Title: The Katarn Side
Author: Darth Marrs
Rating: T
Genre: Adventure/Fantasy
Library Category: The Alternates
Pairing: Harry/Hermione
Chapters: 32
Words: 137,628
Updated: June 25, 2016
Published: October 24, 2015
Status: Complete

Summary: An aged, broken Jedi general came to Earth hoping to retire. However, when he went to a park and saw a young boy with unlimited Force potential getting the snot beat out of him, he knew the Force was not through making his life interesting.

Link: https://www.fanfiction.net/s/11576387/1/The-Katarn-Side


Yes, this was written by Darth Marrs. It's even one of his newer stories. Nevertheless it is not Grim Dark.
I repeat: It is not Grim Dark.
Well, there are some hints at the back story of Bellatrix and her sisters, but that's it.

The story:
Intending to retire the Jedi Kyle Katarn (see: StarWars Wikia) lands on Earth, in a random corner of England. Here the Force leads him to Harry Potter, right then the punching ball of his cousin. Kyle notices his potential and takes him in to train him. Of course Dumbledore takes notice, and he isn’t the only one.

The chapters 3 to 8 take place in the Star Wars EU and in Chapter 9 they return to Earth, not coincidentally right in time for the beginning of the Triwizard Tournament. The rest of the story takes place in and around Hogwarts, dealing with Voldemort, Dumbledore, the Ministry. ‘Horcruxes and where to find them’ come into play and they are dealt with perhaps a bit too fast.


I rather skimmed than read most of the Star Wars chapters, as I am not that interested in the Extended Universe. Harry gains some friends though once returned to Earth they don’t play a role any longer. On Earth and at Hogwarts it’s just Harry and Kyle Katarn as Jedi among wizards. You don’t need to know anything about the EU to read the story. Everything you need to know will be explained. For Katarn’s background see the article linked above.

It’s not entirely balanced. Especially in the beginning, when Kyle takes Harry in, it comes off as a Jedi vs. Wizards story. The quality of the story improves: When they return, Magic is an equal opponent to the Force and both Harry and Kyle have to adapt to magical tactics. It’s just that few wizards are as immersed in magic and as well trained as Jedi are in the Force. There are scenes where Death Eaters fall like prequel battle droids. There are also scenes where both Harry and Kyle Katarn are barely able to hold themselves against capable opponents – and capable are more than just Dumbledore and Voldemort.

It has quite a few plotholes and it seems as if Darth Marrs didn’t follow a thought-out concept at first. In one case he actually admits changing plans: “I'll be the first to admit this isn't my best chapter, but really, what's the point of writing fanfiction if you can't do what you want to do?“ Then there are moments you wonder when and where Harry and Katarn obtained certain canon knowledge that’s never been explained within the story.

Compared to his other works I’d say the writing is better than ‘The Boy who Fell’ but it lacks the world building and character development of the ‘Firebird’ trilogy (of which I only started reading the first story).

It’s not exactly brilliant and not really worth the library, but it was a nice story with a nice ending rounding it up.

I rate it at 3/5.

 

Jon said it all.

I too followed this story from the beginning and stopped reading a couple chapters after Harry and Kyle came back to earth.

Some of Darth Marrs' stories are pretty good, but this one is definately not his best.

2/5

 

I've read a large chunk of this in the past. Extremely boring imo. Hard to care about any of the characters, which doesn't help since I was biased going into the story based on the summary and pairing.

 

I give it a 2/5 for its plot driven nature, shallow world building and no real coherent concept of jedi vs. wizard action. On the bright side, it's not as annoying as most of Darth Marrs' other stories.

 

It was ehh at best. So much time spent on the early years with Harry making friends and powerful allies and then none of it getting used even once in the rest of the story really grated me. Another bloated, overly long story from Darth Marrs.

No one's mentioned the humor so I should say it did give me a few chuckles here and there, but even that was ruined as he reused the same jokes multiple times every chapter (Katarn kicking people's heads etc).

2/5.

 

It's...well, it's a Darth Marrs story. Interesting premise, generally lackluster writing and plotting, just enough there to hint at what could have been a much better story. It's technically and grammatically sound, at least.

2.5/5

 

There's nothing quite like a self righteous mentor to reveal just how heroic the author thinks they are.

2/5.

Jesus christ 11 chapters in and this guys still kicking people in the head and going on about child abuse.

 

I saw the pairing coming from a mile away.

Seriously, Harry Potter has a whole fucking galaxy to choose from and he goes for Hermione? Yeah, nah.

But that minor grievance aside, I see how the author tried at first to present Jedi/Force-users and wizards on somewhat equal ground, but somewhere along the road that was completely tossed away. The ending feels extremely rushed. Actually, that's pretty much how this whole fic reads, like the author was just trying to get to the end as quickly as possible, but thinking he could do that and not have the fic suffer in quality.

1/5

 

Not the best of Darth Marrs' stories. It was technically sound but the plot left a lot to be desired since what's the point of crossing over with Star Wars if you're going to leave out a lot of the world?

The author did mention this was supposed to be a smaller scaled story with more emphasis on character development, but Jedi Harry was extremely boring and Kyle Katarn was annoying.

I think the worst thing though was that Voldemort was shoehorned in to be a threat against Harry and Katarn. Kinda hard to believe when they had an army behind them and Jedi would realistically destroy wizards in a fight.

2.5/5

 

As per usual, Darth Marrs picks an amusing point of divergence, and the chapters in the Star Wars EU/Legends were refreshing compared to what I'm used to from him. (Though perhaps that's due to not being too familiar with the source material.)

Then they returned to Earth, and as per usual, the story just took a dive. I'm not sure what it is, but once you get to the latter parts of his stories, they just fall apart for whatever reason. It's like he has this awesome idea of how to set things up, and a good execution of how to build his world in the first half, but then he needs to snake back around to actually converging the plot threads and it all just breaks. Here, it's just the utter and complete lack of Star Wars things post them returning for GoF. To exaggerate a tiny bit: it's not a crossover or a fusion: it's two distinct stories in two different universes that happen to share a pair of protagonists.

Not worthy of AR. Probably closer to 2.5 than 2, but we don't do decimal voting here, so 2/5 it is.

 

I liked his Firebird stories so I gave this one a try. I'd give it a 3/5. It's just ok. I'm not a fan of a master Jedi being that much superior to a powerful wizard. The Dumbledore of the Firebird trilogy is a much better character than the one in this story.

 

The story doesn't do anything well, but it doesn't really fuck up either. The plot is good enough to read, but predictable. The characters are bland, but not irritating. The most positive thing I can say about it is that it balances magic and the force, both are worth Harry's time. The negative is the romance. Darth Mars stepped up his game on the romance here, but only by giving Harry one bland insipid girl to follow him around rather than a harem of them. It still fails hard.

3/5, meh.

 

The start of this fic doesn't do it for me, it didn't get me excited for the rest of the story.
And that's one of my formemost conditions in a story. It has to have a certain hook to it.
But I finished it, and my final say on this is that's is very.....bland
I'll rate
3/5 (Because Star Wars)

 

I actually like the start of the fic. While the writing isn't great, it's solid and Harry's short travels in the galaxy were interesting... then he came home. I wanted to see more of the Galaxy and the friends he made... but no, we get Hermione, Dumbledore, and just boring crap. I just don't understand....

(2/5) for being literate with an interesting start with some promise....

 

Tried to give it a go but lost interest after few chapters.
While it is not a terrible read, it does nothing that I would want to read more.

 

The rushed ending absolutely destroys a stronger start with lots of potential. Harry Potter's characterisation
ruined as Kyle Katarn brutally tears the spotlight away. Numerous Star Wars EU characters namedropped
like it ain't no thing, and then disappear into the pixels of the text on the page, never to be seen again.

3/10; TL;DR promising start, but premature ejaculation ruins the climax. They have creams for that.