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According to author J. K. Rowling, Harry Potter is strongly guided by his own conscience, and has a keen feeling of what is right and what is wrong. Having "very limited access to truly caring adults", Rowling said, Harry "is forced to make his own decisions from early age on."[7] He "does make mistakes", she conceded, but in the end, he does what his conscience tells him to do.[7] According to Rowling, one of Harry's pivotal scenes came in the fourth book when he protects his dead schoolmate Cedric Diggory's body from archvillain Lord Voldemort, because it shows he is brave and unselfish.[8]
Rowling also said that Harry's two worst character flaws are "anger and occasional arrogance",[14] but that Harry is also innately honorable. "He's not a cruel boy. He's competitive, and he's a fighter. He doesn't just lie down and take abuse. But he does have native integrity, which makes him a hero to me. He's a normal boy but with those qualities most of us really admire."[22] After the seventh book, Rowling commented that Harry has the ultimate character strength, being able to do what even Voldemort can not: he is not afraid of death.[14]
Rowling has also maintained that Harry is a suitable real-life role model for children. "The advantage of a fictional hero or heroine is that you can know them better than you can know a living hero, many of whom you would never meet […] if people like Harry and identify with him, I am pleased, because I think he is very likeable."[23]
[edit] Fears
Harry has few fears. However, in the third book, he encounters a Dementor while on the Hogwarts Express. Dementors are the inhuman beings that guard Azkaban prison. Their presense sucks away happiness and light, and Harry is particulary affected by them. Professor Lupin teaches students how to banish a Boggart, an unseen creature that assumes the shape of whatever each person fears most. Harry initially thinks of Voldemort, but a Dementor then comes to mind, becoming his worst fear.
[edit] Outward appearance
Rowling also gave Harry Potter an uncanny outward appearance. Throughout the entire series, Harry sports his father's perpetually untidy black hair, his mother's green eyes, a lightning bolt-shaped scar on his forehead as a result of his encounter with Lord Voldemort and round, thick eyeglasses. She explained that this image simply came to her when she first thought up Harry Potter, seeing him as a "scrawny, black-haired, bespectacled boy".[2]
In the books, Harry's scar serves as an indicator of Voldemort's presence: it burns when the Dark Lord is near or feeling particularly murderous or exultant. According to Rowling, by attacking Harry when he was a baby, Voldemort gave him "tools (that) no other wizard possessed – the scar, and the ability it conferred, provided a magical window into Voldemort's mind."[24] Asked why Harry's forehead scar is lightning bolt-shaped, Rowling said, "to be honest, because it’s a cool shape," and joked, "I couldn’t have my hero sport a doughnut-shaped scar."[14]
[edit] Abilities and interests
In the books, Harry is categorised as a "half-blood" wizard in the series, because although both his parents were magical, his mother, Lily Evans, was "Muggle-born". According to Rowling, to characters for whom wizarding blood purity matters, Lily would be considered "as loathsome as a Muggle", and derogatively referred to as a "Mudblood."[24]
Throughout the series, Rowling wrote Harry Potter as a gifted wizard apprentice. She stated in a 2000 interview with South West News Service that Harry Potter is "particularly talented" in Defense Against the Dark Arts, and also good in Quidditch.[25] Rowling said in the same interview that until the end of the third book, his good friend Hermione Granger –written as the smartest student in Harry's year– would have beaten Harry in a magical duel. From the fourth book onwards, Rowling admits Harry has become quite talented in the Defence Against the Dark Arts and would beat his friend Hermione in a magical duel.[25] His power is evident from the beginning of the series. Most prominently from the third book onward, when Harry produces his Patronus, fights Voldemort, and is the last one standing in the Battle of the Ministry. From the first book onwards, Harry is able to speak and understand Parseltongue, a language associated with Dark Magic, which, according to Rowling, is because he harbours a piece of Lord Voldemort's soul. After Voldemort destroys that soul fragment in the seventh book's climax, Harry loses the ability to speak Parseltongue. Harry "is very glad" to have lost this gift.[14]
According to Rowling, Harry's favourite book is Quidditch Through the Ages, an actual book that Rowling wrote (under the pseudonym Kennilworthy Whisp) for the Comic Relief charity.
[edit] Possessions
As a wizard, Harry's most valued possession is his wand. It is made of holly, a wood Rowling chose because it is alleged to repel evil.[26] It forms a deliberate contrast to the wand of his nemesis Lord Voldemort. His wand is made of yew, whose sap is poisonous and symbolises death.[26] Rowling later also found out that also in the Celtic calendar, where each month is assigned to a wood, Harry's fictional birthday (July 31) is linked to holly, too. Since other characters like Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger later received wands made from the appropriate wood according to their fictional birthdays in the Celtic calendar.[26]
Throughout the majority of the books, Harry also has a female pet owl named Hedwig, used to deliver and receive letters. When Hedwig is killed in the seventh book, the author said she expected the strong emotional reaction of her readers: "The loss of Hedwig represented a loss of innocence and security. She has been almost like a cuddly toy to Harry at times. I know that death upset a lot of people!"[14]
In the novels, Harry is the only child of James and Lily Potter, born July 31, 1980. Rowling made Harry an orphan from the early drafts of her first book. She felt an orphan would be the most interesting character to write about.[3] However, after her mother's death, Rowling wrote Harry as a child longing to see his dead parents again, incorporating her own anguish into him. Harry's aunt and uncle kept the truth about their deaths from Harry, telling him they died in a car accident.[2] Through his marriage to Ginny Weasley, Harry links the Peverell and the House of Black families. It is unknown whether there have been other links between the two families' history, but this is probable, as they are among the most prominent wizarding families.
 vailendeathmage · Sun Sep 30, 2007 @ 06:32pm · 0 Comments |
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