There are many interpretation of Harry Potter's personality in the fanfiction community, some making him dark while others make him a extremly funny person.

It seems extremly easy for fanfic authors to get away with making Harry Potter a funny person or a manipulative person, while it's seems harder for them to change the personality of the supporting characters.

For example, people find it more acceptable to read a version of Harry Potter that has the mentality of an adult as opposed to a lazy Herminone.

So I was wondering, what is the proper way to describe Harry's personality throughout the seven books?

 

What makes his character so great is that he's shown himself capable of all those things, which is why so many different, believable versions of him appear in the fandom. Harry can be possessed of a very biting wit, especially concerning the Dursleys. He has a practical kind of intelligence along with enough bad experiences to sack up in most situations. JKR, like George Lucas, caught lightning in a bottle. Say whatever about the last few books, which did lack the quality of the earlier novels, which showcased my point better, but she made a highly adaptable universe and a main character with a diverse set of traits and circumstances.

Basics.

 

What sums up Harry's personality in Canon I think can be wrapped up in the second book. This is the Harry I like and have seen on glimmers of in the remaining books. He disappeared somewhere near the end of OotP.

Imagine you are four feet tall and the only defense you have against something is being held by an older, obviously evil teenager. He has your wand you are at his mercy. You know he controls a death-gazing basilisk. He summons it and its fifty-feet long!

Your only hope is a fire bird and a ratty hat. Add to that the stress of your best mate's sister slowly dying.:cry:

Yeah, I am in NO WAY able to even try and tackle that scenario reasonably now and I'm 26. Harry Potter was 12!

He killed a Basilisk when he was 12. Let that sink-in.

Imagine what you were doing when you were twelve. Yeah, not killing basilisks!

That is the noble and fearless Harry Potter that I like to read about. The one who tried to duel a madman after seeing a friend die.

Not the chump in the Department of Mysterious who froze when same bad guy threw one curse at him.

You see now the difference? How there can be so many takes on him? The author changed his character a lot...and pinned it down to him maturing.

Flaws in a book you love have a way of making your imagination run wild with ideas.

 

Harry is someone who takes Dumbledore saying of 'what is right over what is easy' to heart. He may not want to do something, but Harry's going to do it because he knows in his heart it's right. He's extremely selfless and giving, and he has a lot of pride and courage. Harry is extremely loyal and loving, and will do anything to protect his friends.

Gag. Well, I have all of the positives down.

 

What about his personality flaws?

 

Well, as stated above, if the first five books were to be considered, I imagined Harry to be one of the best characters that could be molded into the ensemble of a '3D' hero. 3D in the sense that he had the perfect depth to surpass the comic-book hero status.

All that changed by the ending of OotP and beginning of HBP. The only word I can even think of to describe the, err, new Harry was...'passive'. Just going through things with the occasional bout of teenage angst. Atleast, it seemed that way to me. >_>

As for flaws, well, scenes like the whole blaming himself for Cedric thing come to mind. I imagine it was those that gave birth to the whole masochistic/angsty Harry in fanon. I mean, I cant count on one hand the stories(well-written ones) that have a cheerful Harry in them.

 

Isn't it somewhat acceptable for Harry to be depressed when he just saw the death of a schoolmate?

I mean seeing the image of your schoolmate getting shot in front of you is bound to cause some emotional problems to most people.

 

Some emotional reaction is justified and probably normal. However the excessive amount of angsting and brooding canon Harry did is certainly above par.

I believe what trooper was referring to was Harry's tendency to assume guilt on his part and blame himself, logically born out of his hero complex forced upon him by the wizarding world and their BWL-label. Impressionable youths, pah! Character flaw if I ever saw one.

 

Above par as compared to what? It's not like any of us has personal experiences comparable to the kind of trauma Harry has received.

From what I know, even soldiers who are trained to be used to death have break down due to their soldiers under them dying and all that.

If a person who is trained to handle such trauma can break down, I think most people who aren't trained like a military personnel will take a pretty long time to recover.

 

^ This is Harry Potter we're talking about. He's not normal. ; )

On the serious note, I think that his reluctance to study and/or generally prepare for what he needs to do in HBP is a serious character flaw. I mean, if you knew that you were destined to kill or be killed by the evilest Dark Lord ever, or whatever, wouldn't you do everything in your power to make sure that you come out on top?

All he did in his sixth year was to obsess over Malfoy and Ginny, try to hide Snape's Potions book from Hermione and have those infrequent memory lessons with Dumbledore. Bah, that was a crap!Harry if there ever was one.

 

Above par as compared to the general person of his age. If you had a schoolmate that died, whom you've spoken to a few times here and there over the course of the last year. Would you enter the state of mind that Harry went into? If you want to argue that it differs because Harry feels Cedrics death was his fault, read the last two sentences of this post.

Take notice that I do not say that Harry should be chipper and happy the day after, just that his depressive state in OotP is overkill.

Of course we haven't gone through the same challenges as HP, he is a fucking fictional character. The best you can do is try to read his personality and gauge his reactions.

I think the comparison to soldiers are unrelated. The situation is vastly different, soldiers lose friends on a regular basis in war, whereas Harry lost one that he was not close with. The mental strain logically grows stronger as more and more people die. Do note that soldiers are not trained to be unfeeling machines, they are trained to ignore whatever feelings they have in order to complete their orders.

The key here is the part in my previous post you ignored, the character flaw. Feel free to scroll up and re-read.

 

Harry was almost arrogant when it came to Voldemort. No, actually he was.

Yes, he should feel pain over his parents' death and over Cedric, but the war wasn't really all about him. Even before Harry found out about the prophecy, every action Voldemort took seemed to revolve all around Harry. He didn't seem to understand Voldemort had been fighting a war before Harry was even born, and that a lot of other people were hurt by it. Yes, Voldemort was out to get him and he was the only who could defeat him, but Harry was in such a hurry to be a martyr, he almost disregarded other people's feelings on the matter.

Hermione was entirely right when she said Harry had a hero complex. Because Harry got lucky a few times, he seemed to think he was infalliable, and rushed right in to things. He failed to realize that Voldemort was over fifty years old, and he didn't really stand a chance in a duel against him.

Perhaps the worst flaw Harry had was the fact that he was lazy. He preferred to wallow if self-pity than to work to prepare and train himself for his inevitable battle. Again, he was arrogant in thinking that he, a seventeen year old boy, could match Voldemort, the greatest (and worst)Dark Lord ever. Yes, Harry was a teenager, but one would think you wouldn't waste time playing Quidditch and snogging in broom closets when Voldemort is after you and your family. Instead, Harry chose to rely on adults and a great deal of luck to save his ass every time.

Harry was courageous and loving; yes, but he was greatly lacking when it came to being a hero in the long run.

 

Really, while he was brave, he was only brave when put on the spot.i

I feel that's a significant character point. He didn't study, he didn't prepare in any significant way. He agonized over decisions he did make on the spot, and other things beyond his control.

A lot of fics have him as a man of action and manipulation, but frankly while he could make an astounding student and user of magic, he's entirely without his own initiative. He's always reacting to something, never taking the first step.

When you're backed into a corner, and there's nowhere to run, no time left, you'd be amazed at what you consider an option.


Now, that all being said, I like to think he's a bit better then that. So I attribute his indecision to the enormity of the task before him, and his lack of preparation to the very real task of growing up. Especially given his, shall we say, contained life, I can understand his procrastination fully.

But eh.

 

This gets me. I really don't think that in the whole of history, Voldemort was the worst dark wizard ever. I don't think they all called themselves dark lords.

He organised a coup that lasted for a few months before he was killed by a seventeen year old kid. Even Grindlewald's campaign lasted for years before Dumbledore stopped pining and kicked has arse.

He might have been capeable of magic to match Dumbledore, but only because Dumbledore refused to kill him.

I bet Herpo the Foul was pretty badass.

 

Ah, but was Grindelwald ever bad enough that an entire society feared to speak his name? That's some serious shit right there and I'm pretty sure no other Dark Wizard has ever been described with euphemisms like Voldemort was. Even if you give it a logical reason like saying he had a Taboo placed on it... Why would they hold true to that 15 years after he died (to their knowledge)?

 

I think Harry was average all around. If you take away Quidditch and DADA then he is an extremely average teenager who is forced to deal with being in the spotlight. However, if I was to pick just one quality that I feel defines his personality I would have to say he is a leader. Throughout all seven books we see this trait highlighted in one capacity or another, whether it is leading the DA, leading his friends to the DoM to fight DE's, or leading first years to stop Quirrel, he was able to motivate and lead people throughout out the entire series.

 

I'm not saying the taboo wasn't genius, it almost cemented his power. But if I put up a taboo that lets me access your house and kill you every time you say Seratin, you're not going to refer to me as Seratin.

He was a master at scaring people, but if there was a fight between all of history's dark wizards, who can say Voldemort would win?

 

Dumbledore.

"Lord Voldemort knows more (about) magic than any living wizard." Exact quote would be appreciated.

But something to that effect. Implying that Voldemort has attained a mastery even greater than Dumbledore, who was living at the time. Dumbledore himself was considered a prodigious innovator of magic, and owned Grindlewald. That's some pretty fucking badass wizardry on Voldemort's part. The taboo was genius, and being able to generate that much fear is great power, whether it's magical in nature or not. Voldemort was essentially destined to fall, because there was a prophecy. Sure, he could have ignored it (at seemingly great personal risk), but that's basically a low blow from God. Not much can be done. If Harry Potter had never been born, he'd have conquered at least Britain, and probably more.

And Grindlewald was only around that long because Dumbledore likes to sit on things and wait around.

 

Living. As in not dead. Throughout history there was bound to be a wizard who could have handed him his arse at some point.

 

Uh...a little balloon popping here I think is in order. Remember in the DH when that german making wand wizard sees the blonde haired boy stealing the Elder Wand? That was Grindelwald, right? Did he disarm the german guy? Not that I recall. So we have Grindelwald in possession of a mythic wand that he is not the master of. It's hard to say if the german wand maker was.

Remember the comment Dumbledore made about their duel. He was a little more clever. I think Dumbledore knew the nature of the wand and went out and bested its current owner before going to face Grindelwald.

So he was not better than Grindelwald, nor did he kick his ass. Dumbledore just walked-up and dueled Grindelwald knowing the wand would not let anything happen to himself. Intant defeated Dark Lord.

The same exact thing that happened between Voldemort and Harry.