Excellent comeback BTW. And yes, I'm extremely bored at the moment.

 

If you want a positive portrayal of Cho in canon, just look at Deathly Hallows. Yes, her appearance there is pretty brief and something of a pretext for a clumsy attempt to make us find Ginny's mean-spiritedness endearing. However, despite being in no personal danger from Voldemort and having almost no remaining ties with Harry or the DA, she is one of the first to return despite the danger. She is polite and friendly without drawing attention to herself. Only when Harry seeks information does she offer it as well as her help and a suggestion which does wind up being useful. When Ginny responds with petty jealousy, Cho doesn't argue or cry or sulk. She just looks disappointed and resumes her place, presumably to risk her life with the rest of the DA later. This is a picture of a mature, brave, and essentially good woman. It also isn't at all inconsistent with OotP. In OotP, Cho was devastated by grief, subject to all sorts of petty jealousies, willing to associate with a friend of poor character, and had a whole host of other problems and faults, none of them likeable, a few of them sympathetic, but none of them especially vicious or unusual in a 16 year-old given the circumstances. People don't have to like her then. However, there's no reason to assume that her character will remain that way forever and no justice in judging her for her actions at that age. We do, in fact, see a very different Cho in DH. That she should have matured, dealt with her grief, and gotten some balance and perspective in her life is normal and natural, not a sudden and complete change of who she is. It's one of the few decent bits of character development in HP, even if we don't see it happening.

 

What a wall of text.

I'm assuming you are a H/C fan, what with being able to read so much in what has been a fleeting appearance by Cho in the story, more of a cameo than anything else. But don't worry, I do ship H/C every now and then too.

Do we have any canon evidence that she is "one of the first to return despite the danger"? You must also bear in mind that while it is all and good that she came back to help Harry, so did almost all the senior Claws and Gryffs and Puffs... I guess you can argue that it commendable she came back to help fight a fight she needn't really ought to despite her relationship with Harry ending on sour terms and her being friends with Marietta.

How you can notice this when she has only one minor scene in the book, I do not really know.

We do not really know how much she has changed since OOTP, for the hints that are available in DH are awfully few. Though I'd say it seems more likely she has matured and changed for the better.

I'd like to see a H/C AU of DH, for this matter, or even a Post-DH H/C fic.

 

Yes. She's sixth. Every entry up to hers and for a few after is specifically mentioned as it occurs. Only later do masses of people start showing up. It's Luna, Dean, Fred, George, Lee, Cho. It was the only thing JKR ever let her beat Ginny at.

Sure. But the theory isn't "Cho Chang is the real hero of Harry Potter and beats everyone at everything," but, rather, the much more plausible theory of "Cho Chang grows into a more sympathetic character while no one is looking and might plausibly make a more respectable girlfriend a second time around." She doesn't need to be braver than everyone else, just brave enough. Incidentally, I'm not that sure that they did all come back. The book indicates that fewer Hufflepuffs than Gryffindors stayed and fewer Ravenclaws than Hufflepuffs. Roger Davies is notably not mentioned, although that doesn't necessarily mean he wasn't there. Penelope Clearwater is also not mentioned, although it's quite possible she was in Azkaban for "stealing magic," which is a valid excuse.

If we had the entire Battle from Cho's perspective, it is likely this would be the most important scene to her. It is her reintroduction to the only two characters present likely to have any emotional relevence to her (Michael and Harry) and also the only openly hostile comment she's likely to get from someone on the side of the good guys. It is possible that she might have proven herself either a coward or exceptionally brave in the actual fighting but my assumption is that Harry would have noticed this.

Or, if you're just asking why I noticed the scene at all, blame Ginny. Her comment seemed bizarrely inappropriate in circumstances where there's a war and the woman she's talking to could easily be dead by the next day. I was honestly indifferent to both characters before that scene. It packed a lot of wallop for me. I guess not for everyone.

The scene, combined with normal maturation, combined with the extraordinary circumstances which were at least partly to blame for her OotP behavior, leads me to believe it's almost certain. That isn't to say she isn't still more of a sensitive sort than Harry. I assume she is. But within limits and with maturity and self-control, that can be a good thing.

I'm working on one, actually.

 

I'm biased, but I say they should have cast a Korean chick. We gots the hawt chicks, too.

http://a4.vox.com/6a00d4142baa0e6a4700d4142bd91c6a47-500pi

http://cfs12.blog.daum.net/image/35/blog/2008/02/13/08/59/47b232f39b52a&filename=%EC%86%8C%EB%85%80%EC%8B%9C%EB%8C%80.jpg

Edit: Just went back and realized we'd stopped posting up pictures. Gah. My bad.

 

I think Katie's lovely. Half the alternative pics up here are a bit too skinny for my taste. Eye of the beholder, I suppose.

 

Katie Leung isn't really all that attractive for an Asian girl. There are many far better looking than her.

But I guess she sort of fits the image of Harry's schoolboy crush.

 

I personally find her more attractive than any of the pictures posted earlier in the thread as examples of more attractive Asian women. It isn't as though there's some abstract criteria floating in space which defines attractiveness, though. What attracts you and what attracts me might well be very different.

 

In all fairness, I'm pretty sure Cho is supposed to just be kinda cute. Unless Hogwarts is filled with amateur porn stars and race queens. Harry just as the ol' school boy infatuation.

That being said, Hottie!Cho is certainly supported. Where are you, Heather Sinclair?

 

I think JKR said in an interview somewhere that Cho's improved behavior was a result of her budding relationship with Grawp. Only she had to cut that chapter out because the story was getting too long.

That said the sheer dedication and disturbing fanboyism demonstrated by GDC deserves commendation. Way to carry the yellow fever torch there.

So aside from poking the self-appointed Cho-defender, anyone found any decent Harry/Cho fics in a while? I skimmed the only semi-recent recs but couldn't get over the use of the word "soulution" in the title. It's possible it's just a horrible typo, but it's more likely a fucking retarded intentional choice of spelling. And I won't read that.

 

Well, the woman stuck her hero with Ginny Weasley. Compared to that, being paired with Grawp is getting off easy.

Anyway, I suppose I can volunteer a tentative recommendation. I just started this and I'm really enjoying it so far. I can comment more substantively when I finish.

http://www.fanfiction.net/s/727010/1/The_Seekers

 

Haven't heard that Grawp stuff before, only about the Muggle bloke she supposedly married. Then again, I haven't been paying much attention to Post-DH interviews.

Seekers was pretty good at the time I read it, don't know how well it would hold up to increased standards.

 

The Grawp stuff was a joke at my expense which I decided to just roll with. JKR didn't really say that. Her interviews maintain that Cho married an unnamed Muggle. Of course, I stopped caring about her interviews when she said the locked door in the Department of Mysteries held a bunch of Witches and Wizards taking amorentia. I mean, she herself stressed that amorentia was not real love! I insist that the door hides ancient, mystic powers of love and not a psychological study in Witches and Wizards taking what I can only consider a glorified rape drug. Sorry to digress.

 

I couldn't say it any better myself.

 

Pretty sure that LT2000 had one of the best HP/Cho fics out, probably still does despite it being something like late 2005, early 2006.

I'm more gunning for a spoof fic or parody that features Ron getting into some of HP's naughty manga and hentai that he's secretly collected, resulting in catastrophic events that lead to mass amounts of humor and hopefully the destruction of the Wealsly family.

Voting for Nonjon to do it!

 

That might be interesting. After Cho and Harry fight over Marietta, Harry has a choice between moving to Ginny or pleasuring himself to disgusting tentacle porn about hate sex. Obviously, he picks the latter. Ron gets upset, steals it, accidentally brings it to life and the whole family is killed but not before Harry realized that they were all evil or something. I don't like killing them off if they're good. I can't revel in the deaths of even despised, bullying good guys if that line isn't crossed. Cho also realized Marietta is evil. Cho, Fleur, and (just for the hell of it) Penelope all decide to love each other like sisters and, Wheel of Time-style, insist that Harry has to take all of them if he wants any of them. They have a lovely polyamorous household and don't name any of the children after parents or teachers.

Dammit. Now you put ideas in my head and I'm already working on something and getting ready for exams.

 

I've almost never seen a H/C fic where the romance was written decently.

It's always subpar at most, even for the more well-known ones, like LT2000's work (though that has kick-ass action scenes, which make up for it).

I think the best I've seen was in one of BJH's fic, which was sadly abandoned.

 

This is the most flowery shit I've read in a while. It's a decent bit of writing, technically, but the author turns quidditch into a type of art....wow. I'm only 4 chapters in and I'm nearly gagging.

 

One can simply take that much fluff before gagging... 4 chapters is still commendable.

 

Having finished it, I'm forced to agree with you. I'm glad I put the word 'tentative' in my original post. Still, I did find the first two chapters enjoyable.