Harry's "importance" (Was: How do the books affect children?)

[Carol]

No: HPFGUIDX 179557

Alla wrote:
> Oh, of course he is the Chosen one and sure, he is important. I was 
> thinking about one of the most recent debates as to whether he is a 
> popular guy on campus, because that I disagree with - that he is not 
> popular all the time and not with everybody.
> 
Steph replied:
> I agree with Alla here.  Just because Harry is famous doesn't mean 
> he's popular.  In fact, he spends much of the time in both GOF and 
> OotP being distinctly unpopular.  The rest of the time, he just 
> seems like someone no one really pays that much attention to, except 
> when something spectacular happens, as in SS and CoS, or when he's 
> playing Quidditch.  Overall, Harry doesn't appear to have many 
> friends beyond Ron, Hermione, the other Weasleys, Seamus, Neville, 
> and Dean.  It's not until HBP that he actually becomes popular, when 
> everyone finally realizes that he wasn't making up the stuff about 
> Voldie.
> 
> I also don't think that Ron was looking to make connections when he 
> met Harry.  Ron certainly thought it was cool that Harry was who he 
> was, but after that it didn't really seem to matter to Ron that 
> Harry was famous.  If you want to finger someone for wanting to be 
> friends with Harry just because he's famous, Colin Creevy would be 
> your boy.
>
Carol responds:

for the most part, I agree with both of you. There are times when no
one is paying much attention to Harry (for example, the beginning of
GoF, before his name comes out of the goblet) and others when he's
largely *un*popular, as when many if not most of the students think
he's the Heir of Slytherin or that he put his own name in the GoF. In
the second instance, the Gryffindors are behind him only because they
want a champion from their House to win the TWT. He becomes generally
popular with everyone except Slytherin after the first task because he
scored a lot of points for Hogwarts in the first task. (Cedric and
Krum, also TWT champions, retain their popularity, IIRC.) For that
reason, not because he's the Boy Who Lived, much less the Chosen One
(the term hasn't been used yet), the girls clamor for the honor of
being his date at the Yule Ball. Many of them don't even know him and
consequently, they can't *like* him. They only want to be his arm
decoration. (Notice that Parvati, who does know him and ends up being
his date for the Yule Ball, never clamors to be his girlfriend. Nor
does Lavender, who also knows him, though she eventually goes after
ron--not for his connection with Harry but because of his silly action
involving a Fanged Frisbee. Or she'd already developed a cursh on him.
We don't know.) In OoP, no one is chasing after him. He's getting
publicity, all right, but all of it indicating that he's unstable and
dangerous. In HBP, the wave of popularity resulting in his being the
date of choice to Slughorn's party results as much from his being a
member of the Slug Club and from a spectacular Quidditch win as from
his having just been involved in a battle with Voldemort and the DEs
in the DoM. (Neither Neville nor Ron is helped by having also been
there as neither is a potential date for Slughorn's party for anyone
except Hermione, who is a member herself.)

Harry has friends other than Ron and Hermione, but he's not close to
any of them and is at odds with Seamus, Ernie Macmillan, and even Ron
at times during his time at Hogwarts. All come around eventually to
the view that he's the Chosen One, but that has nothing to do with
their original relationship with him. Nor does his fame. It's more
that he's Ron's friend from the beginning, Ernie is a classmate, and
Seamus is a roommate. Harry does have the occasional groupie or fan,
even counting a teacher (Lockhart), but only the Creevey brothers and
Cho (who also evidently has a crush on him and admires his Qiidditch
skills) fall into that category. And again, their hero worship
(Creeveys) or crush 9cho) has nothing to do with being *important.* It
has to do with being *famous." His scar may be legend, to paraphrase
Film!Lucius, but his fame consists entirely in having survived, as an
infant, an AK that nearly destroyed Voldemort. Not one of those
students expects him to duplicate the feat. It takes a long time to
persuade anyone other than Hermione, Luna, Ernie, and the Weasleys
that Harry isn't a liar and a "nutter." Even the DA members largely
join so that they can pass their OWLS, not because they believe that
Voldemort is back and they'll need to fight him. And not one even
among the DA expects Harry to save the WW--at least not until DH when
the Ministry has fallen and Harry is on the run, at which point he
becomes important as a symbol of hope--in fact, he's almost the mascot
that Scrimgeour was trying to make him except that he represents the
(extremely feeble) resistance movement rather than the MoM.

Important? I really don't think so. He's "famous Harry Potter," of
whom Draco is chronically jealous and Ron is occasionally envious, but
he's also a not particularly good student who's willing to cheat on
his homework, an exceptional Quidditch player (which makes him
generally popular with Gryffindor but not with anyone else except Cho
and maybe Loony Luna), a kid who's always breaking rules and getting
into trouble ("Dumbledore's favorite," as Draco complains, not without
reason). People who meet him for the first time stare at his scar, but
the staring passes. He's not being followed most of the time by a fan
club, and half the time, those who stare and point are afraid of him
or think he's done something unworthy.

Carol, who thinks that no one except DD and to a lesser degree, the
Order members, especially Snape, realizes how important Harry really
is, and even in DH, he is important more as a symbol of hope and
resistance than as a potential hero capable of defeating Voldemort