Child Of Grace: Chapter 40 - Child Of Fate (Part 1)

[zelda_queen]

ZeldaQueen: Hello everyone, and welcome to another exciting horrendous boring as hell GODDAMMED INFURIATING sporking of Child of Grace! We're starting Holly's fourth year and boy howdy, is it a doozy! The only saving grace is that the suethor hasn't updated since she finished this year, so this very well may be the last of it. Or not. Only time

Comments

[anonymous]

You and Das_Mervin have done a wonderful job sporking this fic! I don't think even Ebony or Rose Potter are as bad as this selfish, hypocritical, reality warping Sue. While Rose made me groan and cringe in disgust, Holly actually makes me want to physically punch her in the face even if her toadies would kill me for it. It's actually hilariously ironic that the suethor tries to make the Sytherins nice but they're just as horrible as they are in canon because they preach tolerance and turn around and make fun of Weasleys for being poor and having too many kids.

On top of that, I'll freely admit my favorite fics tend to be For Want of Nail Alternate Universe fics but I do want the author's story to follow canon's logic. Why does Harry being a girl give him super special awesome powers? Why does it make diary!Voldemort not evil? Why does it make the Heir of Hufflepuff (XD lulz) kill muggleborns? Why does it make her remember things from when she was a baby? Why do the Dursleys beat her more than Harry? (One could make an argument Petunia may have been reminded of her sister, rather than James, and they could have been a little kinder.) Why does it get her sorted into Slytherin and completely ruin his character? Why is Holly so rude? Why does being a girl make Harry one of the most unlikeable characters ever?!!

*RRRRRRRRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGGGGGGGGGGGGGGEEEEEEEEE!!!!*

So thank you for persevering through this and showing the internet how horrid this mess is. If this gets any worse I might contemplate writing a short fic where canon!Harry is transported to this AU and, with the help of Ron, Hermione, and Neville, who he freed from her mind control, kills Holly. Thus liberating the world from her grasp and allowing the real Harry Potter she stashed in the cupboard to return.

[zelda_queen]

Oh, thank you! ^_^ Yeah, at least Ebony and Rose didn't pretend to be purity sues. Holly just whines and angsts and shrinks back and lets her friends beat up everyone for her. And you're right, the suethor wrote them right in character, but didn't mean to. I think she failed to gasp that concept.

I don't mind the idea, but if you're doing an AU fic, either have it that you totally follow canon or do everything differently. The suethor keeps trying to follow canon for things like Buckbeak's attack, but then she "solves" all of the problems too early and has to meld the canon she keeps with her original stuff. It just doesn't work. And you're right, just because Holly's a girl doesn't mean all of that stuff should have happened.

Oh, if you wrote that fic you would be a hero! Holly needs to die, and it needs to happen PAINFULLY, if only for what she's done and what she will do for the Yule Ball and everything else -_-

Me again

[ext_298336]

I think this author is the textbook example of what not to do while writing an AU. AU doesn't mean everything is better or more special. Another Brother, an Avatar the Last Airbender fic, does this by changing one big event in the past and showing the consequences, both good and bad. While Zuko, who was a main antagonist in the first season, is now allied with the heroes not everything is better for it. This is shown by events where Zuko's isn't always right. Heck, he gets one of their allies inadvertently captured, gets a village burnt down, and increases the danger to the group because his Uncle is now taking the mission personally since he thinks Zuko was kidnapped and turned against his family. All of which is interesting and believable while Holly knows too much and does nothing! When you really get down to it, this isn't an AU but some fangirl thinking she can fix the books and show J.K. Rowling up.

This fic really needs a tvtropes page so maybe this author can finally get some negative reviews on her story. Have you seen all the positive reviews? It's sickening that people actually LIKE this character.

Re: Me again

[zelda_queen]

Right, it's no better than Rose Potter and how Halcyon thought that if Harry was a girl, of *course* he'd have had a Muggle teacher who would have taught him martial arts! Um, no.

Agreed on that. And yeah, I've seen them. They really are just...augh! Although I don't think the author is TOTALLY oblivious to the Mary Sue claims, if one of her A/Ns is any indicator. XD

Re: Me again

[madamchaos]

Although I don't think the author is TOTALLY oblivious to the Mary Sue claims, if one of her A/Ns is any indicator. XD

Yee, that makes it worse. I mean, there's something almost kind of cute about an author who's only just dipping their toes into the water, or just hasn't really learned that sort of thing Is Not Done-- at least there's the excuse of ignorance, and usually they'll figure out what they're doing isn't really the best of things, and they'll work on fixing things up. Even one of the more infamous Suethors that I'm aware of is making a concerted effort to fix his characters and give them flaws. He's not doing so well -- a decade of an army of sycophants crooning praise will make it hard to want to change -- but by god he's trying, at least, and I can respect him for that.

So when the Suethor knows what they're doing and just refuses to do better... geez. When I first recognized the term 'self-insert' and Mary Sue (age thirteen), I went out of my way to make sure that the characters would be well-adjusted and human. You don't just say "Yeah... yeah, I know. OH SHE'S ALSO TELEKINETIC." You say "Yeah... yeah, she kind of is overpowered, isn't she?" and then introduce kryptonite/an enemy immune to her powers/a character arc where she suffers consequences/a sharp rock to the temple.

Re: Me again

[zelda_queen]

Oh, her excuse for Holly is just HILARIOUS. I won't say it here, for fear of spoiling the surprise. Suffice to say she is forced to acknowledge how Mary Sue her character is, sidesteps it in the most deliberately oblivious way possible, and I nearly chocked laughing when I read it.

[beacon80]

I have to agree. For Want of a Nail can lead to fascinating stories, but this isn't Harry Potter with one change. This is a completely new story that just steals as much as it can from Harry Potter. So it really fails in both ways. Things completely unrelated to the nail change, but despite all of these changes, nothing important happens differently.

The most blatant example of this is Pettigrew. Just about every "I Can Do It Better" fic ends with them catching Pettigrew, because they're so awesome. But he'll always escape, because the plot demands that he helps bring Voldemort back in the next book.