Harry Potter [Character]
Harry James Potter is a fictional character and the main protagonist of J. K. Rowling 's Harry Potter fantasy series of books. He is the eponymous viewpoint ch
aracter of these seven books. According to author Rowling, the character of Harry Potter came to her while waiting for a delayed train in 1990 and made him an anguished orphan after Rowling experienced the death of her own mother. In the world of the Harry Potter books, Harry Potter is best friends with Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger and later marries Ron's younger sister, Ginny Weasley . In the Harry Potter film adaptations , Harry is portrayed by British actor Daniel Radcliffe . Character development
According to author J. K. Rowling , the idea for both the Harry Potter books and its eponymous protagonist came while waiting for a delayed train from Manchester to London in 1990. Rowling stated that in these hours, her idea for "this scrawny, black-haired, bespectacled boy who didn't know he was a wizard became more and more real to me." [1] While she fleshed out the ideas for her book, Rowling also decided to make Harry an orphan and to make him visit a boarding school which she called Hogwarts . She explained in a 1999 interview with The Guardian : "Harry HAD to be an orphan - so that he's a free agent, with no fear of letting down his parents, disappointing them [
] Hogwarts HAS to be a boarding school - half the important stuff happens at night! Then there's the security. Having a child of my own reinforces my belief that children above all want security, and that's what Hogwarts offers Harry." [2]
The tragedy of her own mother's death on December 30 , 1990 inspired her to write of Harry Potter as a boy longing for his dead parents, his anguish becoming "more deeper, more real" than in earlier drafts because she related to it herself. [1] In a 2000 interview with The Guardian , Rowling also established that the character of Wart of T.H. White 's novel The Sword In the Stone is "Harry's spiritual ancestor." In that book, a child called Wart meets the mysterious sorcerer Merlyn , who grooms the hapless child into a noble, powerful warrior who later becomes King Arthur . [3] Finally, she established that Harry was born on 31 July and thus shares his birthday with herself. However, she maintained, Harry is not directly based on any real-life character, "he came just out of a part of me". Personality
According to author J. K. Rowling , Harry Potter is strongly guided by his own conscience, and has a keen feeling of what is right and what is wrong. Having "very limited access to truly caring adults", Rowling said, Harry "is forced to make his own decisions from early age on." He "does make mistakes", she conceded, but in the end, he does what his conscience tells him to do. According to Rowling, one of Harry's pivotal scenes came in the fourth book when he protects his dead colleague Cedric Diggory's body from from archvillain Lord Voldemort , because it shows he is brave and unselfish.
Rowling also said that Harry's two worst character flaws are "anger and occasional arrogance", but that Harry is also innately honorable. "He's not a cruel boy. He's competitive, and he's a fighter. He doesn't just lie down and take abuse. But he does have native integrity, which makes him a hero to me. He's a normal boy but with those qualities most of us really admire." After the seventh book, Rowling commented that Harry has the ultimate character strength, being able to do what even Voldemort can not: he is not afraid of death anymore.
Rowling has also maintained that Harry is a suitable real-life role model for children. "The advantage of a fictional hero or heroine is that you can know them better than you can know a living hero, many of whom you would never meet [
] if people like Harry and identify with him, I am pleased, because I think he is very likeable."
Fears
Harry is the main hero and doesn't have many fears. In the third book however, he meets a dementor on the Hogwarts Express. After the encounter Profesor Lupin has the class face a boggart which takes the shape of what that particular person fears the most. At first Harry thought of Voldemort, but remembers the dementor which becomes his worst fear. In the book it is stated how it is ironic that the worst thing Harry fears is fear itself.
Outward appearance
Rowling also gave Harry Potter an uncanny outward appearance. Throughout the entire series, Harry sports his father's perpetually untidy black hair, his mother's green eyes, a lightning bolt-shaped scar on his forehead as a result of his encounter with Lord Voldemort and round, thick eyeglasses. She explained this that this image simply came to her when she first thought up Harry Potter, seeing him as a "scrawny, black-haired, bespectacled boy".
In the books, Harry's scar serves as an indicator of Voldemort's presence: it burns when the Dark Lord is near or feeling particularly murderous or exultant. According to Rowling, by attacking Harry when he was a baby, Voldemort gave him "tools (that) no other wizard possessed the scar, and the ability it conferred, provided a magical window into Voldemort's mind." Asked why Harry's forehead scar is lightning bolt-shaped, Rowling said, "to be honest, because it's a cool shape," and joked, "I couldn't have my hero sport a doughnut-shaped scar."
Abilities and interests
In the books, Harry is categorised as a " half-blood " wizard in the series, because although both his parents were magical, his mother, Lily Evans , was " Muggle-born ". According to Rowling, to characters for whom wizarding blood purity matters, Lily would be considered "as loathsome as a Muggle ", and derogatively referred to as a "Mudblood."
Throughout the series, Rowling wrote Harry Potter as a gifted wizard apprentice. She stated in a 2000 interview with South West News Service that Harry Potter is "particularly talented" in Defense Against the Dark Arts, and also good in Quidditch . Rowling said in the same interview that until the fourth book, his good friend Hermione Granger written as the smartest student in Harry's year would have beaten Harry in a magical duel, but later, Harry would have at least matched her power. His power is evident from the beginning of the series, but most prominently from the third book onward where produces a Patronus, fights Voldemort, and is the last one standing in the Battle of the Ministry. From the first book on, Harry is also able to speak and understand Parseltongue , a language associated with Dark Magic, which is according to Rowling because he harbours part of Lord Voldemort's soul; however, after Voldemort destroys that soul fragment in the seventh book's climax, Harry cannot speak Parseltongue anymore, and "is very glad to do so".
Finally, according to Rowling, Harry's favourite book is Quidditch Through the Ages , a book that Rowling also wrote herself in real life for the Comic Relief charity.
Possessions
As a wizard, Harry's most valued possession is his wand. It is is made of holly , which Rowling chose because holly is alleged to repel evil. It forms a deliberate contrast to the wand of his nemesis Lord Voldemort . His wand is made of yew whose sap is poisonous and which symbolises death. Rowling later also found out that also in the Celtic calendar , where each month is assigned to a wood, Harry's fictional birthday (July 31) is linked to holly, too. Since other characters like Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger later received wands made from the appropriate wood according to their fictional birthdays in the Celtic calendar, Harry's choice was thus a lucky coincidence.
Throughout the majority of the books, Harry also has a female pet owl named Hedwig , used to deliver and receive letters. When Hedwig is killed in the seventh book, the author said she expected the strong emotional reaction of her readers: "The loss of Hedwig represented a loss of innocence and security. She has been almost like a cuddly toy to Harry at times. Voldemort killing her marked the end of childhood. I'm sorry
I know that death upset a LOT of people!"
Information By : Dan
Thanks , ขอขอบคุณ : Wikipedia.org
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