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

[marinafrants <rusalka@ix.netcom.com>]

No: HPFGUIDX 51371

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "Tom Wall <thomasmwall at y...>" 
<thomasmwall at y...> wrote:
> 
> 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.

See, maybe I'm just strange, but these are precisely the qualities I 
find most endearing about Harry.  If, on top of all his heroic 
qualities, he was also reasonable, diligent, obedient and uniformly 
sweet-tempered, I'd hate him with a fiery passion for being such a 
holier-than-thou little prig.  There are times when he does things 
that are so wrong-headed that I just want to smack him, but those 
are also the times when I most care about him, the times when I 
actually believe in him as an adolescent boy rather than an 
archetypal fantasy hero.  And they're also the times when I most 
appreciate his virtues, because as an archetypal fantasy hero Harry 
might be seriously flawed, but as an adolescent boy I think he's 
pretty terrific.

Marina
rusalka at ix.netcom.com