So I have a bit of a rant I know that everyone has heard this one before but I just wanted to state my own personal view. I had the opportunity to go to college early. Where I lived offered a program where you went to the Community College full time and it counted as High School Classes. Then as I was getting close to finishing my Junior year we moved to Nebraska. Due to this move they graduated me early. In the end I graduated High School with 44 college credits at the age of 16.

Due to my exposure in college I have been told many times by my parents and people around me that I'm Mature for my age. I've noticed when I'm hanging around with people around my age at church that I get extremely frustrated with how they act and behave. It just drives me nuts how childish they can act at times...

So I want to know why in every single Harry Potter time travel fic it seems he is "enjoying living out his childhood that he missed" I know if I was in that situation I would have found an automatic and gone on a rampage. Its hard enough being surrounded by people my age and a few years younger, let alone being around people 20 years or so younger then you 24/7...

Its just stupid, Harry would go insane already. Sorry I had to post this a combination of some events going on in my personal life and a line in a cheesy time travel fic made me have to post this.

 

There's no maturity in realizing how childish everyone else is.

 

I completely agree that's the big. gaping flaw of 'Harry gets sent into his child self' stories. For some reason he always finds a need to go and do the exact same thing he did when he was 11 only this time he ends up a bit better off. Wtf?! Why would a, however how old, man befriend 11 year olds. No matter how mature some youths (Hermione) may be there is no way an adult can relate to an 11 year old.
It just doesn't make any sense. I would think if I was in Harry's shoes and could redo by magical education I would try it out in a different school to change the pace and get a fresh experience.

 

There is nothing wrong with being able to enjoy the simple things in life which sadly a lot of adults don't or can't or won't. People won't expect you to behave with proper etiquette, you get away with things you wouldn't have and you won't have to worry quite as much not to offend everyone.
You are right, part of what makes your childhood that enjoyable is that you just don't know any better. Something which is quite impossible if you have the mind of someone who's been alive for atleast two decades. What interaction I usually have with 11 year olds is them being off in their own little world while I mostly try to act the nice big brother without being too condescending. No fucking way I'd be able to establish deep meaningful friendships with people who's neural synapses haven't finished building.

If that was me I'd most likely sit in the hogwarts express, I'd be sitting with them reminescing, being amused by the antiques of children and asking questions allowing the self-centered brats (they all are!) to happily talk about themselves.

Trust me from personal experience, someone being mature for their age are either just that, mature because they've learned to read others and know what to say and when to say it or because they've not built up the capacity to interact socially with others giving off the impression that they're more mature (reserved and stand-offish). I'm very certain Hermione is in the latter category.
Personally, I wish I'd have jumped around monkey-like more than I had in my childhood but I didn't. Something I quite regret.

 

That got an ironic laugh out of me. Repped.

Rant response: I agree, it has always made me curious...therefore in my time travel fics a teenage Harry stuck in a child body will try to get into strip bars. Hey he can't touch yet, but he can look.

 

I apologize if my original statement seems bighead and what not. I didn't mean for it to come off that way. I was just trying to relate my experience of going from one environment to an environment meant for younger people.

Again along the same lines, when I watch a neighbors children and they are around 10, yea I can play with them but it is more along the lines of how an adult play with a child then how someone their age does. I just feel almost all of these stories ridiculous in this aspect.

 

It's called "suspension of disbelief". It can be difficult to write fantasy at times, because sometimes your ideas are just out there, and upon scrutiny or even a simple analysis of a plot, anyone can find gaping holes and totally lose interest in your work.

Anyway, my point is, what you're trying to do is akin applying physics to a video game. It doesn't work. Time Travel fics are meant to be "fun", if you want to apply the rules of logic and "real life" to Harry Potter, we need to ask ourselves "How could a child abused from the age of 1, never touched or shown love to, be in any way sane? Biologically, children who are not touched or cared for become 'feral children'. Their IQ drops to the level of a person born with mental retardation. They lose motor skills and language developement and become incurably violent. Logically, Harry would have been confined to a mental ward in some hospital by eight or nine (he did go to school) were this the case.

But it's not, and that's why it's called fantasy.

 

"Becoming a man means throwing away childish things, including the fear of acting childish and the great desire to be mature."

Paraphrased from... someone.

 

That doesn't fly. Suspension of disbelief is used by readers to accept the premise of a story that would otherwise be impossible in real life. That doesn't mean a reader can read a story that defies the rules that govern the stories world, or that the reader can suspend common sense.

 

Quoted for truth. There's a difference between suspending disbelief to accept an impossible premise like the Harry Potter series, and ignoring huge, glaring characterization flaws like the one ranted about.

 

This is one of my biggest peeves about Time Travel as well. In fact...

I did a little digging into my planning notes if I ever get around to writing a sequel to Dimension Hopping and this complaint was the reason I feel the need to rant on it too. My scene notes say this:

So yes. I empathize completely.

 

DLP Pedo List.


#1
S'TarKan

Name: Unknown.
Alias: S'TarKan
Crimes: Peddling a 30 year old Harry to a 9 year old girl in his masterpiece of craptastic proportions: Nightmares of Futures Past.

Other Crimes: philosophical!12 year old Ron.

Consensus: He is considered old and violently pedo. Flat chested 9 year olds (not that there exist any other kind except perhaps in his addled brain) render him immobile. He also has a very large and dangerous following of 40 year old pedos (the OgYg: Old guy young girl association). Approach with cautions and for gods sake, keep your young daughter out of their reach.


#2
Vash

 

I do beg to differ.​

 

I don't know why, but I looked down. Good, I need to be shot.

 

Death, my first though on seeing that pic was "It's the Staypuft Marshmallow man as a child!"

 

Really? My first thought was "Hey! It's Darius."

 

In The Lie I've Lived where Harry becomes an amalgam of his memories and the memories of his father, he runs into that a whole bunch. He's basically a 22-23 year old stuck in 14 yr old's body. I'm just about done with chapter 7 and you'll see more of it.

He's still prone to making stupid screwups as those who have lived through their twenties can look back on and recall vividly, but he doesn't find the 13-16 yr olds that attractive. He sort of dates Katie Bell if for no other reason than to keep all the rest away. In chapter 7 he openly encourages Michael Corner to go after Ginny to get that little problem off his hands.

He doesn't really relish in his current friends. He suddenly grew up and they didn't. The girls he could conceivalby see himself with (ages 17 and up) see him as a 'leetle boy' and it's a bit frustrating for him.

Anyway, I do have issues with adult Harry trying to relive his childhood. Let him hit his midlife crisis and by a sportscar like the rest of us.

If I do a true time travel story it'll be a short duration story with Cedric summoning the Portkey as Wormtail tries to kill him. The AK hits the cup with Cedric and Harry holding it and the Universe Burps. If they go back to their original bodies, it'll be just before Harry starts school. If they fully go somewhere else in time, I haven't decided where they'd go.


Jim

 

That's probably my biggest problem with writing redo!Harry fanfiction. I am a teen guy and, as a teen guy, I like anything even vaguely sexual. The problem is that in redo!Harry fics Harry is really twenty or so but it is in a eleven year old body. So my hormone laden brain which tries to add sexual connotations to all things can't because then everything would get all pedo!erotic no matter if I wait till they're fourteen or not and that just aint right.

@Jbern - The blatant self advertisement of your fic was so suave that I didn't even notice it...

 

Hmm...for some reason Michael Jackson comes to mind when I read this...
Anyway I completely understand where you are coming from. In a way, the fics where Harry time-travels back to change things could be done much better as just an AU where Harry grows up/acts differently.
30 year old Harry acting like an 11 year old in order to live out on the life he missed is too out there for me to relate to. For myself, I enjoy the *ahem* experiences and (relative) freedom I have for being viewed as an adult by society. As such, I can not even begin to picture a scenario where if placed in the same situations back when I was 11 that I would be able to handle it well. To be surrounded by kids obsessed with the latest Pokemon card or pop star and also be expected to act the same way? No thank you.
As for jbern's idea of a time travel fic I believe it would be much better. And frankly, going back a few years to correct some mistakes is something I sometimes wish to happen to me...darn grades.

 

Since it is the style now, and of course, I have to fit in to the norm...

Quoted for Truth!!!!!!!!!!

amidoinitrite?