Categories > Books > Harry Potter > Valar Morghulis
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Valar Morghulis
(#) COLD1 2013-09-25
I'll hold off rating this until you get a beta. As is, it jumps from point to point, the grammar is atrocious and it looks to need a decent bit of work.
Also, I've read longer ingredient panels on cereal boxes...Author's response
Yep, need a beta.Valar Morghulis
(#) Ashestoashes 2013-09-26
Grammarwise I found the first chapter the easiest to read. It was not completely free of mistakes but it was of a normal quality. After that it went downhill. I guess you speak a Slavic language or another language without articles? Either you need to read up on articles, or you need a beta who speaks a language with articles. The possessive 's could use a bit of work too.
Storywise the chapters are a bit short, certainly the first ones, and some things would have been better if they'd been a bit more worked out.
For me, the Sixskins-Harry part stands out, negatively. Now it's a quite useless part of the story (while being more than half of the story so far). Other than eventually teaching Harry changing, nothing interesting or necessary happens. We learn a bit about the Harry of this story, but three chapters for this? And for a big part about a character that I assume is useless for the rest of the story? (That's not to say he can't be used, but combining his part into one chapter would already help. And if you could let it make more sense and flesh it out, that would be even better.)
And depending on how Harry arrived in the GoT world, even the changing lesson is useless. But I guess from the hint that he was enslaved, that he didn't live through those 2000 years while honing his skills but inexplicably not learning changing? If he did, he's even more useless than canon. How did he even keep his wand then, or is it selfmade or otherwise not his original?
Anyway, the story jumps a bit too much with too little meat on the bones of the chapters, and I'm left with too many questions. Why did Harry even kill the animals? Why didn't he catch Sixskins lying when he said he hadn't taken over a human yet, while Harry completely saw through him when they met?
The story has potential, even like it is now, but most of it is squandered. The story telling is mostly good, though article-less and short and sometimes a bit confusing in the dialogs, for example, in the Harry-Mance dialog.
Oh, and if it's possible perhaps you could correct the warnings? I didn't see any "graphic sexual content" in the first chapter.Author's response
I am unfortunately from part of world where speaking English is frowned upon. I have taught myself because of the obvious reasons. So my grammer teacher are some boring books. I admit that sixskin part is useless but that was first thing I ever wrote in English, I couldn't not publish it. Warning is to intice the cirtain type of readers :-). Thank you for your review. Hopefully I will get a good beta who can save this story grammatically. Dont worry about plot, I will not disappoint any reader. All things will become clear such as wtf is harry doing up north, when he came to this world, why learn skinchanging, how much magic can he do, is his wooden stick functional, why is he playing the game of thrones. Perhaps you can help me find a beta who is ready clean my dirty grammar.
And when did harry kill the animals? sixskins is paranoid bastard to assume that.Valar Morghulis
(#) ralphmullins 2013-09-26
Interesting chapter. Have you thought of making Harry a animagus (Able to change back and forth from a animal to a humane at will.)? Are you going to have him onw his own land and run it? Say Winter-Fell perhaps?Valar Morghulis
(#) Ashestoashes 2013-09-26
Your question illustrates the problem you have in the story of not enough fleshing out and background. As far as I remember, correct me if I'm wrong, you never in any way refuted that Harry killed Sixskins' animals, not by showing the animals still alive, nor by having Harry deny that he killed them, and that in a timespan of several days (or even weeks?) that he was learning changing. The only conclusion for the reader then is that the animals are dead. Further confirmed by Sixskins' apparent uselessness to the King.
Your question (and its suggestion of the animals not being dead) also brings up the question: how did Harry lose the King the use of Sixskins? Is that another part of the story you didn't show, the killing of Sixskins? Because if he still has his animals (like you seem to be hinting at), he should be of use to the King. And even if he doesn't have his animals anymore, why would the loss of one measly limb (which btw Harry in your story is said to be able to heal as far as rumors go about him) make him lose his powers and make him useless to the King other than temporarily not having animals?Valar Morghulis
(#) Valardohaeris 2013-09-26
Ok I get it. More flesh to story. Too much plot untold. maybe some sidechapters to show what is going on elsewhere?Valar Morghulis
(#) Ashestoashes 2013-09-27
The only requirement is a coherent story. If those sidechapters tell things that could or even should have been told in the main story, then you don't have a coherent story.
I think most of the points up above were things I missed in the main story. I don't know what you precisely mean with "sidechapters" or what you would plan to tell in them, but for now I could only imagine the death of Sixskins to be a "sidechapter" IF it was NOT done by Harry. And if that doesn't even have a four figure word count, it's more of a "sidescene" to be added somewhere in a chapter. For example, at the top like you do now, though so far that seems to be more of a place for Harry's earlier history.
If with "sidechapters" you mean chapters completely from the point of view of different characters, something like the books, then by all means. Though then they aren't really sidechapters but just the way of telling the story. Which btw you already did, because as far as I remember you have already had Sixskins and Jon as main points of view so far. (And then you've perhaps even more reason to put the Sixskins chapters together in one chapter.)Valar Morghulis
(#) CarcinoGeneticist 2013-09-28
Does Varamyr Sixskins die in a Dance for Dragons, though? Or is this set before?
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