The imperfections of Harry Potter by Kelly

The imperfections of Harry Potter by Kelly - April 2014 Scholarship Essay

Once, a friend told me how she didn't like Harry. He was too whiny. He was too angry. Too moody. I could only mumble, "well, I don't know..." "He's a jerk, really! He destroys Dumbledore's office." But who didn’t have that feeling as a young person? Who didn’t want to destroy everything, just to prove you could? Just to prove you’d be loved, no matter what? Just to prove that inside there were feelings, and that they felt as wild and broken as that office.

I’m sure a lot of people have already written about Harry Potter. Maybe even Ron Weasley, Hermione Granger, Neville, Luna Lovegood or even Severus Snape. I could probably write an essay about each of the characters of the Harry Potter books, really. But, I think it was Harry who continues to speak to me. I'm not one to typically go for liking the main characters in books. When I was kid, probably Ron or his brothers would have been my favorites, because I loved the wild best friends and troublemakers. I even love Luna, a whole lot – but it’s still Harry who interests me, and Harry who I’ve had to come to defend.

I don’t want to get into too much here, but like Harry, I too, survived trauma. And maybe it’s this that holds me to Harry, but really, it’s the fact that we got through it. Friendships have been hard for me my whole life. I never really felt connected, always ready to deal with whatever came to me. I too, was expecting giant snakes, and evil wizards. I was left expecting the worst. Harry reminded me of me, still trying to go it alone, no matter how many times he learned that his friends would be there. That even in death, Dumbledore was there, no matter how the image of him changed. (I was there too, for his skepticism, for his willingness to drop the ones he loved for the fear of any more ache.) His character helped me to love the feeling of my own shoulders slowly creaking open, exposing my vulnerabilities like a loving, but submissive beast. I didn’t know I could, really, before him – before he showed me how.

He too, slowly becomes open. He’s flawed. But who isn’t? I think we’d hate it to see perfect fictional characters over, and over again. Sometimes, he treats his friends badly. He makes mistake, after mistake, after mistake. He’s jumpy. He’s rash. His sense of justice is strong, but his impulses are weak. I love him for all of these things, and I have also have learned to love myself for these characteristics, even though I too, have had to face the consequences, and to learn new ways of being in this world. I don’t want to hurt others. And neither does Harry, and these are the lessons we must learn. It helped to be able to learn them through Harry, and to hear words like Dumbledore’s, to identify with Harry, and so have that caring, loving, strong adult in my life, too. I was able to learn right along with him, which is what draws so many of us to those books, whether we know it or not.

We are not perfect. We are fighting many beasts. Sometimes, we don’t think we have our friends, but there they are – right on time, again.