Having just finished a read of darklordmike's rec in For Review, I've started thinking about something, and that's physical combat in Harry Potter fanfiction - most notably in Indy!Harry fics. Not magical duels or epic spellcasting, but fist-fighting, knives, swords, or - God help us - guns.

I've seen more bad than good fics that utilize physical combat - mostly because they make Harry halfway competent with the slightest iota of training. Or fics that have Voldemort get distracted or beaten because he got a fist to the face or (the worst example) a pistol shot to the back of the head by a fucking Muggle.

It doesn't help that most people don't have the slightest clue about hand-to-hand combat, and people tend to get fucked over on the little details (and I'm guilty of it too, but that is what the 'Edit' button is for).

However, I can see the incentive of including such elements - after all, there is canon evidence that Aurors have to go through strenuous physical trials to attain their certification, so I'm making the assumption that they have some physical combat training at least. And let's face it - if somebody gets within a few feet of a wizard with a good right cross or knife, that wizard is in deep trouble unless he can stammer out a spell fast enough (and that runs the risk of miscasting unless he casts nonverbally). And who doesn't want a Harry that can beat the shit out of a motherfucker with his bare hands if he has to?

So now I pose the question: should such elements be included in HP fanfiction, and if so, has there been any fics where it has been done halfway well? If not, how can one incorporate such elements into their fics without looking like Stained-Future or Tridentwatch?

All thoughts are welcome.

 

If you do include this stuff in your story, then it should be a part of that world. It shouldn't be a secret superweapon that Harry found. If guns or swords or even just martial arts are so effective in combat against wizards, why hasn't anyone else used this? Hands to beat people up were around since people had hands and swords at least several thousand years, even guns are common since the Late Middle Ages.
So if wizards really can't easily defend themselves against this stuff, why isn't everyone else (Aurors, Death Eaters, etc.) also using this in a fight? You can't come with an excuse like it's too new for them, because this isn't new.

So either you include this stuff as a standard tactic, in which everyone is trained in at Auror or Death Eater school, or you leave it out and come up with some explanation like; you can charm your clothes to be bullet proof, etc.

I personally prefer stories without "normal" fighting, even if it's augmented by magic, because you have that all the time in fantasy. Pure magic fights are relatively rare - HP is one of the few settings where this is the standard.

 

Meh, I'd try and portray it at mostly opportunistic in a fight. The sort of shit you see is Harry v Draco fucking Malfoy in DADA dueling practice where Harry side steps all spells thrown at him while advancing, and punches Malfoy in a face and then kicks him in the balls.

Screw that. Harry has been dispossessed of his wand & a bit woozy from a mild concussion or something and is watching a duel between, doesn't really matter but lets say Tonks v Competent DE#2. Harry, in a pique of very canon verified stupidity bum rushes the DE and tackles him to the ground and begins swinging his arms around like a retard (again, canon verified that Harry is a retard).

Or some transfiguration wizard conjures some metal javelins and banishes them or something. Bystander#1 in their desperation picks it up and starts stabbing at people that get near.

ANDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD. VERY IMPORTANT. Quidditch does not make you buff. Especially if you're a seeker who just sort of flies around. Beaters and Chasers would probably develop their arms a bit. The only conceivable thing might be a little bit of abdominal toning from twisting and turning to direct the broom. And just because Harry had to run from Dudley when he was <11 does not make him Usain Bolt or Asafa Powel.

 

No. I don't care if someone mentions in passing that Aurors receive basic hand to hand training, but keep fucking physical combat out of Harry Potter. It's one of the few fanon ideas that really pisses me off and turns me off of a story.

Harry Potter is all about magic. If you want flashy sword/gun fights then go read some Bleach or Cowboy Bebop fanfics (not really aimed at you Silens). Keep that shit out of HP.

 

I experimented with it in Tick-Tock, and I like to think that I managed to write it reasonably well. Like already said, the main thing to remember is that Harry is a wizard first. Magic is, and always should be the main focus. But, if there's an opportunity to toss in a cheap shot headbutt, or a punch to the face, I see no reason not too.

Edit: Forgot to say, for God's sakes, keep guns out of Harry Potter. They're fucking worthless.

 

Don't go out of your way to include physical combat in HP. Simple as that.

 

A well placed punch or kick is fine, but magic pwns too hard for anything else to be realistic. The extent of it should be schoolchildren brawls and "omfg-I-have-no-wand-shit-shit-SHIT".

People like Shezza kill things with swords, but they make it magic-y enough. Every time I see a summer training montage where Harry becomes a master of the Hidden Fook Yoo style, though, it makes me rage.

 

This. And no ever-loading ammo or self cleaning charms, or whatever similar faggotry people like to include. Weapons that aren't wands work effectively in stories if (a) it's by accident (Harry, in fit of panic, threw a copper pot at the advancing death eater.), (b) through magical implementation (Harry, in a fit of inspiration, Summoned all of the knives in the display window behind an unsuspecting Malfoy.), or (c) the person using said weaponry is immediately killed.

(Basilisk Fang Exemption: any scene where someone gets stabbed by a basilisk fang is automatically awesome.)

​

----

As far as hand-to-hand combat, I say that it absolutely has a place in HP fanfiction, but only if it's as ambiguous as possible; more Jason Bourne, and less Jackie Chan. I've never met a Brit who studied Wing Chun or Shaolin Kung-fu, and definitely don't wanna see any nonsense about phoenix punches. Ironically, I had a plot...not bunny, per se - more like a plot element, that involved all muggle martial arts being a watered-down derivative of a wand-based martial art (katas resembling wand movements, etc).

But a muggle-raised kid who got picked on all the time? I can definitely see him cobbling together a fairly effective, improvisational hand-to-hand system that's based more on giving him time to run away - as opposed to, say,performing an MK-worthy fatality on Piers Polkiss. "Well-placed roundhouse kicks to the chin" make as little sense in real-life as they do in fanfiction, what with the small problem of leaving your nuts exposed, and risking over-balancing, or fucking up your foot, etc.

That being said, one could get really creative with their spellwork to "compensate" for a lack of hand-to-hand:

- The Shield Charm can be utilized in multiple ways, both as a magical and physical obstruction, as demonstrated in book 7.
- "Stylus": an old, out-of-use spell used for carving inscriptions into metal and rock, temporarily hardens the wand (Lol) and easily pierces flesh at close range (I guess this should go in the Grimoire).
- Spells that temporarily shock, stun, or disorient their opponents that function only upon wand-to-person contact (much like the Disllusionment spell).

That's just off the top of my head, but you get the idea. Either way, hand-to-hand should have a very minimal role, and should be relatively basic compared to his magical knowledge.

EDIT: Best fics with combat = Samuel Black's gem, and Enembee's "The Skitterleap", hands down

 

In my mind, Auror training doesn't involve "physical combat" as such, but rather the standard type of physical training, with (magical) combat elements. To an Auror, agility and endurance should in theory be rather important; if you're completely winded, your ability to cast and to dodge will suffer. But physical combat? Not so much.

I have seen fics where Auror-style training included Muggle physical combat - the usual rationale is that having a broader understanding of combat improves one's magical dueling ability somehow. Some of these fics were even rather good. But I don't see the canon world working that way. IMO, you should be careful using things like that; it's easy to take the idea to ridiculousness.

Mind you, there are a few physical training scenarios that would have use to Aurors - the sort of unusual, specific situations an Auror would presumably hope they never find themselves in. For instance, "Disarmed, with wanded attacker in arm-striking distance" - you might be able to deflect the attacker's wand away from your body or even attempt to take the wand. But any opponent worth his salt would know to stay out of grabbing range.

 

It depends entirely on the skill of the author and the story being told. I don't mind the idea of using swords or guns or unusual alternative weapons aside from wands in HP - as such, seeing them in fanfiction doesn't really bother me.

Check out Jono's work; her Harry uses a sword and I believe at one point in the story, he even uses a gun. And most people here regard Stranger in an Unholy Land as top-notch storytelling.

 

You all forget that Goblins fought with weapons against wizards successfully enough that they only stopped fighting the wizards when they were given control of the Wizarding World's monetary system.

So you could have weapons in a fanfic so long as its goblin wrought or an equal to it and not just some muggle weapon a school age kid enchanted.

A time when physical fighting should be included is if you have Goblins fighting.

 

I don't see why everyone seems to think that guns would be ineffective. Sure, they should be very easy to shield against, but most wizards wouldn't think of doing that. In my opinion, guns would be effective for first few kills/battles - until everyone figured out how to defend against small metal objects with high velocity. In canon Harry had very similar problem with raindrops until Hermione cast Impervious Charm on them.

 

But in all seriousness, I've never seen "real world" combat used effectively as a central feature of a HP story. Sure, you can have people fighting, and even using swords and guns, but when you have Aurors training like SAS commandos, or Harry learning kung fu.... no, just no.

(I'm open to the possibility of there being a well-written fic out there where Harry learns Muggle combat skills, but all the ones I've seen turn him into a Harry Sue.)

Rowling didn't give us enough canon information to answer the great "guns vs. wands" debate, so if you're going to mix martial arts and guns with Harry Potter magic, you're going to pretty much be writing outside the genre. At that point, a Muggle shooting Voldemort in the head with a handgun doesn't even strike me as that ridiculous. (Well, hopefully he wouldn't be stupid enough to let a Muggle with a gun get that close to him, but we're talking about Voldemort here -- in the books, he was a contender for Dumbest Archvillain Ever.)

 

Essentially my thoughts.

Don't use guns or swords or martial arts. If the opportunity presents itself, a good punch wouldn't be amiss. However, HP is about magic - keep it that way.

 

Personally I don't mind swords and guns as long as they remain inferior to magic and are used sparingly. Like in Dresden Files.

 

I think the issue of swords and guns relies on the scope of the story.

If you are keeping it as wizard vs. wizard, you'd assume that they would fight with all magic.

If the wizards are fighting other creatures though- creatures that may have immunities to magical attacks- a sword or bullet enchanted in some way or made out of a certain material might be imperative. I think if you are creative, you can have your characters still use physical objects to attack without them having to move them with a hand.

Btw, Kung fu means something like Time and Effort. It does not mean martial art. If you are good at martial arts, you obviously have spent a lot of time and effort, which is whether the translation issue comes up.

It sounds silly if you know that it's not a true translation. ~ I KNOW KUNG FU!!

 

That's true enough, if you're speaking Chinese.

"Kung fu," however, has become a loan word in English, which is understood by nearly all English speakers to refer to a Chinese martial arts style (or rather, a large family of styles).

Every English speaker who studies kung fu knows the proper origin and translation of the term. Every English speaker who studies kung fu also calls it "kung fu," unless they're being pedantic, or referring to the specific style they practice.

 

How does one study Kung Fu? It seems foolish that we can steal a word, act as though it means something it doesn't, and then use it to such excess that we can then act as though it's ALWAYS been like that, so it would be foolish to change it back now that everyone knows the new definition! Every person in this thread that spoke of Chinese martial arts called it Kung Fu, rather than Wushu. That's a pretty known word, too, and it's not wrong.