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• Like Some Song You Can't Unlearn

  (#) iwantmynickffs 2007-08-14

  Apart from the last chapter being formatted in an utterly deformed way well..
  
  I've enjoyed the righteousness of what Harry is doing, trying to fix the issues of his past.
  But as you yourself say, it's starting to get preachy with these discussions. Including morals about right and wrong in a fic usually isn't a very good idea unless it's absolutely essential to the plot. I personally don't agree with your reasoning at all and I feel like your Harry's a Gary Stu. Nobody calls upon his bullshit.
  
  I mean personally I have a beef with people turning the dark arts into some politically misunderstood whine fest. Canon-wise you have to want to cause real pain to your target. Hardly something a healer would do. If you wished to jumpstart a heart then there should be more localized spells you can use. Crucio is after all triggering every single nerv in your body.
  
  Then again, your description of what the dark arts in your universe is just you using your artistic license. If you want magic to be a blank slate where the dark arts doesn't require you to invest emotionally then fine.
  You did end there with dark arts being something most "evil" wizards used often and you started mentioning the ease with which you could do the wrong thing for the right reasons. I've tried rereading it several times but I still can't make heads or tails of what exactly you were trying to convey. Because in the end you are hinting that the dark arts magic is corrupted and that goes fully against what you said earlier.
  
  I'm getting the feeling that Harry wishes to be an anarchist but you should know that there is a reason why that doesn't work on a wider scale. Government as inherantly evil? That's a very cynical view if I've ever seen one. You should make a distinction between the institution and what it stands for and it's servants, the difference is quite absolute.
  And how the hell was "society" supposed to save Cedric? And for that matter, no matter how incompetent the wizarding aurors are, without aurors there would be absolutely nothing to keep order. And without a society we'd all live in groups of families with what we can grow ourselves. And I don't know about you but I'd rather live together with all the benefits and responsibilities that demands.
  
  

  Author's response

  Cynical? Me?? You bet your ass.
  
  Your positions mirror Hermione's in my story very closely but I feel the actions of the Ministry in canon through all 7 books support my position far more than yours. Government is, at best, an ammoral entity whose primary goal is its own continuation and advancement.
  
  Personally, I feel that Jefferson said it best: That Government governs best which governs least. Or put another way, and I can not remember who said it, Government is like fire, a fearful servant and a dreadful master.
  
  BJH

• Like Some Song You Can't Unlearn

  (#) toranosuke 2007-08-14

  Really good story, it's interesting and believable even though I must agree and say it's been a bit preachy lately. I hope to see some direct interaction with Voldemort sometime soon, the DE's have been too quiet.

• Like Some Song You Can't Unlearn

  (#) Sch1av0na 2007-08-14

  Personally, I like to be seen as a good guy to Odysseus/Harry, but I could care less what the Order thought of me.
  
  Well maybe Tonks opinion would matter some. :-)
  
  I also want to agree with Alorkin's comments about Harry's lectures. If anyone knows what that slippery slope between doing what is easy and doing what is right is like it would be Harry at this time.
  
  I love what you've done for Luna, and how you've managed to teach Hermione that it's not necessary to show that you know the answer to every question. I couldn't care less about Ron and I'm neutral on Ginny other than getting the Diary away from her in order to destroy it.
  
  Thanks
  Chris
  
  

• Like Some Song You Can't Unlearn

  (#) thomaswatts 2007-08-14

  I quite enjoy this story, specially the evolution of Harry's character. He finally did come to terms that this universes Hermione is not the old one. However, he still seems a little hard on Ron as well as Dumbledore, but Snape still seems to be a massive pile of feces.
  I hope you do well to remember that all of them are still only human, even Harry.
  I still wonder about the choice of Narcissa as the original motivational target? I'm just waiting for the eventual B-E-T-R-A-Y-A-L.

  Author's response

  Ah, but will Narcissa betray Harry or will Harry betray her?
  
  BJH

• Like Some Song You Can't Unlearn

  (#) banner 2007-08-15

  Yes, Harry is spending a lot of time lecturing on philosophy, but he's teaching. In fact, he's teaching the students to think, and that's terrific. His points are well-thought-out and well presented. Hogwarts doesn't teach logic or ethics; Harry is filling in a major gap. Besides, he's interesting. I love his stance on many issues. Personally, I think that Defense (as opposed to DADA) should probably include some sort of objective analysis of the Prophet...
  Great job, as always.

• Like Some Song You Can't Unlearn

  (#) wolf550e 2007-08-15

  The new chapter (http://www.ficwad.com/story/73973), seems to have been double html character entity encoded.
  
  Probably the author submitted html and it was "cleaned" by something evil that assumed the submitted stuff is user input from a textbox.
  
  Please work with the site to have it fixed.

  Author's response

  Actually, the writer simply cut and pasted from a word document and the encoder no longer interprets it correctly. Simply converting it to a text file and uploading that way didn't resolve the issue, as you can plainly see. Seeing how widespread the problem is with newly posted chapters I am assuming the code folks are already working on it.
  
  BJH

• Like Some Song You Can't Unlearn

  (#) Geovanni_Luciano 2007-08-15

  Well, I wouldn't go so far as to create a Snape/Lily dynamic, however you might re-explore their checkered past, or bring it up in quiet, yet overheard, conversation. As far as the Dumbledore, sister's guilt angle, yes, that's worthy to exploit as well, but never forget as much as the manipulative!dumbledore stories really do prevail, it's actually canon, now, thanks to JKR. Let him reap the rewards of his meddling.
  
  Geovanni Luciano

• Like Some Song You Can't Unlearn

  (#) pi3142 2007-08-15

  Thank you for the effort to make this story stimulating to the mind. I certainly appreciate it.

• Like Some Song You Can't Unlearn

  (#) anubite 2007-08-18

  I love this story. I've always loved teacher protagonists, but I've never had much luck with writing them. They always seem to be full of themselves.
  
  REST ASSURED, you are not doing this. Harry's coming more off as "I'm jaded, but I've got some pretty common logic to share with you guys". The lectures are written well, so Harry comes across as a high school teacher wanting to challenge his students. I have had teachers like him, so I do believe you have done nothing of the sort.
  
  Although I do have a bit of a quandary with Harry's assessment of Dark/Light. Perhaps it is simply because you have not approached this yet – but – with Harry's current stance, he should just come right out and say, "Good and Evil are one in the same, we only identify them by only human distinctions, the universe has yet to give us something that is actually good or evil,". If you really want to make Harry give up the lectures and move into practical training (which I assumed is what Harry had planned to do – theory and ethics on magic and then teach them how to shit fire), don't leave the main point so subtly hidden.
  
  Moments I particularly liked in this fic so far were: McGonagall's apology (unexpected), Harry's "A stopped watch is always right twice a day," (I'm not sure if you heard this somewhere or you made it up, but it's brilliant), and Harry's passing comment "Tom doesn't bother you when you fly," (again unexpected, one where I hit my head and was like "d'oh!").
  
  Sad to see somebody already got the challenge. I was gonna come up with a good name too.
  
  I await the next chapter with anticipation.

• Like Some Song You Can't Unlearn

  (#) zaxxon 2007-08-19

  For some reason, in what I see of chapter 13, the quotation marks aren't coming through, instead I see a ampersand followed by numbers and a semi-colon.

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