Voldemort's daughter and other bad!fic cliches
As some of you know, one of my biggest interests when it comes to fanfic writing is the whole area of bad!fic cliches and how to write them well. hildy and I have been working on a community to tackle that which I really want to get back to, we had some wonderful ideas and then I got really sick with the GI stuff and had to set it aside.
With that in mind, I'd be really curious to hear from some of you on this issue. What do you think are the worst badfic cliche plots? Are there any that you think could actually be interesting if done right? (I think I'll submit this to fanthropology, I might get a lot more answers there.) Specific-fandom cliches are welcome, but the thing that I'm mostly looking for are pan-fandom cliches (the dreaded high school AU, for instance) that would be appropriate for a multifandom community.
For some reason, this stuck in my head last night. Is it even possible? And if so, is there any way a plot with that as an element could be written well? My thought is that if he did sire a child it would most likely have been before the Head Boy became Dark Lord, and the child would be 50-ish by the Trio era, which rules out everyone's Mary Sues. Likely possibilities are two: that the mother is a Death Eater or that the mother is simply another Hogwarts student. As there has been no Heir of Voldemort mentioned in canon, I'd think that the first possibility is rather remote, unless the mother went into seclusion after Voldemort's defeat and raised the child in secret. I still think it's unlikely, somehow I can't see him bedding his followers once he became the Dark Lord-- at that point magic and power are all the mistresses he needs.
I do think the second possibility has potential, though. Attractive, intelligent, accomplished, and popular Tom Riddle would have no shortage of female interest at Hogwarts, and I can easily see him using sex as one means to secure alliances. I can't see him having some kind of schmoopy teenage romance, sex to the Heir of Slytherin is a means to an end. One scenario I can imagine is that he gets another student pregnant just before he finishes school. She does the "entended visit to care for aging Aunt Martha" type of thing typical to a pregnant teenager of the time, and when she realizes what Tom Riddle is, goes into permanent hiding. (Who would want to admit to bearing You-Know-Who's child? What's worse, a community under siege finding out you've had the enemy's baby, or You-Know-Who coming back to either take or kill the child?) This child would have no idea of his or her parentage. The twist that has parked itself in my brain is that the mother of the child gave her up for adoption to a Muggle couple (what better way to hide someone? it worked well for Harry...) and that Voldemort's daughter is a Squib. Fifty years later, the woman-- a talented, successful executive-- faces the prospect of a magical child and a Hogwarts letter. She might become interested in her birth parents, wanting to know where these magical genes came from. Assuming there is a way for her to find out, I wonder what she would do at that point, would she send her child to a school under attack by her evil grandfather? Would she tell anyone at all? The interesting part to me is figuring out what kinds of situations might arise over this secret, and what ways Voldy's grandchild could become a pawn to each side.
What do you folks think? Something to file away for future reference in the Plotbunny Storage Facility, or better off simply forgotten?
With that in mind, I'd be really curious to hear from some of you on this issue. What do you think are the worst badfic cliche plots? Are there any that you think could actually be interesting if done right? (I think I'll submit this to fanthropology, I might get a lot more answers there.) Specific-fandom cliches are welcome, but the thing that I'm mostly looking for are pan-fandom cliches (the dreaded high school AU, for instance) that would be appropriate for a multifandom community.
For some reason, this stuck in my head last night. Is it even possible? And if so, is there any way a plot with that as an element could be written well? My thought is that if he did sire a child it would most likely have been before the Head Boy became Dark Lord, and the child would be 50-ish by the Trio era, which rules out everyone's Mary Sues. Likely possibilities are two: that the mother is a Death Eater or that the mother is simply another Hogwarts student. As there has been no Heir of Voldemort mentioned in canon, I'd think that the first possibility is rather remote, unless the mother went into seclusion after Voldemort's defeat and raised the child in secret. I still think it's unlikely, somehow I can't see him bedding his followers once he became the Dark Lord-- at that point magic and power are all the mistresses he needs.
I do think the second possibility has potential, though. Attractive, intelligent, accomplished, and popular Tom Riddle would have no shortage of female interest at Hogwarts, and I can easily see him using sex as one means to secure alliances. I can't see him having some kind of schmoopy teenage romance, sex to the Heir of Slytherin is a means to an end. One scenario I can imagine is that he gets another student pregnant just before he finishes school. She does the "entended visit to care for aging Aunt Martha" type of thing typical to a pregnant teenager of the time, and when she realizes what Tom Riddle is, goes into permanent hiding. (Who would want to admit to bearing You-Know-Who's child? What's worse, a community under siege finding out you've had the enemy's baby, or You-Know-Who coming back to either take or kill the child?) This child would have no idea of his or her parentage. The twist that has parked itself in my brain is that the mother of the child gave her up for adoption to a Muggle couple (what better way to hide someone? it worked well for Harry...) and that Voldemort's daughter is a Squib. Fifty years later, the woman-- a talented, successful executive-- faces the prospect of a magical child and a Hogwarts letter. She might become interested in her birth parents, wanting to know where these magical genes came from. Assuming there is a way for her to find out, I wonder what she would do at that point, would she send her child to a school under attack by her evil grandfather? Would she tell anyone at all? The interesting part to me is figuring out what kinds of situations might arise over this secret, and what ways Voldy's grandchild could become a pawn to each side.
What do you folks think? Something to file away for future reference in the Plotbunny Storage Facility, or better off simply forgotten?