It may not be obvious to people who have never heard of the idea of fanfiction. For example, a parent catches their child reading a story they consider highly inappropriate and then says something along the lines of "But Mom, it's just Harry Potter!" and then suddenly facebook is full of posts about how in the eight Harry Potter book he's a sociopathic serial killer.

Of course, the overly cutesy disclaimers are going to be far less effective at preventing that sort of scenario, so they're completely missing the point.

 

Against such concerned parents complete fucktards even the best disclaimer's not gonna do jack shit.

 

I don't like Sirius being potrayed as a sex-god womanizer. We have no evidence from canon about this and we have no information about Sirius' school years other than he was a prankster.

As far as we know, Sirius was a kissless virgin

 

You misspelled Snape, bro. Right?

I really hope you misspelled Snape.

 

Blame A Black Comedy for Sirius' now cliche characterization. I sure do.

 

Nah, Snape is even worse.

 

The sad thing is, if he had actually misspelt Snape, that sentence would still have made perfect sense

Actually, fuck fanfiction some times.

 

You're basically right, Xandrel, but there are instances in the books that led readers to see him that way. His good looks were emphasized whenever we saw a young Sirius, like in "Snape's Worst Memory", where Harry thinks some girl is looking at him "hopefully" during the exam. I guess this Flanderization happens because we really don't know too much about him.

And glamorizing Snape is the worst. Especially when he's shown living in a huge "Snape Manor". You know what I'm talking about.

 

Posted before, but it does sum up Snape in fanon

http://th06.deviantart.net/fs10/PRE/i/2006/157/8/d/Canon_Vs_Fanon_Snape_by_zorm.jpg

 

Just out of curiosity - is Snape with facial hair canon? I mean, it's more likely than not, what with his questionable grooming practices, but I don't remember coming across it.

 

In the books all the chapters that had his face in the illustration had a goatee mustache.

 

You know, the ones that called it the sorcerer's stone.

 

Sirius: "Goddammit, Moony, I'm 30 and the closest I ever got to a kiss was from a freaking Dementor"

 

I've said it before but I'll say it again:

House Points. I just read the first chapter of a story (that shall remain nameless) in which Harry loses 1000 points in one go.

Piss off. The largest individual point-loss in canon is 50 and that was considered so terrible that people were shunned by classmates as a result.

It's basically the same as all those fics that have Harry inherit 80 gazillion Galleons. Some authors just have no idea when to stop adding zeroes. Bigger numbers don't add anything to a story if they're just numbers. Don't do it.

No. Inheriting a billion Galleons isn't better than inheriting a million of them. Bigger numbers don't make a story better. Instead what happens is that the numbers become less and less personal and familiar to the reader, they lose all meaning.

 

Inheritances in general tend to be very exaggerated and usually serve no purpose to the story. Harry Potter isn't a story about money, it's a story about magic. Let the Malfoys care about money. And don't get me started on Super Power inheritances.

While we're on Indy!Harry cliches... the word "training". As in "Harry receives training over the summer from Sirius/Salazar Slytherin/Merlin/Dracula/Herpo The Foul". It's never "learning magic", it's "training in magic", and for some reason that word always evokes images of sweatshirts in my mind.

Overall, I'd say that lack of subtlety is what makes 99% of all fics terrible.

 

While I admit I am a bit partial to Harry being fairly rich - though it can go so far overboard it's not even funny. I actually really like the Malfoys being even richer, like massively so. It was one of the things I really liked in 'Hit the Ground Running', that they have too much money for their own good and Lucius is absolutely brilliant at obtaining and using it.

It's really pretty lame when Harry is made to be super rich and everyone makes it clear how much richer he is than the Malfoys. That's a big part of who the Malfoys are and removing that harms their characters a bit I feel.

 

I actually prefer it when he's not rich. For one, I identify with the character better. But more importantly, what does money really add to the story? A shortcut for buying shit?

Boring.

A lack of disposable funds mean he has to get creative about acquiring things. It's one hell of a roadblock, which adds tension to anything - nothing makes Mommy and Daddy argue more than overspending and no money to cover it. Maybe the Potters were rich, but lost it in the last war. Maybe Harry has debt collectors after him. Maybe the Ministry is looking for reparations for damages inflicted during his fifth year break in.

Be inventive for fuck's sake.

Telling me Harry's rich is an automatic red X from me. I'm just not invested.

 

The best stories seem to barely mention his wealth at all to be honest. But if they do, I'd rather he be well off than have nothing. Personal preference, I can see how having nothing could work too.

 

Having him well off means they can get away with not mentioning his wealth since any time it would come up it's immediately solved by him having in fact enough money.

 

I don't see anything wrong with Harry being disgustingly rich as long as that's actually a key part of the plot and not just random shit thrown in for no reason (Harry Potter and the Fifth Element comes to mind as an example of it being relevant in interesting ways). If it's not relevant, then of course it should just be the canon amount of too much for him to have to worry about money, but too little for him to be able to use his wealth for things.