I have yet to see any canon reference to Tom Riddle being conceived under the influence of a love potion being the reason "he cannot understand love". I do know that JKR did mention it as symbolic in a net chat back in 07 but that is hardly canon.

Let me be absolutely clear as to what canon is. The books, and ONLY the books. The movies are not canon, neither is the ramblings of the author after the fact.

While I think the author's note at the end of the chapter was pretty annoying, I found her analysis not to completely discount magic but rather to rely on logic.

My beef with the note itself was more about placement, at the end rather than the beginning.

I've finally slept on this fic, and re-read it a couple times to figure out how I'd place it.

I'd give it a 4/5. Two 1/2 point deductions for foot notes in the story (Put those in a foot note format) and poor author notes placement. If it weren't for that it would be 5/5 I think even though I generally do not like first person narration.

 

Solid 2/5 for me.

Besides things already mentioned, one of the things that irked me is how easily the author skips past the tasks in the tournament. I was expecting changes there, divergences that reflected Harry's change of character. However, the first task is 2 paragraphs long, barely explaining a ridiculous summoning charm, the second task is exactly the same as canon but without touching the jailbait tied to a post, and the third task consists of two or three paragraphs saying there were multiple bugs trying to eat Harry. In fact, I suspect the author only describes the bugs in some detail because they were needed for Harry's later hospitalization. (You know what I mean about the bugs if you read this far).

There are a few redeeming aspects that save the story from being an utter failure, such as proper grammar, solid pacing and good vocabulary, but the story itself falls very flat. It's one thing to acknowledge canon is full of holes and then work to re-wire it - in fact, most good fics do this to one extent or the other. But it's a whole different thing when you try to merge a logical world to a flawed, magical canon world. The resulting love-child is LessWrong and very much a failure.

What do I mean by that? If you are going for a manipulative Dumbledore who unknowingly drives Harry towards siding with Voldemort because you think canon is full of holes, then re-wiring Voldemort to be a hair-ruffling, BMW-driving vigilante while leaving Dumbledore as he is in canon but with his faults (almost cartoonishly) exaggerated is bad form. If you are looking to patch up mistakes in canon, you need to work on both sides, as they both show holes.

But by far the most disappointing bit is the lack of magic. There is as much magic in this story as in a law textbook.

It's not that characters don't use magic to summon a book they want to read. The problem is how unremarkably magic affects the way wizards behave. For fuck's sake, the author even states that the magical world is subject to Muggle laws. This is evidenced most glaringly, illogically and with stupendous irony when the author suggests Riddle couldn't have obtained such a diary during WWII because of the shortage of paper and that is that, no discussion.

There be magic, bitch! Maybe he bought toilet paper and transfigured the fucking thing into "high quality" paper! Maybe he wanted his name on it, so he painted his name in bold letters using a pint of Hippogriff semen and a brush made with pubic hair and charmed the results to be a golden color. Maybe Riddle even figured pages would fall out, so he put permanent sticking charm on the binding.

The options are limitless! To explicitly and incontrovertibly state Dumbledore lied because logic suggests no such items would be obtainable by an orphan at that time is to operate under the assumption that there is no magic. If there is no magic, the whole thing breaks down. In this way the author actively creates more holes than she patches.

At some point in an author note she compares canon to a slice of Swiss cheese. By the time she's done with her fic, her story will look like a circle; a faint line that encompasses a whole bunch of nothing.

TL;DR: 2/5 Technically, a well-written story for the most part. Fails at characterization, consistency, character development, logic, world-building and, though debatable, theme.

EDIT: Damn. 900th post went to this.

 

Just another non-story, vehicle for child abuse and betrayal feelings written by a female FFNet writer.

It's written well, but I find the lipstick-on-a-pig syndrome overpowering in this fic.

1/5.

 

Off topic, but what the fuck does this have to do with anything?

A mediocre story is mediocre, not because of the gender of the person writing it, but because the story relies on a series of tired old tropes that have more holes in them than the 7-year-old pair of shoes I threw out yesterday.

Jesus fucking christ. Legit critique: how do you do it???:facepalm

Edit: I don't fucking care how high a level it's pulled at, Andro. It's still a cheap shot and a throwaway slur.

I am disappoint, son.

 

Heh. Perhaps.

In my experience though, these sort of hurt/comfort, Abused!Harry stories tend to be written by females. There are exceptions, but most are written by females.

Still, agree that it's not precisely relevant.

 

Um, why isn't it worthy of being pointed out? In this case the gender clearly influenced the story on a decision-making and thematic level. Her being female predisposed her to those tired old tropes. You go to the NYT Book Review or Boston Globe, and it'll be there even on the highest levels of literary criticism, so yes, Swim, it is legit criticism.

 

The point, I think, is that if a guy wrote it this way, it wouldn't be any better.

As for the story... mildly entertaining is perhaps the best that can be said of it. If you're in the market for "fix-it" fics, it's far from the worst, but it's not the best either.

 

As Andro pointed out I feel this fic to be completely absurd; the betrayal, abuse, bla bla bla are boring genres nowadays for me. But adding the lack of grounds most of the ideas the author writes about have, the fic becomes unreadable.

Spoiler

Seriously? Voldemort having a muggle nobility status?.

That was too much shit for me.

2/5

 

I read somewhere that before the Statute of Secrecy wizards and Muggles pretty much lived and fought together. It's possible some wizard families received titles and land from the Muggle rulers and that some of those still exist.

However, given the state of the Gaunt family in HBP, I very much doubt Voldemort inherited anything material. At best he inherited a forgotten, useless title with no land to go with it.

 

I don't know about that, so I'm inclined to agree with you. But you don't need to give Riddle nobility status, he's Lord fuckin' Voldemort! The absurdity of it all is what made me stop reading. It's like the last drop of shit that filled the glass.

 

I think the idea is that he got it from his Muggle father. Of course that makes zero sense, as he was illegitimate.

Another example of author ret-con, supposedly there to solve a perceived problem with canon, creating more problems than originally existed.

 

Not sure why it's so difficult to imagine Voldemort wresting the Title from his father (that is, if his father had one).

How difficult would it be for a Dark Lord to trick muggles into believing he was the legitimate heir?

 

I couldn't really get into it at all. I gave the first few chapters a shot, but I was having to drag myself through it. I'm not going to rate it, because it probably wouldn't be fair, but it wasn't great.

 

Bastard children inherit if there are no legitimate heirs to do so. In this case, Voldemort is the only possible heir to the "title" up for dispute, because he killed off the rest of the Riddles anyway.

To make this even remotely relevant, I pretty much stopped reading right around the point Harry discovered that Moody wasn't, well, Moody, and continued to learn from him anyway. One would think that someone with Harry's background would have a fairly well-developed sense of Stranger Danger, the fact that said stranger is a teacher notwithstanding.

The fact that he lied about his identity should be a pretty large red flag to Harry, but he still continued to learn from Crouch Jr. I closed the tab pretty much right in the middle of the chapter, so I doubt I saw any 'justifications' that were given, but I digress.

I'm gonna go with Doctor Whooves and refrain from rating.

 

Regardless of whether or not Voldemort cooould receive a title, he changed his damn name because he hated his father so much. So that would just completely go against--you know what? That's probably the least of the character issues here, lol. I think I just blew out some synapses in frustration.

 

Has Harry taken it up the ass yet?

 

To be fair, that's one of my main problems with Deathly Hallows, too. And there's a difference between not being happy and angst; see melancholy and bittersweet. In fact, after reading her rant, I find myself in general agreement with her. As for an excess of angst, though, I find that rather distasteful as well. As in most things, you need a balance between extremes.

Also:

Again, to be fair, I'd find it uncomfortable to be married to someone who felt no remorse over killing another person.

As to the story itself, I don't think it's my cup of tea. An evil Dumbledore just never made much sense to me, especially in a story in which events played out as they did in canon. I'll pass.

 

Recent chapters have really were bleh, the first few chapters were an interesting twist on manipulative Dumbledore but now... The food hoarding thing is weird and Voldemort calling himself Riddle is just ridiculous.

Changed rating to a 2/5