thoughts on superpowers and martial arts in HP fanfiction

Here's something I've wondered about for several years, in a vague way:

Why do people write so many Super!Harry stories? This occurs over all genres of HP fanfiction -- second war stories, time-travel stories, AU stories set in worlds that still include magic (or mutants, or some sort of 'powers'), romance (het, slash, trios, whatever) -- so clearly it's something that runs deep in the fandom. Super!Harry is often accompanied by the assumption that he knows or learns some sort of martial art, learns swordfighting, learns to use guns, etc.

Okay. I can see the basic source of the idea, I guess. It goes like this: Harry has some power that Voldemort doesn't know, can't fight, or can't use himself. The obvious interpretation of this is LOVE, but love isn't particularly useful for fighting an evil, semi-immortal wizard. So Harry must have some really special magic. Also, Harry is the main character, so it makes sense for him to be special. The martial arts and weapons training probably come from the same source, since Harry, as is, doesn't seem to have many of the relevant skills needed to fight a war.

However!

Super!Harry and Martial-Arts!Harry are completely out of genre.

Super magical powers don't fit into the theme of JKR's world, especially when she makes such a point of insisting that parentage and inheritance are not the important things. She builds up the importance of choice; super magical powers are not something a person can choose. Love, on the other hand, is a choice. So is self-sacrifice.

Martial arts and weapons don't fit into the tone of the wizarding world. On one fundamental level, the Harry Potter books are part of the British boarding school genre, in which nothing too terrible ever happens. The dark fantasy modifies that somewhat, so people do die and horrible things do happen, but the tone remains whimsical despite that. Gritty is just not on. Furthermore, not even Aurors or members of the Order of the Phoenix seem to know or care much about physical combat. War in the wizarding world is a matter of spells. To introduce martial arts is to break the understood rules of JKR's world.

I grant you that new Super!Harry stories seem to be a bit less common these days -- after all, he's had six whole books to develop special powers, and has yet to show any sign of them beyond a modest flair for Defense and a knack for flying -- but I keep running into Gritty-and-Warlike!Harry stories when I venture back into HP fandom. And I just don't understand them. It's one thing to write an AU with a setting where physical violence makes sense. It's another to graft that onto the wizarding world, where it stands out like a sore thumb. That jolts me out of stories that are otherwise fairly decent.

Let me make one thing clear. I am not talking about dark stories about the second war, which may be much nastier than canon will ever go but which retain the underlying logic of JKR's world. What I'm talking about is the introduction of concepts -- like the organization of Muggle armies, or martial arts -- that simply don't exist in the wizarding world, and which Harry himself has no particular way to know. Look, if he'd shown an interest in self-defense, or working out, or studying armies, he probably would have done it already, after either GoF or OotP. That sort of thing is just not on his radar. To have him develop those interests, without a hell of a lot of in-story groundwork, is very OOC.

Um. The one point I'm willing to be flexible on is swords. Clearly, they exist, and were used at some point in the past. But just as clearly, they're not really common anymore, and Harry's idea of swordplay is canonically limited to 'stick the pointy bit in the thing you're trying to kill.' So for someone to pull out a sword in a climactic fight scene is on the near side of believability for me, but only just. And if it degenerates into a swordfight duel, I am so outta there.

ETA: Yes, I realize that I skated close to this line in the beginning of Knives, but the reason I was able to write that without pinging my 'something's fishy' button too badly was because I'm basically okay with swords. And, well, it helped establish the tone of that story.

thoughts on superpowers and martial arts in HP fanfiction

Here's something I've wondered about for several years, in a vague way:

Why do people write so many Super!Harry stories? This occurs over all genres of HP fanfiction -- second war stories, time-travel stories, AU stories set in worlds that still include magic (or mutants, or some sort of 'powers'), romance (het, slash, trios, whatever) -- so clearly it's something that runs deep in the fandom. Super!Harry is often accompanied by the assumption that he knows or learns some sort of martial art, learns swordfighting, learns to use guns, etc.

Okay. I can see the basic source of the idea, I guess. It goes like this: Harry has some power that Voldemort doesn't know, can't fight, or can't use himself. The obvious interpretation of this is LOVE, but love isn't particularly useful for fighting an evil, semi-immortal wizard. So Harry must have some really special magic. Also, Harry is the main character, so it makes sense for him to be special. The martial arts and weapons training probably come from the same source, since Harry, as is, doesn't seem to have many of the relevant skills needed to fight a war.

However!

Super!Harry and Martial-Arts!Harry are completely out of genre.

Super magical powers don't fit into the theme of JKR's world, especially when she makes such a point of insisting that parentage and inheritance are not the important things. She builds up the importance of choice; super magical powers are not something a person can choose. Love, on the other hand, is a choice. So is self-sacrifice.

Martial arts and weapons don't fit into the tone of the wizarding world. On one fundamental level, the Harry Potter books are part of the British boarding school genre, in which nothing too terrible ever happens. The dark fantasy modifies that somewhat, so people do die and horrible things do happen, but the tone remains whimsical despite that. Gritty is just not on. Furthermore, not even Aurors or members of the Order of the Phoenix seem to know or care much about physical combat. War in the wizarding world is a matter of spells. To introduce martial arts is to break the understood rules of JKR's world.

I grant you that new Super!Harry stories seem to be a bit less common these days -- after all, he's had six whole books to develop special powers, and has yet to show any sign of them beyond a modest flair for Defense and a knack for flying -- but I keep running into Gritty-and-Warlike!Harry stories when I venture back into HP fandom. And I just don't understand them. It's one thing to write an AU with a setting where physical violence makes sense. It's another to graft that onto the wizarding world, where it stands out like a sore thumb. That jolts me out of stories that are otherwise fairly decent.

Let me make one thing clear. I am not talking about dark stories about the second war, which may be much nastier than canon will ever go but which retain the underlying logic of JKR's world. What I'm talking about is the introduction of concepts -- like the organization of Muggle armies, or martial arts -- that simply don't exist in the wizarding world, and which Harry himself has no particular way to know. Look, if he'd shown an interest in self-defense, or working out, or studying armies, he probably would have done it already, after either GoF or OotP. That sort of thing is just not on his radar. To have him develop those interests, without a hell of a lot of in-story groundwork, is very OOC.

Um. The one point I'm willing to be flexible on is swords. Clearly, they exist, and were used at some point in the past. But just as clearly, they're not really common anymore, and Harry's idea of swordplay is canonically limited to 'stick the pointy bit in the thing you're trying to kill.' So for someone to pull out a sword in a climactic fight scene is on the near side of believability for me, but only just. And if it degenerates into a swordfight duel, I am so outta there.

ETA: Yes, I realize that I skated close to this line in the beginning of Knives, but the reason I was able to write that without pinging my 'something's fishy' button too badly was because I'm basically okay with swords. And, well, it helped establish the tone of that story.