7.5 KiB
[RT][FF]Hermione Granger and the Perfectly Reasonable Explanation - Ch. 17: Gang Aft A-gley
-
Author: u/RobinDrew Ravenclaw - (Author: HGPRE)*
-
URL: https://www.fanfiction.net/s/9950232/20/Hermione-Granger-and-the-Perfectly-Reasonable-Explanation
-
Score: 39
-
Created: 2016-10-29T19:33:07
Post:
Comments:
u/Sailor_Vulcan [+7] Champion of Justice and Reason (7 hours later)
i bet that OH takes the obliviate spell for YH, sacrificing her memories to preserve YH's.
u/Gigapode [+3] (a day later)
The "wrenching disorientation" she experiences at the end of the chapter suggests a teleportation of some kind. Though it could be a Hermio-me separation too I 'spose.
u/Cariyaga [+6] Kyubey did nothing wrong (5 hours later)
Ooh, very nice chapter! I enjoyed this greatly! :D
u/RobinDrew [+9] Ravenclaw - (Author: HGPRE) (8 hours later)
Thanks. This one took forever, partially because I wrote five different drafts and agonized over which way to go with it. And I hope I haven't lost people, but that was probably inevitable. There's already a FF.net review claiming I gave YH the idiot ball. I think it's justified...particularly first year, when she's so painfully conscious about doing the "right" thing?
FWIW, it also took a while because I was writing the next chapter (or two, maybe, since it came in at 10k+ words) in parallel, which was less about agonizing and more just fiddly detail work. But it only needs an editing pass or two, so it'll probably be up within a week. :)
u/LeonCross [+8] (8 hours later)
It's an interesting premise and you're a good writer so I'll be unlikely to ditch this regardless of which direction it goes.
That said, I am feeling some slight fatigue and would like to see YH score a solid victory soon.
Also more dicking around with magic. That was fun. :-)
u/RobinDrew [+4] Ravenclaw - (Author: HGPRE) (21 hours later)
Thanks.
And I know, I know! I'm getting there. Part of the problem may be that reading Worm permanently skewed my sense of how often/severely things can go sideways? A lot of my agonizing was making sure that when there is a victory, it's primarily due to YH's efforts and intelligence, even if she gets some help.
u/JackStargazer [+6] Primordial Apologist (a day later)
Thing is, even in Worm with how often things go sideways, Taylor still finds a way to pull out something that can be called a victory (even at its most Pyrrhic).
u/RobinDrew [+4] Ravenclaw - (Author: HGPRE) (a day later)
Taylor also has reasonable amounts of downtime between major incidents that let her expand her capabilities. I think a significant strength HPGRE!Hermione and Taylor will end up sharing long-term is that when they identify a weakness, they take steps and work on it so that if something similar happens later, they're better prepared. And then try to anticipate other issues on top of that. Hermione just hasn't had much chance to do that work yet.
Her battle plan for Scabbers was working - even after he surprised her with his unusual willingness to self-mutilate - but she hadn't anticipated problems related to her ethical nature and that there might be plausible alternative explanations, or that she might be disarmed. Which suggests she needs a more robust ethical framework, a better way to detect manipulation, better non-lethal failsafes, and a wrist strap for her wand (or something - the fact that no one at all in Canon uses such an obvious workaround suggests there's a downside, like it interferes subtly with wand-motions, or the strap/your wrist/your wand might be damaged, etc).
u/AugSphere [+5] Dark Lord of Corruption (a day later)
Reading about a character losing again and again does get tiresome. Hopefully this is building up to some kind of character growth (although memory wipes and aren't exactly conducive to learning from mistakes), but for now the story is somewhat frustrating to read. She just smart enough to get into trouble, but not nearly smart enough to handle it. There is that vindictive kind of satisfaction when she's brutally punished for her idiocy, though, so it's not all bad.
u/RobinDrew [+5] Ravenclaw - (Author: HGPRE) (a day later)
She's certainly not experienced enough to crush trouble ruthlessly, at any rate.
Yet.
But yes, while she's started with a lot of natural advantages, this is her first week, she still has a long way to go. But she is learning a lot about how to (or in some cases how not to) deal with people and cope with adult-level crises. Once she's out from under her current time pressure (which is at least partially self-imposed), her progress should become a lot more satisfying.
Growth is either demonstrated by overcoming successively harder challenges, or by overcoming similar challenges increasingly easily. She just happens to have been saddled with an unusually involved challenge for her first heroic outing (without even counting Riddle).
u/Cariyaga [+3] Kyubey did nothing wrong (8 hours later)
Ooh, cool to hear there's another chapter soon! And yeah, while she certainly isn't acting optimally, neither is she really intending to!
u/360Saturn [+3] (3 days later)
There's already a FF.net review claiming I gave YH the idiot ball.
I completely disagree. Hermione plans as much as she possibly can, but lets her Ravenclaw-ness blind her to certain failures in her planning, because she thinks she's covered everything conceivable. You want a character who's a realistic genius 11 year old, if she had thought things through any more than she did we would be stepping into wish-fulfilment/Mary Sue territory.
u/RobinDrew [+2] Ravenclaw - (Author: HGPRE) (3 days later)
That's much of why I'm presuming losing people was inevitable, since where that realistic vs fantastic line falls is pretty subjective.
But thanks for the vote of confidence. :)
u/chaosmosis [+2] and with strange aeons, even death may die (2 days later)
I think her mistaken actions were maybe justifiable for a first year, but her mental justifications could have used a little more work. Frustrating that she wasn't able to do a proper risk assessment.
u/RobinDrew [+3] Ravenclaw - (Author: HGPRE) (a minute later)
- Official Typo/Britpick Thread, if you are so inclined, helps if they're all in one place
u/Evan_Th [+2] Sunshine Regiment (3 hours later)
The image of "liquid sheep" is hilarious, but I think you mean "liquid sleep"?
(The typo's happened over at least the last several chapters.)
u/RobinDrew [+9] Ravenclaw - (Author: HGPRE) (4 hours later)
It's not a typo, it's deliberate, Wizards name things in that sort of way all the time. :)
u/Fredlage [+4] (a day later)
Wait... It's been liquid sheep all along? Damn, my mind just converted it to sleep every single time...
u/360Saturn [+3] (3 days later)
It's like 'counting sheep' to make you sleepy, is what I got from it.
u/Fredlage [+2] (3 days later)
Yeah, I get it. I'd just automatically read sleep every time.
u/Achille-Talon [+2] (2 days later)
Mine too.