Was Harry Potter really the hero of the Harry Potter series?
On the surface, this sounds like a stupid question. Potter was the main character, and he did do heroic things. Most importantly, Voldemort was defeated because of Potter.
Or was he?
When I recently reread Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, I concluded that Potter was, at best, a weak hero. Too much of Potter’s success with defeating Voldemort hinges on Albus Dumbledore.
Dumbledore was dead, of course. But in the final book in the series, it becomes clear that he set many plans in motion before he died. These plans set things up so that Potter could defeat Voldemort. They clearly went well past merely explaining a Horcrux or showing Harry memories about Voldemort in the Pensieve.
Some plans were small, like arranging for the safekeeping of Gryffindor’s sword (which was useful for destroying Horcruxes).
Some things were bigger, like his handling of Severus Snape. At the start of the book, it appeared that Dumbledore’s trust of Snape had been the biggest mistake of his life. By the end of the book, it’s clear he knew exactly what he was doing. As a result, Snape ended up being an unexpected asset, not liability.
Then, throughout the book, Potter regularly thinks of Dumbledore and what he’d wanted. This influences Potter’s decisions. On page 692 of the 2007 US hard cover edition, it even says: “Dumbledore’s betrayal was almost nothing. Of course there had been a bigger plan; Harry had simply been too foolish to see it; he realized that now.”
All in all, it seems clear to me that Dumbledore had everything planned. All Harry Potter really did was act as Dumbledore’s pawn in helping carry out part of the plan. Harry was critical, of course, since there were certain things that only he could do. (However, he needed to do these things because of events outside of his control. For example, Voldmort’s attempt to murder him when he was a small child.)
I have mixed feelings about my realization. In one way, it’s nice to see “brain” rather than “brawn” win. And Dumbledore does represent “brain” far more than any other character.
Yet, overall, I’m disappointed. All along, I’d been viewing Harry Potter as the hero. Even early on in the series, long before Voldemort made his return, I was betting on two things: Voldemort would return, and Harry would forever beat him.
This would be a classic David and Goliath type story — a classic theme of the ordinary person who is called upon to fight evil, and who wins, despite the odds.
This happened in the earliest books. Dumbledore then appeared to be little more than a source of wizard knowledge. He’d sometimes help, but usually in small ways. Early on, Harry Potter would have to fight mostly his own fight.
Some fights were impressive. For example, take Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. The Chamber’s reopening caused a real problem. It even stumped the best wizards, up to and apparently including Dumbledore. It was Harry Potter who actually solved the problem. Not bad for a second year Hogwart’s student!
As the series went, my view that Harry would vanquish Voldemort was supported more and more. My view met its apex at the end of Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince, when Dumbledore died. It was a shock, but it made sense for the story line. He needed to go so Harry would be the hero; the young wizard who is forced into greatness.
Except, I was wrong.
While Dumbledore never did return from the dead, he did operate quite effectively from the grave. His plans, made before he died, guaranteed that. Indeed, he worked so effectively, even dead, that I think it feels almost heavy-handed at times. (If nothing else, it’s incredible how infrequently his plan didn’t work as planned!)
In the end, it leaves Dumbledore the real hero of the final book. And I think he’s also the real hero of the series, since the overall series is about vanquishing Voldemort for good.
And I — a loyal reader since 1999 — am left disappointed.
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:)
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Monday, November 23, 2009
IS DUMBLEDORE THE HERO OF HARRY POTTER?
Mark sent me the link to this article from The Torch Online which questions whether Harry is really the hero of the Harry Potter stories. The article proposes that really, Dumbledore is the hero and Harry is just his hands and feet.
Harry, imho, is definitely the hero of the series. Dumbledore is a fairly classic mentor figure, a more involved mentor than, say, Obi-Wan Kenobi. And Harry certainly couldn’t succeed as hero without Dumbledore. But Harry is the hero.
Why? Here are some reasons — some drawn from the books, some from the meta-context in which the books exist….
1) Harry is the person the villain is after. Yes, Voldemort would also like to destroy Dumbledore, but his animosity and focus is all directed at Harry from a time even before the books began. Harry is The Boy Who Lived, and he is the one Voldemort wants to kill. Harry is The Chosen One. He is identified explicitly as the hero repeatedly throughout the story.
2) Harry is the person who undergoes the classic Hero’s Journey. In fact, he undergoes it over and over — One could easily chart Harry’s Hero’s Journey through each of the books, plus the overall arc of his journey across all 7 books. He is the reluctant hero, traveling from an ordinary world (the Dursleys) to a special world (Hogwarts), encountering various tests along the way, aligning himself with allies and against enemies, and supported by a defined mentor. He faces ordeals of increasing danger, goes through a death and resurrection in every book, coming through these ordeals more empowered to face the villain one-on-one. Dumbledore may be in the background at all times, may be manipulating events toward a desired conclusion, but the only time he faces Voldemort is at the very end of the Battle at the Ministry in Order of the Phoenix — and even then, he’s only there because Harry needs help. Most of the time, Dumbledore just sits in his office… And…. continuing in the Hero’s Journey…
3) Harry defeats Voldemort. Harry does it. Not Dumbledore. Back to that battle in the Ministry: If Dumbledore could have destroyed Voldemort, there was the time. He didn’t do it.
Yes, Dumbledore was crucial to the campaign. Yes, he trained Harry, supported him, aided him, led the way at times. Yes, Harry couldn’t have done it without Dumbledore. But Harry was the one who did what Dumbledore could not do.
Putting the distraction of the Hallows aside (as the hero must put aside all things that distract him from his goal) and looking at the Horcruxes: The ultimate goal of destroying Voldemort starts to become clear in Half-Blood Prince and crystallizes in Deathly Hallows: Destroy the Horcruxes and you destroy Voldemort. But if the hero is the one who accomplishes the ultimate goal, then Dumbledore falls short. He collects a lot of information on the Horcruxes, sure, but that only makes him a magical research assistant. He destroys the Ring, but fails to destroy the Locket and in fact dies in the attempt. Harry is the one who has to go forward and actually perform the destruction (and in some cases, the discovery) of the Horcruxes.
And Harry is the one who faces Voldemort in the Great Hall and defeats him. Not Dumbledore.
4) Dumbledore falls prey to temptation that Harry overcomes. I’m talking, of course, about the Hallows. Perhaps Dumbledore could have destroyed Voldemort back in the days of the original Order of the Phoenix. But his decades-long quest after the Hallows pulled him off course. Ultimately, the Hallows are no more than a distraction. Harry realizes this for himself as he debates Hallows vs. Horcruxes while burying Dobby. Dumbledore fell prey to the temptation. Harry overcame it. Harry made the true hero’s choice which his mentor had failed to make.
5) Harry is the one who learns and grows. Dumbledore, we realize, mostly regrets past choices and tries to compensate for his mistakes. Harry starts off as a kid whose primary role in life is to be the victim of a bully and ends up as the person who saves an entire world.
6) Dumbledore dies. Now, sometimes a hero can die in face-to-face confrontation with the villain, can die so that his people can live. But Dumbledore dies through his own failure, dies because he underestimated a teenager (from one point of view), dies because he underestimated the power of one of Voldemort’s Horcruxes (from a deeper point of view). Harry has to destroy all the other Horcruxes (well, Neville, who also could have been The Chosen One, the answer to the prophecy, gets the privilege of destroying one without Harry present), and he survives — something Dumbledore failed to do.
Classically, of course, the mentor often has to die so that the hero can go forward alone. Dumbledore’s death only cements his status as mentor, not as hero.
….And a couple of other reasons Harry must be the hero, drawn from outside the content of the books themselves, but I think significant:
7) Harry is the title character. I’d love to read the story of the original Order of the Phoenix, in which Dumbledore may very well have been the hero. But this is not that story.
8) The Harry Potter books are children’s books. Thus, the hero will be a child. Not an adult.
….So, interesting as the premise of the Torch Online article may have been, I think it just doesn’t hold up. Harry is the hero.
Dumbledore, of course, may have been the hero of another, closely related story. Perhaps it would be better to say that he had his chance to be a hero, and didn’t live up to the demands of being a hero…. Perhaps, given what we learn in Deathly Hallows, we would end up calling him a tragic hero… That’s a story, as I said above, that I would love to read. But I think that story probably would not be a children’s book.
But Harry Potter is the hero of Harry Potter.
Hi,
I like this article but..
last night i went to the midnight premiere of harry potter and the half blood prince! I was honestly so disappointed! was it just me or did it seem very choppy and for some reason didn’t feel like it was a harry potter movie. Don’t get me wrong some of the parts in it were either really funny or somewhat scary but i really was not satisfied. I don’t know, what did you think?? Am i wrong? Give me your opinions..
About HP 6,
As someone who acts and directs, I can tell you that as a movie on the whole, it wasn’t bad. However, as a Harry Potter movie it was not cohesive with the book; it was VERY choppy and over all could have been done a lot better. In terms of being a good respresentation of the book–weakest film to date.
Dumbledore messed up big time!!!
First mess up: Dumbledore’s plan went horribly wrong the moment Draco disarmed him on the astronomy tower. From that point Draco was master of the elder wand. Not part of the plan.
Dumbledore had meant the elder wand to be neutralised forever on his death, as the only way to gain mastery was to take the wand by force from the current master.
If you simply kill the current master (as Voldemort supposed) or steal the wand (as Grindelwald supposed) this does not confer mastery.
Next Dumbledore mess up: Dumbledore never planned for Harry to kill Voldemort - that was Snape’s job once all horcruxes had been destroyed.
Only the random coincidence of Harry and Draco wrestling and Harry taking Draco’s own wand off him - thereby transferring mastery to Harry - allowed Harry to kill Voldemort.
In an interview JK Rowling said that, unknown to them, the whole fate of the wizarding world in the end depended on the outcome of two young men’s fight.
That is how much Dumbledore messed up!
Hey,
It’s been a while since I’ve read book 7, so maybe I just forget, but where do you get the idea that Snape was supposed to kill Voldemort? Wasn’t that always Harry’s job, according to the prophecy? Also, did J.K Rowling really say that in an interview? If so, could you post the link in a comment because I think a lot of us would be interested to read that.
Harry never was a classical hero. He was (and stayed) whiney, selfcentered and immature (of course if you define Frodo as a hero, this would qualify Harry). I know some hardcore Potter fans, writing their fan fiction in Potter forums and all. They are fascinated by the series, but they all say they don’t think of Harry as a likeable person (I’m talking about adults here of course). On the other hand, you don’t have to be perfect to be basically a good person. And you don’t have to be perfect OR a good person OR a hero to be a good protagonist to drive a good story. Classical heroes are out anyway (I sometimes miss them). So, given he IS clearly the protagonist, what makes a hero in your eyes? Obviousely the one who defeats the antagonist. But thats not the definition. A tragic hero may even be slain himself. A hero is the one who, by heroic actions and character, inspires the audience. The one they would consider as a role model. Personally I can’t see this in Harry. But if it’s Harry for you, then he definitely IS the hero.
:-)
i love theories!
@ Mank and Jay … well said, both.
I think Rowling implies that Dumbledore had the opportunity to be the hero at one point, but his selfish decisions caused that opportunity to pass him by. Once he realized what had happened, he set out to make sure what he had learned would benefit the next one to be faced with that choice. Harry became the hero for two reasons: because Dumbledore made sure he was in the right places at the right times — and because Harry consistently made the right calls. It was Harry’s decision-making that made him the hero, not his accumulated knowledge (which, of course he didn’t have — Dumbledore did). As I said, though, it’s really more of an implication rather than her having come right out and said it.
I will start by saying that I hear where you’re coming from, however I really have to disagree. One of Dictionary.com’s definitions for a hero is “A person noted for feats of courage or nobility of purpose, especially one who has risked or sacrificed his or her life”. Harry, whether he wanted to be or not, was most certainly the story’s greatest hero. Outside of Dumbledore, there were few who could have done the things that Harry did and none of them were by his choosing. There were a great many things that happened to Harry that he never asked for. He never asked for his parents to be murdered. He never asked to survive the Killing Curse, to become the “Boy Who Lived” and all the notoriety that came with that title. He never wanted to be a part of a prophecy that named him and him alone Voldemort’s equal. He never wanted the eternal glory that came with being TriWizard Champion. He never asked for any of it, yet in the end, he knew that it was up to him do to them and he did them with courage and bravery fitting of any Gryffindor. Even when all seemed lost and Hogwarts overrun with Voldemort’s army of evil, Harry came to realize that, in order to have any chance at beating Voldemort, HE, Harry, would have to die. And so he went to meet death alone and in the dark, not because anyone made him or because the act would look heroic, but because it was the right thing to do and he would never have anyone take up that burden for him.
Did Dumbledore help? Yes, absolutely. He clearly was the driving force behind Harry’s quest to defeat Voldemort. He was behind everything from the Horcruxes to the Hallows. But Dumbledore knew that where he himself failed, in that he sought the power of the Hallows and believed in the Wizard’s right to rule amongst other selfish pursuits, that Harry is and had always been one of the most selfless people he knew. He knew that when presented with the choice between what was right and what was easy that Harry would ultimately make the right choices, even if he had to nudged a little in the right direction.
When all is said and done, I find it hard to discount any of what Harry did in being the true hero of the story because of the help of Dumbledore and others along the way. Could someone else have done the job instead of Harry? No, definitely not. He was selfless and brave and came face-to-face with Death and Death blinked and defeated the greatest dark wizard of all-time. He certainly sounds like a hero to me.
The “mentor” is obviously a part of ALL fantasy stories. But the ending of HARRY POTTER is not quite deux ex machina (because it doesn’t come out of nowhere), but Dumbledore clearly has ridiculously perfect God-like powers. Meanwhile, Harry is surprisingly passive. I agree that this is a MAJOR flaw. The book would have been far better, and the ending more satisfying, had Harry been more active — not a mere pawn moved around by a God-like wizard, who brilliance is just plain unbelievable.
Dumbledore too smart? And unbelievable? Maybe. Although some might argue he was one of a kind, possibly one of the generation’s great wizards. Plus, his early years (and mistakes he made) did make him more human.
And yes, Dumbledore did need Harry…although as I said, others could have done some jobs, too.
Okay, I haven’t read the series yet, although its on my list… wait, wait, I have a good point though!
I *like* manipulative characters. Is that wrong of me? The series needed Harry Potter as much as it needed Dumbledore. Although Dumbledore is the one that put many of the wheels in motion, he still needed Harry Potter to be the one to carry it out - otherwise, Dumbledore could have just done it himself. But I like characters who know that they’re in the shadows, and who are willing to get the job done without the glory. I like the brainy ones. Actually, this makes me want to read the series even more now. Hee.
I agree with you. Like, if you think about it, Harry was 11 when all of this happened to him, and 17 when it all finished. He was still just a kid. If Harry had been able to put together all of the complicated pieces to solve the puzzle all alone… that would have been ridiculous. The complexity of what it took to bring Voldemort down is certainly not a let down. You needed the steps and you needed Dumbledore. Heroes are rarely able to do everything all alone. Look at King Arthur and Merlin. Are you saying that King Arthur was less of a king because he had the aid of Merlin at his side? Definitely not. He unified Camelot and restored peace to a place where there had been strife for years. Sometimes (most of the time) the hero needs the smart, powerful character working with and for him in order to help him achieve his end. Books and stories without supporting characters suck.
I do see your point, and I have thought of it before, too. However, I still love those books. They gave me hours of escape, and that is what I love more than anything.
Can anyone be too smart? Dumbledore being brainy is unbelievable, but Thestrals, Hickeypunks, and a school for occult wizards is… _Huh_, what a world! What a world!!
Frankly, Dumbledore is TOO smart. It’s not believable.
I really enjoy the fact that in a book series about sorcery, where people play a sport where balls chase them as they fly around on brooms, and a thirteen year old can turn a goblet into a parrot, you choose to pick the too smart 150 year old Warlock as the thing that’s unbelievable.
i’ve had this exact same thought. it doens’t take away from the books, or DOES it? I really do think it’s a big flaw.
It’s hard to say if this takes from the series. For me, I think it does. I think the series would have had more impact with a different ending. But that’s just me.
Still…I have the whole series, which I’ll keep. There are still plenty of things to like about this series.