Subject: Go for it.
Author:
Posted on: 2015-03-25 12:08:00 UTC
I've said it repeatedly about Middle-earth, and I'd love to see someone try to prove me wrong.
(Obviously this runs into the limits of what can be called a 'concept'. If your 'concept' consists of 'exactly the events of the Rose Potter series in every detail', then obviously not)
hS
Starting a new topic here to avoid taking attention away from the recently posted and nicely done Rose Potter sporkings...
So. Harry Potter, genderbent. Can it be done right? If so, how would you do it? How would Harriet Potter be different from Harry?
My thoughts on the matter:
-The Dursleys treat her differently from Harry. Petunia sees entirely too much of Lily in her, and is even more severe and overbearing than she was to Harry. However, Dudley mostly ignores rather than bullies her because she is "just a girl".
-She moves from the still largely gender-biased Muggle world into the wizarding world, where gender matters much less.
-Being female, she tends toward "protect my friends" rather than "defeat my enemies", which changes her battle strategies somewhat (it's something about the different hormone levels and the need to protect infants--it's a slight effect, but it's there, thought it wouldn't make much of a difference early on, before puberty).
-She doesn't trigger Snape's ire so much because she reminds him of Lily. He's awkward around her and tends to pretend to ignore her rather than actively attacking the way he would Harry.
-As a female, she has slightly better verbal skills and slightly poorer visual-spatial skills. If you were to exaggerate the difference, she would be better at communicating, more likely to be good at things like Charms, and not so good at Quidditch or dueling.
-Her slightly better social skills (starting out) would give her a larger circle of friends and make her more popular. She would also be more likely to seek out other people when in trouble rather than try to handle things herself. She would be more prone to "relational aggression" (fighting with words and social ostracism) rather than physical or in this case magical fights.
-Being better at language gives her enough of an edge to discover her gift for Parseltongue earlier in life, age ten or younger. Maybe she even has a pet snake, or snake friends, as a child. It wouldn't endear her to Petunia, that's for sure, but it could change everything when it came to dealing with the Basilisk. (No, I don't think she'd befriend the basilisk; it's firmly under Tom Riddle's control. She might understand what she's hearing earlier than Harry did, though.)
But these are all slight differences. Maybe Harriet makes the Quidditch team in her second year instead of her first year, isn't so quick with defense against the dark arts, confides in Dumbledore more easily, or turns her larger group of friends against Draco Malfoy rather than just cursing him. They're still very slight differences. The only big differences I can see would be in how Harriet is treated in the Muggle world, where her being female really matters--both because the world sees her as just-a-girl and because Petunia sees her as Lily's daughter.
How would you avoid the problem of just following canon much of the time? Harriet Potter isn't so different from Harry Potter, especially since, in the wizarding world, they are more or less socially equivalent.
Personally, if I were writing a girl!Harry fic, I would significantly alter her relationship with the Dursleys, and through that her views on the magical world. Let's call this theoretical character Daisy, in order to distinguish her from other female versions of Harry.
Petunia does see more of Lily in Daisy than she does in Harry; however, instead of outright rejecting her, she sees Daisy as a version of Lily that can still be saved. So on one hand, she would be more "loving" towards Daisy, but on the other, Daisy would still be harshly punished for any accidental magic. For Daisy, the punishments would be more traumatic; unlike Harry, she wants to please the Dursleys, and it's the rejection that really hurts. Instead of being thrilled by the magical world, she hates it - she wishes she was normal, so her family would love her. At the same time, she's desperate to please those around her, and the magical world is all she's got.
Overall, she'd be less of a rebel than Harry. I doubt she'd make Gryffindor, though if you wanted to keep the same cast you could make an argument for it. Nor, however, would she be in Slytherin, like in other AU fics; Slytherin is overly proud of its magical lineage, and Daisy would loathe that aspect of them. Instead, I think she'd fit better in Hufflepuff. At first, she just wants to be accepted by anyone and will do anything to fit in, but eventually she learns the meaning of true acceptance and loyalty.
The main issue with such a character, story-wise, is that I think Daisy would basically start out as a less intelligent version of Hermione, almost painfully afraid of breaking the rules. And unlike Hermione, who gets kind of dragged into things by Harry and Ron at first, she'd have no motivation to get involved in the plot. Plus, I think GoF and OotP would leave her traumatized and depressed - not exactly a character arc I'd enjoy writing.
Note that, I don't think this is necessarily specific to a female Harry; a similar AU could be done with a male version. In fact, this goes so significantly beyond making him a girl that gender would be incidental to the plotline. However, as far as using a genderbend to take dramatic liberties with characterization goes, I think this is more reasonable than a naked ninja-druid sociopath.
I think it can be done well, but it seems like the differences here are a bit stereotypical? There doesn't seem to be a reason why a Harriet would necessarily be friendlier or be worse at Quidditch. Though since you are exaggerating I guess it makes sense?
I think she'd probably have a different experience of being bullied, though.
Also, on the Snape thing: I once saw someone say on Tumblr: "If Harry had been a girl Snape would have treated her the way Petyr Baelish treats Sansa Stark."
We did study the differences between men and women in psychology classes, and they're not that extreme. Even the most pronounced ones are a matter of a couple of percentage points. Men are physically stronger and women live longer... but even then you have female bodybuilders and hundred-year-old men.
It's too slight a difference to make any predictions from. Take any particular man or woman--their gender tells you so little about them that you honestly can't make a guess with any kind of accuracy. So, give Harry Potter two X chromosomes, and you don't get that much of a difference.
The only real, major differences would be not in Harriet Potter herself, but in the way others treated her and the "This is what it means to be female" that she would pick up from the Muggle world. And if you emphasized those enough, you could get a different character for Harriet from what you got for Harry... but I'd be worried about making her a female stereotype just to get her to be different enough from Harry to be worth writing a story about.
That could just end up ridiculously messed up very quickly. But that is very likely correct. Snape essentially treats Harry the way he does, because of his physical similarity to James. So...That might make Snape even worse. He would at least seem less like evil incarnate, but still...that would not take much to get very disturbing.
Sybill Trelawney's prophecy.
"...and the Dark Lord will mark him as his equal..."
Meaning this: Voldemort knows that the boy who's going to kill him is just that--a boy.
Which means that Neville Longbottom's parents are killed, Neville takes over Harry's role (and does things very differently, because Neville is a very different person from Harry).
Harriet Potter goes on her own way--no scar, no fragment of Voldemort in her. Maybe her parents still die, because let's face it, Lily and James Potter would've been Voldemort's enemies regardless of whether they had a boy or a girl.
It changes literally everything about her life for her not to be the Girl Who Lived. Not that she wouldn't get herself into trouble anyhow...
Snape heard only the first part, which is gender-neutral:
The one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord approaches ... Born to those who have thrice defied him, born as the seventh month dies...
So, would Voldemort consider that the One might be female? Or would he try to kill Neville?
If Snape told Dumbledore that Voldemort intended to kill Harriet Potter, Dumbledore would know that Voldemort chose the wrong person. But Dumbledore doesn’t believe in prophecies anyway. He only believed that Voldemort believed in prophecies; his actions would not be changed.
So, Harriet Potter would be a story about how choices matter, and trump even fate, and Harriet became the Chosen One because she was chosen by Voldemort, not by the prophesy.
Huh, that’s actually Harry Potter, read by a reader who doesn’t believe in prophecies anyway, so nothing really new.
On the other hand, the Dark Lord not expecting that he might be vanquished by a mere girl is such a cliché...
I tried to make a point here, but somewhere on the way I lost it.
HG
It would be very simple to just ignore a simple pronoun :P
And if they did, even care.
I'd think acknowledging an important bit of canon would be a part of writing a goodfic.
Then the idea of a good Rose Potter fic (in the sense that they take Harry's role as "the boy who lived") is physically impossible.
Good AUs exist, right? So--we have an AU in which the prophecy's pronouns are reversed and Voldemort hears that a girl will kill him. He goes after a female whose parents defied him (could be anyone--someone mentioned Susan Bones and she's a good candidate).
That would also make for a very different story. Say you do pick Susan as your Girl Who Lived; she's in Hufflepuff, for one thing; that would give us a different cast of characters. She has living family she cares about, and who are later killed, which could make for a major crisis point for her just like Sirius's death does for Harry.
Another possibility for an AU with a female as Voldemort's nemesis is this: For some reason, Harry Potter wasn't the only one-year-old in that room that day. Maybe he had a twin sister, or maybe a friend's child was visiting. When Voldemort went after Harry, he tried to kill everyone in the house, and Lily shielded Harry from the killing curse and from the soul fragment, which then attached itself to the only unshielded child in the room. Then you'd end up with Harry shielded from Voldemort by Lily's love, but the other child serving as an unwilling Horcrux--she'd really get the bad end of the deal.
The AU with the prophecy pointing to a female AND Lily and James having a daughter is a bit more dodgy, because it involves two changes; but you could swing it if you were careful because the prophecy would just have been Trelawney's seeing what would happen in her own AUverse in which Harry was born female. It would unseat Neville from his position as Harry's "backup", because Voldemort would be looking for girls. It would also be closest to the standard Harry Potter story, and you'd run into the same plagiarism problem that Rose Potter runs into.
I do not remember exactly where in the Prophecy Snape got caught. I thought it was before the "mark him as his equal" part. But even not, the use of the masculine pronoun is very common. So an interpretation could still be that it does not necessarily be an actual male to defeat him.
If the prophecy says 'him', Voldemort's gonna go after a guy. Not to mention if the prophecy could have referred to a girl in canon, surely there might have been a girl out there born on July 31 whose parents defied Voldemort thrice? The odds aren't great, sure, but there's still a chance.
I also cannot remember where Snape got cut off. And I am not certain about it. If I remember correctly the only original Order members who had girls was the Bones family, the Weasleys are the only other ones to come to mind and they did not join up until the reformed order. So the only one that I think would qualify would have been Susan Bones, though I do not know when she was born.
The hard part would be making Harriet Potter different enough to not just be a rewrite, but also similar enough that you don't warp canon. If this can be accomplished, than I'd go for it. If it can't be accomplished, than I'd still go for it, just maybe write a few short chapters, as anything else is not really worth your time. I like point number six that you came up with, as that could make for some interesting bits.
That saying 'Anything can be done right' is Shmuck Bait incarnate and just begs coming up with a concept you cannot do right.
I've said it repeatedly about Middle-earth, and I'd love to see someone try to prove me wrong.
(Obviously this runs into the limits of what can be called a 'concept'. If your 'concept' consists of 'exactly the events of the Rose Potter series in every detail', then obviously not)
hS
I can go Godwin but I won't because that degrades the quality of the argument.
However:
1) This mess of trivialised mass murder and general OPness. Done right? Not possible, IMO. The premise itself is stupid.
2) This. Just... this. Internet insensitivity at its finest.
I did say that 'this entire story' doesn't really count. ;) Trivialised mass murder is simple (if not easy) to do right - you have your (hopefully non-sympathetic!) characters trivialise it. The Empire's treatment of Alderaan is a nice example here.
As for #2 - what, you don't think 'anthropomorphicism of a disease' can be well-created? All you need to do is present it as an enemy that needs to be beaten (they do that all the time with toothpaste adverts over here). "Don't let Evil Ebola take over Africa - donate now!"
(Also, I thought we were talking about fanfic? No?)
hS
Re number one, I was talking about the whole "MGLN world goes over to kinetic weaponry for some reason, oh and the TSAB's evil, and they blast Nanoha to pieces and it gives her superpowers", which is the concept (premise) of that story.
Re number two, that's not a good way to do it, it's tacky and corny.
Also, I was talking generally, not about fanfic.
'Goes over to kinetic weaponry' is one I'll have to pass on - I've no idea why that's even a problem. 'TSAB's evil'... what, you can't see a presumably-good presumably-organisation turning evil with the best intentions? I'm sure that's been written a time or five hundred.
As for attacking someone giving them superpowers... again, that's continuum-specific, so I don't know anything about it. But I see no reason it couldn't be worked into something feasible.
#2: well, yes, I had about thirty seconds. The general concept of 'personify something to awaken public opinion', however, is a fairly time-honoured notion. Lord Kitchener Wants YOU To Believe It. For that matter, political cartoons have been doing it since at least the 1850s. Yeah, most of those examples have been personifications of countries - but in the modern era, using the same techniques to evoke feelings and provoke actions about ebola (or anything else) sounds like a valid strategy to me.
hS
Should it be done, now, that's the question. When doing gender bent stories, you often run into one major problem: blatant plagiarism. Oh, yes, there would be some differences, but on the whole, there is not enough difference between Harry and Harriet to warrant a full fic, ala Rose Potter. Now, a one-shot AU? Possibly. Multiverse hijinks? Entirely probable. Tumblr ask blog? YOU BET! Rake in those reblogs. But full, multi-chapter fic by itself? I just don't see it working.
That all said, I do like the analysis you made on the difference between Harry and Harriet. I am a little hesitant on the Parseltongue aspect of her, but on the whole, I can get behind this.