Updated, now with 50% more intrigue. Ministry politics, Death Eater plots and counter plots, possible problems in america (land of the boring school filler), the story seems like it is picking up speed, best chapter out of the last four.

 

Updated, now with cryptozoolaligist!harry, Dumbles rep takes a hit, the dark lord plots and lycan action.

 

Oh, and a cliffie...

 

Im started to get annoyed with the length of the chapters. This last one was something around 24K words. To me, thats just taking the piss, its longer than a lot of teenage novels. It takes so long to read the chapter, then yu have to try and actually process what you've read. If he would cut down the length, making it between 12-15K words, I personally think it would be much better.

 

Mordecai, would you break the chapters into smaller "chunks" or would you edit out and trim down?

 

Updated, And after what seems to be a whole lot of words I am beginning to take a shine to the Great Lakes students. Who'd of Thunk?

Nit Pick/Brit Pick "How should Albus (or who ever is presiding) be addressed
During a trial" Do brit's use "your Honor" ? Does the leader of a panel of judges have a special title?

 

As several people already mentioned - I, too, am not interested in most of the school scenes. The whole portrait of the US-Wizarding World and its schools is overdone and way too perfect. But the story is well written and the chapter length allows me to skim through huge parts of each chapter and still have a decend amount to read.

I assume Bellerophon tried to be funny with the Umbridge bashing, but I didn't like it that much. It seemed to be based on clichéd American tv-shows. Perhaps American Court practice work that way, but all I know about the British Court System indicates that it is much more formal.

 

In Britain a High Court Judge is entitled Lord or Lady, because they are literally a Lord or a Lady. In a Sherrif's Court (the local courts) the Sherrif's are entitled Lord or Lady whilst seated in court, but other wise are just known as "Sherriff name".

Court proceedings are very very formal in Britain, and from what I know any step outside of procedure is heavily smacked down by the judge.

The Head of a panel of judges, as far as I know has no specific title, but is likely to be a very senior High Court Judge, in which case it is entirely possible that they will have a title of their own.

It should be noted that even Judges who have a knighthood go by "My Lord" in court, even though their title only confers the prefic "Sir", however, if a judge happened to be a Peer, then they would probably be addressed as appropriate to their title.

And to the much older question, I would prefer a bit of both. There are some bits that he expounds far too much on, but a lot of what he writes in the chapters is necessary. If each chapter were to be trimmed slightly then posted in two separate chunks, I would vastly prefer it.

 

Thanks for the help with the "legal code"
The Programing Genius of Time Warner has filled basic cable with true dribble,
BBC America (or whatever) Was only available at the highest pay rate packages
and only in the biggest cities. I should start viewing more PBS, Dammit A new years resolution.

Regarding the 4th paragraph, do you know a good link to explain the current
British "royal ranks" and how they relate to military and academic ranks.

In America they are a tad simpler BECAUSE "royal ranks" are illegal, but they still get fuzzy. Star gate would have fun with it every once and a while, Major Carter, Dr. Carter, or the every classic "the very important machine is broke while we are under fire "CARTER"

So what are your thoughts about Mugwumps?
I am in the "international ambassadors that don't do a real lot/ a league of nations/UN type of group" Handling treaties, helping maintain the balance between independent nations and world wide cooperation with the focus more on independent nations. But I could be wrong?

 

Im afraid I don't know of a link, but if you have any questions feel free to PM me or contact me via IM to ask, I have a few books in the house so I know quite a bit about it. It is complicated, because there are ranks within ranks, and different combinations give different ranks and even any medals you have contribute to your seniority.

Mugwumps, well, Dumbledore is listed as a Supreme Mugwump, most people assume its to do with either the Wizengamot or the International Confederation of Wizards, but thats not accurate as far as I know. To my mind, Mugwumps would probably be people of international stature, perhaps sort of ambassadors, they try to keep magical nations connected. A Supreme Mugwump would probably be someone rather famous who has been a Mugwump but has graduated past it so to speak.

Oh, and the term isn't Royal Ranks, that would imply that everyone of title is royalty, which isn't the case. There are royalty, those of royal blood, and then the nobility.

 

I find this story very enjoyable for the in-depth portrayal of the characters. Its nice to see Harry getting a break for once, finding loyal non-demanding friends and even love (something Harry has been denied most of his life thanks to both Voldemort and Dumbledore).

 

Ah Kalen, I was about to post "updated, mostly filler" but it is really "updated, in depth peak at characters lives".

 

I agree with Kalen_Darkmoon - the attraction of this fic is that Harry gets to de-stress by changing environments. Funny thing is, in HBP Harry does something similar when he's going out with Ginny; there's a few occasions during the lull before all goes pear-shaped where Harry can just relax and be a teenager with his girlfriend.

Re the complaints about the American OCs - that IS a potential downside to this fic. I sometimes have trouble keeping them straight in my head, which means the author hasn't made them quite memorable enough.

At least bellerophon didn't (unlike an otherwise excellent rewrite of PoA, which is slash) try the lame device of giving OCs completely implausible, weird names with potentially Mary-Sue-like powers.

 

updated again, his chapters are getting even longer (at least i think so) and the story is now officially one of the longest fanfics i have ever seen....

I quite enjoy the OCs since he does them quite well, with believable strenghts and weaknesses. But in all honesty i am starting to wish that the story would move along a bit faster.... If he needs another 500k words to finish it i'll grow grey hairs....

 

I agree with slasheh, the story is good but bloated. This last chapter was the the first in a long while that I actually read all the way through without skimming/skipping large chunks.

 

Wow, I missed being the first to post an update notice.

Hey is it just me, or are the bits about england (deatheaters, ministry, etc.)
More interesting than the american school stuff.

I am at a loss on how to improve the Great Lakes parts of the story, but there are hundreds of books about schools (Sweet Valley High), Cartoons etc.
Which may provide inspiration (or not).

 

obviously we are more involved with the england parts of the story, and i am actually VERY happy that he stopped focusing on the lycan war in the US, if he had continued in that way i would probably have stopped reading.
You could argue the case that it is still HP fanfic if Harry is slumming along in the US, but for me he needs to stay heavily involved in england because the war with Voldie is what HP is about and not the war between faction XY and YZ somewhere in the world (no matter how well done it is)

 

It's alright

I mean, when I first read it there were only five chapters. Those chapters were essentially copies with paragraphs replaced here and there from the author's other story. The concept was original at the time, but the story seems to have slowed down. I stopped reading around chapter 13 or 15, I can't remember specifically.
The story really just lacks a consist layering of conflict. Normally, this isn't bad because there are other qualities that make up for it. This story, however, just became boring. The idea was mostly original, and the writing itself is excellent, its just that the story has an overall weakness.
3.5/5

 

Well, he admits he plagiarized himself (I find it ludicrous that plagiarizing yourself is considered such an EVUHLCRIME!!!!!111oneone in some academic circles), so it's not like he pulled a Cassandra Claire.

 

I really enjoy this story, and there's certainly plenty of it to enjoy. But while all the school stuff might be a bit slow at times at least he's back in England for the summer, so it should pick up quite a bit now. Plus even when he goes back to school he'll have to come back every month for the league meetings. I imagine as he grows in knowledge/experience he'll be more and more involved in the war. I do think that taking a break in order to learn what he needed was important though. He certainly couldn't have done much against Voldie with what he'd learned at Hogwarts.