Sadly most author just ignore these problems. Nevertheless I like the genre, and so I tend to ignore these sometimes huge flaws, too. But S'tarkan had some scenes indeed horrible to read ... meeting Ginny at King's Cross ...


Nevertheless there are a few authors who at least try to handle these problems:
I remember scenes on board the Hogwarts express with Harry thinking about how childish and immature Ron and Hermione behave. A few stories have Harry trying to learn instead of playing games etc. i.e. Emma Lipardi's otherwise quite unDLPish fic "What's Right".

A few even deal with Harry's sexuality as described above, sometimes with an interest in 'older' men/women, i.e. the terrible 'Curse of Fate' or Lady Mear's (in DLP-terms nearly as bad) two timetravel stories, and Selenepotter's Harem fucks - err - fics. On the other hand that's quite pedoish, too, writing about an 11 year old trying to bugger a mature woman.


And there are also other points to consider:
His soul, sometimes even only his memories are sent back in time and are now inside a prepubescent body with prepubescent hormones. Of course he knows how to use his devices, but he (probably) lacks the hormones to lust for girls.

If his soul was sent back then he is indeed a 17 ... 25 ... 8000 year old in an 11 year old body. But often only his memories are sent backwards, so you can argue he isn't mature at all. He has the knowledge of an older person, he knows a possible timeline, but his 'soul', his 'mind', is still that of an eleven year old boy.

A relatively new fic where Ron, Ginny, and Hermione 'travel' back, describes this in Ron's pov. He has knowledge of future events and advanced magic but doesn't know where it comes from. Sadly Ginny is the one who managed to merge the information with her younger self, so I assume she'll rape Harry the moment she enters Hogwarts.

 

My main issue with this genre is that nothing ever gets sorted.
Think of it this way: Harry for whatever reason, at whatever age is flung into the past (heh just thought of Samurai Jack for some reason) into his younger self. Now he already has gone to Hogwarts, he knows that emotionally, and mentally he won't be whatever age he has gone back to. He has already covered the material at Hogwarts, and has seen the results of certain actions. Then why for the love of God does he do them over?! If you have a second chance at something, why do you redo the same actions? Fucking learn something new!. If he has already gone to Hogwarts why not try something else? Another school maybe? He has already learned at the very least, everything up to year 4 that's worthwhile. Why then does he waste his time doing it over?
The inherit flaw of these stories is the repetitiveness of Harry's actions. He never accomplishes anything new, only minor inconsequential details.
Oh wow rather then join the Quidditch team as Seeker he became Chaser. Oh dear this time he didn't suspect Snape, and knew it was Riddle possessing Quirrell. Oh and he discovered that Quirrel's stutter was fake. Who cares?
The point of these stories are to see what Harry would do with a second chance, and obviously every single author out there has concluded that he would do nothing.

 

The thing is, a story will always need action and a plot and if the story has Harry just rape his first life's plot line to pieces then who is left to be the antagonist? You end up with some PWP smut if Harry does all of the things he should have done -in hindsight- in canon and then moves onto some other place with no civil war and no Voldemort. That's why most authors try and keep some of the plot line. If they didn't, you either have to turn it ino a comedy or create an entirely new plot. This is fanfiction, not original fiction.

 

You know what I want to see? I wanna see a Harry gets flung into the future fic. Like, first or second year Harry gets thrown into 17 year old Harry's body and is horrified by what a pussy everyone thinks he is, and how he's with Ginny ect ect...

Edit: and then maybe he goes back to his old body, determined to change things. Could be a good way to intro a independent!Harry.

 

The time-travel into the younger body is the mark of laziness, where the author simply wants to rewrite the series, with or without angst, though there are exceptions.

I had a few chapters of a fic written where Harry ends up in the First War, waking up in a bedroom in the Hog's Head. He walks past Dumbledore, a hooded figure who looks like Snape, and then passes Trelawney on the street.

He realizes what's happening, and kills Trelawney before she can make the prophecy but then the shit really hits the fan when Voldemort doesn't die.

 

The going back in time is a simple way of overpowering Harry. Either he's defeated Voldemort or not, but either way he's a lot better than whatever pansy we're stuck with in canon without having to explain how this was achieved.

Then we have fics where despite this awesome power he still let's himself get assraped by the Dursleys or by a bunch of useless kids at Hogwarts.

Only read one fic so far a long time ago where Harry went forward in time. He vanished and went forward into a very bleak future with Voldemort in power. He was married to Hermione previously but in the future she was remarried or was in a relationship with Remus opening a whole can of new angst when he decided to just pop up.

On a happier note, Ruskbyte's fic Backwards Compatible is an excellent read in this genre. He skirts around the cradle robbing in a way but the romance is still definetly there.

 

That sounds like quite a good plot bunny.

Timetravel fics are quite common, even among other fandoms, so I don't think it's Harry's "pansiness". Although you ARE very correct. Harry's distinct lack of insight and actual magical repertoire leaves much to be desired. Hermione has to solve every riddle and plot devices have to keep Harry from being killed.

So timetravel fics are pretty much a double edged sword. A lot of potential for unoriginality and banality, but also for a fresh and interesting read.

 

Yeah, it is, but that's because for the reader it isn't (or when it was published it wasn't) a 'real' time-travel fic. It was published after OotP with 16 year old Harry receiving the memory of his future. So Ruskbyte didn't redo canon but started at the beginning of Harry's sixth year. The reader doesn't know what will happen and thus he/she enjoys the story twice as much.

And with the group 15 to 17 years old he avoided the prepubescent romance and other canon-specific problems.

 

The worst bit is when Harry sees Ginny at the train station, looks into her chocolate brown/sky blue/golden (yes, apparently these people know nothing about genetics) eyes and falls in lurve all over again, then spends the next six years holding hands with his beloved Cute!CurrentGinny and wanking over Sexy!FutureGinny at night.

 

It does set some double standards when a Dumbledore!bash fested Harry manipulates everyone the same way he hates Dumbledore for doing. Even going so far as to call it's for the greater good without seeing the connection. Even Ginny deserves a chance to grow up by herself without being being moulded into some woman she isn't by a pedo.

Never said it was a bad idea nor an unusual one, just calling it an easy way of giving Harry a power boost.
One of the very first fics in this genre I read was called Mage sometime after book 4. H/Hr after defeating Voldemort has a portal open to them by the power of a dying Dumbledore back to a place where everyone is still alive. I got a kick out of seeing Harry posing as powerful but the fic fizzled out pretty fast when it was made quite clear that there wasn't much else that was thought out.

 

TimeTravel is a barrel of trouble that should only be touched by very, Very, VERY experienced writers or crack-fic writers. As for the quote, canon!Ginny could not POSSIBLY get any worse, and at the risk of being flamed the Ginny that gets manipulated into a certain mindset by pedo-Harry would be a huge improvement over the canon version.

 

True. And my grandma blowing me without her teeth in would be a huge improvement over my grandma blowing me with her teeth in.

But that doesn't exactly address the issue of my grandma blowing me.

EDIT: That should be the ship's new slogan. Harry/Ginny: It's like grandma blowing me.

 

Touche. Though would anyone ever willingly be blown by Grandma? Ginny would probably kill herself if Harry told her to.

 

This is exactly the reason why I hate time travel fics of this kind. Its just an excuse to do pedo!erotica and pass it off as a "normal" relationship.

Redo!harry is a lazy way round inventing an original plot line, as its laid out for you and you just insert what you wanted to happen, in the appropriate places.

 

On the other hand that's quite interesting, if it is done right. Harry cursing Dumbledore and at the same time manipulating other people could be great. If he would have moral conflicts. ATM I think S'tarkan and someone else mention that, but they mention it only barely, quasi as a side note.

Yeah, indeed. If I look at pictures of elementary school I think "OMG back then girls really were ugly" - and later one of then was my first girlfriend.

But then I'm still fond of the time we spent fishing for sticklebacks in a nearby creek. And that are the moments I can understand Harry enjoying his renewed life as a kid, almost carefree engaging Draco in a duel.

Perhaps that's the reason I like that kind of timetravel fics so much - to relive that time and avoid certain mistakes I've made (including learning Latin instead of French - Tinn, are you reading that?).