Harry James Potter
Kenny Herzog
I’ve read all of J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter books—devoured them, really, because whatever her flaws, the lady does a terrific job at building compulsive narratives and enjoyable worlds. But the more time I spend away from the series, the more its problems get to me, and the biggest problem of them all is the main character himself. Harry is, to put it kindly, an absolute no one. He suffers at the hands of the despicable Dursleys because, hey, what’s a hero’s journey without a little suffering? Then one day he learns he’s inherited great powers and wealth, neither of which have any connection to him beyond basic genetics. The news hunts him down like a wretch-seeking missile, and before you know it, Harry’s whisked away to a magical land where he’s repeatedly informed how wonderful he is by strangers, all without ever having accomplished or earned much of anything beyond a passive ability to not die. Yes, Mr. Potter makes his fair share of enemies, and yes, he does do his best to live up to the responsibility of being the most famous boy wizard in the world. But the series never shakes the fact that Harry is destined to heroism less by merit than by fait accompli, and every good fortune that comes his way plays like wish-fulfillment to distract us from the fact that there’s no real center to the kid. He’s as generic as a Hardy Boy, and when Rowling did try and give him some edge, he became just another self-centered, whiny teenager, given to fits of self-loathing that manifested as witless sarcasm and dull surliness. It’s not that Harry Potter is a horrible person, or even the worst fictional character to ever grace a fantasy narrative; fantasy does, after all, rely an awful lot on prophecy and fate. It’s just hard to accept that a writer capable of characters like Severus Snape and Hermione Granger chose to rest the crux of her narrative on a boy whose most memorable personality trait is a facial scar.
