You can have a good Harry/Fleur fic without resorting to comedy. Yes, TLIL was humor, but that didn't take away from the actual pairing; it just made the story that much more enjoyable to read. Whether Fleur is funny or not depends on the author and the tone of the story. It's possible for Fleur to be serious, independent, intelligent, etc., but that's only going to happen if the story isn't utter trash. Eighty percent of Harry/Fleur stories are horribly written soul bond shit that are prime for mocking.

Anyway, Fleur has an accent - duh. I can take her seriously because I'm not reading Harry/Fleur stories for her conversation skills; I'm reading for the actual pairing. However, I agree that some authors over-do it, but you can't have it all. Perhaps this makes me an idiot, but I find Fleur pronouncing Harry like she does almost endearing; certainly, she wouldn't be Fleur Delacour if she pronounced it correctly.

 

Fleur is unimpressed with Harry's performance in the first task, she neglects to realize she was far from impressive against her dragon. She feels that he, more than Krum and Diggory, needs to be forced out the competition. She finds out about the second task beforehand (even better if she doesn't figure the egg out, but begs her Madame Maxime for a hint) and sets out to, if nothing else, beat Harry. Early on she had planned to do something? anything! to him in order to slow him down or beat him, but instead she gets held back by the grindylows.

Sitting on the dock ashamed of herself and feeling horrible that her little sister is left underwater, she's crying when she sees Ron pop up. A little sickened she stands up to walk away from the dock when she sees the head of her little sister pop out of the water. Relief and a growing wonder strikes her until within fifteen seconds, out plops Harry Potter looking tired but no worse for wear.

From there she apologizes and thanks him, and he accepts without much fanfare.

 

Which she finds insulting because she just apologised to this boy and he acts like he doesn't even care, and Fleur hates apologising.

Of course, that'd just lead to more arguments, but at least they're interacting!

 

Arguing does not tend to lead to real relationships, no matter how JKR created the Hermione/Ron relationship. One part constantly teasing and infuriating the other part on the other hand, works perfectly well.

 

You can't formulate how to best use Fleur based on one story. In D&R she was raped [which was imo a bad move, but whatever], so it was obviously not shit and giggles, and yet the author made it work.

Also, Bungle's Fleur could have become H/F, and while she was amusing at times, I wouldn't say that she's a comic relief.

 

Hermione and Ron are fucking idiots and I refuse to compare their relationship to Harry and Fleur's. However, Harry and Fleur did argue in Lie and manage to get together. I agree: Harry teases Fleur, she loses her temper and tackles Harry to the ground ensuing snogging. ... Why does that sound like a bad Lily/James story? Goddamn, you just can't win!

Agreed. Fleur's accent makes her even more sexy, and removing it would be considered sacrilegious.

 

You got a point with TLIL, I'll admit temporary defeat just this once.

Easy solution, don't read Lily/James. Harry/Lily is just so much more :awesome .

Yes, to a point. Removing the pronunciation of 'Arry earns you a sentence in Azkaban. The trap many authors implementing Fleur falls into are overdoing the accent until it's almost unreadable, keep it somewhat legible.

 

Deal. Luckily, I haven't read that shit for a while, and thus, nightmares and wretching don't keep me up at night.

Agreed. I will hunt down every fucking author who has Fleur pronounce Harry correctly. The accent is a work of art, and the penalty for messing with that is a lifetime with Ginny.

 

Even though many authors overdo it with Fleur, she still gets better treatment than poor Hagrid.

In a lot of the fics I've read lately, I'm not even sure what language Hagrid is speaking.

 

What if they're speaking French?

 

That fucking accent is a precarious balance.

Rule of thumb:

Any word with an 'ah' sound at the beginning, drop the H: ie 'Arry, 'ave, 'as.

it = eet

this = zis

is = iz

Her English is never a constant, too, so there's a lot of room to maneuveur when her emotions are brought into play. It can strengthen and wane depending on her mood.

 

A sentence containing "zis iz" can be annoying aswell, feels like too much imo. Might want to skip using accent on both word on consecutive "this" and "is" unless she's agitated. Otherwise a good rule of thumb.

 

Aye, the key word being 'agitated'. Good writing if done well, continuity problems if done poorly.

 

Wouldn't Harry then be Henri?

(Forgive me for my ignorance of the French language...)

EDIT: Like the sig, by the way, enembee.

 

Cheers and no, Harry is still his name after all. I was just wondering if it was still necessary to have 'Arry when everything else is fluent French presented as English, just to make it a little easier on the reader.

 

As a general rule of thumb, names will never change even when speaking different languages.

For example, Fleur will never be flower when she's speaking english.

@NMB. Don't bother adding the H. The H doesn't become magically easier to pronounce when speaking French.

 

Nah, it's not necessary. When Fleur is speaking English, however, I demand 'Arry.

On a side note: DLP has some weird - and slightly disturbing - smilies.

 

I'll agree with Dark Belra, the pronunciation of the name won't change whatever language you speak. Harry is a purely english name from a french point of view, ergo the pronunciation of the name stands. Whilst pretending to write french however, french accent in general is just obviously retarded. In conclusion, 'Arry should still be used when writing "french".

On a previous post, whilst you do not change the persons name on a country to country basis, the french equivalent of Harry is indeed Henri.

 

That's what I thought, but I wasn't sure. Thanks for clearing that up.

So what do you guys think about Fleur not being in movie six?