~~ harry. my hero.

[reenka]

i never thought the day would come when i would have to defend harry's honour, heh, and yet in the wake of ootp, the voices saying he's just a selfish, angry boy who doesn't really care about his friends and will easily be ruthless in vanquishing his enemies have gotten stronger. of course, if harry really -was- easily ruthless, the whole point of "wah, i have to one day kill or be killed" would be rather impotent, wouldn't it. if it wasn't impossibly hard for harry to ever kill even -voldemort-, the whole thing falls apart. but i think there's a desire for a more clean-cut, straightforward, psychologically balanced hero at work here. harry is messed up. harry is prone to bursts of unreasonable anger and prejudice. harry doesn't know what he's doing, and he seems to be doing right things for suspect motivations, and we can't really trust that, can we.

it's funny, because that's what his schoolmates and the press and the ministry believed in ootp, wasn't it. harry is mad, attention-seeking, selfish, a prat who's gotten praise he doesn't deserve. dumbledore is a well-meaning fool, his best years are over, he favors harry to the point of blindness, and he's likely to be hiding sinister motives underneath that kindly facade. jkr is playing up on those suspicions and feelings the whole time, and i think it's almost -funny- that there are people who independently come up with them as an -interpretation- of harry's character.

i mean, this is sort of like people favoring the slytherins, isn't it. unless you helplessly love harry, like some of us do, i suppose it's easy to doubt him. look at him-- he's a freak-- how in the world can he -not- be, with the childhood he's had, with the kinds of experiences he's had? he's dangerous. he's not to be trusted. he really belongs in slytherin. he's not brave or good, it's just circumstances and favoritism and undeserved fame. he's not a -hero-, he's an anti-hero. a nice, literary way of saying he's a fake, isn't it?
    i suppose harry will save the wizarding world in the end-- we all know that-- and i suppose for some, it still won't be enough. maybe it's an accident. he got a lucky break. voldemort was looking the other way, sneezing. ron was helping, harry would be the first to say (false modesty, of course). hermione was helping (he couldn't do it without her, could he-- she's the real hero here, but she's a mudblood so who wants her, right?)

wrong.

if i don't believe that's wrong, in fact, all the books up till now become pretty much meaningless, i think. it's because of this that i never imagined having to -argue- that harry is a hero, that harry -loves- people, that he knows what love is, against all odds, perhaps, but he does. just like he lives, against all odds, perhaps, but he -does-, doesn't he. the boy who lived, indeed.

he's bitter at times, sarcastic and withdrawn and secretive, true-- but he's a gryffindor. he's brave and true, one has to believe that, suspend one's disbelief, if one is to live in the world of the books. it seems like his journey through darkness is the point of them, the innate darkness inside him and the darkness of the war around him-- but it's his innate light, the love he's capable of, that is the only thing that can save or protect him. and since he -has- to survive, that is the hero's journey.... and even if harry doesn't seem like as good of a candidate as his friends, he is anyway. he is, whether he wants to be or not. he was -chosen-.

harry has to be saved as much as anyone, probably -more- than anyone, but the only person who can save him is himself, not ron or hermione. that's what makes him the hero, i think, in the end. because it is -up to him-, as is now blatantly spelled-out. he will not-- cannot-- fail. his capacity for love, his loyalties, his altruism -have- to be true, or else -everyone he cares about will die-, and voldemort wins, as it's been set up.

they're both right and wrong at the same time, all the logical, reasonable people who say he's got a hero complex, that he's not really doing it for the right reasons, that he's not who he seems to be. everyone has a dark side. but harry can -defeat- his. he can resist imperius and full-out possession, he can pull through at the last moment just because he -does- want to be with sirius, whom he loves. he didn't rescue gabrielle because he thought he should-- he knew he shouldn't-- he knew he wouldn't win if he did. but he couldn't -not-. i think when it comes down to it, reasons are irrelevant, and harry's the kind of person who can't -not- help people who really need it, can't -not- empathize with others' pain.

he's not like voldemort in that one essential way, and well, i suppose i agree with dumbledore (and jkr) in that that's what makes him a hero.

i agree with this essay saying he's reactive in his actions up till part-way through ootp, i just think he also feels deeply for -sirius-, not just what he represents. i mean the -cause- of his emotions may be unaltruistic, may be based on a sort of greed for the kindness shown him, but the result is love, and i mean, doesn't the result count? it's what shapes him, just as much as the motivation, caring about people has to change him, -has- changed him since the first book and progressively-- he may start out just reacting to kindness like a stray kitten, but in the end it begins to live in him by itself, to give him strength. at least,i think that's the point even if it hasn't been fully made by jkr yet ^^;

he does use the cruciatus curse in anger-- and i see that as very significant-- but he didn't mean it. he doesn't have it in him-- he'd have to -become- a person who could mean it, probably, before the end, but he'd also have to become the sort of person who wouldn't do it, anyway, if he's to defeat voldemort.

i don't think he has no problem with physical pain-- i think he was being rather effectively tortured by the blood writing-- he's just stubborn and too independent for his own good, and he'd never show weakness in front of an enemy-- but he's affected by it, all right. he's -incensed-, upset, angry, hurt by it-- who wouldn't be? he can -stand- it, certainly, because he's brave and he's young and he's stubborn as a mule-- just like he can resist the imperius, like he tolerated voldemort's cruciatus curse and was still able to fight afterwards. he's a fighter, a survivor. but he has no special affinity for pain that i can see-- and yes, he takes pleasure in taunting, he loses his temper and beats up malfoy and he roughs up the dursleys any way he could-- he's a boy, not a saint. but when dudley was lying there and the dementor was about to strike-- harry saved him, and it didn't seem like he thought twice about it. harry -fights back-, he even inflicts pain in anger-- but he doesn't derive pleasure from actual -torture-, and he doesn't -really- wish suffering upon anybody, even people he hates with a passion, like snape, whom you can argue he loathes even more than malfoy.

also, i don't think he's gotten closer to luna or neville or ginny in ootp than ron & hermione. while those three share a sort of understanding with him, he didn't want them along with him when they went to the ministry, did he. he worries about ron being hurt much more than neville or ginny. ron was the person he'd miss most in gof, and that's pretty much it. ginny is nice enough, but he hasn't even -talked- to her much, and same for the others.

i suspect he doesn't share his newfound knowledge of the prophecy because it's too painful a burden to share just like jkr says, because he can't let go of this protective barrier of solitude, of not really dealing with it. telling them -would- make it real. harry -does- love, because without it he has nothing to allow him to save anybody-- and we all know he will-- he will save -everybody-. a harry who doesn't love with all his heart is a harry who's no different from voldemort-- and thus the books would lose all symbolic meaning. harry -does- love, and feel pain, and anger, and resentment-- all the emotions-- and he doesn't easily show them, of course, but the people that matter know he loves them, they understand him on an intimate, instinctual level. harry will never tell you-- like he wouldn't tell cho-- what he really feels unless you ask him directly, and even this, only if he's not mad at you, if he trusts you. but harry would expect you to -know- if he loves you. and the people that count -do- know. and while neville and luna understand the darkness that harry's had to deal with better than ron & hermione, maybe, they don't understand -harry-, which is something beyond that darkness. they don't -love- harry, like harry knows ron & hermione do. ginny got -over- harry, but hermione loves him, ron loves him with no expectations. they will always be there for him, and he knows that. it's just he doesn't want them to, sometimes, he feels it's too much... but he -will- come back to them because he has nowhere else to -go-. also, he loves them, and eventually he will learn that he can count on that to lend its own kind of strength to him.

and of course, he doesn't perceive himself as heroic-- if he did, he'd have to struggle with arrogance much more, which would make him much closer to slytherin than he is. he just follows his instincts-- not any idea of what's heroic or good or bad. he just -feels-, whether active or reactive, and in the end, while his feelings may be misguided due to lack of information, they don't really lead him astray-- he makes mistakes of course-- he hurts people, but never crosses that line, i think, where it's cold-blooded, where you can't still say, "his heart's in the right place". and that's all anyone can ask of him, really, isn't it?

like in ootp-- he does the wrong thing-- "rescuing" sirius-- for the "right" reason-- he is worried about sirius because he loves him. he also does the "wrong" thing, rushing to save fleur's sister, for the "right" reason, because he simply has to make sure she lives, he can't let anyone die. he has luck on his side, part-way, but really, most of all, i think he has his heart leading him and evil (in jkr's books) cannot ultimately prevail against a true heart, no matter the mistakes one makes in its service. and yeah, i admit i'm a sap, but i think from all signs, jkr is with me on that one~:)

i think sirius had to die so that harry can break away, can be completely alone in the darkness. he's entering the phase where he has to make decisions all over again, re-evaluate things. he needs sirius too much, as voldemort showed him. he also needs dumbledore too much, and i suspect that'll be dealt with halfway through seventh book.
    ron & hermione-- he needs them a lot, too, but i think it's different because he can shut them out, he can get angry and them and doubt them without having to totally freak out-- he can get pissed at ron and not speak to him and think ron's a prat without it really -changing- anything major about his worldview. he knows they're all prats in some ways, and it's okay 'cause they're mates. or something. but sirius wasn't allowed to get hurt. sirius wasn't allowed to be one of them-- he was both a father and a brother, yes, but harry would never be able to be fearless with the amount of over-protectiveness and vulnerability the father bit inspires in him.

so at this point he's stripped naked of everything-- completely in darkness. in a way, he fell through the veil along with sirius, this book. order of the phoenix, you know... phoenix feather is the thing in harry's wand... harry is the phoenix. he will come back, but not before... well... not before he thinks he won't, or can't, probably.

ron can't be the hero because ron has a support system, he wants simple things (just like harry), but he can -get- simple things. harry, on the other hand, sees death-- knows death. harry's knowledge isn't the knowledge of a normal 15-year-old boy-- not anymore. ron is his tie to that normality, but i think as of ootp, harry has left it behind. and he -has- to, he has to, if he's going to win. he needs the armor only passing through the veil in some metaphorical sense, and surviving can give him. he needs to transcend if he's going to live through destroying voldemort, if he's going to ever let go of his hatred for draco, if he's ever going to forgive himself for sirius and cedric and more to come, i'm sure.

none of this makes it easier, of course, or sweeter. but harry can do it. harry, to the contrary of the somewhat common hypothesis that he doesn't know what love is-- does, in fact, know. if there's anything he knows-- it's how to feel love. this saves him, does it not? over and over, love saves him. i think once again-- in some way-- sirius' death, like his mother's, will end up saving him. i believe it, because it has to be true. because while his mother's sacrifice and his mother's life and death have been largely fantasies, almost theoretical to harry-- sirius was real. sirius can guide harry because he lives in harry's heart. and it may sound horribly cheesy, but that doesn't make it untrue.

it may seem now that hope is nowhere to be found, but that's just in the thick of things-- it will make the victory more sweet. and there -has- to be some sort of satisfying victory because otherwise everything is meaningless, and this is a story heavy on symbolism and morality-play sort of meaning. redemption and the descent towards evil and the fight against it-- all of those seem to be themes.

so yes, if harry's stength is his heart, we're in trouble, and harry's in trouble, and yet-- there is no other strength. voldemort is the strongest wizard in the world, after all, and harry is the only one who -could- defeat him. he can't win, because he's just pure evil. in a world where there is no such thing (in a realistic world), maybe. but not when this is pure evil we're talking about. he can't win.

and i can see how harry would have to touch darkness in order to defeat him-- merely the act of defeating him, of killing him, is unforgivable, an act beholden to darkness, to death. and we've seen that only one thing can contradict death, in jkr's world-- the power of the human heart. it is (as it says it ootp), stronger than perhaps any other force in nature, stronger than the forces of destruction and despair. it demands willing sacrifice, yes, but it grants immunity, it grants life itself, if you believe in it, if you let go of the natural fear of it. darkness can be -transformed-, mitigated and redeemed by a stronger, positive emotion, basically.

harry doesn't possess it right now-- his quest is to find it, this strength within himself, and i suspect it is in fact the only way he can truly defeat lord voldemort, who is aware of it but who has rejected its power because it is so repellent to him. he thinks he can conquer death without it-- he thinks death is what matters. dumbledore thinks love is what matters. dumbledore is the only wizard voldemort fears, and i think that means something.

but as of now, harry is becoming more and more cast free from direct influence by either voldemort or dumbledore. he has to make the journey to true understanding himself. he has to find the strength to face the darkness within him and the darkness outside him, and he's not alone, but he has to find the strength to believe this alone. and because he -does- love-- because he will always have that connection to others, even if he thinks he's had it cut-- he -will- succeed. he will live, and he will love, because i think for harry, those two things are pretty much synonymous, in the end.
~~

... that didn't actually make sense, did it...

also. wah. it took me forever to comb through all the stuff you said, but it was worth it, 'cause so many of you are so brilliant and have rendered so much of what i (tried and failed) to enunciate moot. but i like it. i even organized a little greatest hits collection (first batch of fics & responses & the essays)~:)

and.... read ivy's pre-ootp fic and rhysenn's post-ootp fic. realized am in danger of forgetting ootp and just going "waahhh... h/d, good... brain, melted", just because it's easier, isn't it. but then, it all depends on your pov, really, doesn't it.

Comments

[yourpoison.livejournal.com]

<3~!
i so often feel like a sap for saying some of the things i do, but honestly, i do believe harry -is- an extraordinary, unique person, and things apply to him that don't necessarily apply to everyone.

but i'm starting to see why people call me a hufflepuff. *laughs*
but thanks >:D i feel more confident now~:)