Yeah, it sounded pretty shity, but I agree with Pers there; not likely nmb really read your whole story before making the comment. I have read parts of it and I like it.

I think you should take this to WBA, even if it's already in the middle stages of completion. Just post a chapter every two days and see what you make of the comments. It's never too late to edit a chapter, even if a story is finished. (Silens has been editing his RC for how long now? And every edit makes it better and better.)

OT, I'd say Rowena is fine. If you're really worried about her going Sue you can add a few flaws, just make sure not to do something rash and stupid, like how some people make Ron a jealous asshole or Hermione an annoying know-it-all (worse than canon) just so they can be hated. Keep it realistic.

My advice, given the context, would be to make her hesitant of going into battle, or to act in those cases where there's no time to think. Harry can cover her flaw pretty easily, while Rowena can be the level-headed one, who helps Harry actually think before sticking his hand in every dark hole.

Not a major flaw, but it makes her human. She's a scholar, she can be friendly, she can be skilled, but battle makes her nervous and acting without thinking wouldn't be up her alley. Maybe you can make up a background for her that involves her mother or father getting killed in battle, so she freezes when something similar happens. (Not sure if you've given her an in-depth background yet; haven't read all of it)

Keep it up, and seriously, stop by WBA.

Nick

 

Sorry I didn't even realise you had a story yet. I only scanned the thread briefly before I saw that post. No offence intended.

 

To make her not "flawless", you could also give her a few body scars. That usually tends to change things.

 

I find that irritable bowel syndrome does wonders to combat the heavier cases of Mary-Sue :3

 

Have her be wrong about something important. Let her fuck something up. Give her motives that aren't totally pure. Make her perform an action or hold a belief that's morally dubious. Find a legitimate reason for an otherwise sympathetic character to dislike her and don't present it as an irrational spite.

And remember that intrinsic traits are not as important as the way the author presents them.

 

This. Indecision stands out as the most believable of all the flaws posted here.

 

Agree. the background that I have hashed out previously includes most of her family dieing during the last clans war, and having most of her families land pillaged and stolen. She was not old enough to fight at the time, being ten years old, but it did cause her to motivate herself to learn as much magic as possible so it would never happen again. I don't have her written as personally seeing her family slaughtered in front of her eyes or anything like that though. She has yet to use any of her knowledge on the battlefield, but you got to start somewhere.

 

You could always make her a part of Harry's rampant psychoactive, magic enhanced, M.P.D. :awesome

Harry is his own Mary Sue!

 

I didn't look at any other replies, but this is what I think:

Her parents are dead, which means that she had to be responsible as a young child (I'm assuming.) Maybe she would think that most of her peers are either immature, or stupid.

From that, I can assume that she is a bit bias, and maybe even a little stuck up. A superiority complex, if you will.

She speaks her mind when she is intrigued in something, and feels vulnerable when she is talking to someone who knows more than her, which drives her to learn about anything there is to know about everything. This in turn could lead her to have not-so-strong relationships with her teachers and role models.

From the outside, people could see her as a genius witch, with the looks to match her skills. But on the inside, she could see herself as an underdog to the more-affluent wizards, such as Gordic or Salaazar.

Maybe she could be intrigued by Harry because he seems to know more than he should, or something along the lines.

I haven't read your story, so I really don't know what direction you are going towards, but I hope this has helped at least a little bit.

 

The plan I have in my mind is that during these times ~1000 years ago, most families tended to live in the same area, be it a castle, village, whatever, and this includes your extended family. The Ravenclaws owned a lot of land and had a lot of muggle peasants working the land (secrecy was not an issue back then). There were probably 100 different magical families who had systems like this, including the other 4 founders. The founders were still young though, and their family names were not all that significant yet, and three of the 4 founders had lost a lot of land to other warring parties, while Hufflepuff was not attacked at all. Rowena lost most of her family, but not all. Still, the stuff that happens afterwords is what turns the 4 founders into good friends i suppose. I haven't thought about exactly what they did to get to the point of founding a school (which opens when Rowena is 21 or so), but I am thinking that they are welcomed open arms onto Hufflepuff land and raised like one of their own.

Rowena does not have a superiority complex, in fact she might have a slight inferiority complex. People may think she she is unattainable because she is intelligent and attractive without throwing it in your face, so they don't even try.

Rowena does not feel like she is the underdog to anyone else, or at least she doesn't get upset over it, but she does respect other peoples skills. Rowena is the youngest of the 4 founders, but they are not that far apart in age. She may feel that because she is younger she has more to prove, but that is a dull and unneeded because at the current stage of the story they are all in their 40's. She knows Salazar is very intelligent also, but some of his morals and his intent can be questionable. All the founders have their own specialty that they are best at, but Rowena has a lot more subspecialties that she is skilled that the other founder's don't. Rowena holds no qualms on what dark or light magic is, magic is simply magic, and that is one of the underlying themes of the story. She has researched into what makes spells different and has discovered what I call the magical light spectrum, and that is where the idea of a magical signature comes from.

Having a brain fart now, will write more later.

 

If I had the choice I'd immediately veto the Hufflepuff idea, since taking in people who are effectively strangers out of the goodness of your heart was not something that I can see happening in those times, especially if they're from another Family (since you seem to place importance on 'clanish' nature for your pre-Hogwarts society). Doing things like that may work for one child of a close family friend, but to do so with three teenagers seems implausible at best.

Personally, I would suggest having Rowena become the head of her own household from when her parents die, and have her reach her 20s in that way. It offers a good enough way to give her a slight inferiority complex (since she both female and barely adult by that society's standards, so she'd constantly be needing to prove herself), and give her the need to excel that all Ravenclaw house is known for, since she'd basically have lost everyone who could reasonably be expected to teach her.

Also remember that back then the working age was from when you could hold a tool and the age of majority was around the 15-16 mark, with a lot of responsibility being heaped on puberty-age children. Kids were had from around the 14+ mark as well, I believe, so make sure to take that into account because from what you've posted it seems as though you're imposing modern day standards onto times long past. It could also tie in well with the Head of House idea since Rowena could feel the need to prove herself capable on her own and rebelling against the idea of marriage/husband/kids/etc. because of it.

 

I often see mentions in various fanfics and such that women are considered second class or something in wizarding society and I don't get that at all.

Molly Weasley may be a housewife, but that doesn't mean other women are.

Madame Bones is head of the DMLE, Dolores Umbridge was very high ranking and there is mention of other high ranking female officials. There are also a number of witches on the Wizengamot.

The Minister of Magic before Fudge was also a woman.


I personally think it's reasonable that it wouldn't be entirely unthinkable that women are not as lowly regarded in the wizarding world at that time as in the muggle.

Admittedly it wasn't until what, the 17th or 18th century that the first witch became Minister of Magic. But that doesn't necessarily mean they were complete second class citizens. America has never had a female President, after all.

As I see it, magic is very much an equalizer in this case. Witches are just as capable of preforming magic, including combat magic, as men. Witches could and very likely did fight in wars and battles even back then.

Before some smart arse says something, yes I know that muggleborns are looked down upon even though they have magic too. But A.) they're "filth" and B.) while they do have magic, they lack influence in the wizarding government and society.

With all of that in mind, and the fact that there are many renowned Witches from well before the Founders times (Morgan le Fey, Circe, etc.) I'd say that most likely being a woman wasn't that limiting on Rowena and Helga. Perhaps a bit, yes, but not as much as it is often made out to be.


But what do I know, I'm a muggle.

 

While looking for good HP/LL fics I came across the second biggest Mary Sue i have ever seen. http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5021907/1/Dark_Light I now know what to not write Rowena as. The Mary Sue in that fic falls under nearly every category you can think of, super smart, super hot, friends of two famous people (Harry and Krum) while being Krums' boyfriends, is the envy of both Durmstrang and Hogwarts, can read aura's and is most likely a seer. There is not a single flaw in her character. Also, LL is almost an exact replica of the OC, so their is two massive Mary Sues in the fic.

On a related note, I am nearly finished with the chapter I was concerned with. I ended up having her perform all right in the heat of battle, but once it was over and the enormity of what just happen finally catches up with her, she starts having a hysteria attack. It actually fits pretty good with the story and does not seem forced at all, so I think it is a win.

Also, for anyone who has read the fic this thread is about, should I bump up the rating to M? Just to be on the safe side, even though I don't think the rating stops people from reading stories anyway. While the story won't become a smut story, I do think some scenes would fit well, especially a "Monster's Ball" type scene 'I want you to make me feel good' and all that after a traumatic battle experience. Currently rated at T right now, and in actual movies you can get away with a lot under a T rating.

 

If you have plans on writing any heavier scenes, be it gore or smut, I'd go ahead and bump the rating up just to CYA in case ff.net starts up the Inquisition again. Otherwise, I think you're safe for now.

 

There are next to no HP/RR smut scenes on the internet so I almost feel obligated to write one. I know I have seen people put the alternate M rated fics up on ficwad or something and keep the tamer stuff on FF.net. If I do write a scene it won't be in the current chapter so I have some time to think about it. There is some gore in the current chapter, but nowhere near graphic enough to warrant the M rating on it's own, at least compared to my zombie-apocalypse fic or vampire fic.

Either way I think it could warrant an M rating, but I don't know if that would actually change the amount of people who read the fic. I don't want to loose readers simple because it now says 'M', but on the other hand I don't want to gain readers who are simply looking for Rowena and Harry getting it on.

 

I'll go out on a limb and say that you'll probably gain readers instead of losing them if you raise the rating. And better readers at that. You'll attract more mature reviewers instead of the "OMG write moar so awesome!111!1!!" crap from the younger reader base.

But really, it's a rather negligible part of the story. I wouldn't worry too much about it.

 

Well I just finished writing the chapter and it came out to over 16k words, that was a lot longer than I expected it to be. The rating definitely has to move up with what I written but I am ok with that. The chapter itself still has to go through editing and stuff so it is not quite ready to be published. I've never had a beta whose come through in a decent time so I've always done it myself.

I suppose instead of bumping this thread with my updates I should start a WBA thread. I'm still hesitant to post it, not because I am already 100k words in, but because I know that the quality and plot of some of the earlier chapters might turn most of DLP veterans off. I have no plans to changed anything in the chapters that have been finished for months and I know people won't be able to help themselves in critiquing them.

But I suppose in the end I simply don't know until I try. I just know that the last story I posted in WBA got flamed to hell and I lost my urge to continue writing it, and I don't want that to happen with this story since I really like it.

 

I say post it in WBA anyway, just to see what people think of it. I know I'd read it. Even if you do get bad reviews, you could always try to make it better in some way.

Don't let it worry you too much, if you worry too much about it, it's always going to stay negatively inside your head.

 

Do you think I should start with chapter one or post a link to ff.net with the first twelve and then start off with the new chapter 13?