History YMMV / DumbledoresArmyAndTheYearOfDarkness

** Criticisms of the story include the sexism, Marty Stu-ing Neville, other people acting OutOfCharacter, the DarkerAndEdgier content being gratuitous, characters carrying the IdiotBall, and flagrant violations of canon. And the author getting caught faking being ill so readers would send him money ''really'' didn't help.

%%* {{Ensemble Darkhorse}}s: Terry Boot and Michael Corner.

* HypeBacklash: In-progress. Much more criticism of the story has [[http://nevssporking.tumblr.com/tagged/sporking/chrono been seen]] as of late, including on our own recommendations page. Criticisms include the sexism, Marty Stu-ing Neville, other people acting OutOfCharacter, the DarkerAndEdgier content being gratuitous, characters carrying the IdiotBall, and flagrant violations of canon.
** And the author getting caught faking being ill so readers would send him money ''really'' didn't help.

** Regarding Andrew Blake, people also haven't missed the fact that he seems to change personas and communities constantly - after DAYD's HypeBacklash, he pretty much instantly jumped to the Series/{{Supernatural}} fandom, and he only got involved with Literature/HarryPotter fandom after he was caught scamming people in Literature/TheLordOfTheRings fandom (under numerous names, most notably Victoria Bitter). [[http://kumquatwriter.wordpress.com/2011/11/26/a-letter-to-the-daydians-my-life-with-andrew-blake-laid-bare/ Then there's this...]]

* HypeBacklash: In-progress. Much more criticism of the story has [[http://nevssporking.tumblr.com/tagged/sporking/chrono been seen]] as of late, including on our own recommendations page. Criticisms include the sexism, MartyStu-ing Neville, other people acting OutOfCharacter, the DarkerAndEdgier content being gratuitous, characters carrying the IdiotBall, and flagrant violations of canon.

* DeaderThanDisco: The fic was once one of the best-regarded stories in the ''Literature/HarryPotter'' fandom. It provided an intriguing PerspectiveFlip to one of the premiere [[OffscreenMomentOfAwesome offscreen moments of awesome]] in the series, namely the resistance to the Death Eaters by the students of Hogwarts in the final book, and the author gained praise for researching actual ChildSoldiers to better be able to describe the students' plight. The hype, however, was not to last, and criticisms mounted over time, including, but not limited to, the CharacterShilling of Neville as the leader of the resistance to the expense of Luna and Ginny (in the book, Neville himself says they shared leadership duties equally); the treatment of women, particularly the arc involving Lavender being raped and the boys, not Lavender herself, punishing the rapists; the seeming disdain for the canon main characters Harry, Ron, and Hermione, whom various characters insult for not weathering the storm with them; the fact that the story kills off several characters confirmed to survive in canon despite claiming to be canon-compliant; and the [[RonTheDeathEater treatment]] given to Snape, who is shown as an unrepentant Death Eater and the true BigBad of the story - Thanfiction even stated on his blog that he hated how Snape was redeemed in the books and chose to write him as the sociopath he "really" is. Any fandom the story had was largely finished off when it came out that "Thanfiction" was actually Andrew Blake, a notorious ConMan who had, under his previous screen name "Victoria Bitter," swindled many ''Literature/LordOfTheRings'' fans out of money, and who is also known for having abused several women in real life. The story still has a following, but they are mostly looked at with disdain and willfully blind to the story's flaws.
* {{Ensemble Darkhorse}}s: Terry Boot and Michael Corner.

* HypeBacklash: In-progress. Much more criticism of the story has [[http://nevssporking.tumblr.com/tagged/sporking/chrono been seen]] as of late, including on our own recommendations page. Criticisms include the sexism, MartyStu-ing Neville, other people acting OutOfCharacter, the DarkerAndEdgier content being gratuitous, characters carrying the IdiotBall, and [[TheyJustDidntCare flagrant violations of canon]].

* DarknessInducedAudienceApathy: The fic ''wants'' to be a "serious" take on the ''Franchise/HarryPotter'' series. Unfortunately, the author has mistaken gratuitous gore and bloodshed for seriousness. People die ''en masse'' even when canon insists they lived, morally-ambiguous characters are transformed into pure evil, ''nobody'' gets out without severe injury (physical or mental), and if it looks like something good is about to happen, the heroes will destroy it with their own stupidity or selfishness--and yet the narrative expects us to sympathize with them, especially in the case of [[GodmodeSue Neville]] [[FixerSue Longbottom]]. Once hailed as a work of art, it's now seen as a mass of potential buried in overdone "drama".
* DeaderThanDisco: The fic was once one of the best-regarded stories in the ''Literature/HarryPotter'' fandom. It provided an intriguing PerspectiveFlip to one of the premiere [[OffscreenMomentOfAwesome offscreen moments of awesome]] in the series, namely the resistance to the Death Eaters by the students of Hogwarts in the final book, and the author gained praise for researching actual ChildSoldiers to better be able to describe the students' plight. The hype, however, was not to last, and criticisms mounted over time, including, but not limited to, the CharacterShilling of Neville as the leader of the resistance to the expense of Luna and Ginny (in the book, Neville himself says they shared leadership duties equally); the treatment of women, particularly the arc involving Lavender being raped and the boys, not Lavender herself, punishing the rapists; the seeming disdain for the canon main characters Harry, Ron, and Hermione, whom various characters insult for not weathering the storm with them; the fact that the story kills off several characters confirmed to survive in canon despite claiming to be canon-compliant; and the [[RonTheDeathEater treatment]] given to Snape, who is shown as an unrepentant Death Eater and the true BigBad of the story - Thanfiction even stated on his blog that he hated how Snape was redeemed in the books and chose to write him as the sociopath he "really" is. Any fandom the story had was largely finished off when it came out that "Thanfiction" was actually Andrew Blake, a notorious ConMan who had, under his previous screen name "Victoria Bitter," swindled many ''Literature/LordOfTheRings'' fans out of money, and who is also known for having abused several women in real life. The story still has a following, but they are mostly looked at with disdain and wilfully blind to the story's flaws.
* [[EnsembleDarkhorse Ensemble Darkhorses]]: Terry Boot and Michael Corner.

* JerkSue: Neville Longbottom. This is the heart of the Fandom/Hatedom split.
** This story's Neville never thinks of his friends as friends, just as assets to be used in the war. This is supposedly why he's such a good leader - but it's completely the opposite of the Neville we know from the books. Granted, he TookALevelInBadAss in canon, but he never TookALevelInJerkAss to go with it. Here, however, it's another story.
** Everyone fawns over him. Even when he's acting violent and irrational. Hell, even in chapters where he's evidently meant to be in the wrong, ''others'' apologise to him. For example, at one point, he's literally killing himself through pushing himself too hard, and is lashing out at people left and right. The rest of the Dumbledore's Army leadership decides to tell him he needs to step down for a few weeks, and that they won't take no for an answer, carefully explaining that it's for his own good, and that they look up to him, admire him, and look forwards to his return in a few weeks. Cue several chapters of {{Wangst}}, constant whining and despair that he's lost Dumbledore's Army! How could they ''do'' this to him, etc, and throwing as big of a temper tantrum as he can. The other people apologise (with much suppressed eye-rolling) for having dared to look after his health. He never apologizes to them.

** Severus Snape, who in the books was a very, very effective ReverseMole who through all his [[SadistTeacher sadist teaching]] legitimately tried to protect as many students as possible from the Death Eaters, is here shown to thoroughly enjoy his position as Death Eater-appointed Headmaster of Hogwarts; he attempts to assassinate Neville, hires the former [[TheDragon Dragon]] to [[PredecessorVillain Grindelwald]] as school disciplinarian, and when a Slytherin student defects to the good guys it's strongly implied he has the boy's entire family killed. He still turns out to be a mole here, but this is simply treated as the final insult; that someone so horrible could still be remembered as a hero simply for nominally siding against someone even worse. [[http://daydverse.livejournal.com/107539.html This essay]] by the author interpreting him as an unrepentant sociopath looking for an excuse to murder and torture students. Even considering that he's a rather unpleasant SadistTeacher in the books, the logic taken to reach this conclusion is... somewhat debatable given the textual evidence. Especially since WordOfGod from Rowling indicates that Snape often shielded students from more severe punishment at the hands of the Carrows.

* CompleteMonster: Severus Snape. As Headmaster, he inflicts his sadistic whims on the poor students and regularly blackmails the D.A. by punishing '''eleven-year olds''' in their place. He even ordered an eleven-year old flogged and left in chains for thirty hours. What Snape did to [[spoiler:Michael]] as a punishment for freeing this kid was completely unforgivable: he had the poor guy tortured in a nightmarish way, prolonging the agony to the point where his best friend Terry tried to put him out of his misery with ''Avada Kedavra''. The author has been criticized for portraying Snape as [[RonTheDeathEater way, way too evil]].

* StrawmanHasAPoint: About two-thirds of the way through, Zacharias Smith decides to leave the DA. When he does so, he explains that the DA is sounding more and more like a martyrdom cult with each passing day, and the focus of the group has changed from "Resist the Death Eaters" to "Die heroically". The DA counterargument is... to agree with every word he says and ask, "What's the problem with that?" Bear in mind that all of the members of Dumbledore's Army are ''[[ChildSoldiers teenagers]]'', and Zacharias Smith (who was a strawman in [[Literature/HarryPotter canon]]!) suddenly becomes the OnlySaneMan.

* HypeBacklash: In-progress. Much more criticism of the story has [[http://nevssporking.tumblr.com/post/121244839526/dumbledores-army-and-the-year-of-darkness-chapter been seen]] as of late, including on our own recommendations page. Criticisms include the sexism, MartyStu-ing Neville, other people acting OutOfCharacter, the DarkerAndEdgier content being gratuitous, characters carrying the IdiotBall, and [[TheyJustDidntCare flagrant violations of canon]].

* HypeBacklash: In-progress. Much more criticism of the story has [[http://tinyurl.com/2fhaebl been seen]] as of late, including on our own recommendations page. Criticisms include the sexism, MartyStu-ing Neville, other people acting OutOfCharacter, the DarkerAndEdgier content being gratuitous, characters carrying the IdiotBall, and [[TheyJustDidntCare flagrant violations of canon]].

*** To be fair to Thanfiction, throughout the canon books Filch waxes nostalgic about ''thumb screws being used to punish rule-breakers'', and eagerly marches around with a ''bullwhip'' with intent of use whenever a more child-unfriendly administrator comes into authority to give him a pass for it. While as excessive as everything else, Filch being blood-thirsty child-abuser isn't OOC, it's him doing what he always threatened he would if he thought he could get away with it.

* DeaderThanDisco: The fic was once one of the best-regarded stories in the ''Literature/HarryPotter'' fandom. It provided an intriguing PerspectiveFlip to one of the premiere [[OffscreenMomentOfAwesome offscreen moments of awesome]] in the series, namely the resistance to the Death Eaters by the students of Hogwarts in the final book, and the author gained praise for researching actual ChildSoldiers to better be able to describe the students' plight. The hype, however, was not to last, and criticisms mounted over time, including, but not limited to, the CharacterShilling of Neville as the leader of the resistance to the expense of Luna and Ginny (in the book, Neville himself says they shared leadership duties equally); the treatment of women, particularly the arc involving Lavender being raped and the boys, not Lavender herself, punishing the rapists; the seeming disdain for the canon main characters Harry, Ron, and Hermione, whom various characters insult for not weathering the storm with them; the fact that the story kills off several characters confirmed to survive in canon despite claiming to be canon-compliant; and the [[RonTheDeathEater treatment]] given to Snape, who is shown as an unrepentant Death Eater and the true BigBad of the story - Thanfiction even stated on his blog that he hated how Snape was redeemed in the books and chose to write him as the sociopath he "really" is. Any fandom the story had was largely finished off when it came out that "Thanfiction" was actually Andrew Blake, a notorious ConMan who had, under his previous screen name "Victoria Bitter," swindled many ''Literature/LordOfTheRings'' fans out of money, and who is also known for [[BastardBoyfriend seducing and abandoning women in real life]]. The story still has a following, but they are mostly looked at with disdain and wilfully blind to the story's flaws.

** Even the crotchety janitor Mr. Filch is shown to have joined [[CreepyTwins the Carrows]] as a school TortureTechnician[[note]] To be fair, Filch is one of the few who doesn't suffer from CharacterDerailment that much, as in ''Literature/HarryPotterAndTheOrderOfThePhoenix'' he IS shown to enjoy the thought of hurting children and actively attempts to do so at every opportunity. Torture isn't that much of a stretch for someone like him[[/note]].

* AlternativeCharacterInterpretation: The [=DAYDverse=] is just ''full'' of this, affecting every significant character and even some very minor ones.
* AngstWhatAngst: Tons of death. Everyone keeps going.

* CanonFodder: DAYD expands on barely-described scenes from ''Literature/HarryPotterAndTheDeathlyHallows'' and provided characterization to people barely mentioned in the books; the FanVerse expands on it.
* CompleteMonster: Severus Snape. As Headmaster, he inflicts his sadistic whims on the poor students and regularly blackmails the D.A. by punishing '''eleven-year olds''' in their place. He even ordered an eleven-year old flogged and left in chains for thirty hours. What Snape did to [[spoiler:Michael]] as a punishment for freeing this kid was completely unforgivable: he had the poor guy tortured in a nightmarish way, prolonging the agony to the point where his best friend Terry tried to put him out of his misery with ''Avada Kedavra''. The author has been criticized for portraying Snape as [[RonTheDeathEater way, way too evil.]]
* CriticalResearchFailure: Recent rape victims are usually ''not'' receptive to male-initiated sexual acts as the [[HurtComfortFic post-Sluagh one-shot]] ''[[http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5475729/1/More_Realer More Realer]]'' and the end of the [[spoiler:Lavender]] scene in DAYD describe.

* DarknessInducedAudienceApathy: ''Sluagh'', and even more so ''A Peccatis'', for different but related reasons.

* HoYay: The author was astounded at the number of people asking whether Michael Corner and Terry Boot were together.

*** Regarding Andrew Blake, people also haven't missed the fact that he seems to change personas and communities constantly - after DAYD's HypeBacklash, he pretty much instantly jumped to the Series/{{Supernatural}} fandom, and he only got involved with Literature/HarryPotter fandom after he was caught scamming people in Literature/TheLordOfTheRings fandom (under numerous names, most notably Victoria Bitter). [[http://kumquatwriter.wordpress.com/2011/11/26/a-letter-to-the-daydians-my-life-with-andrew-blake-laid-bare/ Then there's this...]]
* JerkSue: This is the heart of the Fandom/Hatedom split.

** Everyone fawns over him. Even when he's acting violent and irrational. Hell, even in chapters where he's evidently meant to be in the wrong, ''others'' apologise to him.
*** For example, at one point, he's literally killing himself through pushing himself too hard, and is lashing out at people left and right. The rest of the Dumbledore's Army leadership decides to tell him he needs to step down for a few weeks, and that they won't take no for an answer, carefully explaining that it's for his own good, and that they look up to him, admire him, and look forwards to his return in a few weeks. Cue several chapters of {{Wangst}}, constant whining and despair that he's lost Dumbledore's Army! How could they ''do'' this to him, etc, and throwing as big of a temper tantrum as he can. The other people apologise (with much suppressed eye-rolling) for having dared to look after his health. He never apologizes to them.
* RonTheDeathEater: Snape is portrayed as being considerably more evil than in canon in this story, with [[http://daydverse.livejournal.com/107539.html this essay]] by the author interpreting him as an unrepentant sociopath looking for an excuse to murder and torture students. Even considering that he's a rather unpleasant SadistTeacher in the books, the logic taken to reach this conclusion is... somewhat debatable given the textual evidence. Especially since WordOfGod from Rowling indicates that Snape often shielded students from more severe punishment at the hands of the Carrows.
* TastesLikeDiabetes: One of Hannah Abbott's aunts.
* TheyWastedAPerfectlyGoodPlot / ShaggyDogStory: Chapter 18 of DAYD. Hans Belsen, basically an Expy of Josef Mengele, shows up to the school because he wants to torture children. When [[GaryStu Neville and Jack Sloper]] insult him ''later that chapter,'' he immediately leaves the school instead of, you know, torturing them.
-->"BAM! Other side of his face goes, and Alecto was so furious, she kicked him out of the class. Said he had lost the privilege of learning from Belsen. So that's when I raised my hand and asked if I could lose the privilege too, and Belsen just gave the whole class this long look, looked back at Alecto, and told her that he had been under the impression the teachers controlled Hogwarts, not the students, and he left." -- Jack Sloper describing the surprisingly quick defeat of Nazi torturers.

* CompleteMonster:
** Severus Snape. As Headmaster, he inflicts his sadistic whims on the poor students and regularly blackmails the D.A. by punishing '''eleven-year olds''' in their place. He even ordered an eleven-year old flogged and left in chains for thirty hours. What Snape did to [[spoiler:Michael]] as a punishment for freeing this kid was completely unforgivable: he had the poor guy tortured in a nightmarish way, prolonging the agony to the point where his best friend Terry tried to put him out of his misery with ''Avada Kedavra''. The author has been criticized for portraying Snape as [[RonTheDeathEater way, way too evil.]]
** [[MorallyAmbiguousDoctorate "Professor"]] Hans Belsen, named after the Belsen-Bergen Concentration Camp. If Grindelwald is an {{Expy}} for UsefulNotes/AdolfHitler, then Belsen is an {{Expy}} for Josef Mengele.

*** Regarding Andrew Blake, people also haven't missed the fact that he seems to change personas and communities constantly - after DAYD's HypeBacklash, he pretty much instantly jumped to the Series/{{Supernatural}} fandom, and he only got involved with Literature/HarryPotter fandom after he was caught scamming people in Literature/TheLordOfTheRings fandom. (under numerous names, most notably Victoria Bitter) [[http://kumquatwriter.wordpress.com/2011/11/26/a-letter-to-the-daydians-my-life-with-andrew-blake-laid-bare/ Then there's this...]]

** [[MorallyAmbiguousDoctorate "Professor"]] Hans Belsen, named after the Belsen-Bergen Concentration Camp. If Grindelwald is an {{Expy}} for AdolfHitler, then Belsen is an {{Expy}} for Josef Mengele.

** The Carrow siblings, Alecto and Amycus. The former makes her students repeat hateful anti-Muggle propaganda in classes and tortures them with the Cruciatus curse if they refuse. The latter is even worse: he over-uses the Cruciatus curse as a punishment to the point where students are not afraid of it anymore. And let's not forget how he forced Hagrid to throw Neville, Ginny and Luna to the werewolves.
** All villains from the canon are portrayed as even more monstrous, since this story is DarkerAndEdgier. Of course, CompleteMonster villains like Voldemort and Bellatrix Lestrange are way, ''way'' worse in this story.

** [[HumanoidAbomination The Diabhal Dubh]] in ''Sluagh''. He makes all the previous villains seem like Care Bears.

** [[MorallyAmbiguousDoctorate "Professor"]] Hans Belsen, named for the Belsen-Bergen Concentration Camp. If Grindelwald is an {{Expy}} for AdolfHitler, then Belsen is an {{Expy}} for Josef Mengele.

* CanonFodder: DAYD expands on barely-described scenes from ''HarryPotterAndTheDeathlyHallows'' and provided characterization to people barely mentioned in the books; the FanVerse expands on it.

*** Regarding Andrew Blake, people also haven't missed the fact that he seems to change personas and communities constantly - after DAYD's HypeBacklash, he pretty much instantly jumped to the {{Supernatural}} fandom, and he only got involved with HarryPotter fandom after he was caught scamming people in the LordOfTheRings fandom. (under numerous names, most notably Victoria Bitter) [[http://kumquatwriter.wordpress.com/2011/11/26/a-letter-to-the-daydians-my-life-with-andrew-blake-laid-bare/ Then there's this...]]

* RonTheDeathEater: Snape is portrayed as being considerably more evil than in canon in this story, with [[http://daydverse.livejournal.com/107539.html this essay]] by the author interpreting him as an unrepentant sociopath looking for an excuse to murder and torture students. Even considering that he's a rather unpleasant SadistTeacher in the books, the logic taken to reach this conclusion is... somewhat debatable given the textual evidence.

* AuthorsSavingThrow: A common complaint about the first story is that Crucio is demoted from being a nightmarish torture to the equivalent of flogging - the students take to ''bragging'' about how often they get cruciated. As if catching on himself, Thanfiction wrote a scene in Chapter 21 of the first story where Neville, facing Bellatrix, gets hit with Crucio - and thinks to himself, just before he whites out from the pain, that the Carrows never did a ''proper'' Crucio.

* AlternateCharacterInterpretation: The [=DAYDverse=] is just ''full'' of this, affecting every significant character and even some very minor ones.

* HeroicBuild: Much attention is paid to the boys' rippling muscles and the girls' curvaceous fragility, [[SelfFanservice even where the original books had hitherto failed to mention fragile curves or a penchant for rippling]].

* PurpleProse: Goes into this on occasion.

** This story's Neville never thinks of his friends as friends, just as assets to be used in the war. This is supposedly why he's such a good leader - but it's completely the opposite of the Neville we know from the books.

** However, the author has commented several times that this is a NEGATIVE thing. He points to how the first sign of Neville's [[spoiler: mental breakdown]] is how his work-outs become maniacal and he focuses only on becoming buff. Every one of the DA is working their butts off (in most cases, literally) and it is NOT supposed to be healthy or attractive. To quote Thanfiction when drawing muscles on someone who, aside from determination that year would not be very physically active, "Anatomically, it’s a perfect arm and back. Societally, it’s supposedly highly attractive. But to me, it feels as much if not more like drawing someone who has been mutilated". This is another example of how just because we see something from Neville's perspective does not mean the author believes that.