December 7, 2023 | ARTS AND ENTERTAINMENT | By Charlotte Maley
“I finished‘Manacled’last night,” said literary commentator Ali Enchanted in a TikTok video, which she posted this past August, “and as you can probably tell, I am deeply unwell… I don’t think that anything could have prepared me for what I just endured. There were points where I was reading it where I felt so physically ill that I couldn’t eat. I was feeling nauseous, and my heart felt like it was being twisted in my chest.”
She went on to say that she has never felt such a way about anything before, and that this was one of the best books she has, “ever read or will ever read.” Although this might seem like an extreme reaction to a Harry Potter fanfiction, Enchanted was hardly alone.
Over the past couple of months, BookTok has been engulfed by what people are calling “Dramione” fanfiction, referring to a collection of works which imagine an alternative Harry Potter-verse in which one of the series’ protagonists, Hermione Granger, and one of its antagonists, Draco Malfoy, come to form an unexpected romance. “Manacled,” an 876-page long fanfiction written by SenLinYu, is at the center of this craze, and has caused complete and utter upheaval within the BookTok community.
Many dedicated book reviewers on the platform are claiming it is their favorite novel ever written. Although the fanfiction is beloved as a hot romance between two compelling characters, its main claim to fame is the emotional turmoil it allegedly causes among its readers. There is even a trend where people film themselves before they start “Manacled,” and then their reaction once they’ve finished it. Spoiler alert: it always ends in tears.
“Manacled by SenLinYu left me broken and staring at a wall,” said @katelovesbooks_. According to @geenahreads, the novel “almost sent me on a grippy sock vacation,” (an allusion to the socks they make you wear in a psychiatric ward) and @claudiatalksfilm even filmed herself sobbing, saying that “it’s absolutely tragic, it’s heartbreaking… It’s been ages since something made me feel (like this).”
Due to these reviews, the likes of which I had never seen before, I decided to read “Manacled” during fall break. I had never read a serious fanfiction before and was highly doubtful that anything these viral TikTokers had said would be at all accurate. After all, this is the same platform that ceaselessly praises authors that write poor quality smut, such as Colleen Hoover, a phenomenon that I critiqued just a few months ago in a previous article.
According to the summary of “Manacled” on “Archive of our Own,” an online fanfiction platform where the book can be downloaded, the story is set in an alternate Harry Potter universe where Potter dies, Voldemort wins, and the entire resistance is killed off with the exception of Hermione Granger. Granger is captured and enlisted as an unwilling surrogate to help the Death Eater regime regain their magical population. Granger, who has maintained a portion of her memory from when she fought with the Resistance, is kept prisoner by Draco Malfoy until the memories uncover themselves. For there is hope that whatever secret she is hiding will unveil any last conspiracies against the Dark Lord.
Based on this brief description, I immediately assumed “Manacled”would be a smut-filled, sadistic retelling of the “Handmaid’s Tale.”
Upon completing the first chapter, I was immediately struck by how enticing and smooth the writing was. The world building was realistic, clear and utterly immersive, to which I responded with one of the greatest mistakes I have ever made: I read the entirety of “Manacled” and have not been the same since.
The book is by far the best romantic fantasy book I have ever read. The novel not only perfectly aligns with other well-established wizarding world lore, but it also empathetically captures the realistic damage of war and the power love has to make people do horrible things.
This is a novel which explores loss, pain, morality and what it means to be human in a manner that is so gut wrenching and consuming that you cannot help but fully integrate into SenLinYu’s world. The moment that I realized what a gem this book was, I had to finish it as soon as possible, for the dark truths it revealed were so devastating that I could not bear the anticipation of returning to it.
“Manacled” does not shy away from the gory or unbearable nature of what it means to be truly alone and unprotected in an unforgiving world. I would consider this book, in all honesty, to be the most compelling tale of hopelessness and the unlikelihood of healing that I have ever had the privilege of reading, and all of it was found for free on a glitchy fanfiction website.
I cannot speak to the rest of the Dramione fanfiction universe, but what I will say is this: I completely understand and agree with any tear ever shed over “Manacled.” I understand, for instance, why hard copies of it cost $180, and why so many people talk about never wanting to read anything else. As I write this article three days after finishing “Manacled,” I am unable to sleep, and cannot find space in my life for anything else but sitting in silence, waiting to be reawakened from this absolutely fabulous and heart wrenching work.
Ethically, I don’t think it is a novel which I can recommend, for I have not yet found a remedy to it. I am not someone who has ever taken romance seriously in the slightest, for I have always found the common works of this genre to be either poor excuses for porn or the work of an author who, quite evidently, wouldn’t know love and its challenges if it hit them in the face.
In lieu of this, I think “Manacled” is the unexpected redeemer of the entire romance category, and I can only hope SenLinYu is properly compensated for her genius. Like any novel, it has flaws, but “Manacled”is a truly unexpected and an original feat that will surely be integral to a positive evolution of romantic fantasy.