I feel like I don't even know who the canon character truly is anymore. I've been away from the books for a very long time. I have been disillusioned by interesting alternative perspectives and analysis of the books themselves and their plot issues. I have been spoiled by fanfics far better than the canon ever was.

Can I receive some descriptions of who Harry Potter is as a character (nothing about his appearance)?

My residual memory of HP now is that he's kinda generic protagonist hero boy with no real personality quality to make him stand out from other written characters of classic literature. I feel like I could describe every other character in HP canon except him.

 

He's a wizard.

 

He's like Luke Skywalker. A good kid, would be a good friend.

 

An' a thumpin' good one, at that.

 

Once he gets trained up a bit.

 

I'd suggest reading the books.

 

He's very snarky. It's almost a reflex.

 

"fanfics far better than the canon ever was" - that is a statement I disagree with, so perhaps we disagree on the characterization of HP in general. I don't need to defend the series to you, nor does anyone. You can have your own opinions. But this is an odd place to make the request.

 

List me the "fanfics far better than the canon ever was."

 

Just uh, read the Wikia and stuff.

 

The point was to discuss it so I don't have to. I don't want to spend that time. And surely people have slightly different interpretations so I was curious what they were.

Pity he stopped doing that in book 3 or something.

I wasn't asking for it to be defended. I wasn't going to criticize it. I wanted to have my generic protagonist boy thoughts corrected because I don't know anymore. No need for that undercurrent of defensiveness. Why would this be the wrong place? This is the perfect place to discuss the canon and fanon versions of HP. Over time, they've become so blurred in my mind, I barely know what the original was and I wanted assistance from people more current on HP than I am.

As for fics better than canon. Pretty much anything in your C2 and the classics from authors that helped make this place. Nonjon, joe, Shezza, pretty much anything from fanficauthors.net.

Canon can be thanked for the original ideas, but authors like those took everything HP to new and better heights and either corrected or avoided the mistakes JKR made.

Anyone can do that of course. I just wanted to have a discussion because it's more fun to participate in a community than read it on your own.

 

Ah right, I thought you just wanted raw facts and mannerisms for a story or something.

Anyway, from what I can remember Harry was a kid who was at the wrong place at the wrong time in the wrong body. Shit always happened to him and around him, as well as to the people he cared for despite his best efforts to stop it.

The boy was shy as shit in his first few years, with the abuse and all, but then grew out of his shell post GoF and grew a noble streak a mile wide, wanting to do everything on his own without endangering anyone else, despite knowing the impossibility of the task.

All in all, he was a brave, but ordinary kid in terms of what he wanted to do in the future.

 

You really do need to read the books again.

Order of the Phoenix:

Half Blood Prince:

 

This is a great question. I myself have been reading fanfictions since 2010. From the Harry Potter section, I guess I read about 450 fanfictions, and mainly those with 80k+ words. So I am not sure either, but I try and describe what I think about canon Harry:

Harry Potter is a boy, who was born to two of the brightest magical people of their generation. Before that fateful night, he was looking to have a great childhood with a loving family, awesome friends (Remus, Sirius, Longbottoms), and so on. But then tragic struck and he was an orphan, raised by his magic hating aunt and uncle, heavily abused, shy, and always thinking lowly of himself. Anyway that was his life till Hagrid came and told him, that he is a wizard and the story of the Boy-Who-Lived.
Instead of embracing this title and his story, he was determined to be "just Harry" and "just normal". He continued to have mediocre performance in Hogwarts, befriended a jealous twig and a good meaning know-it-all (no offense lol). He blindly listens to Dumbledore and - like the golden Gryffindor boy he is - jumps from adventure to adventure without questioning, why the hell he was risking his life on so many dumb occasions. But with whatever luck and fate, he got out alive in all instances, though one of the reasons is probably, that a happy end was required.
As I was telling, he is rather ordinary, immature (dealing with Snape and Malfoy) and really didn't try to push for aquaintances or more friends.
He didn't question Dumbledore when he was told that he had to die. He bravely welcomed it, even though his parents died for him to ensure him a long happy life, but whatever, screw that - says Harry.

Well, that's my opinion of canon Harry. I know, people will flame me for this characterization, and really, I could add, that Harry is brave, friendly, and probably a great friend, but then again, I as a Slytherin would never understand those Gryffindors. Sigh.

 

While it's awfully lazy of you to be unwilling to at least trawl through some wiki pages and probably even Sparknotes to answer this question (and yes, I read the "but it's more fun to discuss it as a community" comment), I'll say this:

You can't really get an answer from asking such a generic question. Who is Harry Potter? Well, there are many answers. You could say he's a wizard. You could say he's a loner. You could say he's a pre-teen to teenaged boy. You could say he's a hero. You could say he's an orphan.

There are so many aspects to Harry that make up who he is and all of that combined together gave us the series that spawned this gigantic fandom. Really, you're asking the wrong question and there's no real answer that satisfies everything Harry simply is.

As for fanfic being better than the books themselves, well, the point can be argued until all of us have kicked the bucket. But, to be fair, without the original, there couldn't have been fanfic in the first place.

 

normalguycap, do you want a full biography or something? If that is the case, then I can manage posting it here. It won't be as long as the wikia, and would involve a lot of typing on my part, but would be worth the time if it answered the question. I have the early years ready in Microsoft Word if you want them.

 

I was almost 100% certain this would be a parody of the John Galt speech.

 

Oh, well how about that. Thanks.

I completely forgot about Harry's smart quips because fanfiction in general has overshadowed that quality completely. That was a nice wake up to have that pointed out to me. So things like that I'm interested in. My current conception before that point was that I considered him just a nice boy with a sense of justice. Like 99% of all protagonists ever.

If you read it then why would you still think it's lazy? I know how much time I have and I'm not willing to spend the amount rereading some children's books. That isn't laziness.

As you read, it's more fun and efficient to have a discussion about it because any jerkoff could go read the stuff. But then I wouldn't meet people, find those with similar interests and forge even a small online relationship. It's like asking someone what's the point about something that is, at a fundamental level, pointless. Why even bother entering the thread and then participating in it if you say such a thing? It's hypocritical.

All of what you said is pointless. He's a fictional character. Describe his personality. That's all anyone had to do. You made it into some existential thing and mentioned what he is, not who he is. He isn't simply is, otherwise no one would care. What stands out to most about Harry is what he looks like rather than anything else or that he's defined by his relationship to Voldemort since that's the driving point of all the books.

"There are so many aspects." And yet you mention none. You described his job and what he does. Not who he is, what he believes or anything similar to those qualities.

JKR made canon and it was improved by various authors. That's isn't even contestable. DLP wouldn't exist otherwise. We know the pitfalls of the HP books so any fanfic that removes those faults and doesn't add more would be by definition superior.

That's a nice offer, but no thank you. I guess I wasn't clear in my aim to receive a couple of lines about his personality, not what he has done, what he is, or his history.

Aside: Do you think that Harry is more of a charming smartalec when he is with the Dursley's or at school? I recall more of that attitude being prominent at the first parts of the book than any other place.

 

I'm not telling you to read the books all over again. I'm saying that there's free, succinct summaries of the books and probably even individual characters that take very little time to read. If you have the time to be arguing with some random guy on the Internet about whether or not you're lazy, then you definitely have the time to go read that.

You asked who he is. That can be taken to be either existential or personality, and I took it to be existential. If you're asking someone to describe his personality, what he believes, etc. then you're going to have a lot of conflicting opinions. Me personally? I think he's an introverted kid who's thrown into the thick of things and learns and grows by necessity, rather than personal willingness to do so. More often than not, Harry is pushed by someone to do what he does in order to defeat Voldemort.

There is no such thing as perfect writing. Fanfic may "improve" on the "pitfalls" that you may see in canon, but fanfic also has its own vast variety of problems. It becomes very subjective as to what's "better". You may think that there are fanfics that are "better", and I would disagree with you. But that's opinion for you.

Finally, although Taure may protest, DLP does not exist to improve Harry Potter canon. DLP (at least the library section) exists to recommend fanfiction of a higher quality than ff.net. It isn't about improving so much as sharing what we think is better, so that we don't have to waste our time with the stuff that's just inherently bad.

 

Having time to put a message on the internet requires much less than reading 7 books or reading a few large wiki pages.

At the beginning I even stated people probably had conflicting interpretations and that I was interested in hearing that variety, including yours that you offered in your last. It's still more what than who but phrased in a way that I still got something I was looking for in it.

Who said anything about perfect? I didn't. Some fanfics improve upon canon, this we know. That is indisputable. I've been part of the discussions too many times. The analysis and logic I've seen is too strong like ARedHairs ff.net page for one if you would like an example of some evidence.

I never said DLP exists to improve canon. It's not a cause, but an effect. Sufficient, but not necessary. Better fics exist and this place writes, debates, evaluates and collect the best as you know. But I can agree with that last sentence.