About Harry being lazy. Seriously. They have school from 8 to 16 every day. Then they work for hours on their homework. They begin doing so at age 11.

 

You know everyone goes on about Voldemort and Dumbledore being geniuses. Yet

Voldemort fails against a Harry a kid so many times.

Dumbledore's failures are even worse. The worst being he never noticed that Moody was being impersonated. I mean, he knew the guy for decades.

I don't think anyone can even make excuses for either of them

 

No one said they weren't flawed. They are far and away the most powerful wizards we are introduced to in the series and demonstrated their greatness at early ages.

 

Harry's accomplishments were underwhelming barring his defeat of Voldemort, which he only succeeded in doing by Word of God.

There's really not that much to it.

 

EDIT: ultra ninja'd up the ass

 

The problem is that we don't have any idea what an "average" wizard can or cannot do.

Average ministry worker cannot cast the shield charm. Grabbe and Goyle can and do cast AK and Fiendfyre. Average auror needs high marks in NEWTs to even qualify for the training program, and yet they pretty much suck in everything, and fail where a buch of fifth years succeed. Draco can cast recursive Imperius, but doesn't even get close enough to Dumbledore for him to take any action. Pretty much every one of the Weasleys are shown as competent, and yet they live in a glorified shack. Barty Crouch Sr. is under imperius for months, Harry shrugs it off like nothing.

All magic in Harry Potter is deus ex machina. The only reason anyone is able to do anything is that the plot requires it. Crabbe and Goyle develop skills just to pose a credible threat to Harry. Aurors suck just to give a role for Harry. Weasleys live in a shack to show that not everyone is rich and that it doesn't matter as long as you have family.

I agree that the characterizations of Voldemort and Dumbledore are irresistible force and immovable object respectively (even though we aren't really shown it), but other than that everyone else is pretty much just the same.

 

No. The Word of God part is true, but aside from that.

Best flier in the School before he's even been on a broom.
Learn's the Patronus charm, a charm that is to difficult for full wizards and witches in his third year. A corporeal Patronus in front of a hundred Dementors.
Allegedly does something DaDA related that impresses Victor Krum, and he's in his last year in Durmstrang while Harrys in his fourth year in Hogwarts.
Tutors half the school in DaDA up to OWL level.

Thats pretty darn impressive. I count Voldemorts defeat as one of his least impressive accomplishments, because all he did was stand there and send a disarming charm at Voldemort. It's the Elder Wand that did all the work and the setup wasn't Harrys plan.

Taure said Harry struggled with the basics and subsequently coudn't learn anything more difficult a while back. What?

Yea, he complained about homework. Everyone complains about homework. Harry did fine or above average in his OWLs, there's no reason to think he - or Ron for that matter - were bad. Sure, none of them are University level, or Genius or Hermione competent, but that doesn't mean they barely understand the basics.

More to the point, I don't think JKR every described magic enough to conclude what 'basics' are and what special implementations.

Big, hard to learn magic is mostly fanon. OWL level Schoolkids use the Stunning Charm. Aurors use the Stunning Charm. Dumbledore uses a mass Stuning Charm.

Sixth grade Malfoy uses the Unforgivables. Death Eaters use the Unforgivables. Voldemort uses the Unforgivables. And everybody uses Shield Charms and dodges.

In canon we just don't see a difference. The most impressive act of magic not from the big exceptions - Dumbledore and Voldemort - is just before the Battle of Hogwarts, when the teachers trigger or cast whatever defensive measures they've prepared. And when Crabbe cast Fiendfyre.

Maybe the standard we see in the books is just fine.

Ontopic, I see canon Harry as the default Harry. He's heroic, selfsacrificing, really cares about his friends; he's impulsive, feels guilty about things that arn't his fault and at times broody. He's also got a few big talents he's got no right having, but they help along the plot.

What I think of as the Standard Hero Package.

 

Any character that is brave and can act under pressure is a hero. Harry is a hero because he has these qualities. But a hero is not a fantasy hero, and that's what I think DLP hates about canon Harry Potter.

The issue is that a firefighter is a hero when they don't freeze and they move into the burning building. Coming out again is the other hard part, and what gets you out of that building (or doesn't) is what differentiates a hero from a fantasy hero.

In movies or books, many heroes run into the burning building, and among the few or many that return, there is rarely more than one 'fantasy hero'. If there is more than one, that other person dies, becomes an antagonist, or is fully overtaken in awesomeness by the other.

In the Butcher novels, both Harry and Tavi had extraordinary magical or martial skills that allowed them to somehow thrive within the events that were occurring around them. Others fought as well, and they were quite heroic, but they didn't have the sheer exceptional qualities that kept our true heroes moving.

Harry is different from these true heroes. He is more akin to Frodo Baggins than he is to Tavi or Kvothe. He is blessed with even MORE bravery, he has the will power, and he has the luck... but he lacks the skill and power.

Now, considering Frodo, I think it's important to note that the story diverged into multiple sections, involving the travels of different characters. Every character was a hero, but it wasn't Frodo that took the role of fantasy hero. It was Aragorn.

In Harry Potter, we don't have an Aragorn. We only get to watch Harry develop in the same way we watched Frodo or even Bilbo in the Hobbit, and we always expected more. By the third book, there were signs that he would jump from the level of the heartfelt and brave hobbits to that of Aragorn. It didn't happen in the fourth book, but the return of Voldemort seemed like the perfect catalyst. It didn't happen in the fifth book, but the death of Sirius seemed like the perfect catalyst...

By the end of the sixth book, we all knew that it would never happen.

TL; DR

Harry is like Frodo Baggins, when he could have been like Aragorn. He has a lot of heart, and he can be mighty good in a pinch, but he needs a true fantasy hero to do most of the badassery. Sadly, in Harry Potter, we don't have an Aragorn at all, so the ending is condemned to the use of a Deus-ex-machina to achieve victory over Voldemort.

Still TL; DR

DLP Want Greek Hero. DLP Get An Hero. DLP Angry.

 

Er, it's not that he complains about the homework. It's that he is absolutely clueless about half of the material.

 

Trying to draw consistent conclusions from canon is mostly pointless, because as several people have pointed out, everybody and everything is a plot device.

A few exceptions:

Hermione: the evidence indicates that she's of above average intelligence (perhaps 1 stddev) with a very strong work ethic. Such students are often able to achieve straight As (or close to it) without excelling in any particular field.

Dumbledore and Voldemort: are geniuses (in magic). Voldemort is also a plot device.

In canon, everybody is holding the idiot ball. See MoR for what happens when nobody is holding the idiot ball. That is not Harry Potter anymore.

 

Yeah then everyone is just holding the pretentious ball.

 

Most attempts at working out a class schedule based on the information given in the books end up with about half the day empty, and with only one Professor per subject even that requires that some of the Professors be using time-turners. Four hours of class plus a few hours of homework at age 11 isn't anything particularly notable.

 

I'd say he got more than half of it, or he'd do worse in school. The quote you posted about him not getting half of what McGonagall says in Transfiguration feels more like somewhat facetious exaggeration than an honest description, and they had just started Human Transfiguration. He's not Dumbledore or Snape, but he's not absolutely clueless. He's not Hermione either, but that would just be annoying. The fact that he could out-duel her while Ron could not is also an indicator that he has considerable intellect, at least in the subjects that interest him. He's a smart kid, but there are plenty of smart kids who still slack or don't fully apply themselves in school.

 

I agree with most of what you said, I think you hit the nail on the head with your post, but I wouldn't call it all "deus ex machina" as such.

JKR had several different purposes in describing characters perform magic: Part of it was building up the world of the story. Part of it was setting up conflict. Part of it was to show that magic was hard. Part of it was to show that Harry was exceptional. Most of this she introduced as the story went along, only springing things on us a few times.

The Deus Ex Machina moments were there: "Oh yeah, well Fawkes flies in, takes out the snake's eyes, and Harry pulls Excalibur from the Sto--I mean Harry draws the Sword of Gryffindor from the hat" and "Guess what? Harry is now immune to the Elder Wand and can neutralize Voldemort's spells cause he's really the wand's owner." But not everything was like that. A lot of her description of magic flowed naturally and built upon other parts of the story.

She was just inconsistent in doing it, as you pointed out.

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Hence: He's average in most respects.

But at least he was taking his studies seriously that year.

 

This is true.

It is especially true of this moment, which was the beauty of that scene. Dumbledore had said, that all who asked for help at Hogwarts would receive it. Harry had been loyal to Dumbledore, which summoned Fawkes to him. She made sure to have Harry endorse him before Fawkes appeared. He also stood up to Riddle, in the face of death, and made himself worthy of the sword that Fawkes brought.

 

No, not the prophecy. Harry still had his mother's protection. Most likely, AK's would reflect back at Voldemort giving Harry another scar to show off his immunity against AK's cast by Voldemort.

But of course, the protection can't do anything if Voldemort just drowns Harry in a maelstrom of Fiendfyre.

 

Can't it though? When Harry was under the effects of the protection, Voldemort couldn't touch him and the Killing Curse rebounded - leaving Harry unharmed. Who's to say Fiendyre wouldn't have done the same and turned on Voldemort?

 

Perhaps, perhaps not. But if Voldemort just conjures a rope, ties it to Harry's neck and hangs him, I am pretty sure the protection would be useless since the death is a muggle one and the protection a magical one.

 

Voldemort's curse on the position of the Defense professor was very deep magic, that ensured no teacher stayed for more than a year, for whatever reason. They just didn't. That was it.

Lily's might have been the same, or similar. Voldemort, no matter what he did, especially after he took Harry's blood and the whole Horcrux thing, would never have been able to kill Harry. He just would have failed, every time, for whatever reason. His magic has a history of failing on Harry, or those who have his protection, like his Imperius, or Silencing Spells in DH. The rope would break.

 

Except Voldemort resurrected himself with Harry's blood, thus rendering the blood protection of his mother null and void. (Right? That's not fanon, right? I'm at least 23% sure Dumbledore said that at some point.)