Someone MUST Write This

[Bob Schroeck]

I came across the following on Tumblr this morning:

myurbandream:

gotham-mother-of-monsters:

my problem with the ‘harry becomes lord of 2/3/4/5 ancient noble
houses’ trope is so unbelievably petty because its that fic writers
don’t take it to the potential extreme. like, okay, you wanna make harry
the bossest of bitches i get that, i understand, i have that urge too
from time to time, but c’mon, be a little more creative about it please

so how about a fic where harry goes to gringotts after the fighting
is all over to try to make peace with the goblin nation because this boy
does not need more problems and after much hostility and some
groveling and promises of future payments for damages caused a plucky
goblin lass comes and shuffles harry into her tiny cube office to
discuss the nature of his financial situation

(this is a grave insult among goblins. getting handled by a female,
first of all, because they are supposedly less capable bankers, hello
misogyny among other species, and because they consider anyone who needs
help with his money to be lower than cave scum. harry doesn’t know
about his. and if he did, he wouldn’t care because he does, desperately,
need help)

and plucky goblin lass (who we will call PGL for short) brings out
this MASSIVE tome of parchment and slams it down on her desk. a cloud of
dust rises. harry sneezes and gets a terrible feeling. some of the
parchment is mildewing. the stack is taller than his hand is wide. this can only end badly

PGL tells him that he’ll need to read the entire book to fully comprehend the new scope of his property and harry kind of weakly says “what??”

and it turns out that heyo, when the death eaters swore to follow
voldemort with all their lives and souls and magic in their little
racist hearts they actually swore a modified liege lord oath which also
has the coincidental side effect of ceding all titles (and property
connected to said titles) held to the lord in question too. haha how
funny who knew

and that’s an ongoing thing. so voldemort was the de facto head of
two dozen magical houses at the beginning of the war and he just picked
up more as he gained more followers and he probably could have just
voted himself and his crew into every position of the government and run
the country like that if he cared to do it but voldemort was not about
dat political life. he wanted change and he wanted it now. he wanted to
MAKE AMERICA MAGICAL BRITAIN GREAT AGAIN. so he started
a civil war and just never informed his loyal death eaters of that
little fact because they didn’t need to know.

and you might think that gringotts vaults are tied into bloodlines but they’re really not.
the malfoy family vault belongs to whoever is the current head of the
malfoy family. normally, that’s a malfoy and his malfoy spawn becomes
the next head and so it passes through the family, accumulating
inherited wealth. it was a working system until voldemort got involved
and exploited the ever-living hell out of it.

now this all becomes harry’s problem because it turns out that Right
of Conquest is an actual thing. what was voldemort’s is now his and
voldemort has has the time to accumulate A Metric Fuck Ton of stuff.

also connected to titles are votes in the wizengamot. and whoo boy,
this is where harry’s problem becomes really really really problematic.
because the noble families squabble over those votes like children,
hoarding them and passing them down, occasionally trading them for
advantageous marriages and such, but mostly jealously guarding them like
the politcal gold they are. it’s such a bitterly tight-fisted market
that any one family has ~maybe~ three or  four votes.

and now harry bloody potter has a hundred of the things and a completely unintentional stranglehold on the government. whoops

and then hermione would shotput harry straight into the
wizengamot

against his protests and things would become so hilarious i just

some jerkass attempts to increase his own salary for doing basically nothing

“how about no,” harry and his hundred votes say.

somebody attempts to tighten restrictions on where magical creatures like vampires and werewolves can work

“how about no.” harry crosses his arms. “actually, how about we
repeal those bullshit laws already in place that make it almost
impossible for werewolves to get a job right now, hmmmm? and how about
we put something in place to catch abusive owners of house elves? and
make sure they get paid? and vacation days? and healthcare? actually how
about we get healthcare for EVERYBODY HOW ABOUT T H A T?”

ten generations of purebloods cry out in horror. look upon him ye mighty and despair.

the years after voldemort’s defeat don’t go down in history as The
Golden Era. in fact, thanks to harry bloody potter (and some incessant
nudging by hermione granger), they go down as The Decade of Frankly
Astonishing Strides Toward Equality *cough* enforced by a
semi-plutocracy.

(all thanks to a third tier plot never really explored by a would-be dictator YOU’RE ALL WELCOME)

Omg this is beautiful.

Bless you, plucky goblin lass.

-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.

[Bob Schroeck]

Obviously for a good story, Harry can't just steamroll everyone in his way -- I'd make it such that Harry by himself is a substantial power bloc but not as seen here able to simply impose his will. Conflict would come from politicking to get the maybe 20 or 30 votes he needs to get an unassailable majority on every issue, and power plays by purebloods looking to get votes back from his collection, and attempts to exploit his ignorance of Wizarding politics and etiquette to discredit or eject him and so on... and toss in "power/responsibility" themes where he discovers things he has no interest in that he must take a stand on, and trying to figure out who to trust outside his friends. Basically turn this into an "I am now powerful beyond all reckoning, and it has painted a proportionally-sized target on my back. And chest."
-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.

[Hazard]

"And lower. And I'm not ready for it."

Also, House Elves don't want to be free, or have wages, or vacation days. They would, however, appreciate not being abused as well as having access to health care.

It'd also potentially be interesting if they keep insulting Harry by shoving him off onto these minor functionaries of useless minorities (like say PGL) and it turns out that these minor functionaries tend to a) have good grasp of the things they should be doing (because if they didn't they'd get fired) and b) are also moderately to very competent in actually getting things done despite interference (because if they didn't they'd get fired). And appreciate that there's at least this one wizard that's actually and honestly treating them decent and isn't trying to blowhard his way to a more useful or competent functionary (read; connected/powerful).

[classicdrogn]

"I think I can figure who's the wrong sort for myself, thanks." - Harry Potter, from HP&tPS

Still as true as ever.
--
"Anko, what you do in your free time is your own choice. Use it wisely. And if you do not use it wisely, make sure you thoroughly enjoy whatever unwise thing you are doing." - HymnOfRagnorok as Orochimaru at SpaceBattles
woot Med. Eng., verb, 1st & 3rd pers. prsnt. sg. know, knows

[WengFook]

You'd have to figure out why Voldemort wasn't abusing the voting bloc himself to effect changes he wanted into place. Unless he was abusing it to make the wizarding government seem incompetent which is incredibly short sighted and foolish. :S
_________________________________
Take Your Candle, Go Light Your World.

[Hazard]

An explanation for that was already given; Voldemort hadn't realised he had so much political power. It's also possible he had, but that casualties in the war made it impossible to apply it, as he'd need to personally show up and vote and if he tried he'd get arrested by whatever chunk of the Ministry of Magic he couldn't bully with his political power out of sheer self preservation, not least of which because even if he has something like 40% of the vote he needs another 11% to make majority votes on his own.

And he's still one guy with a small number of admittedly rich and influential people on his side against at least half the public. If the masses have a vote.

But it's implied they don't due to the Victorian aesthetics of the Wizarding World, and that only rich people/the nobility do. Which is problematic, as then having 40% of the vote is useful, sure, but for Voldemort actually trying to apply it is suicide once the ball of revolution gets rolling against him.

Harry doesn't have this problem (at the start anyway) due to having a shit load of good will among the masses for stopping Voldemort, and then later on as he takes a popular stance to try and make the Wizarding World less of a crapsack place, starting with the government. And he, unlike every other politician, isn't as tied to political considerations simply due to his massive voting block and by right of conquest acquired financial means. Keeping it interesting means not letting him steam roll straight over everyone and requires him to learn how to play the game, if only so he knows when others try to play him, but that's doable for a decent writer.

[drakensis]

At least one personal conflict might well be within Harry's circle of friends over a single question: "When do they reform the system of the Wisengamot so that no one can game the system like this in the future?" Because I think they'd agree that in the long run this is a very serious problem to be corrected, but in the short term it's very tempting to leave it in place so they can get things done...
After all, power corrupts and absolute power is actually very tempting...
D for Drakensis

You're only young once, but immaturity is forever.

[Hazard]

Oh that's easy; when you enfranchise the masses and make the Wizengamot a representative legislative body chosen by single transferable vote or by list transferable vote.

Of course, when, exactly you do that... that's a harder question, and one that would need much discussion.

[Ebony]

WengFook wrote:

---

You'd have to figure out why Voldemort wasn't abusing the voting bloc himself to effect changes he wanted into place. Unless he was abusing it to make the wizarding government seem incompetent which is incredibly short sighted and foolish. :S

I always saw Voldemort as sort of a wizard version of Al-Qaeda. He wants to be in charge, to get rid of all the impure muggleborn and half-bloods, and generally overthrow the current order, but he hasn't any thought on anything beyond that. He surrounds himself with crazies, like Bella and Greyback, and toadies, like Pettigrew and some of the others that have speaking parts in the story, but no one with any kind of actual cunning. Of if there are cunning folk there, they're keeping below the radar, because Lord V. is just shy of pants-on-head crazy. If he won, he'd have no idea how to govern beyond the obligatory purges. If he'd succeeded, he'd have been... well, not overthrown, but certainly put in a sort of puppet figurehead sort of state by those Death Eaters that actually knew what they were doing, maybe Malfoy Sr., whose the only featured Death Eater with any sort of brains. Of course, since Lucien's not pants-on-head crazy like his sister-in-law or a psychopath like Greyback, he's not fully trusted by Lord V., and it's possible that Lucien gets purged for being "disloyal" once Voldemort's run out of actual enemies and the paranoia has started to eat at him. But given the portrayal of the Wizardgamot politicians in the books, it's likely that, if Voldemort won, a number of career politicians who knew how to speak Crazy would be able to insert themselves and run things while keeping their batshit fucking loco leader and his equally crazy inner circle entertained until they could poison them in their sleep or lock them away, leaving them to form a more lasting fascist government.  
Ebony the Black Dragon
http://ebony14.livejournal.com

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

[classicdrogn]

Actually, a "We won, what now?" treatment where the brighter sorts among the revolutionaries realizes they need to actually, y'know, govern rather than just smashing things now, and how they have to grow into it, could be as interesting an idea as the origiinal proposal, at lest if you could introduce some plausibly sympathetic characters first to be the leads - or perhaps Tim the Death Eater is actually Harry Potter under cover? There's a different flock of problems with trying to spin it that way too, of course.
--
"Anko, what you do in your free time is your own choice. Use it wisely. And if you do not use it wisely, make sure you thoroughly enjoy whatever unwise thing you are doing." - HymnOfRagnorok as Orochimaru at SpaceBattles
woot Med. Eng., verb, 1st & 3rd pers. prsnt. sg. know, knows

[deadpan29]

Ebony wrote:

---

But given the portrayal of the Wizardgamot politicians in the books, it's likely that, if Voldemort won, a number of career politicians who knew how to speak Crazy would be able to insert themselves and run things while keeping their batshit fucking loco leader and his equally crazy inner circle entertained until they could poison them in their sleep or lock them away, leaving them to form a more lasting fascist government.  

In other words, Umbridge?
----------
No, I don't believe the world has gone mad.  In order for it to go mad it would need to have been sane at some point.

[Ebony]

Deadpan29 wrote:

---

Ebony wrote:

---

But given the portrayal of the Wizardgamot politicians in the books, it's likely that, if Voldemort won, a number of career politicians who knew how to speak Crazy would be able to insert themselves and run things while keeping their batshit fucking loco leader and his equally crazy inner circle entertained until they could poison them in their sleep or lock them away, leaving them to form a more lasting fascist government.  

In other words, Umbridge?

Given her track record, I doubt Voldemort would really trust her. Plus, she hasn't distinguished herself particularly well politically either. The cannier politicians would likely keep her around to draw fire, but I suspect the general opinion of Umbridge is that she's in decline. I mean, she couldn't stop a bunch of students from running riot all over Hogwart's; how could she possibly run the government? To say nothing of "cavorting" with a bunch of centaurs! I mean, you know how they are! 
  
Ebony the Black Dragon
http://ebony14.livejournal.com

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