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Another comments on the Accidental Animagus & al.
#################################################
:date: 2020-04-07T09:39:17
:category: literature
:tags: review, harryPotter, blogComment, fromReddit
(my comments on `the thread`_ “What are your thoughts on the
direction taken by 'Animagus at War' by White Squirrel?” by
`u/SnobbishWizard`_)
.. _`the thread`:
https://www.reddit.com/r/HPfanfiction/comments/fwbih3/what_are_your_thoughts_on_the_direction_taken_by/fmnxfqj/
.. _`u/SnobbishWizard`:
https://www.reddit.com/user/SnobbishWizard/
I have already (many chapters ago) wrote `a review`_, which
included my comments on this story, and so far I stand behind it.
On top of that I have two comments:
1. Bloody length of the story. JKR complained that HPOotP was
rushed to the publisher and it needed more editing, which made
it according to her too long. That’s 38 chapters. 38 times
7 is 266 chapters for the whole series as the longest case
scenario (the shortest scenario, seven times HPPS is 119
chapters, and we are already over). Animagus saga now stands
at 147 chapters, and it feels more like the basic setup of the
story than coming to its conclusion, so we may get to that
worst-case scenario eventually. In terms of the war, it feels
like we are at the Battle of Smolensk (that’s June 1941) or at
the Coral Sea (May 1942). The Battle of Stalingrad and the
Battle of Midway are far ahead of us in the dim future, and
nobody can even dream about Berlin or Hiroshima (not that we
should dream about that). To close the story down, there will
be either some horrible case of the Harry Potter *ex machina*,
throwing the Ring to the Mount Doom and swiping away in one
move all the armies of the Dark Lord including the mighty
Tower of the Barad-dûr. Or we should expect another hundred
chapters of this boring Goblin rebellion, and :math:`\$DEITY`
have mercy on our souls! The author threatens us with another
thirty chapters, but I don’t feel like he can make it in so
few of them without the story being incredibly rushed.
2. Complete loss of the human element in the story. It is a very
similar problem to `Divided and Entwined by Starfox5`_. Not
that there would be not enough action: battle after battle
runs over the pages, in this case, all of them lost, in other
all of them won, but there are no humans in the story, and it
is as fun to read as the history textbook about the
Thirty-Years War (or the mentioned Goblin rebellion) or
minutes of business meetings (which some parts effectively
are). Lost are the stories about Harry Potter catching
a mouse, the last one which had at least some personal element
was The Boxing Day with the confused Muggle friends finding
themselves at Hogwarts, but that was sixteen chapters ago
(whole Philosopher’s Stone, the book which made JKR famous,
was seventeen chapters). When was the last time somebody said
something personal or whimsical? What is Luna doing? Hermione?
Did she kiss Neville or not yet (I honestly forgot)? We don’t
know, and I am losing hope we will ever learn because we have
to read another long and boring chapter where some impersonal
armies fight with other impersonal armies somewhere who knows
where (even if it is in my Prague, where I live; thank you,
after `Mr and Mrs Percy Weasley by SingularOddities`_ and
`Hiding in Plain Sight by GinevrasChampion`_ only the third
case, where the author noticed that there are other cities in
Europe than Paris). And I don't even care which one is which
and which one loses.
----
**Extended later, much later_ (2020-09-11):**
It is certainly possible to write a good war novel, there are
certainly many war novels in the Muggle world, which are very
good, but I am sorry to say (I really liked “The Accidental
Animagus” a lot), that neither “Animagus at War“ nor “Divided and
Entwined” are one of those. What I can discern from the great war
novels (e.g., “`For Whom the Bell Tolls`_”, “`All Quiet on the
Western Front`_”, “`Good soldier Švejk`_” or my beloved “`A Bell
for Adano`_”) the key to writing a war novel is that you don’t
write about all those battles from the bird’s eye view, but you
just pick one (or few) characters and follow them through those
battles never letting your eyes fly too high. Actually, if
I understand it correctly (I have never read the whole book) “All
Quiet on the Western Front” is written as the obvious critique of
the top view (how down in the trenches the reality was very
different).
Why then both of these fics let the personal stories (that’s what
I meant that I missing more talks about Neville × Hermione
relationship, Harry catching a mouse, or the love triangle in
“Divided and Entwined”) slide somewhere to the back burner and
they are now mostly ignored? Those are the stories which are most
interesting, newspaper-like descriptions of the battles should be
left to newspapers (characters read them in the morning after the
battle) and kept just to few paragraphs.
See also `this post`_ about the structure of plot: the only thing
which is interesting is how Harry, Hermione and others navigate
through those battles, battles themselves can just stand as the
background. And that is true even for the large Hollywood
blockbuster war films. During the “Return of the King”, in The
Battle of the Pelennor Fields all those giant elephants were just
background for the real stories we are following: those of
Théoden, Aragorn, Éowyn, or hobbits. Those little stories are the
ones which carry whole emotional load of the story there (which
is for example the reason why Legolas and Gandalf were so bland
in that battle, despite all their jumping on the elephant or
riding of the horse through the streets of Minas Tirith; they
were just part of the background, there was too little of their
own real story).
.. _`a review`:
{filename}aristotle-unities.rst
.. _`this post`:
{filename}what-wrong-with-Ginny.rst
.. _`Divided and Entwined by Starfox5`:
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/11910994
.. _`Mr and Mrs Percy Weasley by SingularOddities`:
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/12373273
.. _`Hiding in Plain Sight by GinevrasChampion`:
http://www.siye.co.uk/siye/viewstory.php?sid=130160
.. _later:
https://www.reddit.com/r/HPfanfiction/comments/iqkufw/did_you_like_the_fanfic_divided_and_entwined_drop/g4st801/
.. _`For Whom the Bell Tolls`:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/For_Whom_the_Bell_Tolls
.. _`All Quiet on the Western Front`:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All_Quiet_on_the_Western_Front
.. _`Good soldier Švejk`:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Good_Soldier_%C5%A0vejk
.. _`A Bell for Adano`:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Bell_for_Adano_(novel)
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