Review for Harry Potter and the New Powers

Harry Potter and the New Powers

(#) atom-of-ice 2009-05-12

Well, I guess I get to be the asshole.

Reading this was like a cliche trainwreck in the sense that it was so full of overused plot holes that I couldn't pull myself away until chapter 5. Any one of these (heir of merlin, heir of the founders, ultra rich, uber-nice goblins, ultra powerful) can be done well; but when you throw them all together at once there's really only one way the story can go. Any problems you put Harry in just aren't because there is nothing big enough at that point to challenge him. You can whip out a convenient solution to any plot twist from any number of holes and just blame it on the setup you did in the first three chapters with barely a sentence to explain it. If there aren't any real problems then it just becomes a mad lib (pick three romantic interests for Harry, pick four magic sounding verbs, pick five characters to rip to shreds, etc. ...fill in the blanks as indicated). I think you could do much better if you picked one of these that really struck your fancy and stuck to it or if you can't live without them perhaps rewrite complications into Harry claiming his positions.

I think you're falling into an easy trap with fanfiction (all writing really but especially easy for us who play in the Harry Potter fandom) you've decided that Harry gets kicked around enough by JKR and you treat him with kid gloves. It makes for a wonderful fairytale ending that ends up rotting your teeth it's so sweet but Harry shines because he is Fate's litter box and Destiny's whipping boy. You can do anything to him and reasonably expect him to come back even more badass than ever so don't be afraid to write out some mistakes for Harry to learn from.

Take that as you will I suppose but as much as I'm a total sucker for happy endings I feel like Harry should at least pay lip service to earning them.