this post was submitted on 30 Apr 2024
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I think it was just a contrivance to both make a sport for the books while also allowing the Main Character to automatically be the most important person all the time (like basically everything else in the books).
Yeah the truth is that Harry is more or less completely useless at anything other than quidditch in the books. He's just a symbol that actually talented people rally around
Functionally, he's good at being reliably moral. See: the mirror of erised, the second GoF task, going willingly to his death.
Reliably moral by traditional wizarding standards*. Hermione is more reliably moral by standards external to the wizarding world.
Hermione blackmailed a journalist and kept her in a jar for several weeks. The following year she cursed a fellow student and left them permanently disfigured. I'm not sure that I would consider her more reliably moral... a good person overall, but with flaws.
Idk, just because she doesn't turn into a human welcome mat doesn't make her immoral. And Rita is as much a journalist as anyone on Fox News is, which is to say, not at all. Hermione recognized that nobody would do anything about Rita spreading her harmful bullshit and took direct, decisive action.
I read that part as a(nother) self insert for Rowling venting about tabloids which were absolutely writing about her at the time.
He's kind of a dick though...
Fame went to his head for a bit there, then he got pissed that everyone had opinions about him....kinda like a certain author I know of...
Reading Enders Game after reading the Harry Potter series felt like those were two opposite ends of the spectrum.
Harry was special because fate made him special and all things revolved around him regardless of his actions.
Ender was special because the author said he was the smartest kid in the room and all things he did worked because if it didn’t work, then he wouldn’t be the smartest.
But then we found out later that Bean was actually the smartest kid in the room
I always got the impression that Ender was better at overarching strategy but didn't have Beans attention to detail and ability to micromanage. They both complimented eachother really well though Bean went very underappreciated.
I think that's exactly how they described it in the book. Bean was like a surgical instrument, precise and perfect for those small details/strike teams, but not as great at the larger overarching tasks.
I mean, Ron isn't exactly brilliant either. I guess that just leaves the authorial self-insert?
This is the point, the entire thing is just so Harry can be the main character
It's made for teens, so that checks out.
Man, fuck that main character. He owned a slave and became a cop.