[Harry Potter] My Gilded Life

[Jon]

"My Gilded Life" is a presently uncompleted story by Jared "Skysaber" Ornstead, in which he wakes up in the body of Gilderoy Lockhart, just days after the end of the first Harry Potter book. Typical Skysaber-esque improbabilities ensue. This post outlines many of the offenses against reason and sanity that Mr. Ornstead commits in the story.

Offenses Jared "Skysaber" Ornstead commits as a Self-Insert character:

[*] He retains an astoundingly detailed recollection of not only the seven Harry Potter books, but also the two "schoolbooks" JKR published, as well as many Harry Potter fanfics. He even has memories of the interviews JKR has given. He relies on these fine details being correct, and is not disappointed. As particular examples, he:

[*] Exposes Peter Pettigrew and causes Sirius to be released
   [*] Tracks down and captures Barty Crouch, Jr.
   [*] Obtains four time-turners
   [*] Goes back in time and steals the Philosopher's Stone after Harry passes out from the effort of defeating Quirrel
   [*] Makes use of a knowledge of blood typing and transfusions to draw blood from Harry without him noticing, and inject it in himself, thereby gaining Harry's unusual magical abilities (parselmouth and, in this story, metamorphmagus)
   [*] Takes advantage of the properties of the Murtlap, an animal described only in one of the "schoolbooks" JKR published, to shield himself against curses and jinxes
   [*] Recovers and eliminates all of Voldemort's Horcruxes
   [*] On discovering that Hermione has a sister, and remembering that JKR had been originally given Hermione a sister, then decided against it, decides that this means the sister will either commit suicide out of jealousy, or die in some other manner that only non-magicians would be suspect to, and gives her magical ability (again using blood typing and transfusions) to prevent this
   [*] And all this in the summer between first and second year.
   [/list][*] Upon discovering that the entertainment industry of the Harry Potter universe is woefully undeveloped, he singlehandedly begins redrawing Ranma 1/2 and several other manga properties, selling them as his own. He also films Raiders of the Lost Ark in the space of two weeks and makes a great deal of money thereby.
[*] He discovers that the Dragon Slave is a working spell in the Harry Potter universe.
[/list]
Offenses Jared "Skysaber" Ornstead commits as a Marty Stu:

[*] Despite setting himself up as a moral paragon and encouraging several other characters to convert to his religion, Skysaber commits a wide range of sins:

[*] Multiple murder (the Dursleys and every inmate at Azkaban Prison who'd been identified as a Death Eater, despite knowing that the Ministry was not terribly accurate when it came to the subject of guilt)
   [*] Theft of two invisibility cloaks from the Crouches and four time-turners from the Ministry of Magic.
   [*] Fraud, in that he knowingly permits a shop-owner to charge his purchases to the account of a man he is disguised as
[/list][*] He also uses spells which would likely be considered questionable at best by any competent moral authority:

[*] Multiple use of the Obliviate spell and its derivatives, despite condemning the former Lockhart for the same offense
   [*] Use of the Imperius curse on Bellatrix Lestrange
[/list][*] He becomes Harry's guardian, ingratiates himself into the Granger family, creates a wedge between Mr. and Mrs. Granger causing them to become separated, and appears to be about to get into a romantic relationship with Mrs. Granger.
[*] He singlehandedly makes several medical innovations, such as:

[*] Curing the Longbottoms and many others who suffered from overexposure to the Cruciatus
   [*] Healing a girl whose hands and feet had been severed
   [*] And discovers a way to allow werewolves to completely keep their senses when transformed
   [/list][*] He pushes his religious beliefs on anyone he spends very much time with, and only the token villain resists conversion.
[/list]
Offenses Jared "Skysaber" Ornstead commits as a writer:

[*] Mr. Ornstead appears to be a Mormon of some persuasion. I am able to detect this from the in-story preaching that his avatar character is fond of doing. This is typically considered to be, at best, a crude method of making your points.
[*] He merges The Addams Family into the Harry Potter universe for the sake of quick laughs.
[*] Despite his character relying on the accuracy of JKR's novels, he spends the better part of one chapter ranting on how the last book was completely wrong about Snape (and incidentally also about Dumbledore, who apparently deliberately condemned the Flamels to death without their consent and has been trying for years to afflict students with lycanthropy).
[*] His story contains no plot, only a sequence of events. Nothing bad happens that Skysaber-as-Lockhart (Lockhart, of all people) is easily able to reverse or prevent.
[/list]

[KLSymph]

Clearly you must link to this story so that we may bask in its full glory.

[Jon]

Google finds it easily. I hesitate to link to it, lest weaker minds be overwhelmed by the madness that is Skysaber.

[Dracos]

We appreciate the lack of link :)

Dracos

[Edward]

Wow, it really sounds like the ECB should be revived.

[Jon]

Wow, it really sounds like the ECB should be revived.

I fully support this proposition.

[Jon]

I forgot to mention the best part, where he fires the Dragon Slave over London, causing a massive EMP to blanket the region. And laughs it off, thinking people will be okay without their cars starting for a few days. Except for the cars that are ambulances and fire brigade vehicles. Or the people with pacemakers or who are in ICUs. Or the people in airplanes or helicopters. Et cetera. Not to mention the trillions of pounds in damages caused, which likely resulted in the collapse of a few insurance companies, and people losing their jobs.

[thepanda]

Oddly, of all the offenses listed, the Raiders of the Lost Ark one sticks out the most, followed by the Dragon Slave.

Edit: I reverse that comment. The "Fortunately for me, I'd always thought of and used a version without any pledges to darkness of any kind" bit pushed the Dragon Slave up past the Raiders.

[Bjorn]

HATE

[Slacker]

HATE

That's all?

Tsk.

You're not even trying, are you.

I haven't even read this fic and it makes me wonder if maybe, just maybe, genocide shouldn't be considered a crime.

[Jeram]

Well not-linked sir Jon!

I HAVE read this "thing" in question, and I have now realized that Skysaber thinks HP could only be improved by forceful religious conversion to Mormonism (the "fun" religion), and proceeded to write a story that forced such a contrivance to take place.

Except of course, that it felt forced to an unbelievable extent.  I get the feeling that Mr. "Saber" was just chomping at the bit, waiting for the right opportunity to throw in some patented "I just saved someone with my own religion - damn, I'm good" bits.  I think he just couldn't take it anymore and had to throw it in.

I also think it's a revenge fic of sorts, because he goes around killing off all the characters he hates, which to be honest, is extremely understandable for any reader of the HP series.

And a Skysaber fic wouldn't be a Skysaber fic if it wasn't "breaking things down" in a, um, "logical" fashion.  Yeah, I'm going to keep reading it.  I just want to see how he manages to reshape the world in his image (I know it's coming).  He just can't resist the siren call of "SkysabEarth".

-J

[Dracos]

HATE

That's all?

Tsk.

You're not even trying, are you.

I haven't even read this fic and it makes me wonder if maybe, just maybe, genocide shouldn't be considered a crime.

Is it?  I don't remember Genocide explicitly being banned =P

Dracos

[Merc]

Didn't I already mention how bad this was before I left for Japan? I didn't think it needed a written review, unless it was to warn more people, I guess. =p

[Jon]

Skysaber updated. I suffer through this, so you don't have to.

He finally dragged out the "Wizards can have multiple wives" trope. (Narcissa, Bellatrix, and Mrs. Granger, btw.) Since, you know, he's a Mormon.

Also, he accused Ron of raping Hermione in the future. In front of Ron's mother.

Also, he's now filming Star Trek, having built a replica Starship Enterprise in a gold mine he bought.

Oh, he's also putting up with people arranging marriage proposals on his behalf with students. His students.

I am not making any of this up.

[Edward]

Of course you aren't making it up.  No one could make up dumber things than Skysaber writes.

Dating his students?  Aren't they like 12 at that point?