Didn't the dude like kill his entire family just so he could create said Horcruxes, to begin with? Just to frame it on his only remaining family.

 

The timeline has the first horcrux coming in before the murder of his muggle relatives. So if you wanted to blame the horcrux for destabilising him and pushing him from "cruel and cunning sociopath" over into "murdering psychopath" then you could write it that way.

 

I guess you could also go with the fact that him splitting his soul did that as well.

 

Isn't murdering someone part of the horcrux creation process though?

 

Not only murder but also feel no remorse. You need to be pure scum to create a Horcrux in the first place.

 

You're straying away from the specifics of canon there, the need for murder is canon. And true and absolute remorse is mentioned as a way to undo a horcrux, but it doesn't indicate that you have to not feel any sort of remorse in order to create one.

I'm looking at it as being possible to write someone as capable of a single murder to achieve immortality, but not quite being a psychopathic killing machine who actively tries to commit genocide.

 

Eh, I feel like even with that logic Voldemort has done some pretty unforgivable things even granted he wasn't in the "right state of mind". I don't think it is logical for Harry to forgive him let alone court him and in order to do that you have to make either Harry OOC or Voldemort OOC which is perfectly possible, just very weird. But if you make Voldemort OOC or even Harry OOC much of the scenarios that took place inside of the story either don't happen or are far different.

All that being said, HagridxDobby is most definitely the strangest pairing I've ever come across. I believe the story was called "A House Elf's Needs" and well... don't read it.

 

Voldemort/Harry is a fetish thing. It isn't any more deep than that.

To be clear, yes, I know there are Harry/Tom Riddle stories where he goes back in time or whatever. I'm not talking about those. I'm talking about the fics where Harry gets captured and "reforms" him.

The premise here is ridiculous. Calling Voldemort "wizard hitler" is actually a disservice to Hitler, as Adolf was able to maintain close, non-abusive friendships and relationships. I don't say this to defend hitler, I say to highlight how HOLY FUCK irredeemable Voldemort is by any measure. Voldemort tortures his most loyal subordinates on a regular basis and shows no affection to anyone, ever. Oh yeah, and Harry is a minor and Voldemort is in his sixties. Sure, these fics might take a softer view of Voldie, but they still maintain his overwhelming power advantage over Harry. As I pointed out, in many cases the premise is that Harry is Voldemort's prisoner.

Bluntly, it's written for the same people write LunaXgiant squid. They want to see the hot little body (since harry is hot in their minds) get "dominated." Sure, there might be a lot of scenes where no actual sex occurs, but the reason why people write about this ship is because of this appeal. The ship is "hot" because it plays into certain fetishes people have. Some Snarry fics are like this too, TBH.

 

I accept Harry / Tom Riddle with some conditions:

Somehow Harry goes back in time and starts to like Tom Riddle (Not Voldemort, but Tom, who for me are different people) They are the same age or the difference is not stark, if there is that, that's fine with me .

But now, Snape / Harry IS DISGUSTING, I drop any fanfic that suggests having this ship

 

Based on your logic, you should accept fics with Harry going back in time so that he's the same age as Severus, maybe even before he was attracted to the Dark Arts or Harry could become attracted himself to the Dark Arts himself.

If you still are disgusted you should be disgusted with Harry and Tom together too or it doesn't make sense.

 

The Draco/* is the worst. There's nothing remotely attractive about his personality. The only way to pull it off is to completely alter his character to the point that he's unrecognizable.

Bellatrix/* has to be OC because otherwise she's just a crazy sadistic serial killer.

I understand Tom/* on a certain level. He's barely human in canon. It might be interesting to read about how he subtly became such a monsterous force. If it's an AU where a love lost drives him to take over Wizarding Britain, that might be really interesting. Most Tom fics are nowhere near that deep though.

I could see a Snape/* fic where Snape is collapsing under the weight of the choices he's made. Where he's abusing alcohol and wizarding drugs from his cauldron, and he suffers from apathy and self-loathing, and he takes it out on the students because his life is so pathetic. Maybe he doesn't teach potions properly because he spends his time passed out in his office. He shows up to staff meetings late. Albus covers for him again, etc...

Maybe you could throw in some humorous, late-nite, drunk, drug dealing shenanigans and a few hookers to lighten the mood so it doesn't become just another masochistic, hurt/comfort, emo, angstfest. Snape meets Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, meets Bad Santa, meets the Grinch. Except with illegal broom race gambling and polyjuice nightclubs.

Great, now he sounds like Sirius Black.

 

I would definitely read this, especially Snape meets Bad Santa. Imagine the withering scorn he would unleash on everyone around him if he didn't have a filter. It would be crackish, but in the hands of a good writer, it might be hilarious. Bonus points for Snape/Trelawney, where she misconstrues his insults as compliments.

 

Snape/Trelawney could be a dysfunctional relationship from hell.

I love it.

The problem is that Snape needs just the right ridiculous personality to contrast his snarky pessimism.

 

Of course, Snape/Trelawney is dysfunctional-- haven't you seen Love Actually? It's an AU fic where he bangs one of his Slytherin students and breaks poor Sybil's heart.

 

So you can do Voldemort/* but not Bellatrix/* because she's a crazy sadistic serial killer and he's...what?

 

I understand what you mean, but it's different. Voldemort isn't just a serial killer. If he was a mindless killing machine the way Bellatrix was, then there would be no way he could have risen to power.

How he did rise to power makes an interesting story. How many stories and documentaries are there on Hitler and even Eva? Why? Because it's morbidly interesting.

But Bellatrix is just a mindless lunatic who's barely functional. There's not much story there.

 

I haven't read that one! Is it good?

 

I think you're confusing fanon with canon a bit there. My read of the books is that there's equally little information about both of them.

 

You're right, but the context for Voldemort is that he's an intelligent, charismatic, leader who used to be human, but threw his humanity away and took over faction that he doesn't even technically belong to.

But why? What drove him to go to such lengths? Love? Hate? Betrayal?

Even though we don't know much about him, there's a story there.

In my opinion, canon gives just enough context and information to make Tom Riddle a compelling character, but not enough to solidify him. This allows for all kinds of creative freedom (which is usually squandered so someone can hook up with the actor from the movie).

 

Surely you could ask similar questions about Bellatrix?

Why is she broken? Its unlikely she was born that way, so what made her into such a cruel and heartless person? Does she have more to her personality? She was married once, does that mean she was...likeable? Loveable? Or was she married off as a good pureblood breeder?

There's questions to be asked and stories to be told about Bellatrix as well.