1. DLP Flash Christmas Competition + Writing Marathon 2024!

    Competition topic: Magical New Year!

    Marathon goal? Crank out words!

    Check the marathon thread or competition thread for details.

    Dismiss Notice
  2. Hi there, Guest

    Only registered users can really experience what DLP has to offer. Many forums are only accessible if you have an account. Why don't you register?
    Dismiss Notice
  3. Introducing for your Perusing Pleasure

    New Thread Thursday
    +
    Shit Post Sunday

    READ ME
    Dismiss Notice

Your pet peeves in fanfiction

Discussion in 'Fanfic Discussion' started by Mock Moniker, Jan 31, 2011.

Not open for further replies.
  1. Arrowjoe

    Arrowjoe Auror

    Joined:
    Jan 27, 2011
    Messages:
    612
    Gender:
    Male
    Location:
    Vancouver, Canada
    You do have to remember that the Wizarding World went threw a brutal period of a mass murder running wild in Britain (Voldemort) AND an actual war on the continent (Grindelwald), so the amount of children attending Hogwarts is probably waaaaaaaay below what it should be/has been in the past. The Continental War* is most damning because on top of the unmentioned number of magicals killed you have the mind boggling number of muggles killed (somewhere between 50 million to over 70 million depending on the source). The number of muggleborn magicals that could have been born from those killed in WWII alone makes my head swim and Voldemort spin in his grave.


    *Was the war in Europe with Grindelwald ever given a name in Canon?



    You have to remember Drantrag tc that JK had no real idea what she was doing when she came up with population numbers and contridicts herself a couple times when she has tried to straighten all this shit out. Its like that with alot of her *verse, with the economy and population the two biggest offenders.
     
    Last edited: Apr 7, 2011
  2. Mordecai

    Mordecai Drunken Scotsman –§ Prestigious §– DLP Supporter

    Joined:
    Nov 11, 2005
    Messages:
    559
    Location:
    Englandshire
    High Score:
    5,725
    The War with Grindelwald...?
     
  3. Knyght

    Knyght Alchemist

    Joined:
    Nov 21, 2010
    Messages:
    2,349
    Location:
    England
    Petpeeve: Voldemort attacking foreign countries like America, France, China etc before he's even taken over the British government. It just seems like a poor excuse for writers to involve more foreign wizards in the "resistance", despite there being no gain on Voldemort's part.
     
  4. Portus

    Portus Heir

    Joined:
    Nov 25, 2008
    Messages:
    2,553
    Location:
    Music City
    I doubt canon!Hermione "expects" her parents to be anything approaching grateful for what she did, which in my opinion was a terrible way for Rowling to address the Granger situation.

    Hermione could have just told them what was happening and asked them to GTFO of Britain for the foreseeable future.

    Failing that, she could have placed a Compulsion on them so they'd believe it was their idea to GTFO of Britain for the foreseeable future.

    Or, more plausibly (I mean, what parent would want to leave their child in such a situation, amirite?), try the first option and when/if it fails, Obliviate the parents of that memory, then go with the second option.

    Anyway, the best example of Hermione's parents' not-so-rosy reaction to the DH situation is Arsenoe de Blassenville's The Golden Age, which happens to be one of the best post-DH fics around.
     
  5. Tenages

    Tenages Order Member DLP Supporter

    Joined:
    Aug 19, 2010
    Messages:
    820
    Location:
    Philadelphia, USA
    Yeah the situation was the Granger's just was not handled well. I suppose you could try to justify it by saying Hermione panicked, but that's about it.

    As for Blassenville's fic, I've never really liked. It's well written but that's about the only positive thing I have to say.. I don't think it does much with her parent's reaction either. IIRC correctly it's just a few throwaway lines in the second chapter.

    It also contains another of my huge pet peeves; authors who are unwilling to let Muggleborns simply be Muggleborns. I don't know why authors feel the need to have Muggleborns be the unknowing bastards of wizards, or descended from long dormant magical lines but it's irritating as hell.

    In Blassenville's fic it's meant to illustrate how corrupt and pureblood biased the Ministry is and to provide a plot point going forward, but I found it ham handed and not handled well. I didn't buy the whole Department of Unintended Consequences. The whole Ministry leaks like a sieve, there's no way that something as scandalous as this is as unknown and secret as Blassenville makes it out to be. It would be well known, at least in the pureblood community and those with more sense than discretion, like Draco Malfoy, would taunt the Muggleborn with it.

    So I don't like the plot idea ever. I find it unnecessary and just irritating, and in this particular fic it was a clumsy and cheap way to shove drama, angst and wizarding moral decay into the story.

    This in particular. I refuse to accept that Harry's mother was the bastard child of rape carried out by a Prewitt. Just no.

    There are a whole bunch of other issues I have with the plot and characterization, (Snape comes back to life? Seriously?) but this isn't really the place. Suffice it to say that I think the story is horrendously overrated, and an aggressively average (at best) fic.

    EDIT: Warlocke's review from the library thread addresses some of my issues with it.
     
    Last edited: Apr 7, 2011
  6. Dantrag_tc

    Dantrag_tc Backtraced

    Joined:
    Mar 9, 2011
    Messages:
    32
    Thank you Portus for that fic. It has been very enjoyable so far and will most likely end up in my list of favorites.

    I agree that the obliviation/memory charm was not only pointless, but very dangerous and irresponsible even for a "genius" like Hermione. We were already given examples of how badly things could turn out if someone was memory charmed or even imperiused by an inexperienced wizard or witch. Bertha Jorkins became a total scatterbrain because Crouch Sr. messed up big time. Then there was that muggle junior minister from HBP, whose mind was fried because of a poorly done imperius -curse. I mean, in worst case scenario Hermione might have turned her parents into vegetables, if there had been a problem.

    I mean she went as far as to change their memories and then send them off on a plane or a boat, which meant that she had to have gotten them fake ID's for them to even get into Australia. If she went that far, there was simply no reason for the obliviation, a compulsion would have been enough as her parents were muggles and muggles simply don't have to power to break spells, even them overcoming weak ones is a rarity. And that only if they wouldn't listen.

    (In real life, even a months stay in Australia requires a lot of paperwork, longer stays are even harder and I should know since my brother works there, though we a both Finnish.)

    But like I suspected before Hermione's parents weren't most likely informed at all about what was going on in Hogwarts. If they were and if they had any say in the matter, then I doubt Hermione would have stayed in that school, she would have been out by the end of the second year at the latest. If they had known about the troll, that probably would have been it for Hermione's magic studies atleast in Hogwarts, if not completely.

    Like I said I simply can't see them as not caring about their. And I doubt Dumbledore would go as far as to obliviate them should they find out. The canon!Dumbledore just isn't that big of an asshole, especially seeing what happened to his sister and his family.
     
    Last edited: Apr 7, 2011
  7. Portus

    Portus Heir

    Joined:
    Nov 25, 2008
    Messages:
    2,553
    Location:
    Music City
    Well YMMV, as they say. I don't deny there are cliches, and the author has a hard-on for Snape which resulted in that portion.

    What I liked about the everyone-has-a-magical-parent part was that it was all-inclusive, not the Hermione-finds-out-she's-really-a-pureblood type of shittastic abortion of a fic.

    And yes, the Grangers are not a part of the plot, but the point of linking it was to show a not-happily-ever-after situation between them and Hermione.

    Excerpts from my FF.net review of the story:
    I didn't review it on DLP as its thread was long dead before I came to DLP, and yes, I know Library threads aren't subject to necro rules, but still... Eh, maybe I should go add to the thread.
     
  8. Tenages

    Tenages Order Member DLP Supporter

    Joined:
    Aug 19, 2010
    Messages:
    820
    Location:
    Philadelphia, USA
    Of course Dumbledore wouldn't obliviate them. There's absolutely no compelling reason for him to do so. Hermione is one solitary, unimportant (albeit quite bright) student. It's doubtful Dumbledore is really concerned with whether or not she attends the school or not (especially in the early years).

    However, if Hermione attending school did contribute to the defeat of Voldemort than Dumbledore is absolutely 100% enough of a 'asshole' to obliviate Hermione's family to keep her at Hogwarts.

    To quote Taure

    To this I'd add setting Harry up to die. Dumbledore wanted Voldemort dead. He was above fucking with people's lives to accomplish it. So if he wouldn't obliviate Hermione's parents, it would be because they weren't important to his goals, not because he's too nice of a guy.


    EDIT: Yeah Golden Age I think definitely fulfills the saying, "different strokes for different folks." As I recall the reaction here was generally highly positive or negative, not much in between. I think nmb said it best; great writing, but it felt more like a deconstruction of failing relationships, corruption, sex and drugs than it felt like a story about magic and Harry Potter. (He gave it a 5/5 btw.) So yeah YMMV

    On the subject of Hermione obliviating her parents. I read one once (unfinished, only a couple chapters I think) where Ron and Harry do the same thing to Hermione that she did to her parents, in an attempt to get her out of danger. Thought it was a mildly interesting spin on the idea. Can't remember what it's called.
     
    Last edited: Apr 7, 2011
  9. Verminard

    Verminard Seventh Year

    Joined:
    Aug 28, 2007
    Messages:
    280
    I finished Golden age. It seemed to be a long story about emotionally damaged kids trying and failing to grow up. Depressing, but as has been said, well written. Not something I'd wanna read again.
     
  10. Warlocke

    Warlocke Fourth Champion

    Joined:
    Sep 17, 2006
    Messages:
    3,053
    Gender:
    Male
    Location:
    The armpit of Ohio
    If one considers Grindelwald as simply another member of the Axis, and the fight with him as simply another theater of war, then the answer would be: World War II.

    *shrug*

    Tenages: LOL. I was all set to give you a thumbs up for what you said about The Golden Age, then I saw you linked to my review, and I suddenly felt a thumbs up from me would just seem self-serving. :awesome
     
    Last edited: Apr 8, 2011
  11. Knyght

    Knyght Alchemist

    Joined:
    Nov 21, 2010
    Messages:
    2,349
    Location:
    England
    Petpeeve: Overcomplicated warding. For some reason, fanon seems to make warding an unusually difficult art and almost always requires Ancient Runes for it to be used properly. I didn't mind it so much when I first start reading HP fanfiction but these days it just feels over the top.

    I much prefer the idea shown in Out of the Night where Ancient Runes are used for ritualistic magic instead.
     
  12. Alraune

    Alraune Seventh Year

    Joined:
    Jul 22, 2009
    Messages:
    276
    Petpeeve: People saying Ron was useless after PS and all he did was the chess set.

    Did people forget this guy stood up to his worst fear in CoS with a broken wand in a effort to help Hermione? That he stood up to a serial killer on a broken leg to try to shield Harry and Hermione?
     
  13. Warlocke

    Warlocke Fourth Champion

    Joined:
    Sep 17, 2006
    Messages:
    3,053
    Gender:
    Male
    Location:
    The armpit of Ohio
    Peaked as a third year... how sad. :(
     
  14. Grinning Lizard

    Grinning Lizard Supreme Mugwump

    Joined:
    Sep 25, 2010
    Messages:
    1,662
    Location:
    United Kingdom
    For me, this is up there with 'Harry goes to America. The land he's heard so much about during canon, which has huge relevance to him. For the hell of it. Because I'm an American fanfic author and have approximately fuck-all imagination and no access to google maps.'

    Yeah, it sucks. No-one spoke anything close to Modern English back in the day. Enter plotdevice!Magic to bring about legible dialect. Even post-Chaucer middle English would have been virtually impossible to understand to modern ears, using the accents and pronunciation a native speaker would. Later even than that, Shakespearean (Elizabethan) English is all well and good for interpreting off the page... but when originally recited by the players, despite common renditions in a quivering, ominous, McKellan-esque RP, it would have had a predominantly guttural Cockney inflection. Try that out after a few drinks.

    "Back again, Binnsy?"

    ...

    This needs to be written.
     
    Last edited: Apr 11, 2011
  15. Oruma

    Oruma Order Member

    Joined:
    Dec 13, 2010
    Messages:
    833
    Gender:
    Male
    Location:
    PoCo, Canada
    More like "Ain't allowed to grow up in canon" (though he's not alone in that regard) and "blind/idiot bashing from fanon" (of the "die for our ship" variety, among others).
     
  16. Portus

    Portus Heir

    Joined:
    Nov 25, 2008
    Messages:
    2,553
    Location:
    Music City
    Actually, according to my better half - English teacher, took linguistics courses in her undergrad time - the Shakespearean dialect would have been disturbingly close to what we see in rural Appalachia nowadays, as those people have been exposed less to modern dialects and accents to change what they were immersed in when they crossed the Atlantic and settled in the New World.

    Sounds plausible if cringe-worthy; I have a mental image of Macbeth saying, "Git 'er done, Macduff!"
     
  17. knuckz

    knuckz Seventh Year

    Joined:
    Mar 23, 2011
    Messages:
    234
    Location:
    Flatland
    The list.

    It's usually found in 'summer after 5th year' fics. Harry decides that he needs to get shit done... so he makes a list. Typically, it contains self-devised instructions that will lead him to freedom, usually from Dumbledore's machinations. And he'll somehow get powerful enough to defeat Voldemort as well.

    Alternately, Harry also makes lists about what is wrong with his life. Apparently, writing lists makes a difference.

    Yeah, I'm parodying this.
     
  18. Grinning Lizard

    Grinning Lizard Supreme Mugwump

    Joined:
    Sep 25, 2010
    Messages:
    1,662
    Location:
    United Kingdom
    Lol, yeah I've heard the theory. In speech patterns specifically it's entirely plausible, but I shouldn't think so much in actual language use or accent. Appalachians - and their dialects - are German and Scotch-Irish, both of which were a world away from the English spoken between the Midlands and London of the time (still is to an extent).

    Interesting theory nonetheless, and undoubtedly closer than most contemporary English dialects, thanks to that preservation. Something to be said I suppose for the idea of poor countrymen travelling from all over to the city and ending up as actors (just barely higher in status than beggars), and the mix of dialects that would have sprung from that, but classical Cockney is still likely to be closer to a common accent - bar broader vowel use from the ~17th Century, it's not changed massively since the 14th Century (classic cockney, bear in mind, which excludes the post-60's Creole and other multicultural influences) when the term was used to describe the ethnicity and general dialect of poor, or working class, Londoners.
     
  19. Portus

    Portus Heir

    Joined:
    Nov 25, 2008
    Messages:
    2,553
    Location:
    Music City
    Thumbs up to you. As I said, this is what I got from talking linguistics with her, and her recounting her linguistics classes. She teaches British Lit and the students have a very hard time with the language. Not just the words but the cadence and nuance and double-meanings - all of it really.

    Add'l content for relevance:

    I'm almost certain it's been put forth in the thread (or the countless predecessor threads) but Harry having Ye Oldeste and Darkeste Bloode Magicke Tome and other retardedly-titled books makes me rage, and my example doesn't even come close to the worst offenders.

    Yes, there are examples in canon of Magick Moste Evile, but the vast majority have alliterative titles (Dreadful Denizens of the Deep, all of Lockhart's stuff) or just a goofy name for comic relief, such as Men Who Love Dragons Too Much, or both, e.g. Madcap Magic for Wacky Warlocks.

    Asshats try too hard to make the title something out of a D&D abomination or something they thought up in a fever dream after reading The Lord of The Rings. I have no interest in titles that make me wonder if they were made up while the kid was having a forced time-out for WoW.
     
  20. dmacx

    dmacx Groundskeeper

    Joined:
    Jun 29, 2008
    Messages:
    375
    Even more popular is the list of Harry's assets from Gringotts, which usually adds up to several gazillion galleons and 100 different properties from the 35 family lines (including all four founders and Merlin) that he is inheriting from.

    More annoying than "the list" is "the letters". After the DoM debacle, Harry writes multiple letters to everyone who went with him, apologizing for getting them hurt, as if it's his fault that they insisted on going with him.

    As an added bonus, we get another fucking apologetic letter from Harry to Dumbledore for destroying the latter's office.
     
Loading...
Not open for further replies.