FanficRecs Moving comments to reviews
- Comments: An interesting take on the Super!Harry cliche. Harry gets dark, but not too quickly. Interesting plans and politics. Recommended for all HarryXGinny fans.
FanficRecs Interesting premise...
Aspiration is nine years old, but spoiler alert anyways. Basically, you know that cliche about how Dumbledore has so much power that he's begun to play god with his subjects? The cliche about how Harry's one of his pawns, just figured it out, and wants to break out of whatever is planned for him?
Combine all that with a touch of slippery slope, and you have Aspirations. If one looks at this fic as a sort of twisted, poetic irony of becoming the monster while fighting one, it's not so bad. If I look at this story as the progression of Harry's slide into slowly becoming what he hates, it's a decent read (if dry). I'm not sure if the author intended it to be that way, but it adds a little something to a fic that feels very God Stu-esque.
FanficRecs Why did we dredge this up.
I too was amazed that this fic popped back up as I was one of the others who supported its takedown. There are many subjects I dislike in fanfiction and there are many fics I turned away from after the first page. This one is neither. It teases, ever so slightly, at depth that just isn't there. This fic's crime is that it isn't terrible, but it is absolutely uninspired. It tells us nothing, it challenges nothing, it accomplishes nothing. Which is impressive considering it's length. There's nothing more horrendous than a story about nothing, and that's what, ironically, aspirations is. A story that that stays as flat as a soda left out in 100 degree weather. This is part of 99% worth passing over and doesn't belong on this page by any means.
FanficRecs Such promise wasted...
I was one of the people that had this recommendation removed back in March 2010 and I don't regret it. Ultimately this story is about Harry becoming a God Mode Sue with blatant character bashing left and right. What Harry (and by extension Ginny) says is right is right and nothing stops them at all. It toys with redeeming people then just gives up for no reason. There are better fanfics out there and this one isn't worth the time.
FanficRecs Entertaining enough but has serious problems.
This was an interesting premise. I wanted to like it. However the constant grammar errors got on my nerves after a while. The author badly needed a beta to recover all the words that would randomly go missing or be wrong.
As for the story itself, the Hermione bashing went a little overboard at times, especially when she slipped Harry love potion so he would stop hanging around Ginny so much and then got addicted to dark magic so she could murder Ginny and "win back" Harry. Though she acknowledges that she messed up badly and showed real remorse for it, she was the only person who had anything resembling character development rather than wish fulfillment (after some serious character derailment). Ron the Death Eater shows up in spades, as he only ever appeared in the story to complain about Harry getting everything handed to him, even when Harry has been working hard to get his desired results. The author's attempt at lampshade hanging by having someone complain (rightly so) that he's acting just like Draco Malfoy regarding Harry only served to underline how little he added to the story after he broke ties with Harry and never got over it.
Harry himself seems to be a bit unbelievable. Super!Harry fics can be done well but Harry seems to go from idealistic, if naive hero to manipulative bastard that has everyone from Fudge to Dumbledore playing right into his hands damn near overnight. All because - of course - Ron and Hermione were holding him back. Add to this his laundry list of impossible achievements, from resurrecting someone perfectly with the Resurrection Stone (not a shade, but an actual flesh and blood person) to having defacto control over Hogwarts as the High Inquisitor to conquering Gringots overnight - all while everyone marvels that someone who isn't even of age has accomplished so much - and it got to be too much. It stopped being a story of how Harry had to set aside his morals to come out on top and started reading more and more like wish fulfillment.
In short, the further I got into this story, the harder it was to keep going. I enjoyed it for a little while, but in retrospect it needs serious work.