Harry's a bit of a jerk, isn't he?

[conuly]

Think about it. In the first book, Harry finds out at the end that Snape saved his life, and never tried to kill him. Then what does he do? Does he thank Snape for saving his life, and for trying to save the world? Does he apologise for the fact that his friends burned him? Nope, he just goes on his merry way, hating Snape.

In the second book, he causes chaos in Snape's class and is involved in the theft of boomslang skin. The potion he makes turns out to be nearly worthless - though it did get Lucius in some trouble. Needless to say, he never apologises.

In the third book, he stuns Snape, and spends a lot of time insulting him behind his back. Okay, Snape deserved a stunning, but he was trying to do a good thing. Well. Okay, he was trying to exact petty revenge on his childhood enemies, but this incidentally happened to (as far as he knew) involve saving Harry, Ron, and Hermione's lives.

Fourth book. More insulting Snape. Lots more. And some spying on the guy. Apparently, Snape has no right to privacy.

Fifth book. He invades Snape's privacy even more by viewing the Pensieve. Does he ever apologise for this? Ever? Does he ever say "Look, you were right about my dad, and I'm sorry he did that to you?" Does he do anything to make up for this enormous transgression? Nope. More insults, snide comments. No wonder he never does well in Potions.

To be fair, Snape's incredibly immature. I mean, c'mon - getting revenge for childhood injuries by picking on the kid son of a dead guy? That's low. Really low. But that's no excuse for Harry to emulate his kindergarten behaviour.

Comments

[kynn.livejournal.com]

Harry Potter is a totally self-centered, unthinking, privileged, apathetic, lazy, idiotic ass.

That's one of the reasons I dislike the movies (don't read the books, I let Liz do that). I would much rather watch The Adventures of Hermione At Hogwarts than a movie about Harry Potter, because I can't STAND Harry Potter.

--Kynn

[leora.livejournal.com]

The movies strip out huge sections of the story and generally show events that happened outside the context of why they happened or what justified them. I agree that I wouldn't like the Harry Potter of the movie. But the movies don't really make sense anyway on their own. Some of the scenes are quite pretty though.

[firingneurons.livejournal.com]

Agreed on the Harry Potter thing, yet I still really like the books. Go figure.

[moggymania.livejournal.com]

Exactly my thoughts... (I read the books, saw at least one or two of the movies on DVD but not all of them. I didn't bother seeing them in the theater, needless to say.)