HARRY POTTER, Part 4

It's interesting to me to read that pretty much everyone around Harry, including Ron and Hermoine, believe that Harry has a "hero complex."  That he wants to be the hero--to be in dangerous, life-and-death situations.  I, for one, didn't--and don't--see that characteristic in Harry.  To me, he seems like a normal young boy/man who is just trying to enjoy this whole "new" experience of being a wizard.  He's not the smartest wizard in his class and almost every time he's escaped Voldemort, he's done so by accident or sheer dumb luck, or even because someone else (including the ghosts of his parents) have helped him.  He doesn't even know what he's doing most of the time.  And he has trouble learning his spells or doing his potions in class! 

He is always very embarrassed whenever the attention is focused on him for something he's done as far as wizarding is concerned.  He's even horribly embarrassed in the first book by all the attention he receives just because people find out he's the famous Harry Potter.  He didn't know he was famous; he didn't ask to be famous; he didn't WANT to be famous.  He's always tried to sink back into the background rather than be considered the big "hero" everyone pats him on the back for being.

Where Harry does like the attention, and it's obviously well-deserved, is on the Quidditch field.  It's obvious that he's an amazing Seeker and every game Griffindor has won has been because of his fancy flying/catching of the Snitch.  When Harry helps win a game, he does revel in the pats on the back and the shouts of praise.  But it's obvious that the shouts of praise are well-deserved.  Harry catches the Snitch on his own, most often without the use of magic!  He's just playing a great game and having a great time playing it.  Of course, he's a serious player, so he does play just as "dirty" as he needs to, but it's great to see that he has never sunk to the same level as the Slyterins, especially Draco.

People who have a hero complex are more like Harry's father in the memory we get in Book 5 from Snape.  James Potter, based on that particular memory, was a man who DEMANDED attention--craved it--thrived on it.  He EXPECTED Lily to pay attention  him and to fall at his feet, practically BEGGING him to choose her.  It isn't a pretty picture of James Potter, unlike the way we've all seen him previously.  Even Harry is deeply disturbed by his father's behavior.  But yet, no one has ever said, in all the talk about James Potter, anything negative about him (except Snape, of course) or made an indication that James Potter was a cocky son-of-a-gun who didn't deserve Lily or a son like Harry. 

Harry, even though he does seem to have a tendency to break school rules (just as Snape says he does), is--most of the time--breaking school rules for a good cause.  We don't find out what that cause is until the end of each book, but Harry isn't a BAD kid.  He's the "hero" of the series and the only way for us, the audience, to learn about what's going on is through him, so there HAVE to be ways for Harry to find out information--and HE has to be the one to DO the dangerous stunts/action within the story.  If Harry didn't, then it would be a story with an omnicient narrartor who is telling a story from everyone's perspective and we'd know too much.  Rowling could have chosen to tell Harry's story through another character, like Hermoine--who would have gotten carried away with the details, or Ron--who wouldn't have finished the story.  Or maybe Dumbledore, but in order to do that, we'd have to "watch" Harry through Dumbledore's eyes.  We know Dumbledore has always been watching Harry, but the bottom line is that it's just much more interesting for a story like this to hear/read the story from the perspective of the main character who is, truly, the hero.

So Harry does NOT have a hero complex even though he is the hero of the story.  He's not all puffed up about the things he has done against Voldemort.  He's simply a young man doing his best to be the best HARRY he can be--and to enjoy this whole "new" world of wizarding where everything is just so plain cool!