6.8 KiB
[DC][RT?] Wait, What? A series of Harry Potter one-shots
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Author: u/None *
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Score: 26
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Created: 2014-09-30T23:41:21
Post:
Comments:
u/AmeteurOpinions [+10] Finally, everyone was working together. (50 minutes later)
PSA: the poster linked to the last part of the series, so don't assume they are all like that.
Omigosh the premise in Part 14 is amazingly clever.
u/None [+1] (20 hours later)
How careless of me to make that mistake. Thanks for catching it AO.
u/None [+6] (3 minutes later)
The author describes it as:
Points of divergence in the Harry Potter universe. Those moments where someone really ought to have taken a step back and asked, "Wait, what?" An ongoing collection of one-shots.
I found them to be pretty entertaining takes on some of the more disbelief-unsuspending moments of the story. Hope /r/rational enjoys!
u/Riddle-Tom_Riddle [+1] (6 hours later)
Is this an update to this series of oneshots? I don't remember seeing this here before..
u/Zephyr1011 [+1] Potentially Unfriendly Aspiring Divinity (22 hours later)
It was last updated in April, so I doubt it
u/Riddle-Tom_Riddle [+2] (22 hours later)
I was hoping to get a response from them so I could try to nudge them towards the conclusion of 'post the first chapter, not the last', in a manner that wouldn't fit my normal brusque tendencies. I've accidentally started arguments that way.
u/None [+1] (a day later)
/u/AmateurOpinions' comment conveyed that point more helpfully, I think.
u/ArisKatsaris [+12] Sidebar Contender (10 hours later)
Okay, I haven't yet read every chapter, but this whole thing seems to be mostly a long series of rants about how horrible the actions of characters in the canon are.
I've encountered this sort of things lots of times, but I don't know if it has a name. Is there a word like "bashfic" or something?
Either way I've always hated the genre. Even when the story is absolutely right that the sort of thing described would be horrible in real life (see Harry being raised by evil stepparents, see Neville dangled from a window by an uncle)... what is there to get from the fic in stating such obviousness? Yes, no sane school would ever send 11-year old students to the Forbidden Forest to track down the killers of unicorns. We know.
I feel that it's one thing to make a story which includes challenging the nonsense like HPMoR does, but that it's another thing altogether to just have characters shout "You're evil people, all of you." time and again.
Mind you, there are a few good ideas there (like Chapter 14), and a few places where it slightly diverges from the formula (like chapter 6)
u/Roxolan [+10] Head of antimemetiWalmart senior assistant manager (15 hours later)
Upvoted, but I still liked the OP. I didn't notice all the fucked-up-ness in HP and I enjoy having it pointed out to me, even in such a ham-handed way.
u/alexanderwales [+9] Time flies like an arrow (19 hours later)
The proper trope is Hate Fic. And yes, I hate it too - I much prefer for authors to take the things that make no sense and do their best to either justify them or excuse them. Same with HPMOR actually. I would much rather have someone talk about how Quidditch came to be the way it was, or why people actually like it in spite of its flaws as a game, than just have Quidditch be repeatedly bashed as stupid.
u/RMcD94 [+2] (21 hours later)
And yes, I hate it too - I much prefer for authors to take the things that make no sense and do their best to either justify them or excuse them
It bothers me that you're wording it like these are exclusive things.
You can have a fic bashing things, it doesn't take away or lower the amount of fics were the things bashed are fixed. Half the things that people bash very well might not have even been considered by a lot of people, I know myself I didn't give a second thought to the burn hole through the tongue comment, so a handy list of "unexplained or clearly stupid things" might make for a lot more of the fics that you're looking for in any case as prospective authors read fics like these and take notes.
u/ProfessorPhi [+3] (a day later)
I can't imagine that JK Rowling intended everything that the fanfic's author kept pointing out, and felt a bit sorry for JK the way the author eviscerates her, but I really enjoyed reading the one-shots. I didn't read them as bashing the original fics, but as looking at what would have been real world if one took the implications to their logical conclusion.
I for one never thought through (the honestly terrifying) implications of the resurrection stone, Ginny's mentality (and this is the first fic that makes me think that Ginny and Harry are actually well suited for each other), Ron's wavering, Muggle baiting etc. I really enjoyed these thought-experiments and I was never able to read between the lines like the author was.
u/thakil [+3] (2 days later)
Some of these are fairly clever, although as others have stated, a lot of this critisism isn't that meaningful.
Harry Potter clearly exists in a tradition of childrens literature set in boarding schools. It borrows liberally from the ideas of books from centuries ago, which is why it ends up with ludicrously unfair teachers and incredibly unpleasant parents. Obviously one could tear apart Roald Dahl using a similar critique, but that would be missing the point.
I like rational fiction, because it is lots of fun to see what happens when you try to build a logically coherent world. But you do need to actually have an emotional arc for the story to work well. For me the clearest demonstration of the contrast between simulationist and narrativist story telling are the light sabre fights in star wars as opposed to those in the prequels. The fights in the original trilogy are unshowy, and victory isn't really determined by swordplay: it's determined by emotional strength, particularly the fight in Return of the Jedi. Luke's technique there is terrible, and unshowy, but it really really works. In the prequels the sword fighting is more technically interesting, but emotionally unfufilling.
Obviously if you can succeed at story telling and having a logical world, I think you can get something pretty special. I think Metropolitan Man succeeds remarkably well on his front, managing to have a clear emotional arc for all its characters, while still managing to make a world that makes sense. The character's victory are emotional ones, but they are also ones that make sense.