Harry Potter: Lazy Slacker?

[lightofdaye]

At the moment I've been listening to Half blood Prince audio book, read by Stephen Fry on my mp3 player and it's very good, aside from poor Stephen having to attempt a variety of different accents and has to go especially far in the case of women. (poor Tonks and Demezla now have very thick accents) I've actually appreciated the story a bit more this time through. Still my favourite chapter is still the very first one with the poor prime minister.



I actually notice more stuff in the audio version. I think I have a terrible habit of skimming when I'm reading a book so I miss details but one of the things I did notice is that Hermione totally gets huffy when people hit on Ron even before he starts smooching on Lavender, never seen that before. I mean Ron acting up is totally obvious but Hermione was more subtle, lol.

But the other thing that seems endemic to the stuff is Harry succeeding purely by taking the easy way out and standing on the back of others work. This is obvious with the Prince's potions book and also when he gets the real potion from Slughorn using lucky potion.

I think I first noticed some of this when listening to the description of Voldemort getting the horcrux information out of Slughorn and Harry realising He must have buttered up /slughorn for ages whereas Harry gets the same effect with no effort at all: just see the luck potion and bam. Job done.

Likewise in potions he gets top marks for following Snape's revised instructions and yet Snape presumably compiled those changes to the net through trial and error and a great deal of work. Chance hands Harry the book and he uses at no effort to himself. (The book does point out that he doesn't understand the concepts involved but he gets through it by nerve and cheek. Admirable qualities we are to assume.)

So we're in the odd position where the villains of the piece apparently rose from humble origins through ingenuity and hard work. And the hero... gets it handed to him by the plot?


The other thing that comes to mind, is Hermione's rejection of the half-blood prince's instruction while adhering strictly to the 'official instructions'. Now its admirable not the crib someone else's work. But on the other hand this leads us the impression that Hermione gets to be 'the smartest witch in her age' by reading alot and slavish following instructions. Apparently that's all that is required not any great originality of though or adaptability or smartness of her own. Just read the books, memorise them and you get to be great. I mean this should stand her well on exam papers but she never seems to have an problem with the practical side either, so again read enough and apparently you cast spells with ease


I seem to have gone a little off track and more stream of consciousness here. Still thoughts?

Comments

[lightofdaye]

Interesting thoughts, Luna. I hadn't considered a lot of that. I guess its because as Hermione isn't the main character that we don't see a lot of the work she puts into it. It's just that she;s consistent achieving practical stuff like transfiguration or apparition a lot more quickly than anyone. So does just no one else doing the reading?

Good thoughts about Harry. He's definitely not a shining paragon of virtue. It's one of the things I remember noticing about the end of OotP, harry very explicitly motivated by revenge. Not justice or anything. Revenge. That's not traditionally a good guy thing, especially in kid's stuff.

I think maybe the difference between Harry and Hermione is that Harry excels at something he's good at and interested in (DADA) while not putting effort into other things, while Hermione tries to excel around the board. (and i think, she only really landed an E in DADA because she couldn't be as good as Harry, not that she really ever seemed weak at in previous books. Except the boggart and that was because she's never practised on a real one before)

Though speaking of Harry's exam results. He gets good grades in pretty much everything. The exceptions being an A in Astronomy and P in History of Magic, both subject exams which were disrupted for him. the only one he failed fair and square was Divination. Which is a dodgy subject to start with.

[luna-plath.livejournal.com]

You know I wouldn't be surprised if very few people (apart from some Ravenclaws) did the reading for school. I'm sure that, especially for subjects like History of Magic or Transfiguration, the reading is probably very dry. This is something I've even noticed at my university. I was in a biology class this spring and several students who were bio majors found the textbook too difficult and never read it, even when preparing for tests.

Good point about Harry being motivated by revenge. That may not be a hero-type thing, but it's realistic. I would expect someone in his position to feel that way. And when it comes to Harry's schooling I think he definitely failed to apply himself and use his full potential. His grades are alright without having to work too hard so he gets by with that, which is understandable when you consider that he's spending lots of time dealing with Voldemort and playing Quidditch, both of which seem more important to him than school. He just has different priorities than Hermione, who enjoys learning for learning's sake.

[nevrafire.livejournal.com]

but isn't one of hufflepuff traits "hard-working"?

I'm sure doing the material for Binns/taking notes in his class probably counts as hardworking hufflepuff.

and I personally think earlierbook!harry applied himself a bit more than laterbooks!harry- or when he knew something was at stake. (like I'm sure he really applied himself to get the necessary OWLS to be able to pursue auror career)