Hah, yeah. I know killing dementors is a cliche idea, but it's usually done with a spell.
I never really understood how the only character in the entire series who protested against the use of dementors was Dumbledore - in our world, something that induced that kind of mental effect would be classified as torture, plain and simple. And they lock everybody up in the same prison?

 

I'd say the main point is that it's one hell of a deterrent against commiting crimes.

 

Yes, and execution would be a very effective deterrent against shoplifting, but that wouldn't make it an appropriate punishment, now would it?

 

Suffice it to say 'sit down and reflect on what you've done' takes new meaning when you have Dementors on hand to help.

 

What we deem appropriate and what wizards deem appropriate are obviously different things. Different culture, different rules.

 

:facepalm

The US deemed slavery appropriate for a long time, until we decided it wasn't and started a war over it. I fail to see how torturing prisoners for even the mildest of crimes is such a situation that should not be changed.

 

Have you considered the idea that the Dementors guard Azkaban because wizards would break out of any jail that didn't sap their will and hope?

There are no magic-draining spells in canon, so a wizard convict would have years to figure out enough wandless magic to escape. It'd be like Arkham.

 

Yeah, but JKR could just as easily have created magic suppression spells/wards as dementors. Also, we only see extremely minimal wandless magic in canon, nothing enough to even break the bars of a cell.

 

If I remember correctly Nurmengard didn't have any Dementors and yet it managed to keep Gellert Grindelwald, guy who was on the same level as Dumbledore and Voldemort, imprisoned for fifty years.

 

But she created Dementors, which are likely just there as a) a deterrent and b) because they exist, are presumably unkillable, and the ministry's got to have somewhere to put them because they're a threat to the populace.

Have you never heard of Guantanamo Bay? Or any of the other prisons/countries that routinely torture prisoners? Shit does happen, personal opinions on it are mostly irrelevant.

 

Guys, that's the whole point of the plot bunny - he thinks these things are wrong, so he tries to fix them. Him failing could make a decent segue into becoming a dark lord, but I'd actually like to see him do it right and be a light lord instead.

 

That would be kinda boring. People would expect that to happen. Plus the whole 'light' thing is kinda hard to pull off.

So say he succeeds, then what? Everyone just lives happilly ever after? An ending like that would feel pretty hollow and as far as I can see that's the only way a fic like that could go.

Also there's just this aura of goblinfriend!Harry hanging about the whole thing.

 

:facepalm
Except she didn't create them. Therefore they need another way. And this an argument so dumb it makes my head hurt. The system JKR created is one issue. The way wizards work in that system is another. You cannot call out wizards for using dementors because "JKR could have created another way." Call them out on the grounds of morality, practicality, whatever. But you cannot say "they shouldn't use dementors because JKR could have come up with a more humane method."

That's just asinine.

 

Exactly. Not to say that author interviews should be held at exactly the same level as canon, but this viewpoint is confirmed by Rowling in one of her webchats (July 30, '07, Bloomsbury if anyone cares):

Fixing the Ministry is a boring proposition when played straight. According to post-DH interviews, Rowling wants us to think this happens after DH, driven in great part by the heroes of the Potter universe (including Harry, Hermione, etc.).

But I'd be surprised if she ever felt like writing at length about this - it's just hard to make it interesting.

 

Aright not really a plot bunny more of a basic premise.

So, I've always loved time-travel fics and I've been thinking of a way to take the old harry goes back in time cliche and do something somewhat experimental with it. I've never read anything like this so I don't know how it could turn out.

In his fifth year Harry makes a big mistake that just fucks everything up. Harry ends up a jaded slightly insane asshole and the war lasts a lot longer and more people die than in canon. Harry does the whole "OMFG no one is alive and it's all my fault!" and goes back in time to the divergence point and stops his younger self from making the mistake.

Okay sounds all cliche and boring right now but here's the twist.

The story doesn't go on from the moment of time travel, the time travel isn't really the focus of the story. The story is jaded asshole Harry's life from the time he made the mistake that changed him to the moment he stopped younger Harry except it's told backwards.

First scene is Harry stopping younger!Harry, but you don't actually know what he is being prevented from doing. Then the next scene is really the one before it - Harry acquiring the time turner and so on and so forth.

You don't find out what exactly made the whole story diverge from canon so much until the very end when you read the scene of the first Harry making the mistake as it's all told in limited third person and you don't know what asshole Harry is stopping younger Harry from doing in the first scene.

I could put in a second subplot about youngerHarry after the fact and told forwards in time but I think this would just be boring as we've already read it all in canon.

This would be hard to write well and it would probably be shortish (60k-70k) for a complex plot. I'll work out exactly how Harry ends up the way he is at the end (or is it the beginning?) later but right now I'm just seeing the response to the basic premise.

This was really hard to explain so I hope I got the message across without it sounding lame.

 

It's a good idea. Only problem is that you've just spoiled it for me.

 

The big problem with this plot, is, of course, the fact that it is a mystery plot that you just spoiled it to pretty much all DLPers who could possibly read it. :facepalm

Other than that, though, nice bunny.

edit: Ninjaed. Damn.

 

I don't think its been spoiled -anybody who's seen memento would catch on pretty quick as to the sequencing of events, and the most interesting part would be the actual plot, not the method of delivery.