What's annoying about Harry, IS he a procrasinator?

[ssk7882 <skelkins@attbi.com>]

No: HPFGUIDX 51409

Tom 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.

Marina wrote:
 
> 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.  

Heh.

Yeah, Tom, I'm afraid I'm going to have to agree with Marina here.  I 
find the particular flaws that you mentioned far more endearing than 
I do annoying.  If Harry weren't flawed, he'd make me wanna womit.  
But of course, mileages vary.

Actually, the flaw of Harry's that I find by far the least 
sympathetic is his utter lack of curiosity.  Not only do I find that 
frustrating as a reader, but I also find it somewhat hard to relate 
to.  For heaven's sake, boy -- there's a *library!*  Look something 
up!  Do a bit of research!  Don't you realize someone's trying to 
kill you?  Maybe you should learn a little bit *about* him, no?

Then, I suppose that this is the reason that I would likely not be 
sorted Gryffindor.  ;-)

Of course, I do realize that Harry *has* to have that particular 
quirk.  He can't be going around trying to learn more about his 
parents, or asking people probing questions, or using the library to 
fill himself in on the backstory, because if he did any of that, then 
he would absolutely cripple the informational structure of the 
series.  The author *needs* Harry to be apathetic in order to help 
protect her secrets.  I know, I know.  But still, I can't deny that I 
find it irksome sometimes.  While I recognize its utility on the 
authorial level, it also often makes me feel a lot less reader 
sympathy with Harry as a *person.*

But a word about that procrastination...

Is Harry really a procrastinator?

He certainly does engage in avoidance behavior in GoF.  No question 
about that.  And procrastination is certainly a very normal 
adolescent sort of tendency.  No question about that, either.  

But is it really a normal tendency of *Harry's,* do you think, or is 
it instead a perhaps not *perfectly* utilitarian, but nonetheless 
very normal response to the rather exceptional circumstances 
surrounding him in his fourth year?  

It seems to me that to some extent, procrastination was a very *sane* 
response to the events of GoF.  I mean, let's consider the situation, 
shall we?  From the very beginning of the story, Harry knows that 
Voldemort has some terribly cunning *plan* that is directed against 
him.  Yet he doesn't know what it is, or who is involved, or when 
it's supposed to take place, or...well, or anything, really.  
Although sometimes in the other books Harry is reactive as a matter 
of proclivity, in this one he is to some extent *forced* into 
reactive mode.  He's doing very little throughout the novel but 
sitting around waiting for someone to try to kill him.

Furthermore, the nature of the threat against him is both far less 
defined *and* far more palpable than it has been in previous 
volumes.  In PS/SS, he doesn't even know anything's going on until 
halfway through the book.  In CoS, he knows what's going on in all of 
its really important details: the questions are really just Whodunnit 
and How.  In PoA, he knows (or believes he does) the nature of the 
threat against his person: it's Sirius Black, out to kill him.

But in GoF, it's all so *vague.*  Vague, and yet also disturbingly 
specific.  Disturbingly *directed.*  Voldemort has a plan to kill 
him...but he doesn't know any of its details, or who is involved, or 
from what direction the blow may fall, or how or when or where or why.

Pretty disheartening, really.  And given that just about the only 
thing he *can* deduce about the forces mustering against him is that 
they probably somehow conspired to get his name in that Goblet, I 
can't say that I really blame him for having felt somewhat uninspired 
when it came to preparing for the Tasks.  I would have procrastinated 
myself, I think.  Who wants to exercise hustle and diligence, just to 
help facilitate someone else's plan to kill you?  Rather like being 
asked to muster enthusiasm for the trip to the slaughterhouse, isn't 
it?

And in fact, Harry's instincts were absolutely correct.  Winning that 
Tournament really *wasn't* in his best interests.

It's an interesting issue.  I've seen people cite Harry's 
procrastination in GoF as "just typical adolescent boy stuff" in the 
past, but really, I think it's a lot more than that.  I think it 
makes perfect sense, given the circumstances.  I don't even know if I 
believe that Harry is ordinarily a procrastinator at all.  Have we 
seen him engage in procrastination in any of the other novels?


Elkins