Going Against the Grain of Potter Cliches

[Ebony]

The other end of that cliche is Ron Weasley, Moron.

Right.  Another thing you won't see in DW8 is Ron Weasley, human garbage disposal system, who talks when his mouth is stuffed full of anything edible within arm's reach.

Some of that makes sense. Ron is a teenage boy, in a family of boys. Eating quickly and as much as he can get reflects mealtimes at the Weasley household, where he and his brothers would probably jockey for extra food whenever they could (not that Molly didn't feed them enough, but teenagers are well known for being bottomless pits, and the Weasley boys seem to be a competitive bunch). Plus, the surplus of food at Hogwart's as compared to the relative scarcity at the Weasley home (a single-income family with lots of kids, even one supported by a government salary and Bill and Charlie's (and Percy's some of the time) contributions, would have to do without some of the time), and I can see Ron - and his brothers, for that matter - go a bit overboard at least at the beginning of their attendance. Most likely, by the time of OotP, he'd have gotten over that, except for some of his favorites (Based on my own dorm life experiences, though I had nothing near a family the size of the Weasley clan).
  
Ebony the Black Dragon
http://ebony14.livejournal.com

"Good night, and may the Good Lord take a Viking to you."

[Shepherd]

... As far as standing stuff on its head, the thought that just occured to me is that Herminonie's studies into Doug's UTM materials have such a tendency to go Boom as she works through them she gains at least for a time, the Wiley Cyote [Or maybe Kohran] style supergenius rep with her peers.

How well would a 16-year-old girl who stopped taking mundane classes at the age of 11 understand a subject that is an extension of Unified Field Theory? She hasn't taken her Arithmancy OWL yet, and this is probably post-NEWT material.
Also, at what point would Hermione be exposed to Doug's UMT material?
I don't see Albus Dumbledore engaging in esoteric research into the fundamental building blocks of magic with a 5th year student, no matter how bright she's supposed to be.
She could arrive at an Arithmancy lesson early and see some of Professor Vector's notes (with unfamiliar symbology) from her own studies with Professor Sangnoir, but then Hermione would only have access to a few crumbs of information, as Doug isn't letting Vector in on the full scope of the UMT lessons he's giving Dumbledore.
Perhaps Hermione goes to Doug in his role as DADA Professor and questions the origin of the Sectumsempra spell found in the margins of Harry's potions book? If Doug Arithmantically deconstructs the spell on a chalk board while Hermione watches, this could lead to significantly more in depth questioning on her part.
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"Anyone can be a winner if their definition of victory is flexible enough." - The DM of the Rings XXXV

[Labster]

How well would a 16-year-old girl who stopped taking mundane classes at
the age of 11 understand a subject that is an extension of Unified Field
Theory? She hasn't taken her Arithmancy OWL yet, and this is probably
post-NEWT material.

If it is an extension to Unified Field Theory, then it's just physics, and that's taught to above-average 16-year-olds all the time.  In a decent introductory physics course, you get lots of equations that can be used to do a variety of useful calculations without absurd levels of mathematics.  Thus, Hermione would probably understand it at a high enough level to make some
small modifications to existing spells and see the broad outline of the theory.  After all, the woman actually likes maths and solving intellectual puzzles, so I could see magical theory as being an obsession of hers for the year.
Perhaps she'd even to attempt alternate spellcasting schema.  Wandless casting, alchemy circles, Clow cards, henshin pens... okay maybe Sailor Hermione is a bad idea.  I should probably go to bed before I start giving her black roses or Jusenkyo curses or something.
-- ∇×V

[robkelk]

Perhaps she'd even to attempt alternate spellcasting schema.  Wandless casting, alchemy circles, Clow cards, henshin pens...

... ritual dancing, channeling chi through martial arts, ceremonial magic (no, wait, she and Ginny already did that in the prologue), casting with assistance from Intelligent Devices, ...

Y'know, except for the obvious references to other franchises, most of the obvious possible styles show up somewhere in Rental Magica. They don't come near covering every possibility, but they hit the highlights of most of the "big" ones.

[Bob Schroeck]

Okay, we're veering off-topic. By all means discuss Hermione and the UTM, but give it its own thread.

To get us back on the topic, here's a pair of complementary cliches I just posted over in Murmur's new HP cliche thread in Other People's Fanfiction:

Albus "I'll kill babies and drink their blood for the Greater Good" Dumbledore and Albus "Ask me how senility can enrich your life" Dumbledore. Sometimes both in the same character.
-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.

[Norgarth]

cross posting some ideas I also posted to Murmur's thread
- Dumbles letting Snape get away with blatant favoritism for his
house/make up reasons to penalize the other houses (especially
Griffindor)

- Snape's hatred of Potter being so mouth-frothingly intense that he'll
blame anything and everything on Potter even when there's no way Potter could
have been involved.

- Similarly Snape's hatred leading him to badmouth Potter even when such accusations merely make Snape look stupid.

- Dumbledore's 'greater good' being nothing more than his own
legacy/fame/ego, and him being quite willing to sacrifice others to his
own benefit
- Timeturners being available to any top tier student
___________________________
"I've always wanted to be somebody, but I should have been more specific." - George Carlin

[Disruptor]

I'm quite sure Bob will stay far away from WIKT, so it's not worth bothering about.

Actaully, going by the way of not having ANY parings at all will push this step into non-cliche. Bob seems to be going the way of taking Riddle out by the end of the year, so that allows the children to grow without war pressure to continue their lines.
--------------------
Tom Mathews aka Disruptor

[Hazard]

Unlikely. It's more like Doug ends up leaving the Wizarding world, or atleast Harry and his friends, a lot better prepared. It also leaves the junior Death Eaters much better prepared, but they should atleast have an understanding of what it means when you aren't up against a bunch of goody two-shoes, and your targets are more of the mind of 'I'm gonna die. Well, so is he.'

[robkelk]

Hazard, I refer you to this six-year-old thread...

[Disruptor]

I think this cliche is very hard to go against: Harry Potter is physically abused.
Mostly due to Petunia swinging a frying pan and Harry ducking and no making any comment about it, as if it was normal.
I know JKR was trying for latchkey kid persona, but it didn't work. Hermione is the latchkey kid,which isn't even touched upon in fanfics. It is never touched upon as far as I know.
--------------------
Tom Mathews aka Disruptor

[Bob Schroeck]

There is also a canonical broken arm for very young Harry somewhere, IIRC, ignored for a couple of days before the Dursleys deigned to take him in for medical care.

Or am I remembering near-ascended fanon?
-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.

[Ebony]

There is also a canonical broken arm for very young Harry somewhere, IIRC, ignored for a couple of days before the Dursleys deigned to take him in for medical care.
Or am I remembering near-ascended fanon?

I don't believe so. The only canonical broken arm I recall is from the Quiddich match, and Madame Pomfrey fixes that one. (Though I remember Harry suffering from noodle-arm because of the cure, briefly.) I think the only canonical abuse that Harry gets is verbal from his aunt and uncle and the standard bullying from Dudley (bruises, scrapes, and stolen lunch money).
  
Ebony the Black Dragon
http://ebony14.livejournal.com

"Good night, and may the Good Lord take a Viking to you."

[Proginoskes]

Well, there's also neglect, confinement, and rumormongering: Harry was underfed (although not to the ludicrous degree that is yet another Potter Fanfic Cliche), frequently locked in his sleeping space, and said to be attending "St. Brutus's Secure Centre for Incurably Criminal Boys". The elder Dursleys also pinned the blame on Harry for as much of Dudley's troublemaking as they possibly could, if I recall correctly.

[Star Ranger4]

and expected to do more than a bit of the household chores.
Hear that thunder rolling till it seems to split the sky?
That's every ship in Grayson's Navy taking up the cry-
NO QUARTER!!!
-- "No Quarter", by Echo's Children

[murmur]

So I was watching Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire movie the other day, and the scene with the Second Task came up.  Unlike the book, the movie had Harry with a sheath strapped to his leg, which held his wand as he swam--much like a swimmer's knife.  (If I remember the book correctly, Harry just held his wand throughout the task).

And so, from the movie, comes wand holsters.  Since DW VIII is taking its fashion cues from the movies as well as the books, there should be wand holsters available for Doug.  

-Murmur

[Bob Schroeck]

Oh, nice catch, Murmur. Thank you.
-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.

[Jorlem]

Here's one that occured to me while driving earlier: Potions being like cooking, with following the 'recipe' being the key to a good grade. Admittedly, a good deal of what we see involves Snape writing the instructions on the board, and the students having to follow it, but the sheer amount of writing they need to do for the homework essays indicates that there is a lot more to it than just that. (I once had a chem teacher that would run labs like that, and cover theory either in class, or by assigned readings.) Even Snape's speech at the start of the first year, that shows up in almost every fic, includes some questions that point out that there is more to Potions than just the recipes.
-----
Stand between the Silver Crystal and the Golden Sea.
"Youngsters these days just have no appreciation for the magnificence of the legendary cucumber."  --Krityan Elder, Tales of Vesperia.

[Hazard]

Actually, it's pretty sure that a sufficiently detailed recipe for any potion followed to the letter will get you the same potion of similar quality every single iteration, if only because otherwise potions is completely useless as a subject. In fact, in many ways chemistry is like that too, with part of the assumption being you start with clean tools and raw materials of sufficient quality (well, purity when you are dealing with chemicals). And as long as you follow the instructions properly, you will constantly and consequently get the same results. That's why you can do science to chemistry in the first place. (It's also why you can apply the scientific method to cooking, same ingredients of similar quality with similar gear provides similar results...)

The point of the potions class however isn't just to teach students how to follow recipes, although many will be satisfied with learning that and dropping the class after their OWLs, no part of the lessons is thinking critically about potions, their ingredients and their interactions, preparing students for research and development involving new potions or identifying potions from their effects or a (partial) ingredient list, but that would mostly be part of the NEWT level classes preparing a student for a Master in Potions.

[Jorlem]

Yeah, I meant the class, not making potions in general. It's why I used 'Potions' as a proper noun.

That there were at least some details of ingredient interactions in the first year book does make me think that that isn't all NEWT level stuff.

In canon, we barely get any detail on the theoretical side of any of the subjects, but Potions class is often mocked by a fic's protagonist, be it Harry or an OC or SI, as being simple, or as easy as cooking. That's why I thought of this sort of (unjustified) description of the Potions class to be something of a cliche.
-----
Stand between the Silver Crystal and the Golden Sea.
"Youngsters these days just have no appreciation for the magnificence of the legendary cucumber."  --Krityan Elder, Tales of Vesperia.

[Hazard]

The main reasons we don't get the theoretical side is because that would be boring to most people and it would require careful world building.

And while JKR is quite capable of spinning an interesting yarn, consistent world building is not one of her strengths.

[Jorlem]

Hazard wrote:

---

The main reasons we don't get the theoretical side is because that would be boring to most people and it would require careful world building.

And while JKR is quite capable of spinning an interesting yarn, consistent world building is not one of her strengths.

But even if JKR didn't describe it explicitly, it exists in the setting itself.  Heck, one of the required first year textbooks is titled Magical Theory, so they are presumably studying it in one of their classes.
Oh, here's another fanfic cliche: custom made wands being superior to Ollivander's standard stock. 
According to Pottermore, and this wiki page, before the current Ollivander took over the family business, everyone had custom wands made, with materials they chose.  (This is how Fleur's wand was made.)  The current Ollivander invented a system that matched powerful cores (he only uses three types) with different types of woods (many types), and then let the wand choose the wizard, instead of the other way around.  Ollivander's method is recognized as producing superior, better matched wands than the custom method, so not only is the custom wand thing a cliche, it directly goes against canon.
Editouble checking, this is a cliche that was used in DW, (edit 2: though it also subverted it,I suppose, since none of those would have worked either.)
Also, when looking back at the segment in chapter 2, this caught my eye:

I shrugged. "Sure." I handed it to him, still full-size, saying to it, "Now you behave. He's not trying to take you from me, he just wants to look at you." This got me a raised eyebrow from the wand maker, but since he didn't get electrocuted or anything, I didn't care.

What sort of wood is the Toothpick made of again?  Because the different woods used for Potterverse wands have certain interesting properties, such as well...

LaurelIt is said that a laurel wand cannot perform a dishonourable act, although in the quest for glory (a not uncommon goal for those best suited to these wands), I have known laurel wands perform powerful and sometimes lethal magic. Laurel wands are sometimes called fickle, but this is unfair. The laurel wand seems unable to tolerate laziness in a possessor, and it is in such conditions that it is most easily and willingly won away. Otherwise, it will cleave happily to its first match forever, and indeed has the unusual and engaging attribute of issuing a spontaneous lightning strike if another witch or wizard attempts to steal it.

Edit 3:Looking back at DW5-7, the Toothpick was made from a twig from Yggdrasil, so ash.  Here's what Ollivander has to say about ash wands:

AshThe ash wand cleaves to its one true master and ought not to be passed on or gifted from the original owner, because it will lose power and skill. This tendency is extreme if the core is of unicorn. Old superstitions regarding wands rarely bear close examination, but I find that the old rhyme regarding rowan, chestnut, ash and hazel wands (rowan gossips, chestnut drones, ash is stubborn, hazel moans) contains a small nugget of truth. Those witches and wizards best suited to ash wands are not, in my experience, lightly swayed from their beliefs or purposes. However, the brash or over-confident witch or wizard, who often insists on trying wands of this prestigious wood, will be disappointed by its effects. The ideal owner may be stubborn, and will certainly be courageous, but never crass or arrogant. 

I think that fits Doug fairly well.
-----
Stand between the Silver Crystal and the Golden Sea.
"Youngsters these days just have no appreciation for the magnificence of the legendary cucumber."  --Krityan Elder, Tales of Vesperia.

[Bob Schroeck]

I wasn't aware of the material from Pottermore; I might have to add that to the gloss I already have in the Concordance about the wand selection process in chapter 2.

Double checking, this is a cliche that was used in DW, (edit 2: though it also subverted it,I suppose, since none of those would have worked either.)

Less used than parodied. See said note.
-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.

[Jorlem]

Yeah, I realized what you were doing with the wand making thing later. I thought of the custom wand cliche myself, posted it, then recalled that there was something along those lines in the chapter. I glanced at it (ctrl-F wand'), saw the bit about custom wands, and added that to my post without thinking it the whole way through. Sorry about that. My bad.

Also, this index has all most of the new info that has been put on Pottermore, which you might enjoy looking through. (It is far better organized than Pottermore itself, as they opted not to provide any sort of index for the site for some reason.) There's a fairly large backstory for McGonagall given, and confirmation that poltergeists were never actually alive, under Peeve's entry. The entry on the Malfoy family history firmly debunks the fanon cliche that they are inbred, as the entry on familiars does the same to the idea that traditional familiars exist in canon. The entry on technology is probably also worth your time.
Edit: I noticed the wiki seems to be missing at least one page, on the subject of Pure-Bloods, and might be missing more. 
-----
Stand between the Silver Crystal and the Golden Sea.
"Youngsters these days just have no appreciation for the magnificence of the legendary cucumber."  --Krityan Elder, Tales of Vesperia.

[robkelk]

Also, this index has all most of the new info that has been put on Pottermore, which you might enjoy looking through. (It is far better organized than Pottermore itself, as they opted not to provide any sort of index for the site for some reason.)

Not every wiki has been categorized and cross-referenced as much as Wikipedia or FenWiki have... You've been spoiled by those two.

This is where data-mining skills come in handy...
--
Rob Kelk
"Governments have no right to question the loyalty of those who oppose
them. Adversaries remain citizens of the same state, common subjects of
the same sovereign, servants of the same law."

- Michael Ignatieff, addressing Stanford University in 2012

[Bob Schroeck]

Here's one that pops up in a lot of fics:

The Ministry reflexively labeling as "Dark" any new magic they don't like or find threatening to the established order.
-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.