Tuesday, July 12, 2011

Harry Potter Top Ten List Part 7

Four days to go, I’m seeing Prisoner of Azkaban tonight, can’t wait!!  You can reference the rest of the list using the tags at the bottom for ‘harry potter.’


#4 Least Favourite Character: Vernon Dursley

I don’t think this one is much of a stretch for any fans of the Harry Potter series, JK Rowling paints Vernon, Harry’s uncle, as the most unlikeable of characters.  He hates everything about Harry you could hate, seeing only the burden Harry has put on him.  He treats Harry badly, so of course is treated badly in return.

We never know if Vernon truly knew the extent of what happened to his sister-in-law, but I can’t only assume that his wife would have told him something.  I think Vernon represents the epitome of hateful and narrow-minded people, but in some ways is benign as well.  If JK Rowling really wanted to make him evil, she could have, but Vernon is just a mean person, but not an evil one.  However, he had ample chances to help Harry, but for the sake of literature, he was painted as mean.  I think JK Rowling short-changed Vernon in many ways, but we can only wonder what it would have been like if his uncle hadn’t been such a jerk.

#4 Favourite Character: Albus Dumbledore

God, what can you say about Dumbledore?  I mean, he was the picture of goodness in this series, though we saw his flaws in public for all to see in the final book, after his death in the sixth book.  In many ways, Dumbledore played the role of parent to Harry, but in many ways did not.  In the fourth and fifth books, we see Dumbledore step back from his over-involvement in Harry’s life, and to quite a detriment, a major character dies in each book, which also promotes the belief that JR Rowling is a murderer.

In the novels, Dumbledore is the only person that seems unafraid of Voldemort, and it is only he, other than Harry, that Voldemort actually seems fearful of.  Dumbledore shows Harry that he has the power to be better than Voldemort, and for all the reasons that make Harry different and good.  In many ways, you could argue that Draco and Harry are a lot related in this respect.  If Draco had Dumbledore, instead of Snape, advising him, perhaps he would have gone down the path of light, instead of a path of darkness.

The reason I set Dumbledore in the middle of this list, almost, is because while he leads Harry to where he needs to be early in life, he seems to abandon him before the task is complete, not unlike Harry’s parents.  If Dumbledore had been more consistent, perhaps the endings in Goblet of Fire and Order of the Phoenix could have been different.  Dumbledore does redeem himself somewhat in Half Blood Prince, but at that point it is indeed too late.

1 comment:

  1. Interesting list so far, I don't remember much about Pansy - does she die in the end? What happens? Also, what happens to Dolores Umbridge? God I gotta read the book again.

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