What's annoying about Harry (WAS: Characters you hate)

[Tom Wall <thomasmwall@yahoo.com>]

No: HPFGUIDX 51366


I think that this is in order, here. Let's see
if everyone's stomach is up to it.

What I find most annoying about Harry is his
incredible stubbornness, his procrastination, his
belief, along Snapian lines, that despite everyone's
efforts to safeguard him, he's above the rules. 
And I can't *STAND* the way he refuses to listen to 
reason once he's had his mind made up.

Some examples of this:

PS/SS: Hagrid repeatedly tells HHR that it's 
"rubbish" that Snape would try to steal the stone.
Do they listen? Nope. They instead spend the whole
time trying to falsely prove that he is a thief and 
killer.

CoS: First off, if Harry would just *tell* Dumbledore 
that he hears a strange voice, then we'd have gotten 
through the whole thing a lot quicker, IMHO. It's
largely due to Harry's stubbornness that the attacks
continue, whereas if he'd been honest in the first place,
the connection that he's a Parselmouth would have enabled
the staff to solve the problem.

PoA: In the Shrieking Shack, it really bothers me that,
first off, Harry and Ron refuse to listen to Lupin and Black
because they're both too stubborn to entertain the notions 
that a) Black may be innocent, and b) Scabbers may be more
than he seems to be. But what REALLY annoys me is the way
that they turn these same criticisms on Snape once he starts
behaving the same way they were a few minutes ago. And then
they attack him for it. Unbelievable.

I can't express how many times I've read these books and
thought to myself "No, Harry, NO, just TELL Dumbledore, the
truth" or "just LISTEN to Lupin, what's WRONG with you, it's
clearly you who doesn't know what he's talking about!!!" 

I guess ultimately what makes Harry such a compelling 
character is that he's real, and real people don't always
make the best decisions. And that's why I love him and his
friends so much, and that's why I keep reading. But that
doesn't make his bad qualities any less annoying. ;-)

-Tom