Title: Concerning Wizards
Author: Morwen Pendragon
Rating: T
Genre: Adventure/Fantasy
DLP Category: The Altenates
Pairing: None
Chapters: 6
Words: 33,989
Updated: November 14, 2012
Published: January 3, 2010
Status: WIP
Summary: Fate hated him, Death obviously has something against him, and now he is awake in a green land unlike what he left and is determined not to care this time. NoPairings, HPLOTR X-over
Link: Link

Searched everywhere I could and I didn't find it. So, here's hoping for the best.

First thing you need to know is that it's good. Hell, it's probably one of the best HP/LORT x-overs out there. Second thing is that it hasn't been updated in nearly six months. Don't let that put you off though, there's still five chapters of DLP quality reading. Or at least that's my opinion.

4/5


Checked by Minion, February 4, 2013

 

Read this before, not impressed. Read it again, still not that impressed.

The prologue is all tell and no show. The author is trying to give Harry some backstory and explain how he reached the point of being depressed and suicidal, but it falls flat. Harry in vague terms narrates the war against Voldemort, but there's no emotional oomph. It's "Ron was killed by Voldemort's snake, and then Ginny and Draco were killed in a rage...and then Luna was decapitated." The description's weak and the narration is boring. Rather than hit us with Harry's emotions and thoughts, or some sort of flashback to the actual events and fights, its line after line of info-dump narration.

This paragraph is a good example.

Spoiler

The bottle she handed them was the one he was drinking now. The three of them promised each other that they would split the bottle when Tom Marvolo Riddle and all his followers were eliminated. How naïve they were then. He wished he was still naïve now. Two years of hunting Deatheaters taught him that tomorrow doesn't exist. The past two years seemed like one long day since he woke up from his death. Voldemort was shocked by the turn in events, he didn't realize the depths that Harry had fallen to to destroy the Horcrux's. No sword, no Basilisk fang, he had to destroy the darkness with darkness. Learning Occlumency never turned out as well as Dumbledore had wanted it to, but Harry was able to retain some parseltongue abilities as well as the control he learned to destroy the cup, locket, and tiara. Nagini was the last to go, her destruction showed Tom Riddle that he was no longer dealing with a 14 year-old schoolboy. Tom Riddle died upon the Dark magic that he coveted and the Elder Wand he lost to an eighteen year-old with cold green eyes and a cause. He only came back from death to ensure that others won't be killed by Tom and his followers. He almost wished he stayed dead.

It has the potential to be epic, kick ass and a way to show Harry's skill and the depths he's sunk too. Instead it's just blah and boring. And it raises a ton of questions the author never answers. It implies Harry died. Is that so? And if so, what brought him back? Show us, reach us emotionally, make us care. But the story doesn't, it just moves on. That's basically the way the whole fic is.

The fic also alludes to backstory that we don't know and that isn't explained, which is irritating. The writer seems to struggle with English syntax and grammar as well. He also switches tense at times for no apparent reason. And some of the sentences leave out crucial words and ideas, leaving the reader rathe confused. An example.

Control of what? His emotions? Some ability? What is he maintaining control of? And what relation does it bear to Occlumency? If it is in fact Occlumency, then how in the hell does that help him destroy a horcrux?

And again.

Presumably this is meant to read "which Aragorn said contained". On it's own the missing word isn't such a big deal. But issues like this crop up often enough that it's damn annoying.

Also, the story begins with Harry's character trying to commit suicide. I don't want to read that. I don't care how realistic the author feels it is in this scenario, I have no desire to read about a protagonist who gave up and tried to off himself. Do not want.

EDIT: The further it gets, the better it gets. The characterizations of the dwarves, hobbits and Aragorn, I loved. The elves seemed somewhat off, but not terrible. Also, the author starts to show rather than tell the further he gets. Unfortunately, the issues with missing words, switching tense in the same sentence, etc., continue. The author needs a good beta to catch those.

The prologue was awful. Thats a 2/5 for sure. But the later chapters hold promise and the storytelling improves. There are still any number of issues that mar the fic, however especially given how short it is currently.

3/5 for now.

 

As a matter of principle I am against HP/LotR crosses. Simply because LotR is sacred. Take that as you like.

That said, I read this a few days ago and I was pleasantly surprised. Mostly because this particular cross usually yields terrible stories or Legolas wank jobs.

Harry is suicidal in the beginning of the story and that is a turn off. It's the 'everyone is dead and I am too tired to go on' plot device. Again, usually a turn off for me.

The story, though, soon moves past this because Harry ends up in LotR universe and at a fairly decent juncture in the story. Besides Glorfindel's characterization, which at times seems childish, Strider, the hobbits, Gandalf, all are done pretty well.

I think this deserves being followed until more develops. We still have a Harry who is not quite committed yet, and he is less than awed by the elves, which is amusing. I am looking at this story in comparison to the many failures of crossovers with LotR and it rates very favorably. On its own it really needs a couple more chapters before one can make the best decision.

I am rating it a tentative 4, because the characterization and descriptions are good. Tentative because where the story is going is still ambiguous, and Harry as he stands could become pretty annoying if he continues this way.

 

This was posted some time ago in the almost recommended thread.

I've sort have enjoyed this, but there are problems. Like previously stated by others, I find that Harry's outlook is terrible to read. Angst/suicidal for me is just not what I want to be reading, so it loses marks there. Also, the author states somewhere (profile or in notes) that they intend to be rather flashback heavy, something like half of the story is going to be focusing on what Harry was doing prior to coming to Middle-Earth.

That, for me is going suck big time.

It also hasn't been updated in ages, which while some might think is harsh, does detract from a story for me.

2.5/5, throughly right in the middle. It could be good, and got better later on compared to the early chapters, but Harry's rather woe-is-me pisspoor attitude is a hurdle that may not be overcome. What's worse, is that the author has invested far too much in making it Harry's defining character trait for this story, making it difficult to change quickly.

 

This is why I am tentative in my rating. If this changes, the story will be one of the better crosses out there, if this continues then this is a very tiresome Harry portrayal and average story.

 

I think a crossover could be really interesting with the war of the first age against Morgoth. It would an epic environment far beyond what LotR was and the most important thing it's not really defined to the smallest details by books everybody knows. In the history of middle earth LotR was just the afterglow.

 

I really like the contrast we see between Aragorn and Harry. Aragorn's got the maturity and distrust and duty and purpose, while harry is immature, lacking in duty and purpose, and despite his asserted paranoia, seems to be quite trusting of his hosts.

It had an absolute gem in Aragorn's musings on Harry's armor, and if we find more little gems like that, this story could really become great.

But seriously, the crappy flashbacks have got to stop. Carrow was tolerable. Hermione was agonizing, and the prologue was the fastest skim-reading i've done since school.

tenatively, its a 3.5/5, with high potential to go either way.

And skimming the prologue is strongly emcouraged.

 

This fic is on solid so-la-la (3/5) ground.

I like the Badass!Harry you can glimpse between the angst episodes and the UberElves! bashing is a nice touch too. But there are some drawbacks, the main one being that nothing much happens in the published chapters and that there is not enough interaction between the main characters, mostly due to Harry's alcohol exesses. I don't like crack!fic elements splattered all over what should really be a serious crossover.

 

This.

For me, any story becomes a poor read if the main character - through whose eyes the story is being told most of the time - is going to be mostly drunk. Of course, this story takes it one step further and actually shows Harry's excesses and him getting thoroughly pissed; and while it can be funny if done in small doses, it'd be a pain to keep following if the drunk and angsty Harry we've seen so far becomes the mainstay.

And also, any fan-fiction with Tolkien's works is bound to suck in some way. The entire mythos is just too well tied in to allow any crossovers - or even any fan-fiction at all - to succeed easily.

Still, this fic can't really be classified as bad, so...3/5.

 

All of the issues have already been touched upon, but I'm enjoying it. The characterisation is very good, also, though we haven't seen much of it yet.

That said, hoping that the ~7 month break in writing won't indicate abandonment is probably misplaced optimism. Feels a bit like a 'this is a cool bunny/challenge response -> shit, I'm 30k in and don't know where I'm going with it'.

3/5

 

If anyone is still interested, this story was recently updated. The chapter is mostly filler, and the author appears to be quite busy/contemplating letting someone else take over. I was hoping for more from the first chapter after going this long without an update, but I sort of understand the need for this chapter. I also didn't really like the characterizations in this chapter.

As it stands, I'd probably rate it a 3.5 given this most recent chapter.

 

It's moving no where, the whole fic is basically an attempt by the author to show how much harry system magic is stronger than LOTRs.

 

...? If anything, I thought the latest chapter was showing how not even Fiendfyre can destroy the ring. And it's not like we've seen any showdowns between the magic in the world. I thought the plot was moving forward nicely.