Thursday, July 14, 2011

Harry Potter Top Ten List Part 9 & 10

I run out of time, I think, leaving for the movie soon, just need to find my wand...I've merged the final two spots on each list - enjoy!!

#2 Least Favourite Character: Lucious Malfoy

He really was the epitome of bad parenting and a bad person. Lucious put his family in danger, himself in danger and all for what? So he could then betray the person he was betraying everyone else to? I would give him half points if he didn't waffle so much, but the fact of the matter is, Lucious Malfoy is a selfish cad and deserved his time in prison. My only regret is that JK Rowling let him live.

Draco deserved a better father, and if Lucious had seen beyond his own petty needs, he might have been able to do that. Too much of his time was spent trying to do some mischief that seemed to go awry, like the second book with Tom Riddle's diary. He was hardly a competent malcontent at that. Overall, Lucious Malfoy deserved worse than what he got, but was still just plain awful.

#1 Least Favourite Character: Ron Weasley

This one might seem surprising, but it shouldn't be. Let's go back to the third book, Prisoner of Azkaban, to site our first backslide by this worthless character. Ron gets into a major fight with Hermione over Crookshanks purportedly eating Scabbers. Now, we later find out that this never occurred, and granted an apology gets lost in the shuffle, but what is more bothersome is the divisive nature with which Ron conducts himself.

Let's move on to the next book, Goblet of Fire, there are so many things to point to in this one, like, Ron being jealous of Harry being entered in the tournament; Ron making Hermione be the go-between for him and Harry; Hermione having to sneak around to help Harry in the tournament; the list goes on and on. Ron gets so involved in his own simple little existence that he too often puts his own feelings before anyone else's.
Oh, I have more, we can skip the fifth book, that one Harry was a jerk in and go on to Half-Blood Prince, where Ron makes a fool of himself with Lavender, and does so deliberately to hurt Hermione in some respects, thus creating yet another scenario where he acts to divide the group instead of uniting it.
In the final book, who can forget Ron leaving Hermione and Harry in the forest because he didn't like how the search was going? That was just childish. In almost any sequence, I can think of more harm than good that Ron does in the series. I don't know that I will ever forgive JK Rowling for letting him live. If anything, he should have kep the Weasley twins alive and killed this idiot off.

My final parting shot on Ron is this: he doesn't deserve Hermione. She deserves someone better, smarter and more selfless, and I can't understand why JK Rowling would so conveniently pair these two together, it doesn't make sense. It's like watching the King of Queens and wondering how Kevin James could ever get a woman to marry him.

#2 Favourite Character Hermione Granger

This selection may surprise some of you that know me, but I give Hermione my second favourite slot because while I love her, and she saved Harry with her smarts, her decision to be with Ron is just inexcusable. I realise that we see someone we love, and no longer see their flaws. I could digress over this, but I won't.

She was an amazing driving force in this series. It was Hermione who figured out puzzles and riddles in every book, helping Harry succeed. Without her, he would have died in his first year. If not for her, they would never have gotten past the Basalisk in the second book, or been able to save Sirius in the third book, she was the one who taught him how to win in at least one Tri-wizard challenge. If Harry had listened to her, in the fifth book, Sirius would never have died. In the sixth book, she was not as enlightening as in the previous five, but in the final book, if not for her, Harry and Ron would have died in the woods. She saved them, in every way possible, and saved Ron from himself time and time again.

I understand that the story is about Harry, but a lot can be said about Hermione, she was the best of all three of them, and deserved better than a marriage to that worthless waste Ron.


#1 Favourite Character: Draco Malfoy

This might be another confounding choice, and it isn't because I like the bad boys, I just saw in Draco, what I think JK Rowling wanted readers to see. He was the dark half of Harry. He was the end product of someone who had all the things Harry had, and still he ended up in poor shape. What makes Draco my favourite character is that he realises, before the end, that he was wrong. That he had been wrong all along. He never should have gone down the path of darkness, and if not for that admission, Harry would not be touted as highly as he is.

I think Draco turned around for me in Half-Blood Prince, when he tried to kill Harry, and instead Harry almost killed him. At that moment, I think you could see that he knew what he was doing was wrong, that he was horrified by it all, but was too afraid to stand up. I feel like he proved something when he refused to name Harry as the Harry when they were brought to Malfoy Manor. I know these are small things, but isn't that one defines each of us, the little things? In this I won't short-change Draco, he did a ton of things wrong, but he was able to be redeemed, perhaps not as much as we would all like, but he ran the gamut and realised he was wrong.

It isn't a small thing to admit fault, so I give Draco my number one spot for it.

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