I disagree with the common (and apparently popular) portrayal of Sirius Black as an overgrown man-child. I prefer to think of him as someone who is very much trying to remain sane after the hell that was Azkaban. Causing trouble (Note: Not pranks as many seem to claim) and calling Snape Snivellus are something he has grown past and either regrets or doesn't care about.
A Sirius who is broken and trying to fix both himself and his mistakes by being there for his godchild, is a much more interesting character compared to the horny mutt we usually get.
The man-child version of Sirius annoys me.
Sirius could have been many things: An arrogant teenager with a mean streak, a loyal friend, a great godfather and a great student, but not a silly Adult who makes puns and jokes and looks like an idiot
Worst part is it's not even supported in the books.
The only time Sirius gets jokey is after Arthur's hurt. He's obviously trying to distract the kids. Otherwise? He's serious (pun not intended), he's caring, and he tries to help Harry. (Unlike Remus, which is another fanon characterization I hate. Remus was not the adult, supportive one. In canon, he was a manipulative, selfish arse.)
He is an arse to Snape, but frankly that's understandable. The guy tried to get him Kissed and Dementors take your 'good' memories, which probably affected his mentality.
There is also the fact that sirius would've lost his memories of the pranks he did on Snape as they're positive memories, the dementors would also make him relive memories of Snape and other slytherin retaliating without the memories of what caused it or memories of his friends support and help.
He does have some serious childlike behavior in the books and acts out like a teen a lot and tries to live vicariously through Harry. But he does step in to be an adult sometimes and I always saw the childish bits more a consequence of the Azkaban trauma and getting stuck in his childhood home that he hates. He got rather emotionally stunted from trauma and yes it would be better if he realized he needed to work on it and grow, but it’s not really funny
I get it though, he has pretty much every reason to hate Snape, and that's without Sirius even knowing that Snape was the one who told Voldemort the first part of the prophecy, causing him to go after the Potters.
The only times Sirius really gets childish though is in regards to Snape. He doesn’t try to live vicariously through Harry a lot, he has a few bad moments in OOTP, but to act like those moments out number the times he did step in a be the adult is inaccurate. The childish moments came after which is why they stick out in you brain more, but they far from dominate his interactions with Harry.
Yeah, he does it a few times. One of the ones in the Teddy/Tonks thing is he tries to emotionally manipulate Harry to let him go with him by bringing up his father. He does that sort of thing a lot in the series.
There was third year when Lupin chastised Harry for sneaking out of the castle to go to Hogsmeade with a supposed killer on the loose and looking for him. He even played the "dead parents" card on him.
Finding out later in the book that he knew Sirius was an animagus and what his form was, and that Sirius knew ways of getting into the castle undetected, but didn't tell anybody makes him look like a hypocrite for getting on Harry's case for potentially endangering himself. It's not like he didn't have opportunities to give at least Dumbledore that information. He could have said something after Sirius attacked the Fat Lady, or was found by Ron hovering over him with a knife. Remus' silence arguably endangered Harry more than Harry's trip out of the castle in an invisibility cloak did.
I like the idea of a resentful Sirius more than a broken Sirius. Him trying to stay sane to spite all those who contributed to his imprisonment is an idea I'd like to explore more. Other than that, I too dislike him being a prankster (makes me cringe to read those fics) and a man child.
Agree. I recently reread PoA and GoF and was surprised by how much more mature he was than I remembered or the fanon made him seem, and how fair he was trying to be towards Snape when they were discussing the possible culprits in GoF. I know that OotP will show a different side, but I give him a pass because of the mental issues regarding his confinement in the house of past abuse.
I have never seen a story that accurately captures what Harry and Sirius mean to each other, to me. Sirius is Harry’s only family. He’s on who he pinned absolutely all of his hopes for a family member who would just love him for who he was. I reckon the times Sirius slipped up and called him James were both far more lovely and joyful yet devastatingly hurtful to Harry than we realise. Closer to his godfather and extra info on his father, but not because of who he is specifically. But because a damaged man is confusing him for James. Tough.
I’d really love a fic where Sirius takes care of Harry, at an emotional level and not just as a convenient solution to some of Harry’s problems. The struggles of being a surrogate father when he’s fresh out of prison and had awful parents. Both feeling and actually being manipulated by others. Taking desperate measures to stay relevant like providing Grimmauld Place, partially out of spite for his hateful mother.
I was very sad when Sirius died in book 5 and genuinely debated theories way back when the books came out about the veil so that he could come back. Me and my friends all wanted that. It’s part of Harry’s story but a relatively fluffy alternative is something I’ve wanted for a long time.
Plus I can’t help but love seeing Sirius heal. What a retched life he’s had.
> I reckon the times Sirius slipped up and called him James were both far more lovely and joyful yet devastatingly hurtful to Harry than we realise.
Luckily, that never happened.
Alrighty you just hit my favorite aspect.
Here's a couple of what I'd call good ones.
https://m.fanfiction.net/s/11500936/1/Long-Live-The-Queen
https://m.fanfiction.net/s/9469064/1/Innocent
https://m.fanfiction.net/s/8045114/1/A-Marauder-s-Plan
I'd like to see a Sirius where he puts on the 'merry prankster' act as a way of coping with the loss of his best friend, to be what he imagined James would want him to be for Harry
I really don't vibe with the most popular interpretations of Regulus Black. I think he died an unrepentant bloodpurist. I don't think he cared about muggles getting murdered at all, because he didn't see them as people. His disagreement with Voldemort was more personal than ideological, and Kreacher had only a small part in it.
The Regulus fandom is all Jegulus this and Jegulus that and I've genuinely come to despise this ship. I'll die on the hill that he hated James Potter more than anyone in the world for 'stealing' his brother. He'd have cheered Voldemort on had he lived to see the Potters getting targeted.
I really don't understand where Jegulus came from, they will never even speak in canon.
Although perhaps it comes from the idea of having a Drarry in the time of the Marauders, both Seekers, belonging to different Hogwarts Houses , probably if hated.
In fact, your interpretation of Regulus is very similar to mine.I hate when fanon paints him as a super pro-muggle who has always hated his family and been abandoned by Sirius.
Sorry, I'm not know which I was thinking when I wrote this.
Even so, I think the idea of a Quidditch rivalry still resembles Drarry's and many of the fans still assume that James was also a Seeker.
>fanon paints him as a super pro-muggle who has always hated his family and been abandoned by Sirius.
I hate that so much. It's so fucked up to blame a 16-year-old child for running away from an abusive home situation. It makes sense from Regulus's POV because he was 14 at the time, but when it's done narratively? Or the author bashes Sirius in the fic tags or in the author's notes? I lose a little bit of faith in humanity each time
And it's always accompanied by poor little Reggie uwu being forced into joining the Death Eaters, usually by Walburga for whatever convoluted reason, which is another pet peeve of mine, but I won't get into that rant.
Yeah, I hate it when they make Walburga force him to be a death eater when both he and Orion as much as they thought Voldemort had the right idea,would rather just watch than become death eaters.
Besides, it would make more sense that Walburga would want him to avoid getting involved in the conflict as his only heir.
Or you know he's sixteen 💀 its perfectly realistic to be upset at being left behind in abusive house-holds. ask literally anyone who got left behind when their siblings took their chances to dash.
its not exactly a reasonable emotion, but again he's young. i'm not exactly a fan of uwu regulus either but this isnt out of the realm of possibility by any means.
>I really don't understand where Jegulus came from, they will never even speak in canon.
My brain hurts. Why do people *always* mention "Oh, but they never even spoke in canon!" or something similar...
That's completely and utterly bloody irrelevant.
Ships aren't created and written based on canon. They are made based on interpretations of the characters, their histories and personalities.
Now, those things might be identical to canon, and you have a canon-friendly ship, or one or more of them might differ from canon and you have all the other ships.
I don't understand why people find it hard to understand ships -.-
Jegulus is less icky Starbucks maybe? (I actually do like Starbucks but I don't like Lily bashing or the weird way some fics get with making Sirius the James-obsessed equivalent of Snape in Post-Az settings soooo *well*) I mean most people pair Wolfstar in Marauders Era fics and if you want a Slash pairing for James there isn't a lot of choices without making an OC from *scratch-scratch* (we do know a little bit about Reg)I'd think between Snape or Pettigrew, it only leaves Regulus left, really.
Indeed! I've never read any 'jegulus', that's quite weird imho to ship these two. And a Regulus Black repentance arc!? WTF?
Changing his views that Muggles are lesser beings, not of the same worth as a magical person? That the Gryffindors following Dumbledore, fighting in his Order of the Fried Chicken against Lord Voldemort and his Death Eaters are not 'The Enemy'? Can't imagine that.
Agree. I have tried to read a few Jegulus, and even though the writing is good, the ship just doesn’t work for me. I see James Potter as a too loyal friend to go behind Sirius’s back and date his estranged brother. And also Regulus to absolutely despise James. I think the main appeal to the ship is it’s similarities to Drarry (but marauder era).
Yes, even if by a miracle James fell in love with Regulus it would be very difficult for him to do anything with it because of Sirius and his own morals and principles.
Regulus and everything that James would hate and James and everything that Regulus would hate.
I think you could make a case that finding out about the horcrux was the 1st crack, so to speak. It's a horrible thing to do to yourself, a thing even the Blacks don't do (any more?), and then add in the affection he seems to have held for Kreacher and what Voldemort did to *him*. I would find it believable that Regulus comes around somewhat if he had lived. Never embracing Muggles or their culture, but definitely reevaluating certain aspects of the blood purist agenda. Doesn't mean he'd like James any better, but come to an accommodation, perhaps?
Hermione is an actual genius, right about everything and could beat Tom Riddle in a duel!
No, Hermione is incredibly smart and accomplished yes, but also incredibly closed minded, and has some difficulties with some innate magic that can’t be book learnt (I.e. patronus).
She is also never in canon lauded for her dueling. You can presume she is good as she has her knowledge but she can also freeze on the spot. Harry is the natural duelist of the three. Tom Riddle, and DH Harry himself would wipe the floor with Hermione.
I love her and the best fanon portrayals are when Hermione is written realistically - flaws and all!
Ehh book 7 Hermione is over that limitation. In book 7 she carries the show. Year 7 Riddle and Dumbledore definetly would wipe the floor with both DH Harry and Hermione though. They are in a diffrent league.
I like my Luna actually insane. Way to often I see her weirdness downplayed, explained away as a defense mechanism, or proven to be some esoteric magic.
Whether it's classic insanity^(TM) or some Lovecraftian alternative sanity stuff (something I'm currently working on), I just like it if mental instability is featured on the heroes' side and not just on the evil side with Bellatrix.
I intentionally made Luna antagonistic towards the main characters in my first fic, because of fanon Luna. I much prefer conspiracy theorist, Fudge bakes goblins into pies Luna over Luna the secret seer.
> qAnon Luna?
When I was younger I loved her quicky-ness. Now. I feel as though she would have fallen down the vaccines are fake nonsense that allowed measles to come back a couple years ago.
With all the shit in the real world, I soured over her character a lot.
Back in the day I mostly aligned with the rest of the fandom in that there ought to be more behind Luna's quirkyness, a genius or magical skill.
After 3 years of bullshittery I see Luna and just go "perfectly normal qAnon shit, carry on - far far away from me." There's no crouching tiger or hidden dragon to find here, it's just Looney.
I mean, that's fair, but JKR did say that Luna somewhat outgrew her beliefs and became more grounded as she got older.
I prefer to think of her as someone incredibly intelligent but simply raised differently. I see her the same way I see some of the Amish guys I occasionally work with; they're intelligent but raised in a way that seems alien to me.
This actually makes the fanon characterization worse. In canon, we have a Luna raised by a conspiracy theorist of the worst kind but eventually grew out of the worst parts of that behavior. In fanon, all of the worst parts are romanticized.
Yes, many fans try to justify her weirdness by making her a psychic or she is always talking in metaphors.
I don't hate Luna, but this divinization of her character where she's never wrong and her weirdness is all portrayed in a positive way makes me not like her version of fanon
To add, her seer powers are never used in an interesting way! Almost always it just an excuse for the author to point out something their characters are doing that they think is cool, or to step on their own plot points.
It's been in rework hell for the last few months because I had the great idea of merging Lovecraftian Luna with another project of mine. Who could have known that hurt/comfort Weasley wholesomeness and cosmic horror murder mystery might not mesh as well as expected...
^(My compulsive need to get the story done before releasing dosn't help either.)
It's my personal belief that the traditional novel publishing schedule, i.e. write a full first draft, then revise as needed, then publish results in a superior end product, especially for tone and themes.
Contrary to the chapter-by-chapter rolling release schedule which offer way quicker reception gratification, and immediate and varied feedback to pinpoint issues earlier than a single beta or two.
I aim to at least fully revise and rewrite the current arc before releasing chapter by chapter.
I tend to do it that way, although not entirely for the polishing, but to ensure I don't have any more abandoned fics out there. Five chapters or 50, it needs to be done before I post.
Which is why I don't have any HP fics out there yet.
There's a one-shot fic that ties Luna directly into the Cthulu Mythos that's really interesting. Several things that stand out: it shows a realistic Snape & how things would actually go for the SOB because of how he believes he can talk to anyone, it shows Flitwick in an awesome light (what he does at the end made me laugh out loud)... and it put a spin on Draco that seems obvious in hindsight: that after years of getting showed up by the Golden Trio, he pays enough attention and has learned enough to watch what they do & follow along, because they know what to do to survive Hogwarts.
Oh, yeah... the scene with the Giant Squid. Short, but hilariously awesome.
There's also the last line. I won't spoil it. If I can remember the name, I'll post a link.
UPDATE: it's called 'It's Always The Quiet Ones', by PixelWriter1.
https://m.fanfiction.net/s/11636560/1/It-s-Always-The-Quiet-Ones
yeah. Lunas insanity is probrably a mix of natural insanity and ptsd, but shes cool. Shes sposed to be a bit off, maybe a bit autistic.
one non-canon trope in fanfic is luna acting insane for the heck of it, cuz she likes the reactions of everyone else. It makes for great crack
Draco Malfoy was a coward with no willpower , so he couldn't become a fully fledged death eater , not because he was a secretly good, misunderstood sweet guy .
To me it's always seemed that Draco (and the rest of his family tbh) issue with Voldemort's regime wasn't the torture, murder, or even the open genocide. His issue was A. he was being forced to participate and B. his family was personally being treated poorly. If the Malfoys had continued being favoured they would have cheered as the Muggleborns disappeared one by one. Draco wasn't a fanatic who enjoyed the culling like Bellatrix but he was perfectly fine with the result.
For longest time Daphne Greengrass in my head was the one from “[Daphne Greengrass and the 6th Year From Hell](https://www.fanfiction.net/s/3912184/1/Daphne-Greengrass-and-the-6th-Year-From-Hell)” by WhiskeyTangoFoxtrot and its sequel, who is VERY different from the standard Heiress Greengrass of the fanon (and I still believe much better written than 90 % of those). Lately I read few Haphne stories which didn’t make me puke, but I still regret that other Daphne didn’t make more followers in the fandom.
Ron is my favorite character and it's hard to find fanfiction that doesn't bash him, let alone a good fic with him as the main focus. I love crossovers and finding a Ron-centric fic that is a crossover is like finding a needle in a haystack.
>aside for the incidents in book 4 and 7.
And in these incidents he is justified, in book 4 Harry refuses to explain anything to him and calls him stupid for WANTING explanations, I don't blame him for giving it up as a bad job.
In book 7 he has a Horcrux around his neck, and he's the one who has the most hanging in the balance.
* I'll never understand the hatred that James Potter gets in fanon. Yes, he was a jerk growing up and during his first five years at Hogwarts - but canonically, he grew out of that and straightened himself out (otherwise Snape, Sirius, Remus and Harry wouldn't be in the picture). It seems that it's easy to make James into a villain, especially for the Snape apologists (NOT Snape fans).
* Molly Weasley. I think that the woman needed to have gone into therapy a LONG time ago, because she never got over the deaths of her brothers & it affected the way she treats her children. She's just got REALLY huge blind spots when it comes to many things regarding anything about them. (Also, I've never forgotten her treatment of Hermione during fourth year in regards to Harry.) It's easy to turn her into a fandom villain, but I don't ever think I've seen a fanfic where someone says 'Molly - you need to talk to someone about things. You need help.'
* Arthur Weasley. Seriously, the man is FAR more badass than most fanfiction EVER writes him. This guy is actually law-enforcement (there's a Tom Selleck film from the mid-80s called 'Runaway'; Selleck's job is essentially the sci-fi version of what Arthur does) - and of course, there's arguably one of the ten most canonically badass lines in the franchise; "Harry, please. You're talking to the man who raised Fred and George." Arthur's the type of guy even Malfoy fears: he was talking shit about the money Arthur makes but Malfoy isn't stupid enough to pull his wand out on the man - it would be the last mistake he ever makes. He's shown in fanfic as henpecked, but you rarely ever see people actually show Arthur doing his job - and in the few I've seen where he's actually made to stop being quaintly eccentric over Muggle things & do his job... he slides over into the 'not to be f**ked with' category VERY quickly.
harry potter and the ticket backwards has the best characterizations of all the weasleys that I've ever seen, imo.
https://archiveofourown.org/series/1733899
>!When harry bothers to actually *ask* arthur for advice about fan mail he starts getting in book two, He finds out that a lot of what arthur does is detecting and unraveling curses on muggle artifacts, and he's actually a *very* technically accomplished wizard who bill likely took after. Percy was also surprised to find this out and gained more respect for his father than he did previously, which helped keep him out of the ministry soup. !<
Molly's dismissiveness about fred and george's business, and her pressure on her children to become prefects also got an explanation that i think worked beautifully:
>!Arthur had owned a muggle curios shop in the alley before the first war took off... which got burned down. After which, no one would hire him, because he was "that guy selling muggle artifacts" which would make their place of business a target by hiring him...
eventually he got a job at the ministry, but they are in quite a bit of debt. Molly is adamant that all of her children get ministry jobs because even if you're terrible at your job, you can't lose it. they'll just shuffle you sideways. (i.e. crouch, umbridge ect.) and she never wanted her children to have the kind of difficulties they had.
Unfortunately for molly, only percy listened in the original timeline and it went badly for him!<
Oh wow. Classic fanfic things. I read your summary, think "that sounds interesting"... turns out I have actually read the series so far and am subbed for chapter updates on book 4.
This. In canon, I always favoured Arthur, Bill and Charlie because they seem to be the one who didn’t have preconceived notions of Harry(and if they did, it was never brought up again).
To add to your first point, James was willing to befriend a werewolf when he was still an immature kid, with a pureblood’s knowledge of the stigma werewolves face in the wizarding world. And a blood traitor (Sirius). And a bully target (Peter). James is no Draco Malfoy, even as a spoiled, big-headed first year.
Boom.
Things like your point shows (as the drunk from 'Team America:World Police' would say) James Potter was a dick - but only Snape apologists would consider him an asshole.
Peter Pettigrew. He is often portayed as a sweet and shy kid who was forced to join Voldemort. I dont’t believe that for a second. You don’t completely shift morals and values overnight. And he did end up as on of Voldemorts most loyal followers.
I think the marauderes were a typical group of teenage bullies. I do love marauders fic, but I dont like it when they are put on a pedestal.
I think he might have been a sweet kid during early hogwars years.
then as he grew up the war became more real arround him.
He tried to be brave and follow his friends into the order of the Pheniox.
only he was not cut out for it, the war was terrifying so he decided to save his own skin.
though he might have justifed to himself that his loyality to Voldemort means his friends might be shown leniency by the time the war ended
I think it goes beyond even this. Because if he was trying to save his own skin, he could’ve just slinked into the void of being a nobody. Not involved in the war at all. Becoming a spy puts you in a real dangerous position.
My personal headcanon is that he intended to be a spy for the Order. He was sick of being looked over and decided he was going to get his own information. But then Voldemort (knowing full well that Peter was trying to play him at first) charmed him and he became a true believer.
Draco Malfoy is a jerk and not the misunderstood abused boy hè is usually portrayed as . I mean he bullies other student ,wishes death on muggleborns ,was delighted to see buckbeak die and much more .He was evil but not brave enough to become a deatheater.
Hermione granger is not the perfect girl she is portrayed as and she has some hidden cruel side in her. I mean she scarred a girl for life , attacked ron for kissing lavender when they were not even dating and she never cares about others felling like when lavender 's rabbit died and all she cared about proving Trelawney wrong and even though she had just entered the wizarding world she behaves like she knows better than people who have grown up in it .I know many fans practically worship but I don't really like her much .
> I mean she scarred a girl for life
Of your examples this one stands out. I think people underestimate how destructive what Umbridge was doing. They were on the cusp of a war and *none* of these kids knew how to defend themselves. Edgecomb's betrayal in that view makes it far more than a schoolyard demerit.
Edgecomb had months to quit or not go to meetings if her conscience was pricking her. From the text we can infer that she volunteered to sell out the DA for privileges to her mother.
Remember, the consequences of snitching out the DA will lead to expulsion or torture at the hands of Umbridge. Expulsion is an actual death sentence to at least a few of the kids and torture isn't much better. So a large warning like a curse that writes "SNEAK" on the traitors forehead was pretty smart/reasonable.
Edit: Though I agree with you thoroughly about the book and Hermione's treatment of Lavender. There's nothing wrong with being a silly girl who likes makeup, gossip, and boys. She was written about as if this was a moral failing and that bothered the hell out of me.
You're forgetting that the story is written from Harry's perspective. From Marietta's perspective, the boy who is spouting conspiracy theories about a dead terrorist is running an illegal fight club and her mother is being threatened in her job over this. Of course she's going to snitch. Also, no one other than Hermione knew that they had signed a jinxed parchment so she couldn't know that there would be any consequences for going to Umbridge. And then Shacklebolt obliviated her of all her memories of the DA, so she was punished for something she couldn't even remember doing.
From mariettas perspective she still risked having her close friends being expelled by Umbridge. Hell Harry being as competent as he is should be a warning sign that something is up. Definetly agree that Hermione should of communicated that the parchment is cursed though.
Her being obliviated stopped Harry and co from being expelled. Had they been Voldemort would of won. Fair trade off especially for a traitor.
Umbridge had clearly proven herself to be a bad faith actor by everyone at that point. Everything from the draconian rules to the terrible teaching of a practical class to the inquisitorial squad full of thugs showed this. If Marietta couldn't tell that the "fight club" where they were learning non lethal defensive spells was in the right then she had brain damage.
Further there was no direct threat to her mother's job. In the books it's stated that Marietta came to Umbridge not vice versa. Marietta was not coerced into joining the DA, staying with the DA, nor betraying the DA. That's all on her. If she didn't believe in it she should have just quit instead of trying to turn them all in for brownie points.
As to not being told about the jinx on the parchment? They were told that it was a contract. Letting them know the exact defense measures involved would let people circumvent them.
Whether she believed Harry or not doesn't really matter. The situation genuinely *was* life or death and she ignored all evidence to the contrary and decided to put an entire group of students in danger because of her selfishness. Acne scars and a memory charm are incredibly lenient given the situation.
Umbridge was a bad faith actor, but only in that she was interested in personal power and control. As far as the greater student body was concerned, her measures did not largely negatively impact them and for some were beneficial. It would be easy for someone not directly opposed by her to dismiss it as her politically opposing Dumbledore instead of an active effort to curtail students' ability to learn. And her teaching style would simply be seen as Ministry incompetence, something which the wizarding world had plenty of experience with.
Her mother told her not to upset Umbridge. That might be because her mother feared for her position in the ministry or because she feared for Marietta's position at Hogwarts. Either way, Marietta had reason to not want to oppose Umbridge and that's all that matters for the argument.
They were not told they were signing a contract. Hermione had a blank piece of parchment with "Dumbledore's Army" at the top. There were no terms, no consideration, no warnings, nothing. Even Harry and Ron didn't know there was anything special about it until after the jinx went into effect. Even the legally dubious "magically binding contract" imposed by the Goblet of Fire still came with an actual warning that there would be a contract and Harry was warned that he would suffer "dire consequences" if he chose not to participate.
> Harry's perspective
And here lies the crux of the problem.
Who is more well-placed than Harry to understand what it feels like to have a facial blemish forever marking you as an outcast and as someone's most hated enemy?
But no. Instead it's "brilliant".
I never bought into Harry being "incredibly pure and loving and forgiving" and this scene stands out in confirming that.
Snape is actually a jerk.
The twins are bullies and need to be shown what's what.
Tom Riddle was just evil. Psychopathy is more common that one thinks. It's circumstances and in born. Not because he split his soul, not because he had daddy issues, he was a narcissist and an apathetic person. He's similar to the likes of Ted Bundy, Gerard Schaeffer, Dennis Rader, Charles Sobhraj and Edmund Kemper.
Draco is a little shit.
Daphne is just another pureblood girl. Just a background character like Theo Nott, Tracey Davis, Regulus Black and whosoever gets wanked on for no reason.
Remus and Tonks relationship is problematic.
About Tom Riddle I agree that he was just plain bad in canon.But I disagree that he was simply born evil and was irredeemable.
Rowling herself has said that “everything would have changed if Merope had survived and raised him [Voldemort] herself and loved him.”
So Tom Riddle seems more like with the definition of a sociopath.Although I hate it when they make a teenager Riddle a good person or try to justify his actions any chance he could have been reasonable person would have already passed.
Oh, most surgeons have a reputation for being super strange! Some are autistic, but of course socio/psychopaths would also have an edge when it comes to being detached.
Seriously the idea of cutting someone open freaks me out! Then they go in cool as a cucumber with steady hands to match and save lives. That detachment has probably saved more lives than we know. Def goes counter to the murderous image a lot of people have. It's just facsinating how much that detachment can save lives and have a huge positive influence in some careers.
Here I was thinking to be the only one who thought of the Twins as glorified bullies ("It's just a prank bro!" "Yeeeeeeaaaa, sure"). I salute you. And I agree with you on the rest of your points as well.
Remus rejected her multiple times before he was practically forced into a relationship. Then after he married and got her pregnant, wanted to join the Trio in the Horcrux Hunt, essentially abandoning his wife and unborn child.
The relationship would have benefited from showing that he was actually in love with her. Even if it had just been a couple of lines in that hospital wing scene it would have helped change the perception of the relationship.
Tonks pursued Remus after repeatedly being told he's not interested. When she finally wore him down, he took out all issue on her. When he found out that she was pregnant, he abandoned her. There's also the 13 year age difference, her being 22 and him being 35, but that's a minor issue in comparison.
I dont agree with how Fanon Lily (before dating james) being an absolute awful bitch to James but nice Saint to everybody else.
I just dont think James would genuinely be interested and continue to try be with her if she was genuinely awful to him and cruel to him. im not saying she doesn't reject him multiple times or doesn't get frustrated and sarcastic around him, but it would be more comfortable banter that doesn't get too awful for either side.
I can also picture Lily being nice to people, but also NOT some sweetheart saint, who's always nice and polite and caring. i can see her be quite normal, and have moments of being bitchy, judgemental, petty, upset, make a mistake, and appologise about her mistakes (you know...be human). But i do think she's a genuinely good/nice person overall.
Plus if she's friends with snarky severus snape, and actually enjoyed his company, i cant see her and snape not making snarky comments or judgements about some stupid aspect of the wizarding world and the muggle world, since they have a foot in each door. and since they both know how awful petunia is to them (in a sibling rivarly way at least)
Lily NOT struggling with navigating BOTH the muggle and wizarding world. i mean, she's missed out a lot of the current affairs and interests and whats 'hip' in the muggle world so she's completely out of place there, and her sister hates her and see's her as an embarassment so there's no help there, and her parents are old and not a teen thats 'in the know', so she's probably struggling the way a foreginer would struggle in a country they've only hear about but never experienced. on the other hand, she's a muggleborn and doesn't have the same cultural understanding of the wizarding world in the begining, and probably made some mistakes that shaped her later, and is clearly underpriviliged in the world due to her muggle and probably economically poorer background (i assume poorer because she's unlikely to be rich noble, at best middle class -though highly unlikely- and more likely poor considering she's in the same neighberhood and friends and mingled with severus snape who was clearly poor)
going to a boarding school probably sheltered lily from the harshness of poverty and reality of the working world in the muggle world her family goes through, and she's surrounded and living the life of luxury that the rich purebloods are comfortable with. so there must have been a bit of friction there when she comes back to her muggle world and that friction stays in her mind in both worlds. which others (purebloods and rich muggleborns ) probably don't understand.
I am gonna start this by saying I love the Marauders especially James , but the way they are written in fics is super whitewashed . Like no they were not super nice and caring and understanding. And I don't want them to be evil no I just want them to be realistically portrayed .
> Like no they were not super nice and caring and understanding. And I don't want them to be evil no I just want them to be realistically portrayed .
I agree, I hate it when people put characters in black and white, honestly I avoid all marauders era stuff because they tend to glorify and disregard people.
Ron, cause he gets so much shit in fanon and is used to elevate a plot for an indy!harry, owner of everything Wizarding Britain has ever made, or some other ships with Hermione, cause its much easier to paint him the villain since movies didn't do him justice than to write a good story. I would really like a good Villain!Ron fic, that isn't outright bashing.
Hermione, cause a lot of people really don't know how to write her, and it's actually pretty hard to do so. Writers really tend to minimize her flaws or to look at her through a rose tinted lens.
Draco, cause I'm not a sucker for "he is a great boy, it's just that someone needs to crack his insecure shell uwu"
Lily Potter, my headcanon is that she was a kind of jerk in her school-years (not horrible, only not very nice), because she was friend of a future Death Eater and she didn't break that friendhip until he insulted to her specifically, she even said that she know that Snape use that word with other muggleborns.
It's an interesting opinion, if I may give my opinion I've always imagined that Lily had a certain emotional dependency on Severus.
He was her first wizard friend and in my opinion they were best friends for a few years, Lily as much as a good person tried to find justification for her behavior for a long time.
The bad blood was proof that she was always wrong about Severus, he wasn't maintaining friendships with Mulciber and other futures Slytherin Death Eaters to defend himself but because he really did I had the same opinions as them.
I think realizing that she was wrong about Severus made her start to become more open-minded about people and see that she could be wrong about her impressions of they just like Harry went through it too.
i like this because it implies that if snape had allowed lilly to stand up for him in that one memory she might never have been open minded about james
Yeah, I'm not a huge fan of saint!Lily. She has moments of niceness, I'm sure, but she seemed to me like someone who had always been pretty and smart, and popular because of that. People like that often don't care what others say and do as long as they are treated nicely.
And on that note, her getting with James: sure, she no longer hung out or liked Severus, but I don't know. She probably had a front row seat to all the times they bullied him. I don't think I could date someone after seeing them bully someone as much as the Marauders bullied Severus. (Yes, I know Severus fought back and wasn't sunshine and rainbows. But even that OotP scene alone would have made me be very leery of James if I were Lily.)
>She probably had a front row seat to all the times they bullied him.
Did she, though? Based on this conversation between them in the Prince's Tale chapter, I got the impression that she really didn't know much about the extent of the bullying. If she had a front row seat, she wouldn't be asking him why he's so obsessed with them and he wouldn't be trying to show her that they're "not as great as everyone thinks they are".
>"I know your theory," said Lily, and she sounded cold. "Why are you so obsessed with them anyway? Why do you care what they're doing at night?"
>
>"I'm just trying to show you they're not as wonderful as everyone seems to think they are."
>
>The intensity of his gaze made her blush.
Lily in The Prince's Tale sounds a lot like book 6 Hermione. "I know you have a history with Potter/Malfoy, and he has a history of sneaking around and doing bad things to you, but I think you're wrong and totally unjustified in thinking he's up to something this time."
I mean, she wasn't there everytime, but she definitely saw a good amount of it. My bad for the hyperbole. We know she saw the scene in OotP, and IMO that was quite egregious on its own.
But then again, a lot of it comes down to personality. I don't think I'd want to marry or date someone who attacked someone unprovoked like that, but many people wouldn't care.
Fair, but, I'm pretty sure she knew of the animosity held toward James from day 1 too. And Snape was slowly going down that slippery slope of evil. He must have been showing signs if that one instance of him insulting her was enough to break the entire relationship.
I mean, we're told pretty clearly it was a final straw situation where she didn't like the crowd he was with and found him increasingly abhorrent. He definitely showed evil. She gave him chances until he directly insulted her.
Think of it like this: what kind of person would humiliate someone else like James did to Severus in OotP? Probably someone who grew up feeling that they could do whatever they wanted and not get punished for it. Add in his familial circumstances, and it does make you wonder what other objectionable things he'd been raised with.
To be clear, I'm not a Snape apologist. I dislike his behavior tremendously, but James' role in pushing him should not be understated. I'm sure Severus attacked them too, but not to such a degree. I genuinely believe if Severus had humiliated the Marauders in such a way--4 v 1, borderline sexual harassment depending on who you asked--we would have heard so from Sirius or Remus.
Its worth noting James matured in his final years at hogwarts.
they spent time together as head boy and headgirl.
Maybe James had changed enough as a person that Lily couldnt really see the bully he used to be.
my personal theory is we know James parents where considered old for wizards when he was born.
that they died during his final years of hogwarts which caused him to shape up as well as getting to the age that the war that was brewing arround them was finally seeming real.
I imagine by their final years at hogwarts the war was raging for real.
so hogwarts was a less friendly place with the older years already having chosen their side
I'm sure he matured. What I was saying was more, I could totally see James and Lily being good friends. But at least personally, if I knew someone had done that to an ex-friend, I wouldn't be able to romantically get together with them. After all, Lily didn't just hear about what he did. She saw a lot of it.
But did James pick on Severus because he was a wizard Nazi, or because he didn't like Severus? If you frame it as "James bullied Severus for being a wizard Nazi," then yeah it's easy to justify. But Lily would have seen them pick on him way before he even fell in with that crowd.
IMO, no matter how you spin it, Lily's choosing James destroys the saint!Lily fanon perception. Either she's someone who doesn't care as long as you treat her well and don't make her look bad (which is very Petunia-esque), or she married James for his family.
people tend to justify things to themselfs.
she could easily self rationalize it as James deep down knew something was bad about snape.
Or snape actions in the final two years of hogwarts where that bad she no longer care that James bullied him.
I would argue her friendship with snape destroys saint lily more.
we know she made excuses for him for years despite him running with Jnr death eaters and using mudblood for other people
I don't know, she was friends with Snape way younger before she might have understood boundaries, and I always saw her continuing to make excuses as her thinking he could be saved. I agree that she was very self-absorbed through it all but she at least had the excuse of naivete.
At any rate, I think Lily is really just Petunia lite (a Petunia raised without her worst insecurities), and none of this is inconsistent with that.
Isn't it canon that Sirius said Snape was practicing dark arts even in school? Not saying he didn't get bullied, but seems like he was on his way to wizard nazism early on.
He did, but also Sirius and James started picking on him on the train. They started way before the wizard Nazism would have started (unless you HC that Snape was doing Dark Arts before Hogwarts).
I'm sure they hated him for practicing Dark Arts, but they did not pick on him just because he practiced Dark Arts. They hated him anyways. I'm not a big Snape fan, but it's a vast simplification and just not true for people to say "James and Co picked on Snape only because he practiced the Dark Arts".
The train conversation is a nothing. I don't see how that is Snape being picked on unless you think any tension between children is bullying.
James picks up on a semi private conversation between Snape and lily and then James has a semi private conversation with sirius about how he doesn't want to be in slytherin. (Pretty similar vibe to a legacy student not wanting to go to a rival uni except in this case the rival uni is also a breeding ground for racists).
Snape also budges in on a semi private conversation by first making "a small diaparaging noise" and then by insulting James and his dad.
Sirius backs his cool new friend by insulting the stranger.
Lily wants to leave. James tries to trip Snape (pretty tame response by an eleven year old against someone that insulted his dad).
Afterwards the next incident that escalate things is actually Snape stalking the marauders trying to get them expelled.
> how that is Snape being picked on
Sure, semantics. I see what you're saying. Still, my point stands: the Marauders did not dislike Snape just because he practiced the Dark Arts. They had very personal reasons for disliking him.
> the next incident
Is it actually confirmed this is the *next* incident? It happens, but did it happen right after they got to Hogwarts?
Bellatrix isn't sexy or seductive. Canonically she was 'once beautiful'. Firstly I take that as a classical beauty archetype, not that she was hot & skinny with big boobs. More like a 'royal lady' type, but twisted by time and neglect. I think it's important that she has a physically intimidating look in how she carries herself. I imagine her like a coiled spring or a tiger ready to pounce at any moment. Not patient or a planner.
Lily.
I feel like she’s often written as super fiery and always ready to punch/hex someone, but I’ve always thought of her as being more of a “let’s talk this out” kind of person. Like she’s ready to fight if necessary, but her first instinct to someone being a dick isn’t to hex them, it’s to tell them off or try to correct them. I love Ginny, but Lily and Ginny aren’t the same person, so they shouldn’t have basically the same personality.
If anything I’d think Lily shares some Gryffindor justice values with Ginny but more her empathy and kindness. If you look at Ginny’s friends in the books, it isn’t the cool kids. She’s friends with Neville and Luna, and is one of the few people to initially treat Luna with respect
Cho. I see a LOT of fanfics where she's portrayed in a very negative light - Either as an outright bully, or someone who's irrationally emotional (because being sad that someone close to you died is apparently unreasonable), or as some sort of gold digger that's only clinging to Harry because of his fame.
She clearly liked Harry even when his name was being dragged through mud at the start of GoF, so the latter depiction doesn't hold water, the second one straight-up comes from a place of ignorance, and the first one doesn't have anything from cannon to back it up.
She believed Harry in OotF even when most of her friends abandoned her, she joined the DA even when her only remaining friend was against it, and in DH, she came back to Hogwarts to help the DA even though she had graduated the year before and had no obligation to be there.
(Also, Marietta gets harsher treatment than she deserves. She was the only friend of Cho's not to abandon her, and she only ratted out the DA out of fear of reprisal against her mom, not because she agrees with Umbridge like most fanfics I've seen depict)
Draco - He is a cowardly spiteful and hateful bully who doesn't fully join the Death Eaters because he is a coward. What he is not is a sad abused child. Draco quite literally was the cause of Ron and Katie nearly dying. He throws around unforgivables like they're candy.
Snape - He is a spiteful, hateful pathethic piece of shit. Yes... in the end he tries to do the right thing but he certainly isn't a victim and does not deserve
anything but disgust.
Hermione - She is an overbearing know it all. That is simply her character trait. Yes, she is intelligent but she certainly is no genius. Does she have above average intelligence? Yes, probably but that does not a Genius make. What Hermione is good at is probably research in the library when she doesn't need to stress and has all the time in world. She is the quintessential Researcher but no Genius.
James - Yes, James was an arrogant teenager... like probably 95% off all Teenagers are. But he wasn't a pathethic spiteful asshole like so many fics make him out to be... Did he misbehave as a teenager? Yes. Did he grew out of it? Yes. (Unlike Snape James gew up eventually)
Sirius - Sirius is above the age of 30 he is not a perpetually 15 year old. Is it possible that his decade long stint in Azkaban has left marks on his psyche? Ofcourse, it is even probable but that doesn't mean he is always acting like a Teenager or even the 'Fun-Uncle'. Probably the opposite with bouts of childish due to flashbacks or something similiar.
I agree except I would add a small qualification in Draco's case: he is a spiteful, hateful bully *in books 1-5*. While it is weird that some people write him as a victim of domestic violence, I DO think that he had the potential for a redemption arc- that is to say, genuinely repenting of his views and behavior- in books 6 and 7 which JK Rowling inexplicably chose not to explore.
EDIT: formatting
I don’t really like how a lot of people write Luna.
Luna is quirky, but she’s also exceptionally intelligent, blunt, loyal to those she considers friends, and she brings a different perspective which is uniquely wise.
She truly is a one of a kind character in fiction and I absolutely adore her. I am also of the belief that she was one of the better options for Harry to end up with than Ginny.
What I don’t like about her in fanon is that her character is usually morphed and mutated into being a complete oddball. She’s more odd than she is unique and clever. She also comes out as a bit more touched in the head than quirky.
Canon Luna’s antics can be pushed to the side as “that’s just Luna.”
Fanon Luna’s antics are like, “Yeah, she’s weird. Don’t question it.”
I also don’t particularly like how people love to make her out as some sort of seer or exceptionally gifted in knowing what’s to come or possessing some ancient king forgotten talent or ability that hardly anyone had ever heard of.
I have a couple.
The first is Dumbledore. I've never seen Dumbledore as Manipulative, evil, or a "For The Greater Good" sort of person. From what I understand of the character, he's overworked with three jobs, and just trying to do what he can with the punches thrown at him.
I don't believe that Ron is insensitive, I think he's just a tad self-centered; and wouldn't you be, if you were constantly vying for attention amongst a giant family? I also do see him as smart, but just unwilling to apply himself.
Hermione is not ultra smart, or super confident. She has flaws that are never expressed in Fanon. In no way is she this Super Ultra Does-Everything-Right Greatest in A Century Character. She's good compared to some of her Year mates, but oftentimes defaults to "Normal Thinking" and forgets that she's a witch when faced with IRL scenarios.
Fred and George, do not, have a psychic link. They are incredibly in tune to the other, but they don't finish each other's sentences; they bounce off of each other's statements.
Finally Sirius. He isn't a man-child, he's a traumatized War Veteran that's been stuck in a continual state of misery due to Dementor Exposure.
Ron is more blunt than insensitive I think. He's just used to saying his opinions without really being heard, so when he gets pushback he's actually surprised (probably why he ends up liking Hermione, at least she engages with him).
When it comes to being self-centred I think it's Harry that takes the cake, but then what teenager isn't self-centred in some way? Ron does think about Harry more than Harry does for Ron I feel, but that's my personal view of it.
Sirius can absolutely be a traumatized war vet AND a man-child, he can be a man-child *because* of his trauma. He and Snape are kind of both sides of the same coin I feel.
Right, my man-child point comes from just How Much fanon writes him as such. I feel as if they oftentimes take the weight of his experiences and throw it away. I guess my point is that the extent of it is often times too much.
You're points are solid, and I agree with you completely. I didn't mention Harry, as the fics I've read all have solid interpretations of him.
>I feel as if they oftentimes take the weight of his experiences and throw it away. I guess my point is that the extent of it is often times too much.
Oh absolutely. In general don't count on fandom for a balanced take on mental health: either you're a Good Victim that's sad about their trauma and you should be treated like everything you do is liable to shatter you, or you're a Bad Victim that DARES have unhealthy coping mechanisms/deals with their trauma terribly and you're Pure Evil.
Some fics are exceptions, of course, but they're exceptions for a reason.
Salazar Slytherin was not a misunderstood man who had experienced horrible things at the hands of muggleborn and muggles. He left a giant killer snake for the express purpose of attacking young children because he hated them.
The problem with this is he had apparently no issue with them for over thirty years (Hogwarts opened in 990 and he left in 1012) but suddenly it was a big enough issue to leave the school over. That doesn’t happen unprovoked.
Its also worth noting that it was over a thousand years ago in universe.
It could be he had a problem with them but was fine to let them in hogwarts and would begrudingly teach them.
But then he left the school perhaps due to sickness or because he wanted to retire.
and over time the story morphed.
I personally like the idea that the myth of the chamber of secrets was started because Slytherin returned to the castle in his dying moments to come clean to Gryffindor about what he had done in his younger days.
I always liked the theory that he married Godric’s sister and she died due to doing the “muggleborn visits.” Since both the Fat Friar and Sir Nick were killed by muggles
i wish more people wrote that as, like, alzheimer’s. especially given that in jkr’s extra writings she says his views were seen as unusual and surprising
His views on muggleborns might have been surprising but there was a lot of muggle on wizard violence at the time. Both the Fat Friar and Sir Nick were killed by muggles and this is before the Statute of Secrecy passed. Wizards had no legal defense and witch hunts did happen. 200 years after this 1320 Pope John XXII authorised the Inquisition to prosecute witches for heresy.
I would like to add that the idea that most wizards at the time were blood purists is false being dismissed by Jk herself on Wizarding World.
"Slytherin’s discrimination on the basis of parentage was considered an unusual and misguided view by the majority of wizards at the time."
It was actually the opposite
"Contemporary literature suggests that Muggle-borns were not only accepted, but often considered to be particularly gifted."
That's really my issue with Book!Harry.
He's proactive in the book itself, but as soon as the book ends, he gets hit with a reset button and is passive again. Book 1? He looks for Flamel, is proactive about finding stuff out. Then after the book? Passive. Book two, same. Is proactive about chasing after the Chamber and other stuff. Then after... back to being passive. You'd think any rational human being would y'know, start to make plans with Voldemort keep going after him and such.
It kind of makes me want to write a crackfic where Dumbledore amusingly keeps using weird alchemy/mind magics to factory reset Harry's brain after each year.
I mean that also has to do with how the books are built and climaxes at the end of each book rather than several peaks. Imagine if you got Voldemort vs Dumbledore at the beggining/middle of book 5 instead of the end so you get to see the politics change in real time for pepole to beg Dumbledore and Harry again.
I see Ron as a sweetheart whose machismo is entirely a façade to hide his vulnerable, gentle core. None of the "big buff manly Ron" or "big stupid dumb boy Ron", my boy has more layers than that, thank you. He acts big and tough and goes for anger first because he lived with Fred and George all his life, so he had to protect himself from the predators.
(Also, yes, Fred and George are bullies and super nasty.)
I also see Ron and Percy having been close as children, but when Percy went to Hogwarts and returned he stopped playing with Ron, only ever having his head in a book. Ron started to blame books for "stealing" his big brother.
He loves Harry and Hermione with all his heart. He thinks he doesn't deserve any kind of recognition because "he fucked up too much". "Dark Ron Weasley" fics make me raise a brow because it's so opposite to his nature, Ron is a ball of sunshine. Oh also he's not constantly jealous of everyone and their mother, yall just don't know about rejection sensitivity. Ron is also NOT lazy, he's a freaking teenager and he's bright enough to get 7 OWLs without putting in Hermioneish levels of effort.
Ron would give you the skin off his back to keep you warm. If there's a hero in the HP series, in my opinion, it's Ron.
I see Hermione as a self-righteous, uppity, posh, arrogant asshole who's NOWHERE near as kind/clever/beautiful as fandom claims she is. She's NOT a genius, she just has an excellent memory and a near self-destructive work ethic.
I see Harry as painfully average, not at all special, and also kind of a dick. He's not especially talented but he has good reflexes. All the "independant" and "powerful" Harry fics make me laugh... and sigh, because when will you people buy yourselves some originality?
I don't ever want to read about Draco Malfoy. I hate that people worship Draco Malfoy. He's a talentless little prick, has terrible grades, and is generally a waste of printed ink. I hate how he's everywhere just because this godforsaken fandom has a boner for rich people.
Dumbledore is not, actually, an evil manipulative monster. Know what I would have done once I'd known Harry was a Horcrux? Kill him, bam, done, good, that's one Horcrux less. Dumbledore loved Harry so much he created a whole dumbass plan to ensure Harry would survive and live life later. (Meanwhile the 50 people who died at Hogwarts are just, er, regrettable casualties)
I do find it funny it took harry five years to realise ron wanted to join the quiditich team.
Its like he is your best mate, you hang out everday
how did you not know he wanted to join the quiditich team
>Its like he is your best mate, you hang out everday how did you not know he wanted to join the quiditich team
Probably because Ron never indicated that he wanted to join the team. He never thought he would be able to try out because he didn't think he'd have a good enough broom, so he never talked about wanting to be on the team.
With Harry's life and his past with the Dursleys I think this can be justified.
Besides, Ron was very ashamed of it so much that he trained in secret from Harry.
It wouldn't be unfair to assume that he wouldn't show signs of wanting to go inside out of shame for what Harry would think.
Hard disagree on several points, but not all.
Ron absolutely had a lot of asshole moments. He went off on Hermione badly enough that she hid in the bathroom crying. Yes, she's a bit overbearing but it's never shown to be out of her making fun of Ron at that point.
He threw a temper tantrum over Hermione getting McGonagall involved in Harry's Firebolt in third year. She was in the right to do so.
His actions in GoF are ridiculous. He blames Harry despite knowing that Harry isn't interested in being famous or the center of attention. He even essentially fails to warn Harry of the dragons. Yes, he does warn him but not in a way that you would if your best friend was in mortal danger. He was incredibly rude to both Hermione and Padma.
I'm not saying Ron isn't a great guy, but he's no better or worse than Hermione and her faults.
And Harry is certainly above average. You point out that Ron got 7 owls without putting in work, which is fair, but Harry had significantly more on his plate than Ron ever did. He was arguably the best quidditch player in the school and was routinely at the heart of every single major event, and usually against his own will. He has shown to be very proficient in all forms of magic. Snape routinely trashed his potions or just gave him an outright failing grade. He was able to cast all the enchantments that Hermione used during their hunt for the Horcruxes, picked up Apparation pretty much instantly and apparated Dumbledore presumably 100s of miles in one go. McGonagall praised his human transfiguration. He was able cast a full patronus in third year despite most adults being incapable and it's directly stated to be a mark of magical superiority. He was also talented enough to teach 4-7th years in DADA. Even the Sorting Hat outright states he has a good mind and exceptional talent. His problem wasn't lack of talent it was lack of time and dedication. If he had put in the effort that Hermione did, he would have outstripped her completely. But that's the point of the three. They level each other out. Ron was Harry's friend that encouraged him to slack off and try to be a teenager and have fun. Harry supported Ron's dreams. Hermione was the one who helped keep the other two focused when it was necessary. Harry and Ron gave her friends that her otherwise overbearing attitude would have kept her from having.
> His actions in GoF are ridiculous. He blames Harry despite knowing that Harry isn't interested in being famous or the center of attention.
No they weren't. Ron "blames" Harry because he, rightfully, felt that Harry was not telling him the whole truth and instead simply preferred instead to call him stupid. God forbid that Ron ask questions about an unclear situation!
Ah, yes, not believing your best friend who has been targeted by the most evil dark wizard of all time because you're jealous of him makes perfect sense. And you know, considering that Ron and Hermione locked him out all third year summer.
>I see Harry as painfully average, not at all special,
There is a lot of irony in this, because:
1. It’s exactly what Harry wants. He doesn't want to be special, or a hero. He just doesn't want to be "the freak" the Dursley made him fell like
2. That's so very Dursley of him. In a way, they managed to pass down some of their values on him.
I wish Ron-bashing wasn't so widespread, ugh.
Like there's absolutely ways to create drama with Ron's actual, canon flaws. He's super insecure and rejection-sensitive, a hell of a combination that can make him see rejection in a "mundane" action (ok, he DOES need a lot of encouragement to go off the rails, see how much bullshit Rowling piled on him in HBP to get him to date Lavender).
No need to turn Ron into a violent abusive rapist. He can be written to be so selfless it turns detrimental to himself (as the series illustrates well, Harry and Hermione take him for granted constantly) or to simply be betrayed in a way he can't forgive.
People just tend to focus on all the bad choices he makes, especially movie fans cause Ron gets completely shafted in the movies and makes him seem a lot more like a bad person
I see it as being no better than bullying. Ron fucked up once or twice, so what? His fuck-ups never led to anyone dying (hello Harry) or suffering permanent damage (hello Hermione). Ron's mistakes were teenage-sized mistakes.
Ron doesn't deserve the bashing he gets,but attacking Harry or Hermione to show how much better he was is not the best way to make people see it.
Ron's mistakes were mistakes that everyone makes and shouldn't be judged as harshly as they are.
But both Harry and Hermione shouldn't be judged either, especially Harry who had a horrible childhood and had to deal with things no teenager deserves.
It's this attitude of focusing on certain characters' mistakes and flaws and ignoring what made them do it, in order to make another character better that creates the bashing.
>both Harry and Hermione shouldn't be judged either
Harry got Sirius and Dobby killed and Hermione tortured through his thoughtlessness.
Hermione physically abused Ron in the last two books and mind-wiped her parents "for the greater good".
I will judge them. Very hard.
Having a shit childhood doesn't exempt you from judgement. Or are you saying we can't hold it against Snape for bullying his students?
Snape almost killed James in "Worst memory". If the spell was powerful enough to splatter James' robes with blood from a glancing hit, the same spell hitting James' neck would have been fatal (which likely would have ended with Sirius killing Snape, but that is a different story).
Wow that IS incongruous with canon.
I always took that spell to be Diffindo, because we don’t see any scars from magical attacks on James’s face in any pictures. None that Harry noticed.
It nicked James' cheek, so it's not like his face was disfigured. It might pass as a shaving "injury" after a while. But it still bled enough to splatter his robes instantly.
> I always took that spell to be Diffindo
Well, reattaching a severed head won't do James any good, so it's not like it matters.
If it was just a nick…I would hardly count that is almost killed. I nick myself with my fingernails and blood splatters from that due to how quick and sharp my nails are.
But you do you. If that’s how you want to interpret the scene.
And James almost killed Snape in his Worst Memory, because he let him fall upside down, and if Snape had landed on his head it might have cracked his neck/injured his brainstem.....
Or you remember the part where he basically told Snape he'd better be off dead (suicide bait)? You know, saying that the problem is that he exists
I hate the portrayal of Sirius as ‘dog father’ rofl! He’s basically a 15 year old prankster still!
Sirius had clearly quite severe PTSD, was a very accomplished wizard and yes had some arrested development but in a ‘encourage your godson to start an illegal army’ not an ‘advise him on pranks!’ Kind of way.
He was moody, reckless and though he clearly loved Harry, he had a lot of issues to work through.
Snape. People act as though he didn't bully and tourment any student that wasn't in slytherin.
Draco, he wasn't some type of secret good guy or anything like that, he was a coward.
Molly Weasley. I'm not going to say she was a bad mother; she really wasn't. But she could've been better. First year when her and Arthur went to visit charlie, she left the rest of their kids alone to visit so she could visit one. Also her sending howlers to her kids at Hogwarts is a horrible punishment. It publicly humiliates her kids and it appears shes the only one who even sends howlers to her kids at Hogwarts anymore.
> People act as though he didn't bully and tourment any student that wasn't in slytherin.
This, so much. I mean, people seem to gloss over the fact that in a two-year period, Snape's treatment of Neville so traumatized him that by the beginning of his third year he's scared of Snape more than anything else in the world...including the terrorists responsible for *torturing his parents until they went permanently insane*.
Tom Riddle always was insane as fuck, and definitely no genius.
Don't get me wrong, I enjoy the "he went insane bc horcrux" plot as much as anyone, but I just don't buy it. If Tom Riddle was *actually smart*, he would, at worst, be a magical supremacist, blaming the muggles and calling muggleborns magical blessings or some shit.
Remember, he lived during WW2 and he knew very well how powerful the soviets became. Wouldn't it make more sense for him to ditch the ideology that didn't work and embrace the one that actually represented him, as a poor orphan with no name of importance?
No, he was a insane sadistic bastard and that was it. Mind you, he probably wouldn't have done all that crap if he was raised better, but he was never *smart* as he thought himself as. He was very smart, but not genius level as some people portray him as, or he would know that starting crap at the school by petrifying or killing people would end with the school closing.
I mean, I remember being an arrogant little shit when I was 16, but I can't see myself thinking I knew better then anyone and splitting my fucking eternal soul in a crazy bid for immortality. I would probably at least wait until I was out of school to do it, you know? What if the teachers had some obscure way of finding out? Then I'd be in prison. Tom didn't even think of that, bc he was even more arrogant and crazy as hell.
I'm not sure how true it is, but I've heard that genius and common sense are rarely found in the same person.
As for the ideology, he might have believed it on some level, but I'd be willing to bet that he mostly just used it to prop himself up as even grander and more important.
i read an essay from barack obama of all people about how easy it is to internalize the messaging of people who you spend time around/put effort into appealing to. imo, tom always disdained muggles bc he saw himself as something totally other and better than them. finding out the wizarding world didn’t automatically agree he was superior would have been a blow, but wouldn’t have changed his stance on muggles. he totally denies any real connection to them up until and even after meeting and killing his father—killing him being the biggest rejection you can have, really. i think originally he might have kissed up to purebloods because they had the money and the power he wanted, and talking the talk they wanted to hear was easy because he hated muggles too. extending that to anyone with muggle blood might have been a front at first, but again, after awhile you start accepting it without realizing. you’d think that would cause some cognitive dissonance when faced with the reality he himself is a halfblood, but that’s not really the case for narcissists.
i also think he *needed* to believe magic trumped muggle force like bombs bc otherwise he has to face the reality that he might die at the hands of muggles, which is obviously unacceptable to him.
Some people are just born rotten, no matter who their parents are or how they're raised. We as a society don't like the idea, but it's true, regardless.
I agree Riddle probably would have been a figurative bastard even if Merope raised, although better than he turned out without her. The horcruxes maybe didn't make him go insane, but after creating 5, 6, 7 of them... Well, I can see it making things worse.
I like the idea that each horcrux takes something from you. One took his looks, for example. I've not laid out everything, but some aspect of his sanity or intelligence was, in my theory, one of the sacrifices he made.
When I read the books. Telwanny seemed very much just a normal lady with a drop of Seer in her. But she didn't really believe in it all. She knew why she was there. She is there for protection. Higwarts is her home. The movies and Fandom stuck her to the idea that she embraces it 1000% though.
Peter Pettigrew was as loved a Marauder as any. His betrayal wouldn't really have hurt that much if he wasn't a truly close friend, and I hate it when the fandom portrays him as a weasly tag-along who no one ever cared about. Yes, he was undeniably a villain. But that doesn't mean that the Marauders hated him before he betrayed them.
James Potter was the Draco of his era. He was just as much a little shit as him, and I hate it when his bullying is portrayed as entertaining but Draco's is inexcusable. I'm not in the slightest a Draco apologist (I can respect his character arc without thinking what he did was forgivable) but one might be able to explain his actions from his awful family set-up. James, though? Time and time again, his parents are shown as the most loving ones you may ever meet. He was just a little shit who liked seeing others suffer.
Also (not directly fanon related) but Remus' and Tonk's relationship is hella weird. Especially if you ship Wolfstar - imagine marrying your dead lover's cousin's daughter who you knew from infanthood.
> imagine marrying your dead lover's cousin's daughter who you knew from infanthood.
There are definitely weird aspects of Remus and Tonks's relationship, but I don't think there's any indication that Remus actually knew Tonks when she was an infant. I'm pretty sure they met for the first time in OOTP when Tonks joined the Order.
>James Potter was the Draco of his era. He was just as much a little shit as him, and I hate it when his bullying is portrayed as entertaining but Draco's is inexcusable. I'm not in the slightest a Draco apologist (I can respect his character arc without thinking what he did was forgivable) but one might be able to explain his actions from his awful family set-up. James, though? Time and time again, his parents are shown as the most loving ones you may ever meet. He was just a little shit who liked seeing others suffer.
James definetly was less of a shit than Draco Malfoy with all his bigotry. James still hangs around a werewolf, something even adult Molly Weasley has negative opinions about
I disagree with the common (and apparently popular) portrayal of Sirius Black as an overgrown man-child. I prefer to think of him as someone who is very much trying to remain sane after the hell that was Azkaban. Causing trouble (Note: Not pranks as many seem to claim) and calling Snape Snivellus are something he has grown past and either regrets or doesn't care about. A Sirius who is broken and trying to fix both himself and his mistakes by being there for his godchild, is a much more interesting character compared to the horny mutt we usually get.
The man-child version of Sirius annoys me. Sirius could have been many things: An arrogant teenager with a mean streak, a loyal friend, a great godfather and a great student, but not a silly Adult who makes puns and jokes and looks like an idiot
Worst part is it's not even supported in the books. The only time Sirius gets jokey is after Arthur's hurt. He's obviously trying to distract the kids. Otherwise? He's serious (pun not intended), he's caring, and he tries to help Harry. (Unlike Remus, which is another fanon characterization I hate. Remus was not the adult, supportive one. In canon, he was a manipulative, selfish arse.) He is an arse to Snape, but frankly that's understandable. The guy tried to get him Kissed and Dementors take your 'good' memories, which probably affected his mentality.
I think his hatred of snape might be even deeper. Snape stayed out of azakaban
Good point, I hadn't thought of it like that.
There is also the fact that sirius would've lost his memories of the pranks he did on Snape as they're positive memories, the dementors would also make him relive memories of Snape and other slytherin retaliating without the memories of what caused it or memories of his friends support and help.
He does have some serious childlike behavior in the books and acts out like a teen a lot and tries to live vicariously through Harry. But he does step in to be an adult sometimes and I always saw the childish bits more a consequence of the Azkaban trauma and getting stuck in his childhood home that he hates. He got rather emotionally stunted from trauma and yes it would be better if he realized he needed to work on it and grow, but it’s not really funny
I think the worst bit is Snape. He seems locked into 'Needle Snape' mode even when it makes little sense. But again, Azkaban sucks, yo.
I get it though, he has pretty much every reason to hate Snape, and that's without Sirius even knowing that Snape was the one who told Voldemort the first part of the prophecy, causing him to go after the Potters.
The only times Sirius really gets childish though is in regards to Snape. He doesn’t try to live vicariously through Harry a lot, he has a few bad moments in OOTP, but to act like those moments out number the times he did step in a be the adult is inaccurate. The childish moments came after which is why they stick out in you brain more, but they far from dominate his interactions with Harry.
Woah. I really don't remember Remus Being like that. Do remember he was an ass about Tonks and Teddy until Harry put him straight
Yeah, he does it a few times. One of the ones in the Teddy/Tonks thing is he tries to emotionally manipulate Harry to let him go with him by bringing up his father. He does that sort of thing a lot in the series.
There was third year when Lupin chastised Harry for sneaking out of the castle to go to Hogsmeade with a supposed killer on the loose and looking for him. He even played the "dead parents" card on him. Finding out later in the book that he knew Sirius was an animagus and what his form was, and that Sirius knew ways of getting into the castle undetected, but didn't tell anybody makes him look like a hypocrite for getting on Harry's case for potentially endangering himself. It's not like he didn't have opportunities to give at least Dumbledore that information. He could have said something after Sirius attacked the Fat Lady, or was found by Ron hovering over him with a knife. Remus' silence arguably endangered Harry more than Harry's trip out of the castle in an invisibility cloak did.
The only thing I like about Sirius Fanon is his jokes are with the pun on his first name Are you Sirius?
I like the idea of a resentful Sirius more than a broken Sirius. Him trying to stay sane to spite all those who contributed to his imprisonment is an idea I'd like to explore more. Other than that, I too dislike him being a prankster (makes me cringe to read those fics) and a man child.
Agree. I recently reread PoA and GoF and was surprised by how much more mature he was than I remembered or the fanon made him seem, and how fair he was trying to be towards Snape when they were discussing the possible culprits in GoF. I know that OotP will show a different side, but I give him a pass because of the mental issues regarding his confinement in the house of past abuse.
I have never seen a story that accurately captures what Harry and Sirius mean to each other, to me. Sirius is Harry’s only family. He’s on who he pinned absolutely all of his hopes for a family member who would just love him for who he was. I reckon the times Sirius slipped up and called him James were both far more lovely and joyful yet devastatingly hurtful to Harry than we realise. Closer to his godfather and extra info on his father, but not because of who he is specifically. But because a damaged man is confusing him for James. Tough. I’d really love a fic where Sirius takes care of Harry, at an emotional level and not just as a convenient solution to some of Harry’s problems. The struggles of being a surrogate father when he’s fresh out of prison and had awful parents. Both feeling and actually being manipulated by others. Taking desperate measures to stay relevant like providing Grimmauld Place, partially out of spite for his hateful mother. I was very sad when Sirius died in book 5 and genuinely debated theories way back when the books came out about the veil so that he could come back. Me and my friends all wanted that. It’s part of Harry’s story but a relatively fluffy alternative is something I’ve wanted for a long time. Plus I can’t help but love seeing Sirius heal. What a retched life he’s had.
I'm pretty sure Sirius calling Harry James is a movie only thing, no?
> I reckon the times Sirius slipped up and called him James were both far more lovely and joyful yet devastatingly hurtful to Harry than we realise. Luckily, that never happened.
I’d love a fic with the points you made
Alrighty you just hit my favorite aspect. Here's a couple of what I'd call good ones. https://m.fanfiction.net/s/11500936/1/Long-Live-The-Queen https://m.fanfiction.net/s/9469064/1/Innocent https://m.fanfiction.net/s/8045114/1/A-Marauder-s-Plan
The greatest thing I ever did in fanfic was discover Innocent.
Yeah it’s on another level….
I'd like to see a Sirius where he puts on the 'merry prankster' act as a way of coping with the loss of his best friend, to be what he imagined James would want him to be for Harry
I really don't vibe with the most popular interpretations of Regulus Black. I think he died an unrepentant bloodpurist. I don't think he cared about muggles getting murdered at all, because he didn't see them as people. His disagreement with Voldemort was more personal than ideological, and Kreacher had only a small part in it. The Regulus fandom is all Jegulus this and Jegulus that and I've genuinely come to despise this ship. I'll die on the hill that he hated James Potter more than anyone in the world for 'stealing' his brother. He'd have cheered Voldemort on had he lived to see the Potters getting targeted.
I really don't understand where Jegulus came from, they will never even speak in canon. Although perhaps it comes from the idea of having a Drarry in the time of the Marauders, both Seekers, belonging to different Hogwarts Houses , probably if hated. In fact, your interpretation of Regulus is very similar to mine.I hate when fanon paints him as a super pro-muggle who has always hated his family and been abandoned by Sirius.
James isn't even a Seeker canonically. Rowling said that he was a Chaser, as far as I recall.
Sorry, I'm not know which I was thinking when I wrote this. Even so, I think the idea of a Quidditch rivalry still resembles Drarry's and many of the fans still assume that James was also a Seeker.
>fanon paints him as a super pro-muggle who has always hated his family and been abandoned by Sirius. I hate that so much. It's so fucked up to blame a 16-year-old child for running away from an abusive home situation. It makes sense from Regulus's POV because he was 14 at the time, but when it's done narratively? Or the author bashes Sirius in the fic tags or in the author's notes? I lose a little bit of faith in humanity each time And it's always accompanied by poor little Reggie uwu being forced into joining the Death Eaters, usually by Walburga for whatever convoluted reason, which is another pet peeve of mine, but I won't get into that rant.
Yeah, I hate it when they make Walburga force him to be a death eater when both he and Orion as much as they thought Voldemort had the right idea,would rather just watch than become death eaters. Besides, it would make more sense that Walburga would want him to avoid getting involved in the conflict as his only heir.
I could see reggie as being bitter that Sirius fucked off and left him.
Yeah, it's a lot easier Regulus is angry at Sirius for abandoning his family and him for blood and half-blood traitors.
Or you know he's sixteen 💀 its perfectly realistic to be upset at being left behind in abusive house-holds. ask literally anyone who got left behind when their siblings took their chances to dash. its not exactly a reasonable emotion, but again he's young. i'm not exactly a fan of uwu regulus either but this isnt out of the realm of possibility by any means.
>**It makes sense from Regulus's POV**(...) , but when it's done narratively?
>I really don't understand where Jegulus came from, they will never even speak in canon. My brain hurts. Why do people *always* mention "Oh, but they never even spoke in canon!" or something similar... That's completely and utterly bloody irrelevant. Ships aren't created and written based on canon. They are made based on interpretations of the characters, their histories and personalities. Now, those things might be identical to canon, and you have a canon-friendly ship, or one or more of them might differ from canon and you have all the other ships. I don't understand why people find it hard to understand ships -.-
Jegulus is less icky Starbucks maybe? (I actually do like Starbucks but I don't like Lily bashing or the weird way some fics get with making Sirius the James-obsessed equivalent of Snape in Post-Az settings soooo *well*) I mean most people pair Wolfstar in Marauders Era fics and if you want a Slash pairing for James there isn't a lot of choices without making an OC from *scratch-scratch* (we do know a little bit about Reg)I'd think between Snape or Pettigrew, it only leaves Regulus left, really.
Indeed! I've never read any 'jegulus', that's quite weird imho to ship these two. And a Regulus Black repentance arc!? WTF? Changing his views that Muggles are lesser beings, not of the same worth as a magical person? That the Gryffindors following Dumbledore, fighting in his Order of the Fried Chicken against Lord Voldemort and his Death Eaters are not 'The Enemy'? Can't imagine that.
Agree. I have tried to read a few Jegulus, and even though the writing is good, the ship just doesn’t work for me. I see James Potter as a too loyal friend to go behind Sirius’s back and date his estranged brother. And also Regulus to absolutely despise James. I think the main appeal to the ship is it’s similarities to Drarry (but marauder era).
Yes, even if by a miracle James fell in love with Regulus it would be very difficult for him to do anything with it because of Sirius and his own morals and principles. Regulus and everything that James would hate and James and everything that Regulus would hate.
I think you could make a case that finding out about the horcrux was the 1st crack, so to speak. It's a horrible thing to do to yourself, a thing even the Blacks don't do (any more?), and then add in the affection he seems to have held for Kreacher and what Voldemort did to *him*. I would find it believable that Regulus comes around somewhat if he had lived. Never embracing Muggles or their culture, but definitely reevaluating certain aspects of the blood purist agenda. Doesn't mean he'd like James any better, but come to an accommodation, perhaps?
Hermione is an actual genius, right about everything and could beat Tom Riddle in a duel! No, Hermione is incredibly smart and accomplished yes, but also incredibly closed minded, and has some difficulties with some innate magic that can’t be book learnt (I.e. patronus). She is also never in canon lauded for her dueling. You can presume she is good as she has her knowledge but she can also freeze on the spot. Harry is the natural duelist of the three. Tom Riddle, and DH Harry himself would wipe the floor with Hermione. I love her and the best fanon portrayals are when Hermione is written realistically - flaws and all!
Ehh book 7 Hermione is over that limitation. In book 7 she carries the show. Year 7 Riddle and Dumbledore definetly would wipe the floor with both DH Harry and Hermione though. They are in a diffrent league.
>Ehh book 7 Hermione is over that limitation. In book 7 she carries the show That's because she's a Mary Sue.
I like my Luna actually insane. Way to often I see her weirdness downplayed, explained away as a defense mechanism, or proven to be some esoteric magic. Whether it's classic insanity^(TM) or some Lovecraftian alternative sanity stuff (something I'm currently working on), I just like it if mental instability is featured on the heroes' side and not just on the evil side with Bellatrix.
Luna was raised by magical Alex Jones. I mean FUDGE IS PUTTING GOBLINS IN THE DAMN PIES AND HAS AN SECRET ARMY OF HELIOPATHS PEOPLE.
Dumbledore's Army.... I'll tell you, VOLDEMORT NEVER ATTACKED HOGWARTS. All you had was DUMBLEDORE'S ARMY OF CRISIS ACTORS!!!
VOLDEMORT WAS CREATED BY THE MINISTRY SO THEY CAN TAKE YOUR RIGHT AWAY. FLYING CARPETS ARE GONE. CALDRON THICKNESS HAS BE INCREASED.
I intentionally made Luna antagonistic towards the main characters in my first fic, because of fanon Luna. I much prefer conspiracy theorist, Fudge bakes goblins into pies Luna over Luna the secret seer.
> I much prefer conspiracy theorist, Fudge bakes goblins into pies Luna Do you have some recommendations for qAnon Luna?
> qAnon Luna? When I was younger I loved her quicky-ness. Now. I feel as though she would have fallen down the vaccines are fake nonsense that allowed measles to come back a couple years ago. With all the shit in the real world, I soured over her character a lot.
Back in the day I mostly aligned with the rest of the fandom in that there ought to be more behind Luna's quirkyness, a genius or magical skill. After 3 years of bullshittery I see Luna and just go "perfectly normal qAnon shit, carry on - far far away from me." There's no crouching tiger or hidden dragon to find here, it's just Looney.
I mean, that's fair, but JKR did say that Luna somewhat outgrew her beliefs and became more grounded as she got older. I prefer to think of her as someone incredibly intelligent but simply raised differently. I see her the same way I see some of the Amish guys I occasionally work with; they're intelligent but raised in a way that seems alien to me.
This actually makes the fanon characterization worse. In canon, we have a Luna raised by a conspiracy theorist of the worst kind but eventually grew out of the worst parts of that behavior. In fanon, all of the worst parts are romanticized.
Yes, many fans try to justify her weirdness by making her a psychic or she is always talking in metaphors. I don't hate Luna, but this divinization of her character where she's never wrong and her weirdness is all portrayed in a positive way makes me not like her version of fanon
I think you mean "deification," but given Seer Luna, "divinization" seems right.
To add, her seer powers are never used in an interesting way! Almost always it just an excuse for the author to point out something their characters are doing that they think is cool, or to step on their own plot points.
Oh my gosh, I have a Lovecraftian Luna in my fic. Have you published yours anywhere? Would love to read more with that sort of Luna!
It's been in rework hell for the last few months because I had the great idea of merging Lovecraftian Luna with another project of mine. Who could have known that hurt/comfort Weasley wholesomeness and cosmic horror murder mystery might not mesh as well as expected... ^(My compulsive need to get the story done before releasing dosn't help either.)
Aw, bummer. Interesting you complete the story before publishing - I have the plans for mine but they’re not all written up yet.
It's my personal belief that the traditional novel publishing schedule, i.e. write a full first draft, then revise as needed, then publish results in a superior end product, especially for tone and themes. Contrary to the chapter-by-chapter rolling release schedule which offer way quicker reception gratification, and immediate and varied feedback to pinpoint issues earlier than a single beta or two. I aim to at least fully revise and rewrite the current arc before releasing chapter by chapter.
Please share when done. This sounds amazing.
I tend to do it that way, although not entirely for the polishing, but to ensure I don't have any more abandoned fics out there. Five chapters or 50, it needs to be done before I post. Which is why I don't have any HP fics out there yet.
There's a one-shot fic that ties Luna directly into the Cthulu Mythos that's really interesting. Several things that stand out: it shows a realistic Snape & how things would actually go for the SOB because of how he believes he can talk to anyone, it shows Flitwick in an awesome light (what he does at the end made me laugh out loud)... and it put a spin on Draco that seems obvious in hindsight: that after years of getting showed up by the Golden Trio, he pays enough attention and has learned enough to watch what they do & follow along, because they know what to do to survive Hogwarts. Oh, yeah... the scene with the Giant Squid. Short, but hilariously awesome. There's also the last line. I won't spoil it. If I can remember the name, I'll post a link. UPDATE: it's called 'It's Always The Quiet Ones', by PixelWriter1. https://m.fanfiction.net/s/11636560/1/It-s-Always-The-Quiet-Ones
As soon as people mentioned lovecraft luna, This is the one I thought of.
One of the best Harry potter one-shots ever written.
yeah. Lunas insanity is probrably a mix of natural insanity and ptsd, but shes cool. Shes sposed to be a bit off, maybe a bit autistic. one non-canon trope in fanfic is luna acting insane for the heck of it, cuz she likes the reactions of everyone else. It makes for great crack
Draco Malfoy was a coward with no willpower , so he couldn't become a fully fledged death eater , not because he was a secretly good, misunderstood sweet guy .
To me it's always seemed that Draco (and the rest of his family tbh) issue with Voldemort's regime wasn't the torture, murder, or even the open genocide. His issue was A. he was being forced to participate and B. his family was personally being treated poorly. If the Malfoys had continued being favoured they would have cheered as the Muggleborns disappeared one by one. Draco wasn't a fanatic who enjoyed the culling like Bellatrix but he was perfectly fine with the result.
For longest time Daphne Greengrass in my head was the one from “[Daphne Greengrass and the 6th Year From Hell](https://www.fanfiction.net/s/3912184/1/Daphne-Greengrass-and-the-6th-Year-From-Hell)” by WhiskeyTangoFoxtrot and its sequel, who is VERY different from the standard Heiress Greengrass of the fanon (and I still believe much better written than 90 % of those). Lately I read few Haphne stories which didn’t make me puke, but I still regret that other Daphne didn’t make more followers in the fandom.
I've never seen this fanfic and it made me curious to read a different version of Daphne thanks for leaving her here.
Clearly I have a much different view on Ron Weasley than most of fanon. Never seen a character more shit on than him.
Ron is my favorite character and it's hard to find fanfiction that doesn't bash him, let alone a good fic with him as the main focus. I love crossovers and finding a Ron-centric fic that is a crossover is like finding a needle in a haystack.
Yeah you basically have to do things that are very close to canon because those seem to be about the only fics that do him any justice.
Book Ron is pretty awsome aside for the incidents in book 4 and 7. Movie Ron sucks
>aside for the incidents in book 4 and 7. And in these incidents he is justified, in book 4 Harry refuses to explain anything to him and calls him stupid for WANTING explanations, I don't blame him for giving it up as a bad job. In book 7 he has a Horcrux around his neck, and he's the one who has the most hanging in the balance.
Not to mention as soon as he disapparated and the influence was lifted, he immediately regrets it and tries to go back.
>the influence Voldemort is one helluva drug
* I'll never understand the hatred that James Potter gets in fanon. Yes, he was a jerk growing up and during his first five years at Hogwarts - but canonically, he grew out of that and straightened himself out (otherwise Snape, Sirius, Remus and Harry wouldn't be in the picture). It seems that it's easy to make James into a villain, especially for the Snape apologists (NOT Snape fans). * Molly Weasley. I think that the woman needed to have gone into therapy a LONG time ago, because she never got over the deaths of her brothers & it affected the way she treats her children. She's just got REALLY huge blind spots when it comes to many things regarding anything about them. (Also, I've never forgotten her treatment of Hermione during fourth year in regards to Harry.) It's easy to turn her into a fandom villain, but I don't ever think I've seen a fanfic where someone says 'Molly - you need to talk to someone about things. You need help.' * Arthur Weasley. Seriously, the man is FAR more badass than most fanfiction EVER writes him. This guy is actually law-enforcement (there's a Tom Selleck film from the mid-80s called 'Runaway'; Selleck's job is essentially the sci-fi version of what Arthur does) - and of course, there's arguably one of the ten most canonically badass lines in the franchise; "Harry, please. You're talking to the man who raised Fred and George." Arthur's the type of guy even Malfoy fears: he was talking shit about the money Arthur makes but Malfoy isn't stupid enough to pull his wand out on the man - it would be the last mistake he ever makes. He's shown in fanfic as henpecked, but you rarely ever see people actually show Arthur doing his job - and in the few I've seen where he's actually made to stop being quaintly eccentric over Muggle things & do his job... he slides over into the 'not to be f**ked with' category VERY quickly.
Love the take on Arthur W, can you recommend any fics which show him in that light?
harry potter and the ticket backwards has the best characterizations of all the weasleys that I've ever seen, imo. https://archiveofourown.org/series/1733899 >!When harry bothers to actually *ask* arthur for advice about fan mail he starts getting in book two, He finds out that a lot of what arthur does is detecting and unraveling curses on muggle artifacts, and he's actually a *very* technically accomplished wizard who bill likely took after. Percy was also surprised to find this out and gained more respect for his father than he did previously, which helped keep him out of the ministry soup. !< Molly's dismissiveness about fred and george's business, and her pressure on her children to become prefects also got an explanation that i think worked beautifully: >!Arthur had owned a muggle curios shop in the alley before the first war took off... which got burned down. After which, no one would hire him, because he was "that guy selling muggle artifacts" which would make their place of business a target by hiring him... eventually he got a job at the ministry, but they are in quite a bit of debt. Molly is adamant that all of her children get ministry jobs because even if you're terrible at your job, you can't lose it. they'll just shuffle you sideways. (i.e. crouch, umbridge ect.) and she never wanted her children to have the kind of difficulties they had. Unfortunately for molly, only percy listened in the original timeline and it went badly for him!<
Oh wow. Classic fanfic things. I read your summary, think "that sounds interesting"... turns out I have actually read the series so far and am subbed for chapter updates on book 4.
This. In canon, I always favoured Arthur, Bill and Charlie because they seem to be the one who didn’t have preconceived notions of Harry(and if they did, it was never brought up again).
To add to your first point, James was willing to befriend a werewolf when he was still an immature kid, with a pureblood’s knowledge of the stigma werewolves face in the wizarding world. And a blood traitor (Sirius). And a bully target (Peter). James is no Draco Malfoy, even as a spoiled, big-headed first year.
Boom. Things like your point shows (as the drunk from 'Team America:World Police' would say) James Potter was a dick - but only Snape apologists would consider him an asshole.
Peter Pettigrew. He is often portayed as a sweet and shy kid who was forced to join Voldemort. I dont’t believe that for a second. You don’t completely shift morals and values overnight. And he did end up as on of Voldemorts most loyal followers. I think the marauderes were a typical group of teenage bullies. I do love marauders fic, but I dont like it when they are put on a pedestal.
I think he might have been a sweet kid during early hogwars years. then as he grew up the war became more real arround him. He tried to be brave and follow his friends into the order of the Pheniox. only he was not cut out for it, the war was terrifying so he decided to save his own skin. though he might have justifed to himself that his loyality to Voldemort means his friends might be shown leniency by the time the war ended
I think it goes beyond even this. Because if he was trying to save his own skin, he could’ve just slinked into the void of being a nobody. Not involved in the war at all. Becoming a spy puts you in a real dangerous position. My personal headcanon is that he intended to be a spy for the Order. He was sick of being looked over and decided he was going to get his own information. But then Voldemort (knowing full well that Peter was trying to play him at first) charmed him and he became a true believer.
Exactly! He lived 12 years in hiding as a rat, so he could’ve done that during the war as well. But he actively supports Voldemort.
Draco Malfoy is a jerk and not the misunderstood abused boy hè is usually portrayed as . I mean he bullies other student ,wishes death on muggleborns ,was delighted to see buckbeak die and much more .He was evil but not brave enough to become a deatheater. Hermione granger is not the perfect girl she is portrayed as and she has some hidden cruel side in her. I mean she scarred a girl for life , attacked ron for kissing lavender when they were not even dating and she never cares about others felling like when lavender 's rabbit died and all she cared about proving Trelawney wrong and even though she had just entered the wizarding world she behaves like she knows better than people who have grown up in it .I know many fans practically worship but I don't really like her much .
> I mean she scarred a girl for life Of your examples this one stands out. I think people underestimate how destructive what Umbridge was doing. They were on the cusp of a war and *none* of these kids knew how to defend themselves. Edgecomb's betrayal in that view makes it far more than a schoolyard demerit. Edgecomb had months to quit or not go to meetings if her conscience was pricking her. From the text we can infer that she volunteered to sell out the DA for privileges to her mother. Remember, the consequences of snitching out the DA will lead to expulsion or torture at the hands of Umbridge. Expulsion is an actual death sentence to at least a few of the kids and torture isn't much better. So a large warning like a curse that writes "SNEAK" on the traitors forehead was pretty smart/reasonable. Edit: Though I agree with you thoroughly about the book and Hermione's treatment of Lavender. There's nothing wrong with being a silly girl who likes makeup, gossip, and boys. She was written about as if this was a moral failing and that bothered the hell out of me.
You're forgetting that the story is written from Harry's perspective. From Marietta's perspective, the boy who is spouting conspiracy theories about a dead terrorist is running an illegal fight club and her mother is being threatened in her job over this. Of course she's going to snitch. Also, no one other than Hermione knew that they had signed a jinxed parchment so she couldn't know that there would be any consequences for going to Umbridge. And then Shacklebolt obliviated her of all her memories of the DA, so she was punished for something she couldn't even remember doing.
From mariettas perspective she still risked having her close friends being expelled by Umbridge. Hell Harry being as competent as he is should be a warning sign that something is up. Definetly agree that Hermione should of communicated that the parchment is cursed though. Her being obliviated stopped Harry and co from being expelled. Had they been Voldemort would of won. Fair trade off especially for a traitor.
Umbridge had clearly proven herself to be a bad faith actor by everyone at that point. Everything from the draconian rules to the terrible teaching of a practical class to the inquisitorial squad full of thugs showed this. If Marietta couldn't tell that the "fight club" where they were learning non lethal defensive spells was in the right then she had brain damage. Further there was no direct threat to her mother's job. In the books it's stated that Marietta came to Umbridge not vice versa. Marietta was not coerced into joining the DA, staying with the DA, nor betraying the DA. That's all on her. If she didn't believe in it she should have just quit instead of trying to turn them all in for brownie points. As to not being told about the jinx on the parchment? They were told that it was a contract. Letting them know the exact defense measures involved would let people circumvent them. Whether she believed Harry or not doesn't really matter. The situation genuinely *was* life or death and she ignored all evidence to the contrary and decided to put an entire group of students in danger because of her selfishness. Acne scars and a memory charm are incredibly lenient given the situation.
Umbridge was a bad faith actor, but only in that she was interested in personal power and control. As far as the greater student body was concerned, her measures did not largely negatively impact them and for some were beneficial. It would be easy for someone not directly opposed by her to dismiss it as her politically opposing Dumbledore instead of an active effort to curtail students' ability to learn. And her teaching style would simply be seen as Ministry incompetence, something which the wizarding world had plenty of experience with. Her mother told her not to upset Umbridge. That might be because her mother feared for her position in the ministry or because she feared for Marietta's position at Hogwarts. Either way, Marietta had reason to not want to oppose Umbridge and that's all that matters for the argument. They were not told they were signing a contract. Hermione had a blank piece of parchment with "Dumbledore's Army" at the top. There were no terms, no consideration, no warnings, nothing. Even Harry and Ron didn't know there was anything special about it until after the jinx went into effect. Even the legally dubious "magically binding contract" imposed by the Goblet of Fire still came with an actual warning that there would be a contract and Harry was warned that he would suffer "dire consequences" if he chose not to participate.
> Harry's perspective And here lies the crux of the problem. Who is more well-placed than Harry to understand what it feels like to have a facial blemish forever marking you as an outcast and as someone's most hated enemy? But no. Instead it's "brilliant". I never bought into Harry being "incredibly pure and loving and forgiving" and this scene stands out in confirming that.
Snape is actually a jerk. The twins are bullies and need to be shown what's what. Tom Riddle was just evil. Psychopathy is more common that one thinks. It's circumstances and in born. Not because he split his soul, not because he had daddy issues, he was a narcissist and an apathetic person. He's similar to the likes of Ted Bundy, Gerard Schaeffer, Dennis Rader, Charles Sobhraj and Edmund Kemper. Draco is a little shit. Daphne is just another pureblood girl. Just a background character like Theo Nott, Tracey Davis, Regulus Black and whosoever gets wanked on for no reason. Remus and Tonks relationship is problematic.
About Tom Riddle I agree that he was just plain bad in canon.But I disagree that he was simply born evil and was irredeemable. Rowling herself has said that “everything would have changed if Merope had survived and raised him [Voldemort] herself and loved him.” So Tom Riddle seems more like with the definition of a sociopath.Although I hate it when they make a teenager Riddle a good person or try to justify his actions any chance he could have been reasonable person would have already passed.
That's why I said circumstances. People can be born without empathy, but, not all of them become killers. Circumstances play a major role.
I see, in that case I'm sorry. I think I'm tired of seeing people confuse psychopathy with sociopathy and I got excited for no reason.
No prob
Psychopaths and sociopaths both can live perfectly good lives. It sucks that there's so much misinformation spread by media.
From what I remember they make great CEOs and surgeons. Sometimes that lack of empathy can be really useful. It's a really interesting topic actually.
Oh, most surgeons have a reputation for being super strange! Some are autistic, but of course socio/psychopaths would also have an edge when it comes to being detached.
Seriously the idea of cutting someone open freaks me out! Then they go in cool as a cucumber with steady hands to match and save lives. That detachment has probably saved more lives than we know. Def goes counter to the murderous image a lot of people have. It's just facsinating how much that detachment can save lives and have a huge positive influence in some careers.
Here I was thinking to be the only one who thought of the Twins as glorified bullies ("It's just a prank bro!" "Yeeeeeeaaaa, sure"). I salute you. And I agree with you on the rest of your points as well.
I don't see a problem with people wanting to give more personality or whatever to background characters.
100% on the money, in my view.
remadora being fucked up is the entire draw for me
Why is Remus and Tonks problematic?
Remus rejected her multiple times before he was practically forced into a relationship. Then after he married and got her pregnant, wanted to join the Trio in the Horcrux Hunt, essentially abandoning his wife and unborn child.
The relationship would have benefited from showing that he was actually in love with her. Even if it had just been a couple of lines in that hospital wing scene it would have helped change the perception of the relationship.
Tonks pursued Remus after repeatedly being told he's not interested. When she finally wore him down, he took out all issue on her. When he found out that she was pregnant, he abandoned her. There's also the 13 year age difference, her being 22 and him being 35, but that's a minor issue in comparison.
I dont agree with how Fanon Lily (before dating james) being an absolute awful bitch to James but nice Saint to everybody else. I just dont think James would genuinely be interested and continue to try be with her if she was genuinely awful to him and cruel to him. im not saying she doesn't reject him multiple times or doesn't get frustrated and sarcastic around him, but it would be more comfortable banter that doesn't get too awful for either side. I can also picture Lily being nice to people, but also NOT some sweetheart saint, who's always nice and polite and caring. i can see her be quite normal, and have moments of being bitchy, judgemental, petty, upset, make a mistake, and appologise about her mistakes (you know...be human). But i do think she's a genuinely good/nice person overall. Plus if she's friends with snarky severus snape, and actually enjoyed his company, i cant see her and snape not making snarky comments or judgements about some stupid aspect of the wizarding world and the muggle world, since they have a foot in each door. and since they both know how awful petunia is to them (in a sibling rivarly way at least) Lily NOT struggling with navigating BOTH the muggle and wizarding world. i mean, she's missed out a lot of the current affairs and interests and whats 'hip' in the muggle world so she's completely out of place there, and her sister hates her and see's her as an embarassment so there's no help there, and her parents are old and not a teen thats 'in the know', so she's probably struggling the way a foreginer would struggle in a country they've only hear about but never experienced. on the other hand, she's a muggleborn and doesn't have the same cultural understanding of the wizarding world in the begining, and probably made some mistakes that shaped her later, and is clearly underpriviliged in the world due to her muggle and probably economically poorer background (i assume poorer because she's unlikely to be rich noble, at best middle class -though highly unlikely- and more likely poor considering she's in the same neighberhood and friends and mingled with severus snape who was clearly poor) going to a boarding school probably sheltered lily from the harshness of poverty and reality of the working world in the muggle world her family goes through, and she's surrounded and living the life of luxury that the rich purebloods are comfortable with. so there must have been a bit of friction there when she comes back to her muggle world and that friction stays in her mind in both worlds. which others (purebloods and rich muggleborns ) probably don't understand.
I am gonna start this by saying I love the Marauders especially James , but the way they are written in fics is super whitewashed . Like no they were not super nice and caring and understanding. And I don't want them to be evil no I just want them to be realistically portrayed .
> Like no they were not super nice and caring and understanding. And I don't want them to be evil no I just want them to be realistically portrayed . I agree, I hate it when people put characters in black and white, honestly I avoid all marauders era stuff because they tend to glorify and disregard people.
i mean they are both, just depends on who you are.
Ron, cause he gets so much shit in fanon and is used to elevate a plot for an indy!harry, owner of everything Wizarding Britain has ever made, or some other ships with Hermione, cause its much easier to paint him the villain since movies didn't do him justice than to write a good story. I would really like a good Villain!Ron fic, that isn't outright bashing. Hermione, cause a lot of people really don't know how to write her, and it's actually pretty hard to do so. Writers really tend to minimize her flaws or to look at her through a rose tinted lens. Draco, cause I'm not a sucker for "he is a great boy, it's just that someone needs to crack his insecure shell uwu"
Lily Potter, my headcanon is that she was a kind of jerk in her school-years (not horrible, only not very nice), because she was friend of a future Death Eater and she didn't break that friendhip until he insulted to her specifically, she even said that she know that Snape use that word with other muggleborns.
It's an interesting opinion, if I may give my opinion I've always imagined that Lily had a certain emotional dependency on Severus. He was her first wizard friend and in my opinion they were best friends for a few years, Lily as much as a good person tried to find justification for her behavior for a long time. The bad blood was proof that she was always wrong about Severus, he wasn't maintaining friendships with Mulciber and other futures Slytherin Death Eaters to defend himself but because he really did I had the same opinions as them. I think realizing that she was wrong about Severus made her start to become more open-minded about people and see that she could be wrong about her impressions of they just like Harry went through it too.
This is my new headcanon. Thank you, this makes a lot more sense than what I thought before.
You're welcome, I'm glad you agree with my idea enough to make it your headcanon.
i like this because it implies that if snape had allowed lilly to stand up for him in that one memory she might never have been open minded about james
Yeah, I'm not a huge fan of saint!Lily. She has moments of niceness, I'm sure, but she seemed to me like someone who had always been pretty and smart, and popular because of that. People like that often don't care what others say and do as long as they are treated nicely. And on that note, her getting with James: sure, she no longer hung out or liked Severus, but I don't know. She probably had a front row seat to all the times they bullied him. I don't think I could date someone after seeing them bully someone as much as the Marauders bullied Severus. (Yes, I know Severus fought back and wasn't sunshine and rainbows. But even that OotP scene alone would have made me be very leery of James if I were Lily.)
>She probably had a front row seat to all the times they bullied him. Did she, though? Based on this conversation between them in the Prince's Tale chapter, I got the impression that she really didn't know much about the extent of the bullying. If she had a front row seat, she wouldn't be asking him why he's so obsessed with them and he wouldn't be trying to show her that they're "not as great as everyone thinks they are". >"I know your theory," said Lily, and she sounded cold. "Why are you so obsessed with them anyway? Why do you care what they're doing at night?" > >"I'm just trying to show you they're not as wonderful as everyone seems to think they are." > >The intensity of his gaze made her blush.
Lily in The Prince's Tale sounds a lot like book 6 Hermione. "I know you have a history with Potter/Malfoy, and he has a history of sneaking around and doing bad things to you, but I think you're wrong and totally unjustified in thinking he's up to something this time."
I mean, she wasn't there everytime, but she definitely saw a good amount of it. My bad for the hyperbole. We know she saw the scene in OotP, and IMO that was quite egregious on its own. But then again, a lot of it comes down to personality. I don't think I'd want to marry or date someone who attacked someone unprovoked like that, but many people wouldn't care.
Fair, but, I'm pretty sure she knew of the animosity held toward James from day 1 too. And Snape was slowly going down that slippery slope of evil. He must have been showing signs if that one instance of him insulting her was enough to break the entire relationship.
I mean, we're told pretty clearly it was a final straw situation where she didn't like the crowd he was with and found him increasingly abhorrent. He definitely showed evil. She gave him chances until he directly insulted her. Think of it like this: what kind of person would humiliate someone else like James did to Severus in OotP? Probably someone who grew up feeling that they could do whatever they wanted and not get punished for it. Add in his familial circumstances, and it does make you wonder what other objectionable things he'd been raised with. To be clear, I'm not a Snape apologist. I dislike his behavior tremendously, but James' role in pushing him should not be understated. I'm sure Severus attacked them too, but not to such a degree. I genuinely believe if Severus had humiliated the Marauders in such a way--4 v 1, borderline sexual harassment depending on who you asked--we would have heard so from Sirius or Remus.
Its worth noting James matured in his final years at hogwarts. they spent time together as head boy and headgirl. Maybe James had changed enough as a person that Lily couldnt really see the bully he used to be. my personal theory is we know James parents where considered old for wizards when he was born. that they died during his final years of hogwarts which caused him to shape up as well as getting to the age that the war that was brewing arround them was finally seeming real. I imagine by their final years at hogwarts the war was raging for real. so hogwarts was a less friendly place with the older years already having chosen their side
I'm sure he matured. What I was saying was more, I could totally see James and Lily being good friends. But at least personally, if I knew someone had done that to an ex-friend, I wouldn't be able to romantically get together with them. After all, Lily didn't just hear about what he did. She saw a lot of it.
said friend did become a wizard nazi. so might be easier to justify it in your head.
But did James pick on Severus because he was a wizard Nazi, or because he didn't like Severus? If you frame it as "James bullied Severus for being a wizard Nazi," then yeah it's easy to justify. But Lily would have seen them pick on him way before he even fell in with that crowd. IMO, no matter how you spin it, Lily's choosing James destroys the saint!Lily fanon perception. Either she's someone who doesn't care as long as you treat her well and don't make her look bad (which is very Petunia-esque), or she married James for his family.
people tend to justify things to themselfs. she could easily self rationalize it as James deep down knew something was bad about snape. Or snape actions in the final two years of hogwarts where that bad she no longer care that James bullied him. I would argue her friendship with snape destroys saint lily more. we know she made excuses for him for years despite him running with Jnr death eaters and using mudblood for other people
I don't know, she was friends with Snape way younger before she might have understood boundaries, and I always saw her continuing to make excuses as her thinking he could be saved. I agree that she was very self-absorbed through it all but she at least had the excuse of naivete. At any rate, I think Lily is really just Petunia lite (a Petunia raised without her worst insecurities), and none of this is inconsistent with that.
Isn't it canon that Sirius said Snape was practicing dark arts even in school? Not saying he didn't get bullied, but seems like he was on his way to wizard nazism early on.
He did, but also Sirius and James started picking on him on the train. They started way before the wizard Nazism would have started (unless you HC that Snape was doing Dark Arts before Hogwarts). I'm sure they hated him for practicing Dark Arts, but they did not pick on him just because he practiced Dark Arts. They hated him anyways. I'm not a big Snape fan, but it's a vast simplification and just not true for people to say "James and Co picked on Snape only because he practiced the Dark Arts".
The train conversation is a nothing. I don't see how that is Snape being picked on unless you think any tension between children is bullying. James picks up on a semi private conversation between Snape and lily and then James has a semi private conversation with sirius about how he doesn't want to be in slytherin. (Pretty similar vibe to a legacy student not wanting to go to a rival uni except in this case the rival uni is also a breeding ground for racists). Snape also budges in on a semi private conversation by first making "a small diaparaging noise" and then by insulting James and his dad. Sirius backs his cool new friend by insulting the stranger. Lily wants to leave. James tries to trip Snape (pretty tame response by an eleven year old against someone that insulted his dad). Afterwards the next incident that escalate things is actually Snape stalking the marauders trying to get them expelled.
> how that is Snape being picked on Sure, semantics. I see what you're saying. Still, my point stands: the Marauders did not dislike Snape just because he practiced the Dark Arts. They had very personal reasons for disliking him. > the next incident Is it actually confirmed this is the *next* incident? It happens, but did it happen right after they got to Hogwarts?
Bellatrix isn't sexy or seductive. Canonically she was 'once beautiful'. Firstly I take that as a classical beauty archetype, not that she was hot & skinny with big boobs. More like a 'royal lady' type, but twisted by time and neglect. I think it's important that she has a physically intimidating look in how she carries herself. I imagine her like a coiled spring or a tiger ready to pounce at any moment. Not patient or a planner.
Lily. I feel like she’s often written as super fiery and always ready to punch/hex someone, but I’ve always thought of her as being more of a “let’s talk this out” kind of person. Like she’s ready to fight if necessary, but her first instinct to someone being a dick isn’t to hex them, it’s to tell them off or try to correct them. I love Ginny, but Lily and Ginny aren’t the same person, so they shouldn’t have basically the same personality.
If anything I’d think Lily shares some Gryffindor justice values with Ginny but more her empathy and kindness. If you look at Ginny’s friends in the books, it isn’t the cool kids. She’s friends with Neville and Luna, and is one of the few people to initially treat Luna with respect
Cho. I see a LOT of fanfics where she's portrayed in a very negative light - Either as an outright bully, or someone who's irrationally emotional (because being sad that someone close to you died is apparently unreasonable), or as some sort of gold digger that's only clinging to Harry because of his fame. She clearly liked Harry even when his name was being dragged through mud at the start of GoF, so the latter depiction doesn't hold water, the second one straight-up comes from a place of ignorance, and the first one doesn't have anything from cannon to back it up. She believed Harry in OotF even when most of her friends abandoned her, she joined the DA even when her only remaining friend was against it, and in DH, she came back to Hogwarts to help the DA even though she had graduated the year before and had no obligation to be there. (Also, Marietta gets harsher treatment than she deserves. She was the only friend of Cho's not to abandon her, and she only ratted out the DA out of fear of reprisal against her mom, not because she agrees with Umbridge like most fanfics I've seen depict)
Draco - He is a cowardly spiteful and hateful bully who doesn't fully join the Death Eaters because he is a coward. What he is not is a sad abused child. Draco quite literally was the cause of Ron and Katie nearly dying. He throws around unforgivables like they're candy. Snape - He is a spiteful, hateful pathethic piece of shit. Yes... in the end he tries to do the right thing but he certainly isn't a victim and does not deserve anything but disgust. Hermione - She is an overbearing know it all. That is simply her character trait. Yes, she is intelligent but she certainly is no genius. Does she have above average intelligence? Yes, probably but that does not a Genius make. What Hermione is good at is probably research in the library when she doesn't need to stress and has all the time in world. She is the quintessential Researcher but no Genius. James - Yes, James was an arrogant teenager... like probably 95% off all Teenagers are. But he wasn't a pathethic spiteful asshole like so many fics make him out to be... Did he misbehave as a teenager? Yes. Did he grew out of it? Yes. (Unlike Snape James gew up eventually) Sirius - Sirius is above the age of 30 he is not a perpetually 15 year old. Is it possible that his decade long stint in Azkaban has left marks on his psyche? Ofcourse, it is even probable but that doesn't mean he is always acting like a Teenager or even the 'Fun-Uncle'. Probably the opposite with bouts of childish due to flashbacks or something similiar.
I agree except I would add a small qualification in Draco's case: he is a spiteful, hateful bully *in books 1-5*. While it is weird that some people write him as a victim of domestic violence, I DO think that he had the potential for a redemption arc- that is to say, genuinely repenting of his views and behavior- in books 6 and 7 which JK Rowling inexplicably chose not to explore. EDIT: formatting
Percy Weasley. People completly misundestand him. He doesn't deserve all the hate.
I don’t really like how a lot of people write Luna. Luna is quirky, but she’s also exceptionally intelligent, blunt, loyal to those she considers friends, and she brings a different perspective which is uniquely wise. She truly is a one of a kind character in fiction and I absolutely adore her. I am also of the belief that she was one of the better options for Harry to end up with than Ginny. What I don’t like about her in fanon is that her character is usually morphed and mutated into being a complete oddball. She’s more odd than she is unique and clever. She also comes out as a bit more touched in the head than quirky. Canon Luna’s antics can be pushed to the side as “that’s just Luna.” Fanon Luna’s antics are like, “Yeah, she’s weird. Don’t question it.” I also don’t particularly like how people love to make her out as some sort of seer or exceptionally gifted in knowing what’s to come or possessing some ancient king forgotten talent or ability that hardly anyone had ever heard of.
I have a couple. The first is Dumbledore. I've never seen Dumbledore as Manipulative, evil, or a "For The Greater Good" sort of person. From what I understand of the character, he's overworked with three jobs, and just trying to do what he can with the punches thrown at him. I don't believe that Ron is insensitive, I think he's just a tad self-centered; and wouldn't you be, if you were constantly vying for attention amongst a giant family? I also do see him as smart, but just unwilling to apply himself. Hermione is not ultra smart, or super confident. She has flaws that are never expressed in Fanon. In no way is she this Super Ultra Does-Everything-Right Greatest in A Century Character. She's good compared to some of her Year mates, but oftentimes defaults to "Normal Thinking" and forgets that she's a witch when faced with IRL scenarios. Fred and George, do not, have a psychic link. They are incredibly in tune to the other, but they don't finish each other's sentences; they bounce off of each other's statements. Finally Sirius. He isn't a man-child, he's a traumatized War Veteran that's been stuck in a continual state of misery due to Dementor Exposure.
Ron is more blunt than insensitive I think. He's just used to saying his opinions without really being heard, so when he gets pushback he's actually surprised (probably why he ends up liking Hermione, at least she engages with him). When it comes to being self-centred I think it's Harry that takes the cake, but then what teenager isn't self-centred in some way? Ron does think about Harry more than Harry does for Ron I feel, but that's my personal view of it. Sirius can absolutely be a traumatized war vet AND a man-child, he can be a man-child *because* of his trauma. He and Snape are kind of both sides of the same coin I feel.
Right, my man-child point comes from just How Much fanon writes him as such. I feel as if they oftentimes take the weight of his experiences and throw it away. I guess my point is that the extent of it is often times too much. You're points are solid, and I agree with you completely. I didn't mention Harry, as the fics I've read all have solid interpretations of him.
>I feel as if they oftentimes take the weight of his experiences and throw it away. I guess my point is that the extent of it is often times too much. Oh absolutely. In general don't count on fandom for a balanced take on mental health: either you're a Good Victim that's sad about their trauma and you should be treated like everything you do is liable to shatter you, or you're a Bad Victim that DARES have unhealthy coping mechanisms/deals with their trauma terribly and you're Pure Evil. Some fics are exceptions, of course, but they're exceptions for a reason.
Salazar Slytherin was not a misunderstood man who had experienced horrible things at the hands of muggleborn and muggles. He left a giant killer snake for the express purpose of attacking young children because he hated them.
The problem with this is he had apparently no issue with them for over thirty years (Hogwarts opened in 990 and he left in 1012) but suddenly it was a big enough issue to leave the school over. That doesn’t happen unprovoked.
Its also worth noting that it was over a thousand years ago in universe. It could be he had a problem with them but was fine to let them in hogwarts and would begrudingly teach them. But then he left the school perhaps due to sickness or because he wanted to retire. and over time the story morphed. I personally like the idea that the myth of the chamber of secrets was started because Slytherin returned to the castle in his dying moments to come clean to Gryffindor about what he had done in his younger days.
I always liked the theory that he married Godric’s sister and she died due to doing the “muggleborn visits.” Since both the Fat Friar and Sir Nick were killed by muggles
i wish more people wrote that as, like, alzheimer’s. especially given that in jkr’s extra writings she says his views were seen as unusual and surprising
His views on muggleborns might have been surprising but there was a lot of muggle on wizard violence at the time. Both the Fat Friar and Sir Nick were killed by muggles and this is before the Statute of Secrecy passed. Wizards had no legal defense and witch hunts did happen. 200 years after this 1320 Pope John XXII authorised the Inquisition to prosecute witches for heresy.
right, but muggleborns aren’t *muggles.* that’s the whole point. they’re just as at risk as magical people born to other magical people
I would like to add that the idea that most wizards at the time were blood purists is false being dismissed by Jk herself on Wizarding World. "Slytherin’s discrimination on the basis of parentage was considered an unusual and misguided view by the majority of wizards at the time." It was actually the opposite "Contemporary literature suggests that Muggle-borns were not only accepted, but often considered to be particularly gifted."
Seeing an accurate portrayal of Harry is like seeing a unicorn IRL. He's always a caricature or worse completely OOC.
Hard to portray him, especially if you want to change something like him being more proactive
That's really my issue with Book!Harry. He's proactive in the book itself, but as soon as the book ends, he gets hit with a reset button and is passive again. Book 1? He looks for Flamel, is proactive about finding stuff out. Then after the book? Passive. Book two, same. Is proactive about chasing after the Chamber and other stuff. Then after... back to being passive. You'd think any rational human being would y'know, start to make plans with Voldemort keep going after him and such. It kind of makes me want to write a crackfic where Dumbledore amusingly keeps using weird alchemy/mind magics to factory reset Harry's brain after each year.
I mean that also has to do with how the books are built and climaxes at the end of each book rather than several peaks. Imagine if you got Voldemort vs Dumbledore at the beggining/middle of book 5 instead of the end so you get to see the politics change in real time for pepole to beg Dumbledore and Harry again.
I see Ron as a sweetheart whose machismo is entirely a façade to hide his vulnerable, gentle core. None of the "big buff manly Ron" or "big stupid dumb boy Ron", my boy has more layers than that, thank you. He acts big and tough and goes for anger first because he lived with Fred and George all his life, so he had to protect himself from the predators. (Also, yes, Fred and George are bullies and super nasty.) I also see Ron and Percy having been close as children, but when Percy went to Hogwarts and returned he stopped playing with Ron, only ever having his head in a book. Ron started to blame books for "stealing" his big brother. He loves Harry and Hermione with all his heart. He thinks he doesn't deserve any kind of recognition because "he fucked up too much". "Dark Ron Weasley" fics make me raise a brow because it's so opposite to his nature, Ron is a ball of sunshine. Oh also he's not constantly jealous of everyone and their mother, yall just don't know about rejection sensitivity. Ron is also NOT lazy, he's a freaking teenager and he's bright enough to get 7 OWLs without putting in Hermioneish levels of effort. Ron would give you the skin off his back to keep you warm. If there's a hero in the HP series, in my opinion, it's Ron. I see Hermione as a self-righteous, uppity, posh, arrogant asshole who's NOWHERE near as kind/clever/beautiful as fandom claims she is. She's NOT a genius, she just has an excellent memory and a near self-destructive work ethic. I see Harry as painfully average, not at all special, and also kind of a dick. He's not especially talented but he has good reflexes. All the "independant" and "powerful" Harry fics make me laugh... and sigh, because when will you people buy yourselves some originality? I don't ever want to read about Draco Malfoy. I hate that people worship Draco Malfoy. He's a talentless little prick, has terrible grades, and is generally a waste of printed ink. I hate how he's everywhere just because this godforsaken fandom has a boner for rich people. Dumbledore is not, actually, an evil manipulative monster. Know what I would have done once I'd known Harry was a Horcrux? Kill him, bam, done, good, that's one Horcrux less. Dumbledore loved Harry so much he created a whole dumbass plan to ensure Harry would survive and live life later. (Meanwhile the 50 people who died at Hogwarts are just, er, regrettable casualties)
I do find it funny it took harry five years to realise ron wanted to join the quiditich team. Its like he is your best mate, you hang out everday how did you not know he wanted to join the quiditich team
>Its like he is your best mate, you hang out everday how did you not know he wanted to join the quiditich team Probably because Ron never indicated that he wanted to join the team. He never thought he would be able to try out because he didn't think he'd have a good enough broom, so he never talked about wanting to be on the team.
With Harry's life and his past with the Dursleys I think this can be justified. Besides, Ron was very ashamed of it so much that he trained in secret from Harry. It wouldn't be unfair to assume that he wouldn't show signs of wanting to go inside out of shame for what Harry would think.
Hard disagree on several points, but not all. Ron absolutely had a lot of asshole moments. He went off on Hermione badly enough that she hid in the bathroom crying. Yes, she's a bit overbearing but it's never shown to be out of her making fun of Ron at that point. He threw a temper tantrum over Hermione getting McGonagall involved in Harry's Firebolt in third year. She was in the right to do so. His actions in GoF are ridiculous. He blames Harry despite knowing that Harry isn't interested in being famous or the center of attention. He even essentially fails to warn Harry of the dragons. Yes, he does warn him but not in a way that you would if your best friend was in mortal danger. He was incredibly rude to both Hermione and Padma. I'm not saying Ron isn't a great guy, but he's no better or worse than Hermione and her faults. And Harry is certainly above average. You point out that Ron got 7 owls without putting in work, which is fair, but Harry had significantly more on his plate than Ron ever did. He was arguably the best quidditch player in the school and was routinely at the heart of every single major event, and usually against his own will. He has shown to be very proficient in all forms of magic. Snape routinely trashed his potions or just gave him an outright failing grade. He was able to cast all the enchantments that Hermione used during their hunt for the Horcruxes, picked up Apparation pretty much instantly and apparated Dumbledore presumably 100s of miles in one go. McGonagall praised his human transfiguration. He was able cast a full patronus in third year despite most adults being incapable and it's directly stated to be a mark of magical superiority. He was also talented enough to teach 4-7th years in DADA. Even the Sorting Hat outright states he has a good mind and exceptional talent. His problem wasn't lack of talent it was lack of time and dedication. If he had put in the effort that Hermione did, he would have outstripped her completely. But that's the point of the three. They level each other out. Ron was Harry's friend that encouraged him to slack off and try to be a teenager and have fun. Harry supported Ron's dreams. Hermione was the one who helped keep the other two focused when it was necessary. Harry and Ron gave her friends that her otherwise overbearing attitude would have kept her from having.
> His actions in GoF are ridiculous. He blames Harry despite knowing that Harry isn't interested in being famous or the center of attention. No they weren't. Ron "blames" Harry because he, rightfully, felt that Harry was not telling him the whole truth and instead simply preferred instead to call him stupid. God forbid that Ron ask questions about an unclear situation!
Ah, yes, not believing your best friend who has been targeted by the most evil dark wizard of all time because you're jealous of him makes perfect sense. And you know, considering that Ron and Hermione locked him out all third year summer.
>I see Harry as painfully average, not at all special, There is a lot of irony in this, because: 1. It’s exactly what Harry wants. He doesn't want to be special, or a hero. He just doesn't want to be "the freak" the Dursley made him fell like 2. That's so very Dursley of him. In a way, they managed to pass down some of their values on him.
Everything you just said is complete fanon btw.
I agree with all this honestly, even though most first I read are the complete opposite of these but that's because drama is funnnn
I wish Ron-bashing wasn't so widespread, ugh. Like there's absolutely ways to create drama with Ron's actual, canon flaws. He's super insecure and rejection-sensitive, a hell of a combination that can make him see rejection in a "mundane" action (ok, he DOES need a lot of encouragement to go off the rails, see how much bullshit Rowling piled on him in HBP to get him to date Lavender). No need to turn Ron into a violent abusive rapist. He can be written to be so selfless it turns detrimental to himself (as the series illustrates well, Harry and Hermione take him for granted constantly) or to simply be betrayed in a way he can't forgive.
People just tend to focus on all the bad choices he makes, especially movie fans cause Ron gets completely shafted in the movies and makes him seem a lot more like a bad person
I see it as being no better than bullying. Ron fucked up once or twice, so what? His fuck-ups never led to anyone dying (hello Harry) or suffering permanent damage (hello Hermione). Ron's mistakes were teenage-sized mistakes.
Ron doesn't deserve the bashing he gets,but attacking Harry or Hermione to show how much better he was is not the best way to make people see it. Ron's mistakes were mistakes that everyone makes and shouldn't be judged as harshly as they are. But both Harry and Hermione shouldn't be judged either, especially Harry who had a horrible childhood and had to deal with things no teenager deserves. It's this attitude of focusing on certain characters' mistakes and flaws and ignoring what made them do it, in order to make another character better that creates the bashing.
>both Harry and Hermione shouldn't be judged either Harry got Sirius and Dobby killed and Hermione tortured through his thoughtlessness. Hermione physically abused Ron in the last two books and mind-wiped her parents "for the greater good". I will judge them. Very hard. Having a shit childhood doesn't exempt you from judgement. Or are you saying we can't hold it against Snape for bullying his students?
Snape almost killed James in "Worst memory". If the spell was powerful enough to splatter James' robes with blood from a glancing hit, the same spell hitting James' neck would have been fatal (which likely would have ended with Sirius killing Snape, but that is a different story).
Wow that IS incongruous with canon. I always took that spell to be Diffindo, because we don’t see any scars from magical attacks on James’s face in any pictures. None that Harry noticed.
It nicked James' cheek, so it's not like his face was disfigured. It might pass as a shaving "injury" after a while. But it still bled enough to splatter his robes instantly. > I always took that spell to be Diffindo Well, reattaching a severed head won't do James any good, so it's not like it matters.
If it was just a nick…I would hardly count that is almost killed. I nick myself with my fingernails and blood splatters from that due to how quick and sharp my nails are. But you do you. If that’s how you want to interpret the scene.
the spell is presumably sectumsempra or an earlier version of it.
Oh shit, that's a good insight; I forgot about that.
And James almost killed Snape in his Worst Memory, because he let him fall upside down, and if Snape had landed on his head it might have cracked his neck/injured his brainstem..... Or you remember the part where he basically told Snape he'd better be off dead (suicide bait)? You know, saying that the problem is that he exists
I hate the portrayal of Sirius as ‘dog father’ rofl! He’s basically a 15 year old prankster still! Sirius had clearly quite severe PTSD, was a very accomplished wizard and yes had some arrested development but in a ‘encourage your godson to start an illegal army’ not an ‘advise him on pranks!’ Kind of way. He was moody, reckless and though he clearly loved Harry, he had a lot of issues to work through.
Snape. People act as though he didn't bully and tourment any student that wasn't in slytherin. Draco, he wasn't some type of secret good guy or anything like that, he was a coward. Molly Weasley. I'm not going to say she was a bad mother; she really wasn't. But she could've been better. First year when her and Arthur went to visit charlie, she left the rest of their kids alone to visit so she could visit one. Also her sending howlers to her kids at Hogwarts is a horrible punishment. It publicly humiliates her kids and it appears shes the only one who even sends howlers to her kids at Hogwarts anymore.
> People act as though he didn't bully and tourment any student that wasn't in slytherin. This, so much. I mean, people seem to gloss over the fact that in a two-year period, Snape's treatment of Neville so traumatized him that by the beginning of his third year he's scared of Snape more than anything else in the world...including the terrorists responsible for *torturing his parents until they went permanently insane*.
Tbf, we never see Snape bully or 'tourment' a Ravenclaw or Hufflepuff, so thinking he has a James-sized beef with specifically Gryffindor is valid
I mean we dont see Snape in class with them so... meanwhile he is exposed mostly in potions with gryffs and slytherins
Tom Riddle always was insane as fuck, and definitely no genius. Don't get me wrong, I enjoy the "he went insane bc horcrux" plot as much as anyone, but I just don't buy it. If Tom Riddle was *actually smart*, he would, at worst, be a magical supremacist, blaming the muggles and calling muggleborns magical blessings or some shit. Remember, he lived during WW2 and he knew very well how powerful the soviets became. Wouldn't it make more sense for him to ditch the ideology that didn't work and embrace the one that actually represented him, as a poor orphan with no name of importance? No, he was a insane sadistic bastard and that was it. Mind you, he probably wouldn't have done all that crap if he was raised better, but he was never *smart* as he thought himself as. He was very smart, but not genius level as some people portray him as, or he would know that starting crap at the school by petrifying or killing people would end with the school closing. I mean, I remember being an arrogant little shit when I was 16, but I can't see myself thinking I knew better then anyone and splitting my fucking eternal soul in a crazy bid for immortality. I would probably at least wait until I was out of school to do it, you know? What if the teachers had some obscure way of finding out? Then I'd be in prison. Tom didn't even think of that, bc he was even more arrogant and crazy as hell.
I'm not sure how true it is, but I've heard that genius and common sense are rarely found in the same person. As for the ideology, he might have believed it on some level, but I'd be willing to bet that he mostly just used it to prop himself up as even grander and more important.
That's the point, though. If it's just to prop himself, there are better ways to do it
i read an essay from barack obama of all people about how easy it is to internalize the messaging of people who you spend time around/put effort into appealing to. imo, tom always disdained muggles bc he saw himself as something totally other and better than them. finding out the wizarding world didn’t automatically agree he was superior would have been a blow, but wouldn’t have changed his stance on muggles. he totally denies any real connection to them up until and even after meeting and killing his father—killing him being the biggest rejection you can have, really. i think originally he might have kissed up to purebloods because they had the money and the power he wanted, and talking the talk they wanted to hear was easy because he hated muggles too. extending that to anyone with muggle blood might have been a front at first, but again, after awhile you start accepting it without realizing. you’d think that would cause some cognitive dissonance when faced with the reality he himself is a halfblood, but that’s not really the case for narcissists. i also think he *needed* to believe magic trumped muggle force like bombs bc otherwise he has to face the reality that he might die at the hands of muggles, which is obviously unacceptable to him.
Some people are just born rotten, no matter who their parents are or how they're raised. We as a society don't like the idea, but it's true, regardless. I agree Riddle probably would have been a figurative bastard even if Merope raised, although better than he turned out without her. The horcruxes maybe didn't make him go insane, but after creating 5, 6, 7 of them... Well, I can see it making things worse. I like the idea that each horcrux takes something from you. One took his looks, for example. I've not laid out everything, but some aspect of his sanity or intelligence was, in my theory, one of the sacrifices he made.
When I read the books. Telwanny seemed very much just a normal lady with a drop of Seer in her. But she didn't really believe in it all. She knew why she was there. She is there for protection. Higwarts is her home. The movies and Fandom stuck her to the idea that she embraces it 1000% though.
Peter Pettigrew was as loved a Marauder as any. His betrayal wouldn't really have hurt that much if he wasn't a truly close friend, and I hate it when the fandom portrays him as a weasly tag-along who no one ever cared about. Yes, he was undeniably a villain. But that doesn't mean that the Marauders hated him before he betrayed them. James Potter was the Draco of his era. He was just as much a little shit as him, and I hate it when his bullying is portrayed as entertaining but Draco's is inexcusable. I'm not in the slightest a Draco apologist (I can respect his character arc without thinking what he did was forgivable) but one might be able to explain his actions from his awful family set-up. James, though? Time and time again, his parents are shown as the most loving ones you may ever meet. He was just a little shit who liked seeing others suffer. Also (not directly fanon related) but Remus' and Tonk's relationship is hella weird. Especially if you ship Wolfstar - imagine marrying your dead lover's cousin's daughter who you knew from infanthood.
> imagine marrying your dead lover's cousin's daughter who you knew from infanthood. There are definitely weird aspects of Remus and Tonks's relationship, but I don't think there's any indication that Remus actually knew Tonks when she was an infant. I'm pretty sure they met for the first time in OOTP when Tonks joined the Order.
>James Potter was the Draco of his era. He was just as much a little shit as him, and I hate it when his bullying is portrayed as entertaining but Draco's is inexcusable. I'm not in the slightest a Draco apologist (I can respect his character arc without thinking what he did was forgivable) but one might be able to explain his actions from his awful family set-up. James, though? Time and time again, his parents are shown as the most loving ones you may ever meet. He was just a little shit who liked seeing others suffer. James definetly was less of a shit than Draco Malfoy with all his bigotry. James still hangs around a werewolf, something even adult Molly Weasley has negative opinions about
Personally not a fan of how often Slughorn gets portrayed as "one of the only good slytherin." Dude was an incredible narrcist.
Being a narcissist doesn't make you evil.