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Reviews For Moon Fire
Severus as a single father raising a daughter? Adorable. I hope we get to see more of this. And from the sounds of that law (that she's obviously bringing in) sounds like a certain Destroyer of Voldemort is going to be hounded by a certain pink bigot about Sarissa's mother. Specifically her identity, and the purity of her blood. Can't wait to see her face when it turns out she's a deity. Overall, I really enjoyed this story even though I have some issues concerning the characterisation of the deities, but generally I like the flow of the story, the fact you almost made me concerned for Sirius (can't stand the git) and the general depictions of people and the British Wizarding World in general. Religion aside. I do wonder why you didn't use more of the gods and myths native to the UK, but I understand there's not as much literature about them as the traditional go-to pre-Christian religions. Hope to see a sequel soon! There's a lot of potential here, especially if you manage to refine your imaginings of pantheistic polytheistic Wizarding Britain. It just needs more work on making the deities greyer in morality than they are, and emphasising how fluid their respective domains really are. The best way to do this is read a little bit more about the gods and (most importantly) THEIR RELATIONSHIPS WITH EACH OTHER in both many myths, both Roman and Greek given their intermixing and your own merging of the religions. I understand that my reviews tend to be more criticism than praise, but I honestly think this story could improve vastly with just a little more research and refining of the concepts you present here, and so I targeted your weaker areas so that you can improve upon them in the sequel. Who knows, perhaps my ramblings about the various interpretations and whatnot could give you some ideas? Doubtful, but hey. That said, I do enjoy a lot of your stories, and I hope you keep writing, and that one day after you've finished some of your ongoing stories you'll return to the Lunar series.
I'm a little concerned you're Christianising the old gods. Firstly, Selene is the Ancient Greek name for Luna (the Roman equivalent), and she was a Titaness of the moon; although as a deity she also presided over childbirth, magic, the moon, lunacy, the ocean tides, dew, night, the months and sight. By extension everything the moonlight touched could also come under her domain. BUT. You give a Greek named to a ROman deity. Some of the things you allot to Selene as opposed to LUNA. Luna is a general name for all deities of the moon, such as Juno and Diana (both of whom also presided over childbirth), and Luna herself was held as one aspect of the diva triformis; the other faces being Proserpina and Hecate. Luna is also one of the twelve deities who rule over agriculture. And this is where I start to become concerned. She is NOT EVIL. She is the Goddess of Springtime. The reason she is the Queen of the Underworld is a simple myth, you may have heard of it: the Rape of Persephone. That being her Greek equivalent. In both Greek and Roman mythology the Underworld is not a place of evil, it simply is. Tartarus (think Hell) is a section of Hades (the place). As Pluto in both religions he a stern ruler, and compassionate husband. As Hades he was passive, and maintained relative balance. He was one of the Cthonic deities, as was Hecate. Yes, there was blood sacrifice made, but 'cthon' simly means 'eath', 'of earth', 'eathy', and was often linked, yes, to the underworld. hecate, she whom you depict as evil was frequently depicted in triple form and variously associated with crossroads, entrance-ways, fire, light, the Moon, magic, witchcraft, knowledge of herbs and poisonous plants, necromancy, and sorcery. She has also been described as having rulership over earth, sea and sky. In Hesiod's ''Theogeny'' Hecate is said to have been revered above all by Zeus. Many of the pre-Christian gods that you have mentioned you paint in very much a Christian sense of black and white, with none of the bleed over that you see in the ancient myths. As I very briefly (not that you'd believe it from the length of this review) outlined, just with Selene/Luna she is extremely complex, both as herself and as part of a tripartite deity. Especially given one of her other faces herself is a trimorphus deity. Seeing you say Hecate is the 'evil face' of Selene/Luna is just reductive and ignores just how much flow there was between deities and the complexities of their stories. Even Set, the person you call the most evil was also the god of the desert, storms, foreigners as well as darkness (the absent of light) and chaos. While Set is held in conflict with Horus and his kin, he also also depicted as the most powerful of Ra's protector's, protecting him (and light itself) from Apep - a snake god who is truly evil, and sought to slay. Set was only demonised in the Late period of Egyptian history. And even then Set was still worshipped in many places, whereas Apep was actively worshipped *against*. Even the most 'evil' gods generally aren't. And given Apep's a *snake* it would have made so much ore sense for him to be one of Apep's followers. You've oversimplified many things, and in the end I'm left with what I feel is only a vaguely pagan Christianity under a different name. It's kind of distracting because the potential for the Wizarding World to be a contrasting and conflicting set of ideals and ideologies is scarcely has a shade of grey to it even though virtually every single deity of ancient civilisations committed acts of great villainy, heroism and everything in between. Even Selene. She was Titan and Olympian. All Titans were sealed away when Zeus committed patricide for their crimes. Deities are grey,not black and white.
Given school's only just broken up this is set - at the VERY latest - in mid-July, and maybe as early as mid-June. As such, due to British weather during the summer months, the blackberries would be nowhere near ripe. Typically they ripen during very late August and September. The beeswax thing is drawn straight from the Greek sirens yes? Not a typical power associated with dryads, but given they're both of Greek origin I don't see why not. And finally the last thing that really irks e throughout your stories: your British characters using 'quit' to mean 'stop'. This is very much an Americanism, one that you won't even find children using all that often in 2012, let alone in 1995. And *especially* not older generations of witches and wizards or the very articulate such as Severus. Here, with the exception of a few idioms, 'quit' tends to be used in phrases such as 'I quit my job' or 'He quit the premises' with the understanding that 'quit' means 'to leave' or 'to stop', generally with the former being the most prevalent. Thus 'X left Y' is completely synonymous with 'X quit Y', although with the understanding that 'quit' has more permanence to it. Where an American would say 'quit it' a Brit would say 'leave it' or 'leave off' in a casual discussion/argument with family, friends or people of a similar (or perhaps younger age). Someone who naturally is rather formal, or someone who finds themselves in a formal situation/talking with someone older or requiring respect/is in a position of authority would say 'please stop X', 'cease X' and similar phrases. Aside from these very picky British critiques I do like this chapter and how Harry is trusting Severus enough to even subconsciously seek him out for comfort and protection, while showing Dumbledore merely to be a fallible human.
Little Whinging Surrey The first line is the street, the second the town, the third the county. Surrey is a county in the south-east of England; a county is somewhat analogous to an American state. Thus "two towns away from Surrey" completely breaks even a vaguely knowledgeable reader from the story and into confusion. To put it bluntly "two towns away from Surrey" makes about as much sense as saying 'two towns away from Florida'. And as Little Whinging is utterly fictional (but within an hour or so's drive of London) it would be better to either pick a real life location in Surrey, or just say 'were going to be pulling into Little Whinging in about ten minutes'. Aside from that, and some minor confusion over characterisation which will probably be made clearer later, an enjoyable, and interesting AU. I am a little concerned with the phrasing over Snape's plan to initiate Harry. It doesn't sound like he has much of a choice in the matter . . .
Hugs and Love, Vanime
Okay enough with my pining. I loved the story. (Even the parts with Sirius, which is saying a lot since I'm not fond of the bloke.) So what adventures lay in front of the foursome? How will they do at school for the rest of the year? How will Selene look over her family. Author's Response: Yes, as long as you keep him strictly in your bedroom . . . He's so hot and sexy! I'm not fond of Sirius either. usually I can't stand him. I couldn't stand him in the original series, I thought he was a first class ass and that he got himself killed by being a jerk and not using the brains God gave him. When I have time, I will be working on the sequel. It should be very action packed, since Harry has to fight Umbridge in order to fulfill the last part of Selene's request--righting a great wrong. And yes, it does have to do with the unicorns. And Selene will be watching, but not interfering unless absoultely necessary. Thanks!
Author's Response: Umm . . . I think you're getting this story confused with my other one, Return to Prince Manor, which has Harry and Draco showing Hermione how they know how to do wandless magic. |
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