Obviously, but that's the only real point of reference we have. Other than that we have Harry being defeated by Ron in chess (not a good reference either), Harry having to rely on Hermione in almost everything fact-related, Harry taking months of professional teaching to learn patronus while the DA learns it in few meetings (again, different circumstances).

Harry is smart enough, but doesn't really stand out.

 

Intelligence is based on many things...book smarts and common sense typically. Usually a person has one or the other. Wise people have both. Unintelligent people have neither.

Looking at Harry's book smarts...he's not unintelligent but hardly above average.
Common sense? Yeah. He's an idiot.

 

He took months to form a corporeal patronus in the presence of a dementor. He produced one when Malfoy and Co. ambushed him during the game, which was maybe a month after his lessons started.

Personally, I think his intelligence lies in his ability to analyze and problem solve.

 

Harry solves his problems instinctual and then with full understanding.

At the end of DH he reached enlightenment and operated on a different mental state. He was in total control vs. Voldemort because he knew he would succeed as he was aware of the objective truth. Then he became the master.

He reached a similar state when he used one Patronus to handle all Dementors at the end of PoA. There he saw himself doing it before due the Timeturner so it was objective true to him. Knowing so made it possible.

How he defeated Quirrel or destroyed the Diary were instinctual in the same way.

Coming back to Hermione, she learns through informations from others. Harry does it by full understanding of a problem himself. She's a Scholar, he's a Sage.

 

That doesn't have much to do with Harry's intelligence, but with Rowling's shitty exposition methods.

So, in essence, he has to rely on Hermione for knowledge because that's Rowling's way of conveying things to the reader. If the books were more realistic, he'd probably be a big fan of “Hogwarts, a History”, seeing how much he values and is interested in the Castle.

Also, Harry was the only one who managed to find the location of the Chamber of Secrets in 50 years. Let that sink in for a minute: Dumbledore didn't find the Chamber, Ministry workers didn't find the Chamber, Harry did. And while using pretty much the same knowledge that the adults had. He was LITERALLY the only one intelligent enough to actually ask Myrtle, the victim, about the circumstances of her death. We know because she tells us exactly that. Consider that.

Now, that doesn't mean Harry is more intelligent than Dumbledore, it just means that Rowling didn't want Dumbledore to figure out the mystery. Still, if you're looking for in-universe levels of intelligence, that puts him pretty much above everyone.

 

Pretty much this. If you want someone to read a book on the Disarming Spell, then write an essay about how to cast it and which tactical situations it is suited to, Hermoine's the best.

If you want someone who can think on his feet when it comes to using it in battle, go with Harry.

That's not to mention that when it comes to academics/grades in school, intelligence probably matters far less than being willing to work hard and knowing what answers the teacher wants to hear. Harry's above average but not outstanding grades are a pretty good fit for a reasonably intelligent teenage boy who doesn't go the extra mile to make sure his homework is perfect. Most of his written homework was probably turned in as a first draft with minimal/no proofreading. He almost certainly could've bumped up his grades a bit more by making the extra effort, but like most teenagers he wasn't wild about spending any more time on his homework than he had to.

By contrast, the likes of Hermoine and Percy Weasley are perfectionist enough to put in that extra effort. Given what we see of him as an adult, Percy also probably had a knack for figuring out exactly how his teachers wanted questions answered.

Bottom line, better grades do not denote higher intelligence or even a stronger grasp of the material in all circumstances.

 

In the canon epilogue so vigorously condemned as heretical by DLP, Harry reaches the position of Head Auror. Did he manage to ride into that position with mere influence? I'd like to think that the Shacklebolt administration wouldn't allow that, but then again KS was an associate of Harry's.

Given how long he had in a school with such terrific resources such as the library for knowledge, Madam Pomfrey for some healing lessons, Filius Flitwick for duelling lessons, maybe Hagrid even to learn how to deal with dangerous creatures (crossbow?), Harry failed on the knowledge front, willing to coast through school with little effort.

Were I to be going through Hogwarts, having realised circa end of year 1 that I had a dark lord after me, I'd be looking at transfiguration as a method of creating weapons (anyone think match-to-needle, tree to bundle of spears?), defences like conjured/transfigured gravestones. The capacity of transfiguration is nigh endless, even refortify Hogwarts to some semblance of its probably medieval condition. After all, pouring out of murder holes such things as boiling oil and crucibles of red-hot metal would give an attacker second thoughts.

This of course is all without even starting to go into the fortifying properties of some of the nastier plants, and the combat capabilities of various curses and charms.

Harry's laziness condemns him in my eyes. He knows is life is under threat, yet he does nothing to try to work on that, save for learning the Patronus charm.

ElMarquis.

 

While I'm not too sure about Harry's intelligence, as he lives in a world full of incompetence, left and right. So anyone with the smallest iota of common sense would come off as smart. I do think that he was a powerful wizard, a natural prodigy in fact.

Harry manages Es in Transfiguration and Charms, during an extremely difficult time in his life. The Dark Lord is rolling around in his head, his Godfather is too far away for him to talk to regularly due to Umbridge's new regime, etc... Yet he still manages top marks? That's a pretty good accomplishment, considering the Magic in the HP-Verse requires concentration more than anything.

Then we have his feat for the DADA OWL that rivals Dumbledore's own for his Transfiguration OWL. While Dumbledore was innovative, Harry had cast a piece of Magic that is so advanced for his age, even Amelia Bones (the freakin' Director of Magical Law Enforcement) raised her monocled eyebrow. You have to imagine that she has seen some stuff in her day, but what Harry did was either extremely rare or never done before.

Harry's largest problem is that he unrealistically shows no interest in Magic. Sure, when some really cool feats of Magic are directly cast in front of him, he stares in awe for a couple seconds before forgetting it happened. But he doesn't love magic, he doesn't research it all the time as Dumbledore did, he doesn't make sure everything he does is perfect. In that, he reminds me of Quentin Coldwater from The Magicians. As during the first novel, he himself said that he purposely cut corners when in class due to being able to cut corners. Then, he buckles down and realizes he has a natural talent in casting when he does it correctly.

 

It's a bit of a case of potential vs actual achievment. Harry has power and skill enough, but it is never honed properly. The mind itself is a sword in the hands of a disciplined man, but Harry never put the effort into gathering knowledge, nor honing his skill. How many Gryffindors would have willingly taught him what they knew magic?

Wood, Weasley & Weasley, Johnson, Bell, Spinnet, Weasley, Granger, Weasley. Even during some summers he had access to sources of knowledge, even if he couldn't practice, he had Bill Weasley, a cursebreaker, the massed forces of the Order of the Phoenix and so many others. But he lazed through his education with a remarkable lack of care.

ElMarquis.

 

I think the main critic I can make to Harry is that he didn't master the none verball technique fast enough. But, as with many things in the books, I blame the author for that. In the end, he was a skilled warrior in spite of Rowling.

 

When was this? When I read your post I couldn't remember that ever happening, so I looked up his divination exam in book five and all he ever saw was a blank crystal ball, then. Was it earlier in the book? It's been more than a decade since I read it.

My biggest problem with Harry isn't limited to just Harry. Not once, in any of the books, did any child ever show wonder or joy at learning magic. It was always treated like work. "Aww man, we have to learn how to defy gravity and the conservation of mass! This is so lame, I would rather play fucking chess than learn how to bring a painting to goddamn life."

I mean, for real, it's fucking magic.

 

Isn't that the nature of kids, though? Some things you can learn in school are super interesting, but most students couldn't give a shit. Harry has just been normalized to magic, and it probably doesn't hold the same wonder it used to for him.

 

This is why children aren't real people.

 

Wrong year and exam. In his divination exam at the end of third year, Harry sees Buckbeak escaping before it happens.

 

He didn't see anything in year 3 either - he made shit up.

“Well?” Professor Trelawney prompted delicately. “What do you see?”
The heat was overpowering and his nostrils were stinging with the perfumed smoke wafting from the fire beside them. He thought of what Ron had just said, and decided to pretend.
“Er —” said Harry, “a dark shape… um…”
“What does it resemble?” whispered Professor Trelawney. “Think, now…”
Harry cast his mind around and it landed on Buckbeak.
“A Hippogriff,” he said firmly.

The Harry wank in this thread is rather cringe-worthy.

 

I think he was a good wizard he was not book smart but when it came to practical work he excelled, there is always more then book work to be a good wizard. He also did pretty good on his owls.

 

Should've kept going with that quote. It's definitely left up to the reader to decide whether Harry's pulling this out of his ass, or he's genuinely seeing the future. If Harry was just flat out lying, he could've told Trelawney what she was fishing for. It's not wank to differ in opinion on an ambiguous canon scene.

"Look closer. . . . Does the hippogriff appear to . . . have its head?”
“Yes,” said Harry firmly.
“Are you sure?” Professor Trelawney urged him. “Are you quite sure, dear? You don’t see it writhing on the ground, perhaps, and a shadowy figure raising an axe behind it?”
“No!” said Harry, starting to feel slightly sick.
“No blood? No weeping Hagrid?”
“No!” said Harry again, wanting more than ever to leave the room and the heat. “It looks fine, it’s — flying away. . . .

 

Daphne and Astoria threesome, the real hardest quest of all.

 

Explicitly stating that Harry's decided to pretend is a funny way of doing ambiguity. It is hardly surprising that Harry wouldn't tell Trelawney what she wants to hear when she's gleefully describing the death scene in so much gory detail.