New review: Ad "Breakfast in New York"

2 files changed, 137 insertions, 14 deletions

diff --git a/faith/breakfast_in_new_york.rst b/faith/breakfast_in_new_york.rst
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+Live like you are not a Christian
+#################################
+
+:date: 2020-06-28T18:35:24
+:category: faith
+:tags: review, harryPotter, blogComment
+
+(my comments on “`Breakfast in New York`_” by Radaslab)
+
+Finished reading the story and there are two overwhelming
+thoughts in my head. The first is obvious and rather normal for
+most of the fanfiction stories (and especially so-called romantic
+ones): it should be cut to like one quarter or so. The plot is
+not capable of carrying more like seven or eight chapters, but we
+have thirty-one of them. If you write two-hundred thousand words
+long story, there is always good testing question “Do I have
+a plot as strong as `Moby Dick by Herman Melville`_, do I have
+the same amount of action?” OK, romance can have less adventure
+than Moby Dick, but this story with this incredible repetitive
+nature (where even Hermione gets so bored, she obviously forgot
+Harry has already told her he was Roman-Catholic and they would
+have a wedding ordained by his parish priest even telling her his
+name) and long descriptions of everything completely useless in
+terms of plot, just goes on and on and on. Thank God it is so
+easy to skip over huge amounts of boring stuff like that! (hint:
+from five days between their engagement and the wedding, just
+gathering in the park outside of Grimmauld Place and meeting at
+Dursleys’ carries the plot, whole day of visiting Hogwarts and
+ZOO, which is like two chapters, can be safely skipped)
+
+However, as I have described elsewhere_, lack of editing is
+completely normal in the fanfiction world, and I wouldn’t write
+this review just because of that. In the `religionless universe
+of Harry Potter`_, I am very thankful for every even hint of some
+person who is a Christian and takes her belief seriously.
+However, then are stories like this one and `Strong Blood by
+CooLibrarian`_, which are just confusing. Main characters (and
+many other people) are Christians (here Roman Catholics, in
+“Strong Blood” Russian Orthodox), but there is absolutely nothing
+Christian about them. They never pray, never go to the church,
+never read the Bible, never jump to the unknown because God calls
+them to, anything. And no, I don’t think it is the traditional
+Christians / born-again one’s thing. I wouldn’t mind if they go
+to Masses, pray Rosary [#]_, wearing devotional scapulars,
+anything. Why make your characters expressly Christian, when they
+don’t do anything Christian-like?
+
+And I really don’t ask for some explicitly theological or
+missionary stories. For example, `Why Time Travel Should Be
+Illegal and Other Morals by mugglesftw`_ makes them normal
+Christians, even though their faith is certainly not in the
+centre of the story, it is just characteristic of some
+characters, who are dealing with some other plot.
+
+.. _`Breakfast in New York`:
+    https://www.fanfiction.net/s/5141159
+
+.. _`Moby Dick by Herman Melville`:
+    https://blog.fostergrant.co.uk/2017/08/03/word-counts-popular-books-world/
+
+.. _elsewhere:
+   {filename}aristotle-unities.rst
+
+.. _`religionless universe of Harry Potter`:
+   {filename}religionless-hp.rst
+
+.. _`Strong Blood by CooLibrarian`:
+   https://www.fanfiction.net/s/7211094
+
+.. _`Why Time Travel Should Be Illegal and Other Morals by mugglesftw`:
+   https://www.fanfiction.net/s/12738075
+
+.. [#] Actually, it is mentioned in “Breakfast in New York”, that
+   Hermione did pray Rosary during the Deathly Hallows camping
+   trip, and just by listening to her whispered prayers, Harry
+   converts to Christianity and only later finds out Potters were
+   as a family traditionally Catholics … no comments.
diff --git a/faith/religionless-hp.rst b/faith/religionless-hp.rst
index 9a03f78..2870393 100644
--- a/faith/religionless-hp.rst
+++ b/faith/religionless-hp.rst
@@ -106,14 +106,55 @@ bookmark lists):
 
 7. `Hermione Before the Beit Din`_ by facingthenorthwind 
    (spacegandalf). We all suspected it, but now it is clear, 
-   Hermione is Jewish (actually, it seems to me as the only 
-   explanation why super-bookish girl from country with mandatory 
-   religious education has no idea where “Where your treasure is, 
-   there will your heart be also.” or “The last enemy that shall 
-   be destroyed is death.” come from) and she is dealing with the 
-   punishment for Obliviating her parents. Jewish wizarding 
-   tribunal and all that jazz. Not bad but unfinished and sorely 
-   missing the conclusion.
+   Hermione is Jewish (actually, it seems to me as the only
+   explanation why a super-bookish girl from country with
+   mandatory religious education has no idea where “Where your
+   treasure is, there will your heart be also.” or “The last
+   enemy that shall be destroyed is death.” come from) and she is
+   dealing with the punishment for Obliviating her parents.
+   Jewish wizarding tribunal and all that jazz. Not bad but
+   unfinished and sorely missing a conclusion.
+
+**{updated 2020-06-28}**
+
+8. `Thou Shalt Not Suffer`_ by TheWizardsHarry. A girl from very
+   strongly evangelical family (which feels more American than
+   British, but small suspension of disbelief here is probably
+   useful, and I am certain that every nation can generate
+   religious bigots, there are some even here in the agnostic
+   Czechia) gets the Hogwarts Letter and she is immediately
+   ostracised by her parents (she is a single child) and friends
+   from the religious community, she lives in (which is all her
+   friends). She finds her refuge with her very distant and
+   herself ostracised aunt who lives away. There she finds out
+   that magical world truly exists and that the aunt is a witch
+   herself. With a lot of hesitation, she, in the end, agrees to
+   enter Hogwarts for a year just to control her magic, where she
+   struggles with adventures during Harry’s Second Year. However,
+   more important is her parallel discovering what is the
+   relationship between magic and those verses from the Bible.
+   During the year she meets some other Christian wizards and
+   witches (including one very cute Cedric Diggory) and she gets
+   her hand on an old essay by some witch named Lilly Evans who
+   wrote a rather thoughtful analysis of that verse. Adventure is
+   nicely written, Christian point of view very authentic, only
+   problem is that the story ends with her first year at Hogwarts
+   and the promised sequel is nowhere to be found. Pity.
+
+9. PUSH_ by tree_and_leaf (PUSH is apparently abbreviation common
+   among evangelicals of some sort and it stands for “Pray Until
+   Something Happens”). The basic plot conflict is similar to the
+   previous one (only this is a post-war story, so for example
+   Hermione and Ginny are as the Seventh Year girls), but the
+   main heroine seems more depressive and strongly rejecting
+   magic and less accessible to the argument in another
+   direction. In relation to the title, she actually in one point
+   prays a lot towards some resolution, and when something which
+   really looks like God’s answer happens, she has trouble
+   accepting it. Unfortunately, at this point when things were
+   getting interesting, the story has been abandoned.
+
+**{end of the insert}**
 
 The crazy thing is that it seems to me this is really it. If 
 anybody knows about any other good religious wizarding story (no 
@@ -121,9 +162,9 @@ mocking, no anti-religious) let me know.
 
 .. [#] I am a Protestant, so for me “religion” means more “humans 
    activity towards deity” (sacrifices, liturgy, this sort of 
-   thing) rather than just “existence of God” (and yes this 
-   understanding of the word is paradoxically non-Biblical, James 
-   1:27).
+   thing) rather than just “existence of God” (and yes this
+   understanding of the word is paradoxically for Protestants
+   non-Biblical, James 1:27).
     
    This is not exclusive to the Harry Potter universe. It is even 
    more weird with J.R.R.Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings universe.
@@ -145,10 +186,10 @@ mocking, no anti-religious) let me know.
    https://www.fanfiction.net/s/3077936
 
 .. _`The Friar's Calling`:
-   https://www.archiveofourown.org/works/7460772
+   https://archiveofourown.org/works/7460772
 
 .. _`All Are His Children`:
-   https://www.archiveofourown.org/works/4426211
+   https://archiveofourown.org/works/4426211
 
 .. _`Hermione Before the Beit Din`:
    https://archiveofourown.org/series/636071
@@ -157,5 +198,10 @@ mocking, no anti-religious) let me know.
    https://www.fanfiction.net/s/3388041 
 
 .. _Sanctuary:
-   https://www.archiveofourown.org/works/7292632
+   https://archiveofourown.org/works/7292632
 
+.. _`Thou Shalt Not Suffer`:
+   https://www.fanfiction.net/s/5176787
+
+.. _PUSH:
+   https://archiveofourown.org/works/55647