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

[Grey Wolf <greywolf1@jazzfree.com>]

No: HPFGUIDX 51372

Tom Wall wrote:
> 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.

Let me turn that around. Let's say that HHR had realised from the first 
moment that the potential thief was Quirrell, and had told as much to 
Hagrid (i.e. substitute "Snape" for "Quirrell"). What would've Hagrid 
answer be? "rubbish - he's a school teacher and helped defend the 
stone" (translated into the apropiate colourful language)- JUST LIKE 
SNAPE. Luckily for everyone, Harry trusts his gut feelings when 
something potentially disastreous can happen, and is not stopped by the 
likes of Hagrid or Hermione that believe that all teachers are saints.

> 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.

(Pale) yellow flag. Point of canon: the attacks don't continue after 
his talk with Dumbledore: almost all have happened by then, the only 
two that are left are Hermione/Penelope. And of course, the first thing 
that comes to Harry's mind when Dumbledore asks that question is the 
fact that he, with Hermione and Ron, have broken "about 50 school 
rules" to prepare the multijuice potion. And since Harry is under the 
threat (made by Dumbledore himself) that another rule violation and he 
would be expelled, it's not the sort that would encourage Harry to 
reveal what's going on in his life.

Besides, I don't know that Dumbledore would've been able to act on that 
information. I'm pretty sure that all the teachers had realised that 
the monster was a basilisk by now (OK, all except Lockhart). The fact 
that Harry could hear it speak would only have told Dumbledore that 
Harry speaks parseltongue - which he already knew, after the duel 
class. The important thing to discover the basilisk is that the 
entrance to the chamber of secrets is in Myrtle's bathroom, and you 
cannot deduce that from a voice in the wall.
 
> 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 argue that they shouldn't have listened to Lupin (although I'll 
draw the line at listening to a convicted murderer and known traitor - 
not listening to him is a *good* idea), but I have to point out that 
they didn't attack Snape because he wouldn't listen, but because he 
goaded them into it, but purposedly insulting Harry's dead parents 
(with a good reason, too, if you ask me - but then, I'm an MDDT. Check 
Pip's post 39662 for the full details).
 
Hope that helps,

Grey Wolf