Harry Potter Harry Potter Fan Fiction Clichés
- Thread starter Oni_Rinku
- Start date
Soul Bonds and Purity Sues are my only major hang ups.
Two minor ones are Secretly Nice Slytherins (include any Snape trope in here other than the Jerkass canon version) and calling Malfoy "Draco" in the narrative without a very, very good reason and a well done established heel-face turn spanning over tens to hundreds of thousands of words.
Two minor ones are Secretly Nice Slytherins (include any Snape trope in here other than the Jerkass canon version) and calling Malfoy "Draco" in the narrative without a very, very good reason and a well done established heel-face turn spanning over tens to hundreds of thousands of words.
Thought of a few more of mine.
I don't like Harry realizing that he's in love with (insert random girl here) and they start dating and live happily ever after.
I don't mind soul-bonds fics if the story is done right like Error of Soul as it's well written. (It's a shame that hasn't been updated sense Aug 29, 2013)
I don't like harems for the most part.
Also, what are Purity Sues?
I don't like Harry realizing that he's in love with (insert random girl here) and they start dating and live happily ever after.
I don't mind soul-bonds fics if the story is done right like Error of Soul as it's well written. (It's a shame that hasn't been updated sense Aug 29, 2013)
I don't like harems for the most part.
Also, what are Purity Sues?
As per TVTropes...
"The first Mary Sue archetype to gain wide recognition, from as early as King Arthur's Galahad of the Sangreal. Incorruptible Pure Pureness is the theme here.
A Purity Sue can be male or female without too significant a difference, but in all but the earliest incarnations there's a strong tendency towards the latter. It is a character that is intentionally made by the author to be overly positive. They almost never have any flaws that actually affect them in a way that truly matters, usually going for endearing traits such as "clumsiness" or naïveté, instead getting overloaded with overwhelmingly positive but largely passive traits (i.e. beauty, innocence, etc.). The character will usually be soft-spoken, have a pleasant voice, and be mild-mannered. Often, the traits verge towards the ethereal, with auras, non-human lineage, and other such things.
Like all Mary Sues, she doesn't do enough to justify the positive response. And as usual it's the writer's fault. A character who would come off as wise and pure in the hands of a better writer, motivating the main characters in their down-time, turns into a smiling ditz who manages to convince people to do the right thing just because we are informed that she is wise and pure, and somehow she is the main character. She's usually cast as a passive motivator of other people, inspiring them to strive towards the author's goals by her very presence alone. Oh, sure, she might smile, offer encouragement, write articles, and other such things, but she gets such a disproportionately positive response that it soon breaks the Willing Suspension of Disbelief."
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/PuritySue
"The first Mary Sue archetype to gain wide recognition, from as early as King Arthur's Galahad of the Sangreal. Incorruptible Pure Pureness is the theme here.
A Purity Sue can be male or female without too significant a difference, but in all but the earliest incarnations there's a strong tendency towards the latter. It is a character that is intentionally made by the author to be overly positive. They almost never have any flaws that actually affect them in a way that truly matters, usually going for endearing traits such as "clumsiness" or naïveté, instead getting overloaded with overwhelmingly positive but largely passive traits (i.e. beauty, innocence, etc.). The character will usually be soft-spoken, have a pleasant voice, and be mild-mannered. Often, the traits verge towards the ethereal, with auras, non-human lineage, and other such things.
Like all Mary Sues, she doesn't do enough to justify the positive response. And as usual it's the writer's fault. A character who would come off as wise and pure in the hands of a better writer, motivating the main characters in their down-time, turns into a smiling ditz who manages to convince people to do the right thing just because we are informed that she is wise and pure, and somehow she is the main character. She's usually cast as a passive motivator of other people, inspiring them to strive towards the author's goals by her very presence alone. Oh, sure, she might smile, offer encouragement, write articles, and other such things, but she gets such a disproportionately positive response that it soon breaks the Willing Suspension of Disbelief."
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/PuritySue
Thanks for describing purity sues for me.
I enjoyed Caer Azkaban when I first read the original (I'm not sure about any others by now) but I've tried to reread it in the past year and I don't know what I saw in it at the time.
I don't typically enjoy Super!Harry, but if I'm in the mood then I'll read it provided that it's written well.
I don't like stories where Harry acts like a "typical" American teenager/goes on about muggle music (I.E. Linkin Park, Slipknot, Disturbed, ect.) Harry is a British Wizard and has almost no connection to the muggle world outside of his Aunt and Uncle. (Not a trope but kinda kills the story for me. It just feels like the author is just trying to tell us what he likes.)
I enjoyed Caer Azkaban when I first read the original (I'm not sure about any others by now) but I've tried to reread it in the past year and I don't know what I saw in it at the time.
I don't typically enjoy Super!Harry, but if I'm in the mood then I'll read it provided that it's written well.
I don't like stories where Harry acts like a "typical" American teenager/goes on about muggle music (I.E. Linkin Park, Slipknot, Disturbed, ect.) Harry is a British Wizard and has almost no connection to the muggle world outside of his Aunt and Uncle. (Not a trope but kinda kills the story for me. It just feels like the author is just trying to tell us what he likes.)
Speaking of annoying cliches, completely ignorant wizards and Hermione acting as muggle encyclopedia. Both of those cliches got annoying really fast and are still ubiquitous. Let's be honest here, for all intents and purposes she quit muggle schooling when she was eleven. I sincerely doubt that they teach even half of the stuff fanon Hermione knows about at that point and being lonely bookworm can explain only so much. And if witches & wizards were as backwards & retarded as fanon likes to portray them, they wouldn't have been able to keep their existence a secret at all.
The "so-called expert" never claimed to be an expert, and was a Pureblood besides, so minimal exposure to the Muggle world in its entirety. There are, however, far too many Muggleborn and half-blood wizards and witches that know plenty about the Muggle world and can get by in there, and they arguably make up most of the population. The real issue is that a lot of authors completely ignore this and assume all magicals act like Purebloods and completely forgo the modern world. And if they were that idiotic, the wizarding world would've been exposed a long time ago.
God, I could write a whole seven-tome rant novel, about all the annoying cliches HP fics are full of. But that would be a rather poor reading material.
So lets skip that hour long part and just write the conclusion
- All kind of superpowers, bazilisk blood, heir of Slytherin/Gryffindor/Merlin stuff. Basically stories where Harry gets all kinds of mythical powers, which he then ends up using to ridicule everyone, and use in the dumbest of ways.
- Someone-or-other-takes-care-of-harry-and-fix-everything fics. Be it Snape, Dumbledor or Sirius Black, I have yet to see a fic like that which would make a compelling read. It's just basically fixing all the problems, using genre-savvy-omnipotence.
- The Stations of the Canon. All those fics that try to make all type of little or major changes, that could result in interesting story, but then the author goes to great and often ridiculous lenths to make yet more changes so that everything ends up going like in the canon. The Arithmancer comes to mind from the stuff I've been reading lately.
Well for the first two the idea alone isn't bad of itself. I wouldn't mind to read a story, where Harry actually has a good reason to end up with some potentially great power, the power has some drawbacks, or at least requires a lot of effort to control, and is used smartly to actually even out the field of a conflict with Voldemort. One of the main reasons I can't come up with a good story for a HP fic is that the only reason I can imagine for harry living past his first year in Hogwarts is that Voldemort is not interested in fighting him.
Someone taking care of Harry fic seems a bit harder to do right. Unless you go for family drama plots. But that's not really up my alley.
Ah it seems it turned into a rant anyway. Sorry about that
So lets skip that hour long part and just write the conclusion
- All kind of superpowers, bazilisk blood, heir of Slytherin/Gryffindor/Merlin stuff. Basically stories where Harry gets all kinds of mythical powers, which he then ends up using to ridicule everyone, and use in the dumbest of ways.
- Someone-or-other-takes-care-of-harry-and-fix-everything fics. Be it Snape, Dumbledor or Sirius Black, I have yet to see a fic like that which would make a compelling read. It's just basically fixing all the problems, using genre-savvy-omnipotence.
- The Stations of the Canon. All those fics that try to make all type of little or major changes, that could result in interesting story, but then the author goes to great and often ridiculous lenths to make yet more changes so that everything ends up going like in the canon. The Arithmancer comes to mind from the stuff I've been reading lately.
Well for the first two the idea alone isn't bad of itself. I wouldn't mind to read a story, where Harry actually has a good reason to end up with some potentially great power, the power has some drawbacks, or at least requires a lot of effort to control, and is used smartly to actually even out the field of a conflict with Voldemort. One of the main reasons I can't come up with a good story for a HP fic is that the only reason I can imagine for harry living past his first year in Hogwarts is that Voldemort is not interested in fighting him.
Someone taking care of Harry fic seems a bit harder to do right. Unless you go for family drama plots. But that's not really up my alley.
Ah it seems it turned into a rant anyway. Sorry about that