Harry's DADA skill was Re: Albus and Gellert/Voldemort's Power

[Carol]

No: HPFGUIDX 182636

Mike:
> I'm coining a new acronym, because I'm going to use it alot in this
post. YBSW = yeah, but so what?

Carol responds:
Thanks, Mike dear. I'm tempted to respond with YBSW to your entire
post, but I'm restraining myself, knowing that you did it with no
intention of hurting my feelings (and besides, it wouldn't help my
argument). But, just so you know, it did hurt. I wouldn't say "so
what" to you. Please don't say it to me.
 
Carol earlier:
> > Well, there's that Patronus, the one spell he's better at than
Hermione, but he had lots of help and the advantage of training on a
Boggart!Dementor.
> 
> Mike:
> YBSW? Lupin told us that many qualified wizards can't cast a 
Patronus. Here's Harry casting an effective and probably powerful one
at age 13. He repelled hundreds of Dementors with it in PoA. <snip>

Carol again:
I am saying that, whatever Harry's natural gift for casting this
spell, no one else has the advantage of special training at age
thirteen from a competent DADA teacher (a rare commoditiy at Hogwarts
in any case), and no one else has the advantage of a Dementor Boggart
to practice on. It's one thing to cast the spell in the DA
headquarters, where it's just fun; it's another to be able to cast it
against a real Dementor. Harry had the opportunity to overcome his
fear of a fake Dementor before facing a real one. Even then, he
couldn't do it at thirteen until he saw "James" (really his future
self) casting one--and he was not actually facing even one Dementor at
the time. He was a safe distance away at Hagrid's, seeing himself and
Sirius and Hermione in danger, and realizing that, in a sense, he had
already cast it. And he can cast it again in OoP because he learned to
cast it in PoA, when Dementors were guarding Hogwarts and when he had
Lupin (who knew about Harry's Boggart) to help him.

No one else has those advantages (Lupin, a Dementor Boggart) or
circumstances that require them to learn the spell at such an early
age (Dementors at Hogwarts, which affect Harry more than anyone else),
not to mention a Time-Turner.

Would he have learned to cast a Patronus at thirteen if Dementors had
not come to Hogwarts that year? Probably not. there would have been no
incentive. Would any other DADA teacher we've seen have given him
private lessons? Not even Barty Jr., who attacked him a few extra
times with the Imperius Curse for his own not-very-admirable reasons,
would have done that. Snape gave him private lessons in Occlumency on
DD's orders, and DD gave him private lessons in the history of Tom
Riddle, but neither ever offers to help him learn DADA outside of
school. Quirrell, Lockhart, and Umbridge certainly would not or could
not have taught him.

It's all circumstance, coincidence, luck.

Why can't anyone else cast a corporeal Patronus at age thirteen? It's
not taught, the DADA teachers (Snape and Lupin aside) are generally
incompetent (and occasionally evil), the students themselves have no
motivation to learn it, and none of them has the extra help Harry has.

If you still don't understand my point, that's fine (just please don't
reponds with YBSW). But I think there are perfectly good reasons why
Harry, unlike most other third years, can cast a corporeal Patronus.
And we find that many fifth years, and even a fourth year, Colin
Creevey, can master the spell itself. It's just the part about facing
an actual Dementor that they don't have to deal with (until the battle
of Hgwarts, when they're in either their sixth or seventh year).

Why can't Hermione, who is so much better than Harry at mastering most
spells, including nonverbal spells, sustain a corporeal Patronus
against real Dementors, even in DH? It's because, IMO, she didn't have
a Boggart Dementor to practice on. (Heck, she can't even deal with her
own Boggart, McGonagall telling her that she's failed everything,
because she hasn't been allowed to practice! I'm not happy with Lupin
in that regard. And, yes, I expect about twelve people to rush to his
defense.)

To return to Harry and his skills or powers, which I maintain are not
for the most part that much greater than those of his fellow students
except in that he's had experiences they haven't had and the need to
learn spells that they haven't yet been taught. Harry, unlike his
friends and fellow students, has been facing Voldemort in some form,
or real Dementors that particularly affected him, since he encountered
Quirrell!mort in first year. But in no case was it skill or natural
aptitude that enabled him to defeat LV. (He does, however, have
courage and extremely good luck, along with help from Hermione,
Dumbledore, and others.)

SS/PS:
His mother's love stopped Quirrell!mort, Quirell died when LV left his
body and LV returned to Vapor form, and DD (who had made sure that
Harry had his Invisibility Cloak and knew how the mirror worked) came
to his rescue. Harry's contribution, aside from catching the key in
the Charms challenge, was courage, determination, and a pure heart
that kept him from wanting the stone for himself. But the skill and
knowledge, aside from the chess game that Ron won, was all Hermione's.

CoS:
I'm sure you've read my recent posts, but I'll reiterate, leaving out
my argument that DD provided the protections. Harry spoke Parseltongue
(thanks to LV) and could consequently open the Chamber. Fawkes blinded
the Basilisk, provided the Sorting from which Harry could pull the
Sword of Gryffindor, healed Harry's wounds, and carried him to safety.
Harry used the Basilisk fang to destroy the diary, not knowing that it
was a Horcrux, which, in turn, restored Ginny's soul to her body. What
did Harry contribute? Quite a bit, but none of it (except
Parseltongue) depended on Harry's skill and power and knowledge. What
mattered was loyalty to Dumbledore (Fawkes) and "conditions of need
and valor" (the Sword). Harry's being a Gryffindor also helped, and
only he could have opened the Chamber, but once he got there, what he
needed (aside from Fawkes's help and a weapon other than a wand, was
his own courage and resourcefulness--more or less what Snape says in
HBP is required for a person fighting the Darks Arts. But Harry
doesn't cast a single spell against Tom Riddle, who takes his wand
early on, nor does he know any useful defensive spell except
Expelliarmus at this point.

PoA:
I've spent much of this post discussing PoA and the Dementors. Yes,
Harry learns and masters a particular spell at an early age, but that
in itself does not show that he's particularly powerful. Hermione can
conjure blue fire and bottle it in her first year; Ginny can cast a
Bat-Bogey Hex as a fourth year. Severus Snape comes to school at
eleven knowing more hexes and jinxes than most seventh years. His
father and his friends create the Marauder's Map in, IIRC, their fifth
year. The Weasley Twins create all sorts of magical products in their
fifth year and beyond. Harry is one of many students with particular
skills or talents, and his Patronus does manifest itself rather early,
but it's the only spell at which he's unusually good, and there are
excellent reasons for that being the case.

GoF:
The spells he masters, under Hermione's direction, are ordinary DADA
spells that he should have learned under a competent teacher. Which
leads me to wonder why the heck Barty Jr., who was demonstrating
Unforgiveable Curses in front of fourth years, actually using the
Imperius Curse on them, and at one point (quote not handy but I can
find it if pressed) hexes them in class as a quiz, and who wants Harry
to win the TWT against seventh years, isn't teaching the fourth years
the spells that they need. Dean Thomas later tells Umbridge that the
students "learned loads" under Fake!Moody, yet they didn't learn
Stupefy, Protego, Impedimenta, or Reducto, all discovered for Harry by
Hermione and learned by him (but apparently not by Hermione or Ron)
because he was practicing for the TWT?

So, yes. He wins the TWT, more or less, having used Quidditch skills
to get past the dragon, gillyweed to survive the Second Task (true, he
got past "zee grindylows" and Fleur didn't) and the ordinary DADA
spells that Fake!Moody should have taught the whole class to get past
the Acromantula and the Skrewt (the Sphinx only asked a Riddle and
Fake!Moody had cleared most of the obstacles out of Harry's way), but
the confrontation against Voldemort was won with Expelliarmus--and
only because Harry's wand was the brother wand of Voldemort's. Had the
echoes not come out of the wand and allowed him to escape, neither
courage nor quick thinking would have helped him.

As Harry tells Cho, "all this stuff," meaning the spells that Harry is
teaching the DA, didn't help Cedric, who already knew them or he could
not have survived the tournament. Nor would Harry have survived if it
hadn't been for the brother wands. He can resist an Imperius Curse,
true, but he can't fight a Crucio. As for AK, no one can survive
that--unless they're protected by fate, luck, their mother's
self-sacrifice, and a drop of blood that they happen to share with
Voldemort. (Voldie's mistakes always help Harry without Harry needing
any special powers other than the ones residing in the scar or his own
wand.)

OoP:
Harry does better than the other DA members (whose DA lessons haven't
adequately prepared them to deal with DEs, much less LV himself)
against the DEs, but he's ready to hand the Prophecy Orb to Lucius
Malfoy when the Order members arrive. And he manages an inept Crucio
against Bellatrix but doesn't get much of a chance to duel with her
because LV and DD arrive. Harry and Bellatrix are both pinned to the
wall by parts of the Fountain of Magical Brethren, taking no part in
the battle between the superwizards. LV possesses Harry and is
defeated, not by Harry's skill or magical power, in the sense of
ability to cast powerful spells, but by "the power that the Dark Lord
knows not," love. Had it not been for Dumbledore's arrival, LV would
have used AK on Harry, destroyed his own Horcrux, and perhaps
discovered that "neither could *die* while the other survived"
(deliberate alteration of the Prophecy) because of his blunder with
the drop of blood. Exactly what he'd have done with Harry at that
point, I don't know, but I don't think that Harry would have been in
any shape for Horcrux lessons with DD, nor would he have been allowed
to return for them.

HBP:
Harry doesn't fight, LV, only his supposed lieutenant, Snape, and is
trounced.

DH:
Harry defeats LV, with the help of Hermione, Ron, Snape, and the
participants in the Battle of Hogwarts, not to mention Dobby,
Griphook, Ollivander, Mr. Lovegood, and even Vincent Crabbe, by 1)
destroying the Horcruxes (Parseltongue and the scar, both the
unwitting gifts to Harry from LV, prove indispensable, as do
Hermione's concealment spells, but Harry's wand, not Harry himself,
casts the only spectacular spell, the Unforgiveables not being an
indication of Harry's skill or power. Any fool, even Amycus Carrow or
Vincent Crabbe, can cast them, apparently, at least once he's of age)
2) sacrificing himself and destroying the scar Horcrux, the "power
that the Dark Lord knows not," love, weakening all of LV's spells, and
3) using Expelliarmus once again, which works only because he has
accidentally become the master of the Elder wand.

Mike:
<snip> As Dumbledore proved himself, the key to defeating Voldemort
wasn't to out-duel him.

Carol:
Exactly! That's my whole point. Harry's power and his talent (if
that's what it is) for casting a Patronus (and all those other spells
that somehow didn't help the DA much) are beside the point.

Harry doesn't defeat Voldemort because he's better at DADA than anyone
else (thanks to special circumstances like the TWT). He's just an
ordinary Wizard kid when it comes to school subjects, which he only
studies when he has to, not a genius or a prodigy at anything except
Quidditch. And helpful as the DADA spells were in winning the last leg
of the TWT, they would not in themselves have enabled Harry and
friends to defeat the DEs in OoP, and if Harry can't defeat Snape
using them, I very much doubt that they would have helped him against
Voldemort.

What helps Harry against Voldemort is first, the powers that LV
inadvertenly gave him when he "marked him as his equal"--Parseltongue
and the scar connection--and second, setting aside luck and help from
more talented friends, as Snape puts it, "the power that the Dark Lord
knows not," love.

Carol earlier:
>
> Harry does have the power to block the Imperius Curse,
<snip>
> We aren't told, but, either way, I don't see how a natural ability
would be to his credit, any more than Hermione is responsible for her
own good memory and powers of concentration.

Mike:
This is a confusing statement. Why wouldn't Harry's, Hermione's, or
anyone's natural abilities be to their credit? <snip>

Carol again:

We're getting into side issues here, and I don't want to detract from
the main argument above, but what I meant (feel free to disagree) is
that the talents we're born with are not our own doing. I'm good at
spelling, for example, but to the extent that that's a natural
ability, as opposed to something I briefly worked at to win some
spelling championships at age thirteen, I don't see why I should
receive credit for that ability any more than Harry should receive
credit for being a Parselmouth (or Hermione for the good memory that
she's born with, as opposed to the hard work that she puts into her
homework, for which I do give her credit). Now, if Harry had managed
to master Occlumency after effort and fighting his own antipathy
toward Snape and his desire to have that dream, I'd give him credit,
lots of credit, for that. 

And I do give him credit for the effort he putting into learning to
cast the Patronus Charm (though, in that case, he was motivated to
learn). It's just that he had advantages not available to anyone else
who was trying to learn it. Try using a Snape Boggart or a mummy
Boggart (or a full moon Boggart) to learn to cast that spell and see
how well it works when you're faced with a real Dementor sucking the
happiness out of you. Why can't Hermione do it? IMO, because she
didn't have a Boggart substitute to practice on. McGonagall, scary as
she would be if she were telling a student that the student had failed
all her classes, just wouldn't do the trick.

Mike:
<snip> Harry repelled fully reconstituted Voldemort's Imperius.

Why is this "powerfully magical" demonstration not to Harry's credit?
After all, isn't Tom Riddle powerfully magical himself and isn't that
why he is able to perform those fantastic spells? (Besides being
bright enough to learn them and being a world-wise traveller that
discovers them.)

Carol responds:
As I said, this is a side issue and not part of my main argument, just
my own personal opinion. I don't see how powers that a person is born
with (or acquires through a rebounded spell or whatever) can be to
that person's credit.

Is it to Barty Crouch's or Dumbledore's or Snape's credit that they're
powerfully magical? Is it Ron's fault that he isn't, as far as we can
tell? Why should they be credited with abilities that they were born
with or scorned, as Wizards in general scorn Muggles, for abilities
and powers that they were born without?

Should I be criticized for having been born without perfect pitch or
natural athletic aptitude? If I were to overcome those natural
deficiencies and learn to sing opera or play tournament basketball
through hard work and long practice, I'd have done something
praiseworthy. And even people who become successful in those fields as
the result of natural talent have also done something praiseworthy
because they have used that talent to best advantage, polishing it and
practicing it and supplementing it with acquired skills.

Hermione's good memory is not in itself praiseworthy. It's the uses to
which she puts it that deserve commendation.

Fleur is born beautiful and Tom Riddle handsome. should we praise them
for that? I thought not. Then why should we praise Hermione's
intellect or Harry's apparently natural ability to repel an Imperius
Curse? Very lucky for him that he has that ability, but why should we
praise him when he did nothing to acquire it? We might as well praise
him for deflecting the AK that rebounded because of his mother's
self-sacrifice.

For the record, I am not attacking Harry, whom I have argued at length
is the only one who could have defeated Voldemort thanks to the events
at Godric's Hollow.

I'm saying that he is, in a sense, an Everyman or Everykid faced with
an enemy whose powers are far vaster than his own--and all the more
admirable for that. His weapons, for the most part, are not
superpowers but courage and resourcefulness and love.

If Harry were a second Grindelwald, brilliant and powerful and
talented but not tempted to the Dark side because Voldemort had killed
his parents, would we care so much about him? Would we worry when he
confronted Death Eaters, even if the DEs were as gifted and
intelligent as Snape (which, sadly, most of them aren't)? Or if the
book were about Dumbledore and the climax was a battle like the one at
the MoM, would we be so emotionally invested in it, even setting aside
DD's manipulativeness and other character flaws?

It's the fact that Harry is just a kid, far outmatched despite the
advantages of speaking Parseltongue and seeing into Voldemort's mind,
that make the reader (most readers, anyway) root for him.

Carol, hoping that Mike, whom she holds in great affection and esteem,
will refrain from saying "so what?" in response to her posts in future