Typos, typos, typos. Oh well :(

1 files changed, 73 insertions, 58 deletions

diff --git a/faith/singularoddities-review-escape.rst b/faith/singularoddities-review-escape.rst
index 6a9cfc8..00a1937 100644
--- a/faith/singularoddities-review-escape.rst
+++ b/faith/singularoddities-review-escape.rst
@@ -7,12 +7,15 @@ Review of “Escape” and “Mr and Mrs Percy Weasley”
 
 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.
+by the flesh?” What I mean is that “Escape_” and “`Mr and Mrs 
+Percy Weasley`_”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. Unfortunately, with the contiuation of both stories, 
+it seems to me that the author lapsed more and more into some of 
+the worst stereotypes in the genre.
 
 First of all, before saying anything else, I really liked Mr. and 
 Mrs.-to-be Percy Weasley themselves. It is really delight to read 
@@ -22,56 +25,63 @@ 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 
+I really hope he will eventually buy that set of the sixteenth 
+century goblets for Audrey, now when he can explain her how come 
+they are so well preserved).
+
+I was less enchanted by 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 
+This being a Harmony story, it seems that every alternative 
+universe shipping inevitably leads to bashing 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 relational 
+troubles which blow to their face in the end 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.
+world, they haven’t contacted Ron, their supposedly 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 (there is no way the Ron from books was 
+not fed up with Lavender after few weeks of snogging; and 
+actually, he broke up with her because he looked for more in 
+books, not necessarily because of Hermione; that is more the 
+movie Ron again).
 
 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 
+her to St. Mungo, because some serious disease must be affecting 
+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.
+prejudiced against Muggles. Ignorant, of course, but not 
+unwilling 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.  
+world and went Muggle all the way, Harry & Hermione never face 
+these accussations by explaining what’s going on, by explaining 
+that they actually finished their magical education already, they 
+don’t even boast how many N.E.W.T.s they got, 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.
+are, demanding trust from everybody, explaining to nobody, and 
+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 
+Because next we have to deal with the persona of Albus Dumbledore
+as 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 
@@ -81,28 +91,30 @@ 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? [#]_ 
+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).
+on The Light Side (the biggest share of guilt goes to 
+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 
+deals poorly with description of 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 …
+Thing™ his whole life, he is willing sacrifice absolutely 
+everything for the fight, and yet sometimes he forgets he is not 
+permitted to demand same sacrifices 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, 
+nobody questions his part in the dead of Sirius), 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 
@@ -114,8 +126,8 @@ 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 
+is almost nothing positive mentioned about 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 
@@ -152,6 +164,9 @@ could be so much better. Oh well.
 .. _Escape:
    https://www.fanfiction.net/s/11916243/
 
+.. _`Mr and Mrs Percy Weasley`:
+   https://www.fanfiction.net/s/12373273/
+
 .. _`The Road Less Traveled`:
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M._Scott_Peck#The_Road_Less_Traveled