First off, I want to say that I enjoyed the hell out of this fic back when it was still being written. Back then, there was a lot of HP to choose from, and most if it was absolute shit. That's not to say that TLIL is perfect, but at the time it was pretty damn close, and even today I think it holds up fairly well.

On the subject of Fleur, I would tend to agree that her reactions were...off at times, and she seemed a bit too willing to forgive what really was a blatant violation of her privacy. That said, I felt that the adrenaline-fueled, life-or-death situation that led to that reveal would have been enough to dampen her anger, at least in the short term.

Harry's characterization, on the other hand, never seemed like a problem to me. As I recall (though it's been a while) a good chunk of the first few chapters were there pretty much exclusively to show the transition from HP to HJ. Could identity problems and self-examination have remained plot points later in the story? Sure. Did the fic suffer from their lack? In my opinion, no.

I agree fully about the tournament though. Even at the time, it just seemed to drag on and on.

It's been too long for me to really comment on the writing itself. At the time, I didn't have a problem with it.

It was an original story, and it was done well. Could it have been better? Of course. But that doesn't make it any less fun to read, and I'd still rate it 5/5

 

Entertaining enough for me to ignore most of it's flaws. Also thinking about this fic makes me feel nostalgic.

5/5

 

I'm well know as a someone who pretty much detests this fic. I agree with pretty much everything Taure said, but I'll go even farther. People really need to look past the massive distraction that is the Sorting Hat and look at the brass tacks of the fic, without the rose-tinted goggles.

Now, a lot of what I'm going to say is going to be taken from a series of in depth reviews I made of the fic back in 2011 - just 2 years after the story's completion. It was my second or third time reading the story, and by that time, the novelty had worn off and I was able to look at the fic objectively.

First off, I don't care what people say - it's James Potter/Fleur Delacour in all but name. That's the first issue with the fic, which is the whole basis of it is creating an arbitrary power boost in order to make the Harry/Fleur relationship "realistic". So, instead of a 14 and 17 year old, it's a 17 and 21 year old. Fine. Except the 21 year old is way OP.

Chapter 4 shows us a massive infodump of cliches, and remember, this story was written after book 7 came. You'd think a talented writer like JBern would be able to handle them well, but he doesn't, and he just throws them all at you immediately. There's the Anybook, James's animagus form, A wandless magic cantrip summoning charm, all just stupid shit placed to serve a singular heavyheanded plotpoint in the future.

And you start to see JBern's attempt at "grittyness" and "maturity", which for him means not being able to go more than a few chapters mention who has slept with who, with pretty much the who castle fucking each other on a daily basis. As a single throwaway line, fine, but it's just thrown at us constantly. It's not gritty, it's not mature, what it is is heavyhanded, thin, and shallow. He did the same thing in Bungle as well, which added nothing to that story either

Chapter 5 shows us a truly terrible birthday scene with poorly implemented wandless magic. Everything is transparant and telegraphed, and the writing is not impressive at all. Like, Harry and Ginny in the closet? How fucking poorly handled was that to stomp on any budding crush. And then there's the Weasley Twins reaction, which is way out of proportion, setting the tone for how extremely polarized the characters in this story are going to be. And there's also the continual flirting with everyone and talk of how everyone has slept with everyone again, bogging the story down further. Realism doesn't matter, it's just extraneous and it's a shallow facade, like a smoke signal designed to distract people from the actual content in this story.

Continuing on to Chapter 6. Once again, JBern fails at being able to write teenagers, and there's no suspecnt to the plot at all. JBerns pull characteristics from the 5th and 6th books and applies them here in book 5. It doesn't work, as he's trying to fit too many ideas into one. It's way too bloated.

He's pretty much creating false drama, and he's pretty much preaching Harry's opinion to the reader as being the write one, despite what I'm reading would actually indicate that it's not. Like, he's solving problems when there should even be one, creating arbirary situations like the Ginny stuff which shouldn't even be happening now. But, JBern wan't some "plot" so he forces it into the story. So, obvious, he now starts working on Neville's confidence problem, Hermione's House Elf problem, Ron's goals to get on the Quidditch Team, trying to get Snape kicked out of school, and trying to decided if Dumbledore is a manipulative old coot or not. All this in one chapter, and it seems like JBern trying to not go down the old cliche route, but in such a heavy, hamfisted manner of trying to circumvent them, he's actually made it worse, and it reads like a parody.

The character interactions themselves are probably the worst. James and the Hat have influenced Harry far too much at this point. James fucked around through 7 years of Hogwarts, and the fought and hid in a war for 3 more. 21 years of a mostly sheltered life. And then you drop a bombshell on us. Occlumency will jet HJ past the Age Line... wait, what? Seriously, what was this dude thinking? And, of course, Hermione has heard of it, and so has James. Great writing, that. And to top it all off, there was an OC added to Harry's year whose sole purpose it to just make a conflict with. Every last thing in this chapter was just forced - there's no actual plot development.

Chapter 7 is worse somehow. It starts with a quip about how 21 of 36 of the first years are muggleborns. JBern obviously never looked at the student list for Hogwarts. There's a total of four confirmed muggleborns in the entire school in canon. Creevy Twins, Hermione, Justin FinchFetchly. That's id. Sure, there's a some characters that we can speculate on, but suddenly bloating that number to double digits is a bit ludicrous.

There's a scene with Tracey, and a follow up with Creevy... both cringeworthy. Obviously, HJ is so superior that he can see through any ploy a 14 year old comes up with. And the Baron scene.... lol

After that is the extremly bad Transfiguration class where obviously Harry does something to put the spotlight on himself and his superior abilities. And then there's the logic of switching spells being the precursor to apparition That's like that stupid occlumency shit allowing you to get past the age line. Remember kids, being an "original idea" doesn't mean that it's a good idea, and this is a prime example.

So at this point, where're pretty much reading about a 21 year old James Potter (as any and all semblance of Harry has pretty much disappeared at this point) in his 4th year of Hogwarts, with the authors foreknowledge of future canon problems and the urge to solve all of them before the plot actually goes anywhere. So obviously, the Ginny/Michael stuff is completely out of the blue. Like the catalyst for that sort of thing would be the Yule Ball, but that hasn't happened yet, so again, It's really hard to get immersed in such a blatant setup.

After that is just a bunch of infodumps. The Moody shit, James continues his monlogue, curses himself for not scanning for disillusionment, and about another 100 useless anecdotes. And then breaking the Imperious. This has gone so far over the top, and everyone's reactions are always shock and awe.

It doesn't make for good reading, and then there are the training scenes which you should just skip, and would probably save a few brain cells. A boring pensieve scene follows afterwards that contains zero actual substance

Then, Harry is back in Hogsmede. At this point, the only thing a reader wants is probably for Harry and Katie to hook up, but of course the author can't have that yet. Afterwards, there's some stuff with the Twins, a bunch of talk about what James could do that would make him the winner in every sitatuation, but obviously he's too good for that. Too much talking, and he should just fucking do it. Somehow, with the author's foreknowledge, James manages to make the best of every situation.

And after that, there's more fucking talk about the harry/ginny stuff, this time from Ron. So many extraneous scenes in one chapter. And, Hermione is somehow every worse than canon, She's caught between being an interesting character, or the boring vomit inducing one. She's currently worse than both of those. Everything is just set up too perfectly, and the passive monologue is tiring to read, and there's just paragraph after paragraph of throwaway scenes that may be important exactly one time in the future.




So yeah, That's just my thoughts on three chapters of the story, written 4 years ago. If anything, I've gotten even more jaded, and the story is even worse than what I've portrayed. I've written 5 more chapter reviews after this, before I ultimately grew sick of the story and threw it down.

Personally, I think rating this higher than a 3/5 is generous. There are good parts to the story, but there's so much shit in it that it's not really worth reading to get to them.

 

You know, it's interesting. If I squint and tilt my head, I can kind of agree with both of those entirely. My actual opinion is somewhere in the middle. The first time I read it, I was closer to Scott's position, now I'm more on Taure's side because quality > specific plot points I like, is my attitude now.

I think this is always going to be one of those "fridge logic" fics. The tone and voice are very strong (note that this is not the same as "good"), to the point where the first time you read it, the sense of verse and fun pretty much drowns out any of the flaws in the foundation.

But they are there. Things like the "Peeping Tom" scene seem like harmless romantic comedy tropes / fluff, and then you kind of start to think about them a little more, and it's pretty bleh.

This is one of the first fics I read, way back in the ancient days of 2013 when I first got into the fandom. It was the first thing I read that had that "canon, but different! But more!" flavor, and I'll always appreciate the fun I had reading it that first time.

The fact that it's a deeply flawed fic matters, of course, but those flaws shouldn't discourage anyone from reading it if you like the premise, if you like the style, if you like the comedy.

4/5

 

Only thing weird that stuck in my mind after reading this ages ago was everyone's meh reaction to HJ's Frankstein soul and Lily playing God with her infant son. Well, to be fair I don't recall much about Sirius/Remus/Albus but I do remember Fleur and Hermione barely raising an eyebrow about it and making jokes instead.

 

Is it 2006 again? Why the hell all this jbern hatetrain suddenly appeared?

For me, that story was great for that particular time and considering the first chapter had been written in February, 2007 this story aged more than well. Right now I'd give it 4/5 and there is no fic written prior to 2013-2014, excluding enembee's masterpieces, I'd rate as 5/5.

 

The story was fun and super flawed. I tried rereading it a few years later and found it tiresome, but that's what happens, tastes evolve. I never found jbern's version of Harry that great, but I was okay with "Not actually Harry" versions of Harry for a while. These days, I prefer canon Harry tweaked by circumstances instead of personality transplant or overwrite, but there was less to read back then. Now that we've seen so much, it's easier to be cynical about the old days.

Now, I never would've given this story even 4/5 back then, but I did keep reading it for a while and eventually got sick of it. That averages out to about 3/5 to me.

 

I read this again a few months ago and still enjoyed the shit out of it. 5/5 Still. Although I did notice the flaws more than I did the previous time.

 

Shit spiders.

The concept and implementation of them in the story still makes me chuckle even if it was part of the tiresome twins-bashing storyline.

 

i'll never understand the hate-train for this fic. Sure, as far as plot and magic dueling goes, it certainly have not aged well but I remember the first time I've read it, I enjoyed it immensely.

Now of course, rereading it after going through a lot more technically sound fanfics, (Newcomb I'm looking at your next update), it would be unfair for me to judge it again. I've judged it before and I won't return and re-read it to give it a lower value. It's like re-watching a good ol classic and then after 10 years, re-watching it and saying I don't like it coz the graphics were crap, storyline cliche, romance subpar etc.

Really, maybe the atmosphere was different when the fic was written to what is considered good now.

Ultimately, I treat TLIL as a good action-packed Hollywood movie that I like watching. Certainly not top-notched in terms of plot, but enjoyable and full of adrenaline. Like Mission Impossible movies.

4.5/5

 

The hate-train for TLIL shows up when people start making threads about how it's better than Goblet of Fire.

 

I hardly think this qualifies as a hate-train. People are allowed to dislike a story that is otherwise well liked. While I disagree a bit with some of the critical comments, they do seem like legitimate concerns, not irrational hatred. And there's a lot more positive than negative comments overall.

 

It's not a "hate-train" when I gave like 50 reasons within three chapters as to why it's a bad story. I honestly can't see how people could read those same chapters and think that it's written well, has good character interactions, and interesting plot. Sure, maybe if you've only read 10 different fanfics in your whole life, but it doesn't take much to realize that nearly every single plot point in the entire fic is shit. I want people to convince me otherwise. I want people to sell me on why this is a good story.

 

The best HP fic written. Masterpiece from jbern. 5/5.

 

It is a hate train because you can give 50 reasons within 3 chapters. If something is really fucking awful, people usually focus on one or two things. Rationality abandoned you a while ago.

 

Anarchy simultaneously hating the story and insisting that he isn't hating it is hilarious. And sad. He ought to Own his hatred. If there are 50 things wrong with the first three chapters and you can't say you hate the story, there is something wrong with your thought process.

No one has to justify liking a story to him. His attempt to bait anyone who disagrees with him into a flame war is silly. Like anyone is going to change his mind? But fine, I'll indulge here.

I like the story because it is original. I consider it the ultimate IndiHarry! story because of how sneaky the premise is. Harry got the power, the independence, and the intelligence with almost none of the irritating cliches in the genre. Jbern was so fucking sneaky with Harry's personality graft I never even considered this an Indie fic until years later. The premise was intriguing enough to carry me through the first chapters, and the originality maintained my interest until the end. If he ever makes the sequel I will probably read it.

Anarchy, instead of me trying to convince you to like this story, I want you to try and convince me to dislike it like you do (notice, I didn't say hate?). Go ahead, try. Pro-tip, you can't. Not only would I need to re-read it to really change my opinion. Your 'rational' opinion of this story lost my respect when you started flinging the personal attacks here:

Despite the tone of this post, I really don't have anything against you Anarchy. It's cool that you hate this story. Just try and be rational about your hatred. I've never seen anyone write 1500 words smashing a story, and its author, who hasn't hated it.

 

Why? The emotional investment required to hate something is a lot more than just the faint sense of annoyance at tropes and cliches. If you don't like something doesn't mean you hate it.

 

I never really got all that far with this story, it's really just not to my tastes. I certainly don't hate it, I am merely completely unmoved by it.

I simply did not like 'Harry James'. He's a flat out obnoxious character who seems to me to conform slavishly to a teenagers idea of 'totally awesome, dude'. I think part of my dislike stems from my absolute Britishness. I am put in mind of Stephen Fry's reflection on American vs British comedy and I think it applies here. I generally look to identify with the main character in some way and I find that completely impossible with Harry James. He's too socially poised, too confident in every situation, too smart-mouthed and too self-absorbed. He's not the kind of character I enjoy so that was a significant blow to the fic.

The Sorting Hat was the other, and was actually what caused me to stop reading. The Hat's dialogue reads like a teenager suddenly discovered that swearing was a thing he could do and he wasn't going to be told off. So he just throws swear-words into every single sentence. It damages the dialogue as it adds nothing of substance. It damages my interest as I don't think 'lolololol, swearwords are so funny' every time I see it. It just feels juvenile, that kind of humour hangs so low that it's rolling on the ground and has been covered in dog shit. It can work, but it has to be used sparingly. Its value is in shock and the continuous useless profanity from the Hat wears off that shine pretty damn quickly.

As for the rest, I can't really comment. It seemed technically well written, at least. It's just not my cup of tea at all.