Hogwarts Too Exposed Chapter 23
Hogwarts Exposed has trouble with pacing, to put it mildly. In the first fic, Chapter 23 had so little going on that the author himself forgot all about it. At least there we had Harry and Hermione's wedding still impending, so we knew that the story was heading for a conclusion of sorts. The end of the last chapter of Too Exposed, by contrast,
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No kidding. Whenever I read these pointless arcs and the like, I keep feeling like Neil was trying, and failing miserably, to replicate JKR's method of having each book possess their own self-contained plot of sorts while at the same time leaving it apparent that there was an overarching story tying it all together.
In Sorcerer's Stone, there was the eponymous stone and the hunt for it that properly introduced us to Voldemort.
Chamber of Secrets had the threat of the Heir of Slytherin and the chamber, which introduced us to Horcruxes as well as expanding Voldemort's backstory and at the same time maintaining his threat(in this case, the independent part of his soul almost gaining a body of its own and, for all intents and purposes, bringing Voldemort back to life).
Prisoner of Azkaban started the process of maturing the series while at the same time foreshadowing Voldemort's return as the tie-in to the overarching plot while the main, self-contained plot pertained to Sirius, his hunt for Pettigrew, and Harry's journey to find out the truth of his parents' death.
Goblet of Fire's independent plot was the Triwizard Tournament, which also tied into the plot with it being the culmination of Voldemort's return to power by subtly manipulating events behind the scenes through Crouch.
Order of the Phoenix dealt with Harry's struggle against being discredited by the Ministry and how the Ministry was now actively interfering with his life at Hogwarts to see to it the truth of Voldemort's return was suppressed, which again tied into Voldemort's plot to recover the prophecy pertaining to himself and Harry.
Then there was Half-Blood Prince and the supposed truth of Snape's allegiance all along. Simultaneously, you had Harry's discovery of Voldemort's Horcruxes and his subsequent discovery of a method with which he could finally defeat Voldemort.
And then everything came together and was neatly wrapped up with Deathly Hallows.
And here, we see Neil attempting and failing MISERABLY to replicate that method of storytelling by giving us meaningless subplot after meaningless subplot that are all resolved with anticlimaxes while the overarching story of the HE series as a whole(the Great One, her conspiracy to revive Salazar Slytherin) is left entirely in the background and only comes to the forefront when Neil would just haphazardly toss it into the spotlight with all the subtlety of an anvil; like the idiotic kidnapping subplot in the first one(not to mention Damian calling the Minister of Magic by her title, said title being what she's known as to the wizarding public as a terrorist, at a very large public wedding) and the stupid bombing subplot of this one. But, as we've all pointed out before, none of those subplots had any far-reaching consequences whatsoever and were neatly resolved within chapters of their happening.
Just...wow. And this series has fans!? REALLY!?
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