... is that some Trelawney? Certainly derived in a squib descendency, and 'Reaver' Trelawney was the cause of so many squibs... oh, I've lost the flavour. Do us a favour and give us another nip, my dear boy?"

 

Lupin feeling the need to have a pack or protect someone because their in 'his pack'.

 

I've read today the latest chapter of "HP and the Emerald Trance" fanfic, and I do enjoy this fic, but the last couple of chapters have felt like filler, and I very much disliked that. But more than the filler chapters, I feel beating the dead horse that is Umbridge and Malfoy shitting over Harry with impunity, over and over again, has become more than merely annoying, it has in fact become a pet peeve of mine.

I fear that when the time comes for Harry to pay them back in some manner, it will be unsatisfying because there's just been so much done to him, I can't help but feel nothing less than a few Cruciatus spells applied on them would suffice. But maybe that's just me.

 

Yeah I've been reading it too and have felt pretty much the same. I hold out hope though.

Agreed, I've started to despise Umbridge far more than we're supposed to because of how she's always handled in FF. It's even worse when Harry is OP and runs all over everyone else but for some reason has to toe the line with her specifically. It just doesn't make any sense and I can't take it seriously.

I mean what exactly can she do to him that the ministry - or, Fudge - can't do any time they choose to anyway. What exactly is forcing him to obey her rules, is it threat of expulsion? Surely if she were able to do that she'd have done it already.