aisforamy

I am sad.

I have been reading a fic (Harry Potter and the Defiance of a Hero by Joe6991), which is actually a sequel to a fic that I really enjoyed (Harry Potter and the Sword of the Hero). The sequel started off well, with Harry being sent to an AU where his counterpart is dead, but his parents are alive. I was excited by the turn the storyline was taking, and was looking forward to seeing how Harry reacted to having parents and a brother and a sister. The first story was good enough that I thought that the author could pull it off.

But now, the storyline has just gone WAY over the top, and the author is trying out some new narrative-poetic-philosophical-whatevery type writing style than grates on my nerves like fingernails on a chalkboard. Harry has fought off Death Eaters, Voldemort, A demon, a pair of Nundus, and elite trained wizard hit men out for the bounty on his head (just to name a few). He’s sustained more injuries than I can count, including having one of his eyes ripped out by said Nundus.

The author has brought in demons from hell (literally), a new demon protagonist (as if Voldemort isn’t evil enough), and now magically modified Muggle weaponry and the end of ALL worlds (again, literally). Sigh. I don’t know where to begin to express my disappointment. The story had such a good beginning that when the battles started to seem a bit harsh, I overlooked it, thinking “Hey it’s his story, and he knows where he’s going with it.”

The author keeps claiming that he has an overall plan, and that we should just hang tight and bear with him to conclusion, but I don’t know if I want to. Even if at the end of this Harry wakes up and it was all a dream, it still happened, if you get my meaning. I’m losing interest FAST. My computer crashed when I was halfway done reading the last chapter, and I FORGOT to go back and finish it for three days. Yeah – I was that excited. Now, I just sort of skim through the chapters, anyway, and call it good. My problem is that I want to give the author the benefit of the doubt, because I’ve spent so much time faithfully following along up to this point, and he didn’t disappoint in the past until he got into this other crap.

I just don’t know if I should just chalk it up as a loss, or what. I want to see what’s going on in the world (“our” world) Harry left behind, which he should be getting back to in the third installment (it’s a planned trilogy).

Has anyone else been reading this and feel the same way? Reading it and feel differently? Sigh.

I started to feel sort of the same way about Harry Potter and the Power of Time, but at least Ross Wrock puts in a little levity now and then, which makes the improbability of Harry’s antics bearable… I don’t know if it’s me or if I’m just not in the mood lately for action-type fics. Blah.

Reviews

Megglett- Thanks! Connor’s made it clear enough to anyone in earshot that he didn’t want to go to the ball – I don’t think he needs to worry about being asked. I almost did slip something in, where Lupin asked him to go with a painfully shy girl in fourth year Ravenclaw, but nixed it pretty quickly, since it really didn’t have anything to do with the plot, and would have had people speculating on a relationship that wouldn’t happen. Snape can’t help but respect Connor’s love of Potions, and it doesn’t hurt that the thought of Connor taking extra classes with Snape makes Harry twitch. Still – there won’t be any one-on-one lessons with Snape until Christmas is over.

Link of the Day - Check this out! It’s the artist that does the illustrations from “Stealing Harry” by