Review of Fanfic/ThePowerOfSeven: Fanfic.The Power Of Seven

The flag here for ThePowerOfSeven was sent with the rationale

There's a lot of sexual tropes, but there's also a lot of non sexual tropes, and that's just me skimming the first folder.

Bumping...

Alright, I skimmed the first dozen chapters (the thing is 81 chapters long, I'm not reading the whole thing), and everything after chapter 2 is mostly porn with an Excuse Plot. After chapter 2 there's a single chapter with no explict content, and in most cases the explicit content is the majority of the chapter.

I can't say I did anywhere near as much research as Orbiting, nor am I particularly keen on it, but I stumbled across this fic while wick cleaning Absolute Cleavage and was so shocked by it that it made me go looking for this section of the forums for the first time... There's one guy who seems to be super invested in editing that work page (see: page image credit). Should he be summoned?

(For reference, I've read a lot of fic. A solid chunk of which I'll never admit to having read. What surprised me wasn't that this exists as a plot, but rather that it's documented on this site.)

Summon him. He might have read the entire fic.

~Marcus S Lazarus as someone who's definitely read this fic, would you like to weigh in on the discussion about its contents?

Firstly, sorry I didn't respond earlier; I was on holiday. That said, I will go on record as saying that I don't consider "The Power of Seven" to be just porn, as it's also about the relationships developed where in my view 'porn' is just about people having sex for the sake of having sex. The whole point of 'Power of Seven' is that Harry is developing a distinct relationship with each of the women in his 'harem', they are doing this for the purpose of saving his life and defeating Voldemort, they face challenges from factors ranging from the obvious threat of Voldemort to the more complex question of Dumbledore, and they also have to make their own dynamic work; it's not a simple case of 'we're all happy we're shagging the same guy'. I will acknowledge that it's SUPERFICIALLY about the sex, but there are details that go beyond that. I hope this answers your question.

So essentially your argument is that it's more an erotic romance Harem Series than lemon with an Excuse Plot, is that correct, ~Marcus S Lazarus?

I read part of this fic a couple years ago, from I remember there was some serious plot and not just stop-gaps between sex scenes. But that was a while ago, I may be misremembering. And we should double-check the character's ages- the summary mentions "Harry realizes that he's a horcrux a year early"- how old was he when he found out in canon?

Edited by paradisedj32 on Sep 16th 2022 at 5:18:04 AM

17, IIRC

Edited by Orbiting on Sep 16th 2022 at 4:19:20 AM

Eighteen: he turns eleven shortly before enrolling at Hogwarts (during the Dursleys' shenanigans with his acceptance letter) and The Reveal that Voldy accidentally turned him into a Horcrux happens in Deathly Hallows. So a year earlier he would be seventeen.

Edited by StarSword on Sep 16th 2022 at 4:29:24 AM

OK. Ginny Weasley and Luna Lovegood are a year younger than Harry, so they'd be 16 in this fic. But one pairing listed is with "Demelza Robins" Is her age known? The harry potter wiki lists her as "On or before 31 August 1984" (for context, 'year younger than Harry' means born in 1981). So that's worrying. If her canon age is actually unknown and nothing in the fanfic itself indicates her being any younger than Luna or Ginny it's probably a keeper, but this seems it will require a more thorough reading.

Honestly I don't even remember the name, that was probably one of the plethora of bit characters in the books.

ETA: Having reviewed the wiki article, her age and class year is never stated; I can try searching my copy when I get home. The absolute youngest she can be is twelve based on the fact that first-years hardly ever make the Hogwarts Quidditch teams.

Edited by StarSword on Sep 16th 2022 at 5:27:46 AM

She was a minor character on the Quidditch team during the year(s?) Ron was Keeper, apparently. That birthdate is presumably an extrapolation of the fact that you have to be at least a second year to play quidditch, but her grade level is never stated in canon.

Uh... huh. Yeah I wouldn't worry about her since she's such a non-entity that she can basically be any age above 12 and it'd still make sense.

Yeah, and the Quidditch clubs at Hogwarts are so small that there's decent odds she'd tried out before but didn't get picked. I'm leaning towards filing her under Vague Age and letting it slide.

Edited by StarSword on Sep 16th 2022 at 5:34:13 AM

Abstain due to Vague Age.

Demelza appears to be in Ginny’s year in this story, which makes everyone involved in this within a year of harry on either side, I believe.

Alright I read a few chapters and the general sense I get of the story is as follows:

1. While the plot exists pretty much solely to set up the story’s premise (Harry having sex with multiple women) it’s a little to involved and with too much character exploration to count as an Excuse Plot.

2. The sex scenes are… extremely graphic. Straight up pornography graphic. Normally this wouldn’t be an issue when combined with point one but the characters being underaged (albeit older teenagers) might pose a problem there.

3. I’m asexual so I have literally no personal reference point to determine the degree of accuracy with which the author is portraying adolescent sexuality. There is a lot of idealized Hollywood sex stuff going on though, but that’s more common than not, I think.

4. There’s also significantly more gratuitous sex scenes than, say, Alfie. Again not typically a huge deal but see below.

If the characters were older I’d rubber stamp this keep, as is I guess the question is where we draw the line on what constitutes pedo-pandering.

If they're about 16-17, that's typically regarded as not pedopandering right? Because the age of consent is 16 in a lot of regions (including most states in the USA) and that a lot of media do sexualize high school students.

Edit: Filling for an official keep

Edited by ReynTime250 on Sep 17th 2022 at 3:15:23 PM

This forum generally doesn't hit 16+ for pedopandering without very good reason. So yeah, this sounds like a keeper - it doesn't seem like anyone's playing up underagedness if it exists.

Yeah, I'm going to go by 4maskwolf's analysis and firmly vote keep.

OK. Sounds like we're clean on pedo-pandering. Keep, then.

Filing an official keep.