Review of singularoddities

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+Review of “Escape” and “Mr and Mrs Percy Weasley”
+#################################################
+
+:date: 2017-12-14
+:category: faith
+:tags: review, harryPotter, blogComment
+
+There is a biblical verse from Galatians 3:3: “Are you so 
+foolish? Having begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected 
+by the flesh?” What I mean is that “Escape_” started as one of 
+the best fanfictions I found anywhere. Obviously, from person who 
+writes fanfiction around the classical literature (namely “Pride 
+and Prejudice”), I expect better literary quality than your 
+average fifteen-year inserting herself as the fourth member of 
+The Golden Trio on the run for horcruxes.
+
+First of all, before saying anything else, I really liked Mr. and 
+Mrs.-to-be Percy Weasley themselves. It is really delight to read 
+their story (and of course, it doesn’t hurt they slip for weekend 
+in Prague, where I am from :)). I really liked they both knew 
+they are dancing around some elephants in the room, but they so 
+much wanted to work together, they were willing to trust each 
+other even against the evidence, which would cause distrust.  
+I really liked Percy discovering joys of the Muggle world (and 
+I really hope he will be eventually buy that set of the sixteenth 
+century goblets for Audrey, now when he can explain how come they 
+are so well preserved).
+
+I was less enchanted from Harry & Hermione. Even ignoring the 
+problems with the Harmony ship (about which later), they both 
+seemed to me so perfect, so Mary/Mary Sue (of course, Mary Sue 
+must be half-Muggle otherwise the author and reader couldn’t 
+identify with her easily enough), that I lost most interest in 
+them. Except, of course, Hermione being a cat is the only saving 
+grace for her persona.
+
+This being a Harmony [#]_ story, it seems that every alternative 
+universe shipping inevitably leads to bashing some persons which 
+are really likeable in the books, most usually Ron Weasley. It 
+seemed in the beginning of “Escape”, that this author managed to 
+avoid the trait, but it goes downhill pretty fast and in the end 
+Mrs. Weasley, Arthur, and of course Ron are sworn enemies of the 
+good guys (and gals). And it is happily overlooked that many 
+relationship troubles which blow to their face are caused by the 
+unexplicable relational idiocy of Harry & Hermione. Why in the 
+world, they haven’t contacted Ron, their supposedly the best 
+friend, immediately after they got means of communications 
+(mirrors) from the Weasley twins? I like the Weasley twins in the 
+story, but why couldn‘t be Ron included as well? Couldn’t the 
+twins smuggle one mirror to the castle? And still they haven’t 
+bothered to send him a mirror when they met Ginny, Neville, and 
+Luna in Hogsmead? Of course, the only reason seems to be that the 
+author may indulge more in the Ron-bashing.
+
+Harry and Hermione spent five years (or at least summers) in the 
+Weasley household. And suddenly the Weasley parents don’t deserve 
+a joint visit from Harry & Hermione before the slandering 
+interviews are published? If Molly Weasley as we know her from 
+books would slam the door in their face, I would immediately ship 
+her to St. Mungo, because something serious is going on in her 
+brain. That is not Molly we know from the books. And I just 
+cannot make myself believe that Weasleys’ would be that 
+prejudiced against Muggles. Ignorant, of course, but not willing 
+to be explained.
+
+When they are repeatedly accused they gave up on the wizarding 
+world and went Muggle all the way, they never face these 
+accussations by explaining what’s going on, they just blow up.  
+They behave like rebellious stupid teenagers, who they actually 
+are, but then they are supported in this stupidity by supposedly 
+mature and wise Grangers. We’ll get to this more later.
+
+Because next we have to deal with the person of Aldus Dumbledore
+as he is described in the stories. I am the last one to declare 
+Professor Dumbledore to be perfect. There are obvious problems in 
+his behavior. Some of them mentioned by JKR in the books 
+themselves (excessive secrecty, insufficient information and 
+training), some are not. For example, there is a situation where 
+absolutely everything depends on Harry learning Occlumency 
+properly, and his teacher is not adult enough to get over Harry’s 
+father bullying him when they were teenagers. So, there are no 
+results of such teaching. What does Dumbledore do to remedy the 
+situation? Nothing, just waits until somebody gets killed and 
+Harry can blame himself for it? What’s wrong with him? [#]_ 
+I believe that both Professors Dumbledore and Snape are 
+reponsible for the death of Sirius Black (perhaps they should be 
+even criminally responsible for neglect) more than anybody else 
+(aside from Mrs. Lestrange, of course).
+
+Having said that, I just cringe when I see how Singularoddities 
+is not able to deal well with flawed personalities. How it is 
+difficult to describe somebody who honestly fights for The Right 
+Thing™ his whole life, how he is willing sacrifice absolutely 
+everything for the fight, and sometimes forgets he is not 
+permitted the same from others (“The only person who can die for 
+my ideals is me.” Karl Popper), or perhaps even how sometimes he 
+fights more to eradicate Evil than to promote Goodness and Love.  
+The author is not able to keep the hero balanced, so although 
+he/she starts well, more the story progresses more it is 
+black-and-white, and more and more it is hard to distinguish 
+Albus Dumbledore from Tom Riddle. And because it is not enough, 
+we have to have very light Snape (see above) and very very dark 
+Weasley family (older part). It somehow looks like all authority 
+persons from the book are deemed bad, and somehow bad persons are 
+now good? Like …
+
+I know what it feels like! When I was trying to understand what 
+is the worldview behind those two stories, I started to think 
+about the Stage Three from M. Scott Peck’s `The Road Less 
+Traveled`_ (nicely summarized in video by my former pastor `Dave 
+Schmelzer`_). The stories are all about rebellion against the 
+authorities. It is all about an inversion, negation of 
+traditional values without actual wisdom, which for me is in 
+synthesis of the real personality, authenticity and true values.  
+All those who were positive authorities in the HP canon 
+(Dumbledore, Weasleys) are suddenly bad, and not only bad there 
+is almost no positive mention of them. All those who were 
+marginalised, in submission, or outright morally suspicious 
+(Grangers, Professors McGonagall, Snape; it is interesting that 
+Professor Flitwick is nowhere to be found) are suddenly main 
+heroes. Also, the main purpose of adults (especially Grangers) is 
+to validate youngsters’ (Harry & Hermione, Fred & George) in 
+their ideas, not to bring much of their own, and certainly not to 
+bring balance and wisdom. Whole story sounds very much like 
+a college student ranting against his parents.
+
+That also includes Percy, but here I have to take exception from 
+the rule: his persona is written really well, I really suspect 
+that he made some huge mistakes (even Kingsley suggests that he 
+was originally meant exactly as Weasleys were afraid he was 
+— a spy on Weasleys and Harry), but he is really an interesting 
+person. Well done.
+
+I like both of these stories (probably more “Mr. and Mrs. Percy 
+Weasley”, but obviously the second take is better than the first 
+attempt), they are probably the best AU stories of the Harry 
+Potter universe I have read so far (if it has not been obvious 
+already, I prefer canon-based stories), but all the good things 
+on these stories, makes me even more frustrated with things which 
+could be so much better. Oh well.
+
+.. [#] supporting Harry/Harmione pairing
+
+.. [#] Also, a nitpick: what the hell is wrong with you to leave 
+   one year old boy overnight outside in the English November? 
+   Are you too coward to admit to Petunia her sister died under 
+   your command, so you are not able to press a buzzer? Or 
+   perhaps the grooming (I am not sure I believe that one) was 
+   just Plan B, in case the horcrux was not eliminated by Harry 
+   dying from exposure?
+
+.. _Escape:
+   https://www.fanfiction.net/s/11916243/
+
+.. _`The Road Less Traveled`:
+   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M._Scott_Peck#The_Road_Less_Traveled
+   
+.. _`Dave Schmelzer`:
+   https://youtu.be/bHyqDGAiEpA