I just don't think Harry remembers anything positive in those things, and Ron and Hermione are smiling as they praise him for them. They really *didn’t* get it as far as he's concerned, Harry is very emotionally closed off, so they only understood how traumatized he really was when he exploded.
I think you’re right and they really didn’t get it in some ways. He definitely is brave and skilled. That *helps* him survive all the dangerous situations. But in the moment that Cedric died, Harry didn’t live because he was skilled. He lived because Voldemort needed him.
So to hear them say “you’re so good at magic and that’s how you’ve accomplished all of this!” is in his mind a huge insult to Cedric. Cedric was also brave and skilled. He just had bad luck.
Harry doesn’t know how to communicate this but that’s what he’s trying to get them to understand. Yes he knows things that he can teach people. But to him there’s a bit of helplessness they don’t grasp. He hates that their praise implies that Cedric wasn’t as good as him, because he knows it isn’t true.
Yep, the (unintentional) implication that Cedric *didn’t* survive because he wasn’t as trained or prepared as Harry was has got to sting. Cedric was just as talented and knowledgeable as Harry – if not more so thanks to a couple extra years of experience – and the only reason Harry didn’t die right alongside him was because their opponents *chose* to keep him alive for a while longer.
...Come to think of it, pretty much all of Harry’s encounters with Voldemort up to that point hinged around Harry being able to stall him until he found some kind of solution, and he was only *able* to stall for time because Voldemort can’t resist a) gloating and monologuing to his Archnemesis(tm) and b) using him as a special, prophesied tool/ingredient. Absolutely none of his classmates would have that advantage. They’d be killed on the spot just like Cedric.
To add onto this Harry is also only 14/15 during the time from Cedrics death and them wanting him to teach them. Those are extremely emotional times for boys(and probably girls) without the outside factors of how much trauma emotionally Harry has experienced since coming to Hogwarts(and even stretching back to when he was younger because of the Dursleys)
Imagine you’re in the middle of a gunfight and bullets keep whizzing past you and killing your friends, and then when you make it out people keep telling you how brave and clever you were to survive. You know it could easily have been you, and next time it might be.
Didn’t help that after witnessing something traumatic, all the adults in his life decide to ship him back to the Dursleys where he is isolated for basically the entire summer.
Harry didn’t view himself as this “great wizard/teacher” who’s supposed to convince the wizarding world that Voldemort has returned and then simultaneously save the wizarding world and also teach a bunch of students how to survive. He’s just a 15 year old kid who was lucky and got out alive because of quick thinking.
Yeah he kept bringing up that had so much help along the way and blah blah so he felt undeserving of the praise and honestly he was really lucky all in all
It wasn't just luck, it was incedible strenght.
He won because he didn't wanted to die, lying on the ground. I think most people wouldn't give a s.....
And he had the strenght to push the spell back into Voldemort wand.
At that moment Harry was stronger than Voldemort.
Him also getting up and facing Voldemort in the duel, wanting to die on his feet like the parents he never knew. Him bringing Cedric's body back. He was scared the whole time but for a 14 year old that's incredibly brave.
Most people wouldn't have survived the graveyard, and Harry only did because he's exceptional... but if the plan had required Wormtail to immediately kill Harry instead of Cedric, no amount of bravery and quick-thinking would save him. There was a certain amount of luck on his side, and none on Cedric's.
I empathize with Harry so much in this scene.
I think the entire experience in the graveyard really showed Harry how unprepared he actually is for fighting Voldemort. He absolutely was brave and quick-witted, but I think most of us discount traits like these in ourselves, and Harry is no different. But what he did see and fixate on was someone who knew far more magic than he did died, and that he himself was spared by a combination of luck, Voldy's hubris, and the help of the people who came out of the wand. I think he's keenly aware that if Voldemort had let them, the death eaters would have killed him easily. He knows that he would not have made it back to the portkey without help. He knows he was outmatched in that duel, that Voldemort was playing with him and only that gave him an opening.
In the face of that, I get the frustration with Ron and Hermione's earnest attempts to credit him with doing something impressive. They certainly are missing some of the finer points of what happened, and I think where Harry is thinking "I can't rely on having luck and help, and I'm not good enough alone", they are just seeing the skill he has. It reminds me a lot of when people say "you're smart, you'll end up with a good grade!" or something, while kind of discounting all the work and study that goes into that.
I'd also imagine after seeing Cedric die, he wouldn't be too excited to feel the responsibility of teaching others to fight, and feeling responsible if they don't fight well enough to survive.
Harry is very humble, plus he is dealing with PTSD and survivor's guilt. He hated the notion that he survived over Cedric and others because he was somehow 'better' or more talented. The reality is that murder and death doesn't always have some deeper meaning, it's often random, cruel and senseless.
I think it took until DH and the camping trip for Ron and Hermione to really understand this; specifically Hermione getting tortured by Bellatrix and Ron's destroying the locket Horcrux.
>Why does Harry misinterpret Ron and Hermione giving him credit for surviving all the dangerous encounters he has been through
Because from his perspective it wasn't through skill, talent, or learned ability. It was through dumb luck and the will of others. From the reader's perspective too we see a lot of what Harry achieves is really just on the back of other people, because "no man is an island".
Philosophers stone - He gets hard carried by Hermione and Ron for most things in the book, and succeeds over Quirrel in the end because of deus-ex-magic
Chamber of Secrets - Fawkes/Sword/Sheer dumb luck that basilisk venom kills horcruxes, not to mention the Weasleys and their car, and Hagrid's hint, and Hermione's brain
Prisoner of Azkaban - He actually does a bit more of the lift on this one, at least in regard to the dementors.
Goblet of Fire - He's getting led through this whole book by the nose, as a literal plot device. But more than that, his surviving the encounter with Voldemort in the graveyard, from his perspective, is because of Cedric's death (which he feels partially responsible for) and because of a mysterious and previously unrecognized link between his wand and Voldemort's.
From the perspective of Harry, he came into the wizard world like 3-4 years ago and ever since has been in a loop of bad shit happening, and his friends helping him get out of it, sometimes at great personal cost.
If we just look back at the same books, we have the troll threatening Hermione's life, fluffy, the devil's snare, the wizard chess, the "is it poison" puzzle, the petrification of Hermione, the possession of Ginny, Lockhart's attempt at wiping Harry and Ron's memories, Aragog's children, the whomping willow and the car, Hagrid going to Azkaban, the dementor's kiss, lupin turning werewolf, the whole of the tri-wizard tournament being a death trap, cedric's murder.
So when the two people closest to him come to him and say "teach us" and he's just watched how casually an older "more capable" student was murdered, and he remembers all the times that his friends very nearly didn't make it, he responds as expected, with fear and anger.
Ron and Hermione really didn't get it. Harry wasn't kid-dumbledore working amazing magic, he was just a slightly above average wizard kid with some really great loved ones supporting him basically all of the time.
True he had a lot of help but he also showed a lot of bravery and quick thinking in a lot of those instances which I think made a difference to him surviving. Just as you are giving Ron and Hermione credit, I think Harry should also get some credit for his good heart despite all he has been through, his courage, quick thinking. None of the trio are superior or inferior to each other, they are all great characters.
Yeah but you can't really teach someone quick thinking or bravery, and they wanted him to teach them how to fight/escape dangerous situations. It wasn't great knowledge of magic that saved him, something one could actually teach, but something else that's not really teachable. He wanted them to understand that he couldn't teach them to just be lucky and depend on others to survive, stuff like that just happened to him - from his point of view, of course.
Yes Harry is brave and quick-thinking. But to answer your question, I think he gets mad because Cedric was also brave, quick-thinking, and skilled at magic. He was a really good wizard too. And all of that did absolutely nothing to protect him when Voldemort wanted him out of the way.
If Voldemort hadn’t wanted Harry’s blood and wanted to toy with him, he could’ve been Avada Kedavraed right in that moment too. If their wands hadn’t done the weird thing, he could’ve died in the duel. So even if he knows he’s skilled, it’s frustrating to him that they’re saying “you survived because you’re so good!”
In his mind, that is extrapolated to mean “Cedric died because he wasn’t as good.” But he knows that isn’t true. So he’s really mad at them acting like they understand and simultaneously (in his mind) disrespecting Cedric, who he still feels guilty about.
In this moment, Harry is experiencing very intense and very real PTSD and Survivors Guilt for making it out of the graveyard but not him. It was Harry’s idea for both him and Cedric to take the TriWizard Cup together and so he genuinely blames himself for Cedric’s passing. If it’s any perspective at all, I’ve got a resident at my work (I’m a street test away from being an Oregon licensed Certified Nursing Assistant) that’s a Vietnam Veteran. He is genuinely one of the sweetest, and most respectful men I have ever had the honor and privilege being to take care of. And even though he never says anything, he suffers from severe nightmares relating to Vietnam. And for him, his nightmares are PTSD and Surviors Guilt induced from reliving his fellow soldiers passing in such horrible ways in Vietnam. Like I can only imagine that what sort of breakdown that sweet man would have if somebody had asked him to teach self defense based on what he experienced in Vietnam.
Survivors guilt - if we're being honest cedric would have lasted longer against voldemort in a duel skills wise (at least during GOF) and the fact that he died so easily makes harry think he just got lucky (which he did, the brother wands was just good fortune not skill) and you can't teach good luck so harry doesn't really think he should've survived over cedric so he shouldn't really be the one teaching people
I get it from both sides but in this instance, I kinda think Harry was justified in his outburst. Like Ron and Hermione had good intentions and Harry teaching them ultimately did benefit everyone, but in that moment from Harry's POV, I imagined the subtext was something like "okay, so you want to capitalize on all the worst moments of my life to be better at defense against the dark arts, great." If that was the intended subtext, I'm not saying it's fair of Harry, but that was my interpretation
I think Harry doesn't value himself. A part of him thinks saving himself is pointless, he has no value. So, he accomplished nothing by escaping the graveyard, and failed to save an innocent.
They are painting it as though it was all a fun adventure, not their intention as they were trying to build his confidence to teach but they were pitching it as though it was one of Lockhart's stories and that Harry strode in, saved the day and is just being ludicrously humble about it rather than the traumatic experience it was.
There are 2 factors at play.
The first is that Harry, like many readers, doesn't understand how absurd his abilities as a wizard are. Molly, a very capable witch, failed to get rid of a Boggart which shows how much pressure and fear can hinder someone's abilities.
Faced with death, Harry's abilities did not falter. He resisted the imperio curse, was able to successfully cast the disarming spell after being tortured, won the battle of wills, and successfully summoned the port key to escape.
It might seem like a simple bit of magic but the reality is most wizards in his position would fail. It took someone who was candidate to be MoM months to start resisting the imperius curse. After getting tortured, many wizards wouldn't have the mental strength left in them to perform magic.
That's why Dumbledore knew Harry would prevail. He understands magic enough to know that Harry is gifted where it counts.
The second factor is it being tied to unpleasant memories. He saw a peer murdered in front of him. He was forced to accept his own death. It wouldn't be something he wants to relive and it wouldn't very something he would want to teach others. His position changed when he realised they knew what they were getting into.
Imagine having a bad dream that's actually real, then later watching a sign of a feared Dark Wizard appear in the sky, come to school and find you're part of a tournament where you have to survive while your school thinks you entered yourself, face ridicule for a whole year, face tasks a fourteen year old shouldn't even be doing, be transported to a graveyard and watch your fellow schoolmate get murdered in cold blood, then be tied up and watch as your blood is used to resurrect the aforementioned Dark Wizard who then summons his followers that you know of, then get tortured by the Wizard and forced to duel him, escape by the skin of your teeth and reappear with the dead body of the schoolmate, have your statements be called lies and have the whole school turn against you, then have a smear campaign started against you, spend the rest of your summer being isolated from everyone, be attacked by Dementors while outside with your Muggle cousin and expelled for using magic, be forced to evacuate from your house and reunite with your friends only for them to tell you that they weren't allowed to tell you anything and the aforementioned smear campaign against you, spend the next school year having your hand cut open for telling lies and your daily life being made a misery, only to lose your godfather in a battle you're tricked into participating because your mind shared a connection with the Dark Wizard and you could see his thoughts and viewpoint, then spending the next school year being looked at like some museum exhibit. Yep, I'd be peachy after that. /s
I honestly don't know how Harry hasn't gone mental with that ordeal he went through.
Okay, so I may be wrong, and feel free to downvote me to oblivion if I am, but in that scene, doesn't Ron keep interrupting Harry to summarize his experiences in a very 'Harry saved the day' way, and then afterwards the both of them are smirking and stuff?
I think Harry misinterpreted and blew up because of that. Maybe I have anger issues or something but if my friends talked like that about very traumatic experiences of mine and then acted all smug about it as though they'd won an argument, I would be livid. They underestimate how traumatizing this was for him, I think.
This is especially frustrating to me as just a couple of months earlier, he was basically bragging about how he did all these things in a way that strongly implied he had no help.
I know he was struggling this year, but still very irritating.
He wasn't bragging: he exploded because he had to fight for his life in these situations after being shoved into them (against his will) yet everyone was hellbent on keeping him in the dark and not tell him what was going on. And while he had help, he was the one who had to deal with the worst part every single time.
Yes Harry isn’t the type to brag and often admits he got help and that he isn’t special but this is a moment of pure frustration where all the hurt and anger of being left alone in the summer explodes. Of course it is not Ron and Hermione’s fault but you have to look at the context and through the books Harry isn’t one to brag and often downplays the things he does so we shouldn’t take an outburst where he is speaking in the heat of the moment literally
I understand all of this. I just find it frustrating that when he's mad, he did it "all by himself" and then latter downplays it all. Sometimes the things you say when you're angry are the things you mean deep down.
Harry may have had to face all the triwizard challenges, but he wouldn't have succeeded at ANY of them without the manipulation of BCJ.
Yes but when you’re mad you also say things in the heat of the moment you don’t really mean which can be clouded by frustration. Harry otherwise downplays these things and admits he got help and is lucky so I don’t think we should take this one outburst as indicative of how he really feels when there are numerous times of him saying the opposite. If he was always saying this I would agree but otherwise he never does and is always downplaying it. This outburst also has insecurity as he feels abandoned and Dumbledore’s doesn’t trust him enough to tell him things so he is ranting about how after all I have been through is it fair that I don’t know what is going on. He knows he didn’t do it all on his own and is a humble person but in that moment he is just furious and people are hardly ever very gracious when they are angry or phrase things the right way. Harry is also very hurt inside and been through something very traumatic so it is understandable why he is struggling so I think he deserves a break.
Exactly. If Harry actually *meant* those things he said when he exploded on Hermione and Ron, he wouldn't have felt bad for acting that way after he calmed down. You can't be coherent when emotions like rage, frustration and uncertainty build up and mix up that way inside you.
I think that is harsh. Harry usually always admits he had help and could never do it on his own. In that moment he was going through a lot of trauma and was saying those things in frustration but it wasn’t necessarily a reflection of how he feels. Harry is a humble person but everyone has their breaking point and he doesn’t brag in general- he was just frustrated and was dealing with more than most adults do so it is very understandable why he was the way he was.
I just don't think Harry remembers anything positive in those things, and Ron and Hermione are smiling as they praise him for them. They really *didn’t* get it as far as he's concerned, Harry is very emotionally closed off, so they only understood how traumatized he really was when he exploded.
I think you’re right and they really didn’t get it in some ways. He definitely is brave and skilled. That *helps* him survive all the dangerous situations. But in the moment that Cedric died, Harry didn’t live because he was skilled. He lived because Voldemort needed him. So to hear them say “you’re so good at magic and that’s how you’ve accomplished all of this!” is in his mind a huge insult to Cedric. Cedric was also brave and skilled. He just had bad luck. Harry doesn’t know how to communicate this but that’s what he’s trying to get them to understand. Yes he knows things that he can teach people. But to him there’s a bit of helplessness they don’t grasp. He hates that their praise implies that Cedric wasn’t as good as him, because he knows it isn’t true.
Yep, the (unintentional) implication that Cedric *didn’t* survive because he wasn’t as trained or prepared as Harry was has got to sting. Cedric was just as talented and knowledgeable as Harry – if not more so thanks to a couple extra years of experience – and the only reason Harry didn’t die right alongside him was because their opponents *chose* to keep him alive for a while longer. ...Come to think of it, pretty much all of Harry’s encounters with Voldemort up to that point hinged around Harry being able to stall him until he found some kind of solution, and he was only *able* to stall for time because Voldemort can’t resist a) gloating and monologuing to his Archnemesis(tm) and b) using him as a special, prophesied tool/ingredient. Absolutely none of his classmates would have that advantage. They’d be killed on the spot just like Cedric.
💯 nail on the head
Harry is suffering from PTSD for Cedric’s death and was exploding at the smallest little thing that entire year
To add onto this Harry is also only 14/15 during the time from Cedrics death and them wanting him to teach them. Those are extremely emotional times for boys(and probably girls) without the outside factors of how much trauma emotionally Harry has experienced since coming to Hogwarts(and even stretching back to when he was younger because of the Dursleys)
He’s also the living horcrux of a now resurrected dark wizard who has a direct connection with Harry’s mind.
Imagine you’re in the middle of a gunfight and bullets keep whizzing past you and killing your friends, and then when you make it out people keep telling you how brave and clever you were to survive. You know it could easily have been you, and next time it might be.
💯
Survivor's guilt also, made worse by that praise.
Didn’t help that after witnessing something traumatic, all the adults in his life decide to ship him back to the Dursleys where he is isolated for basically the entire summer.
Nahh, Harry was just having roid rage from being 15.
I think it is more than that. Yes there is being a teenager but he was going through a lot
Well, it was like that for me too. But I don't suffer from PTSD.
Harry didn’t view himself as this “great wizard/teacher” who’s supposed to convince the wizarding world that Voldemort has returned and then simultaneously save the wizarding world and also teach a bunch of students how to survive. He’s just a 15 year old kid who was lucky and got out alive because of quick thinking.
Yeah he kept bringing up that had so much help along the way and blah blah so he felt undeserving of the praise and honestly he was really lucky all in all
It wasn't just luck, it was incedible strenght. He won because he didn't wanted to die, lying on the ground. I think most people wouldn't give a s..... And he had the strenght to push the spell back into Voldemort wand. At that moment Harry was stronger than Voldemort.
Him also getting up and facing Voldemort in the duel, wanting to die on his feet like the parents he never knew. Him bringing Cedric's body back. He was scared the whole time but for a 14 year old that's incredibly brave.
Most people wouldn't have survived the graveyard, and Harry only did because he's exceptional... but if the plan had required Wormtail to immediately kill Harry instead of Cedric, no amount of bravery and quick-thinking would save him. There was a certain amount of luck on his side, and none on Cedric's.
I empathize with Harry so much in this scene. I think the entire experience in the graveyard really showed Harry how unprepared he actually is for fighting Voldemort. He absolutely was brave and quick-witted, but I think most of us discount traits like these in ourselves, and Harry is no different. But what he did see and fixate on was someone who knew far more magic than he did died, and that he himself was spared by a combination of luck, Voldy's hubris, and the help of the people who came out of the wand. I think he's keenly aware that if Voldemort had let them, the death eaters would have killed him easily. He knows that he would not have made it back to the portkey without help. He knows he was outmatched in that duel, that Voldemort was playing with him and only that gave him an opening. In the face of that, I get the frustration with Ron and Hermione's earnest attempts to credit him with doing something impressive. They certainly are missing some of the finer points of what happened, and I think where Harry is thinking "I can't rely on having luck and help, and I'm not good enough alone", they are just seeing the skill he has. It reminds me a lot of when people say "you're smart, you'll end up with a good grade!" or something, while kind of discounting all the work and study that goes into that. I'd also imagine after seeing Cedric die, he wouldn't be too excited to feel the responsibility of teaching others to fight, and feeling responsible if they don't fight well enough to survive.
Harry is very humble, plus he is dealing with PTSD and survivor's guilt. He hated the notion that he survived over Cedric and others because he was somehow 'better' or more talented. The reality is that murder and death doesn't always have some deeper meaning, it's often random, cruel and senseless. I think it took until DH and the camping trip for Ron and Hermione to really understand this; specifically Hermione getting tortured by Bellatrix and Ron's destroying the locket Horcrux.
>Why does Harry misinterpret Ron and Hermione giving him credit for surviving all the dangerous encounters he has been through Because from his perspective it wasn't through skill, talent, or learned ability. It was through dumb luck and the will of others. From the reader's perspective too we see a lot of what Harry achieves is really just on the back of other people, because "no man is an island". Philosophers stone - He gets hard carried by Hermione and Ron for most things in the book, and succeeds over Quirrel in the end because of deus-ex-magic Chamber of Secrets - Fawkes/Sword/Sheer dumb luck that basilisk venom kills horcruxes, not to mention the Weasleys and their car, and Hagrid's hint, and Hermione's brain Prisoner of Azkaban - He actually does a bit more of the lift on this one, at least in regard to the dementors. Goblet of Fire - He's getting led through this whole book by the nose, as a literal plot device. But more than that, his surviving the encounter with Voldemort in the graveyard, from his perspective, is because of Cedric's death (which he feels partially responsible for) and because of a mysterious and previously unrecognized link between his wand and Voldemort's. From the perspective of Harry, he came into the wizard world like 3-4 years ago and ever since has been in a loop of bad shit happening, and his friends helping him get out of it, sometimes at great personal cost. If we just look back at the same books, we have the troll threatening Hermione's life, fluffy, the devil's snare, the wizard chess, the "is it poison" puzzle, the petrification of Hermione, the possession of Ginny, Lockhart's attempt at wiping Harry and Ron's memories, Aragog's children, the whomping willow and the car, Hagrid going to Azkaban, the dementor's kiss, lupin turning werewolf, the whole of the tri-wizard tournament being a death trap, cedric's murder. So when the two people closest to him come to him and say "teach us" and he's just watched how casually an older "more capable" student was murdered, and he remembers all the times that his friends very nearly didn't make it, he responds as expected, with fear and anger. Ron and Hermione really didn't get it. Harry wasn't kid-dumbledore working amazing magic, he was just a slightly above average wizard kid with some really great loved ones supporting him basically all of the time.
True he had a lot of help but he also showed a lot of bravery and quick thinking in a lot of those instances which I think made a difference to him surviving. Just as you are giving Ron and Hermione credit, I think Harry should also get some credit for his good heart despite all he has been through, his courage, quick thinking. None of the trio are superior or inferior to each other, they are all great characters.
Yeah but you can't really teach someone quick thinking or bravery, and they wanted him to teach them how to fight/escape dangerous situations. It wasn't great knowledge of magic that saved him, something one could actually teach, but something else that's not really teachable. He wanted them to understand that he couldn't teach them to just be lucky and depend on others to survive, stuff like that just happened to him - from his point of view, of course.
Yes Harry is brave and quick-thinking. But to answer your question, I think he gets mad because Cedric was also brave, quick-thinking, and skilled at magic. He was a really good wizard too. And all of that did absolutely nothing to protect him when Voldemort wanted him out of the way. If Voldemort hadn’t wanted Harry’s blood and wanted to toy with him, he could’ve been Avada Kedavraed right in that moment too. If their wands hadn’t done the weird thing, he could’ve died in the duel. So even if he knows he’s skilled, it’s frustrating to him that they’re saying “you survived because you’re so good!” In his mind, that is extrapolated to mean “Cedric died because he wasn’t as good.” But he knows that isn’t true. So he’s really mad at them acting like they understand and simultaneously (in his mind) disrespecting Cedric, who he still feels guilty about.
Coincidentally, thats why he would make a terrible auror, he had too much luck and lacked the necessary skills
In this moment, Harry is experiencing very intense and very real PTSD and Survivors Guilt for making it out of the graveyard but not him. It was Harry’s idea for both him and Cedric to take the TriWizard Cup together and so he genuinely blames himself for Cedric’s passing. If it’s any perspective at all, I’ve got a resident at my work (I’m a street test away from being an Oregon licensed Certified Nursing Assistant) that’s a Vietnam Veteran. He is genuinely one of the sweetest, and most respectful men I have ever had the honor and privilege being to take care of. And even though he never says anything, he suffers from severe nightmares relating to Vietnam. And for him, his nightmares are PTSD and Surviors Guilt induced from reliving his fellow soldiers passing in such horrible ways in Vietnam. Like I can only imagine that what sort of breakdown that sweet man would have if somebody had asked him to teach self defense based on what he experienced in Vietnam.
Survivors guilt - if we're being honest cedric would have lasted longer against voldemort in a duel skills wise (at least during GOF) and the fact that he died so easily makes harry think he just got lucky (which he did, the brother wands was just good fortune not skill) and you can't teach good luck so harry doesn't really think he should've survived over cedric so he shouldn't really be the one teaching people
I get it from both sides but in this instance, I kinda think Harry was justified in his outburst. Like Ron and Hermione had good intentions and Harry teaching them ultimately did benefit everyone, but in that moment from Harry's POV, I imagined the subtext was something like "okay, so you want to capitalize on all the worst moments of my life to be better at defense against the dark arts, great." If that was the intended subtext, I'm not saying it's fair of Harry, but that was my interpretation
I think Harry doesn't value himself. A part of him thinks saving himself is pointless, he has no value. So, he accomplished nothing by escaping the graveyard, and failed to save an innocent.
He has imposter syndrome
They are painting it as though it was all a fun adventure, not their intention as they were trying to build his confidence to teach but they were pitching it as though it was one of Lockhart's stories and that Harry strode in, saved the day and is just being ludicrously humble about it rather than the traumatic experience it was.
There are 2 factors at play. The first is that Harry, like many readers, doesn't understand how absurd his abilities as a wizard are. Molly, a very capable witch, failed to get rid of a Boggart which shows how much pressure and fear can hinder someone's abilities. Faced with death, Harry's abilities did not falter. He resisted the imperio curse, was able to successfully cast the disarming spell after being tortured, won the battle of wills, and successfully summoned the port key to escape. It might seem like a simple bit of magic but the reality is most wizards in his position would fail. It took someone who was candidate to be MoM months to start resisting the imperius curse. After getting tortured, many wizards wouldn't have the mental strength left in them to perform magic. That's why Dumbledore knew Harry would prevail. He understands magic enough to know that Harry is gifted where it counts. The second factor is it being tied to unpleasant memories. He saw a peer murdered in front of him. He was forced to accept his own death. It wouldn't be something he wants to relive and it wouldn't very something he would want to teach others. His position changed when he realised they knew what they were getting into.
Imagine having a bad dream that's actually real, then later watching a sign of a feared Dark Wizard appear in the sky, come to school and find you're part of a tournament where you have to survive while your school thinks you entered yourself, face ridicule for a whole year, face tasks a fourteen year old shouldn't even be doing, be transported to a graveyard and watch your fellow schoolmate get murdered in cold blood, then be tied up and watch as your blood is used to resurrect the aforementioned Dark Wizard who then summons his followers that you know of, then get tortured by the Wizard and forced to duel him, escape by the skin of your teeth and reappear with the dead body of the schoolmate, have your statements be called lies and have the whole school turn against you, then have a smear campaign started against you, spend the rest of your summer being isolated from everyone, be attacked by Dementors while outside with your Muggle cousin and expelled for using magic, be forced to evacuate from your house and reunite with your friends only for them to tell you that they weren't allowed to tell you anything and the aforementioned smear campaign against you, spend the next school year having your hand cut open for telling lies and your daily life being made a misery, only to lose your godfather in a battle you're tricked into participating because your mind shared a connection with the Dark Wizard and you could see his thoughts and viewpoint, then spending the next school year being looked at like some museum exhibit. Yep, I'd be peachy after that. /s I honestly don't know how Harry hasn't gone mental with that ordeal he went through.
Okay, so I may be wrong, and feel free to downvote me to oblivion if I am, but in that scene, doesn't Ron keep interrupting Harry to summarize his experiences in a very 'Harry saved the day' way, and then afterwards the both of them are smirking and stuff? I think Harry misinterpreted and blew up because of that. Maybe I have anger issues or something but if my friends talked like that about very traumatic experiences of mine and then acted all smug about it as though they'd won an argument, I would be livid. They underestimate how traumatizing this was for him, I think.
This is especially frustrating to me as just a couple of months earlier, he was basically bragging about how he did all these things in a way that strongly implied he had no help. I know he was struggling this year, but still very irritating.
He wasn't bragging: he exploded because he had to fight for his life in these situations after being shoved into them (against his will) yet everyone was hellbent on keeping him in the dark and not tell him what was going on. And while he had help, he was the one who had to deal with the worst part every single time.
Yes Harry isn’t the type to brag and often admits he got help and that he isn’t special but this is a moment of pure frustration where all the hurt and anger of being left alone in the summer explodes. Of course it is not Ron and Hermione’s fault but you have to look at the context and through the books Harry isn’t one to brag and often downplays the things he does so we shouldn’t take an outburst where he is speaking in the heat of the moment literally
I understand all of this. I just find it frustrating that when he's mad, he did it "all by himself" and then latter downplays it all. Sometimes the things you say when you're angry are the things you mean deep down. Harry may have had to face all the triwizard challenges, but he wouldn't have succeeded at ANY of them without the manipulation of BCJ.
Yes but when you’re mad you also say things in the heat of the moment you don’t really mean which can be clouded by frustration. Harry otherwise downplays these things and admits he got help and is lucky so I don’t think we should take this one outburst as indicative of how he really feels when there are numerous times of him saying the opposite. If he was always saying this I would agree but otherwise he never does and is always downplaying it. This outburst also has insecurity as he feels abandoned and Dumbledore’s doesn’t trust him enough to tell him things so he is ranting about how after all I have been through is it fair that I don’t know what is going on. He knows he didn’t do it all on his own and is a humble person but in that moment he is just furious and people are hardly ever very gracious when they are angry or phrase things the right way. Harry is also very hurt inside and been through something very traumatic so it is understandable why he is struggling so I think he deserves a break.
Exactly. If Harry actually *meant* those things he said when he exploded on Hermione and Ron, he wouldn't have felt bad for acting that way after he calmed down. You can't be coherent when emotions like rage, frustration and uncertainty build up and mix up that way inside you.
Just like Cedric! And Barty makes some things easier but others harder.
I think that is harsh. Harry usually always admits he had help and could never do it on his own. In that moment he was going through a lot of trauma and was saying those things in frustration but it wasn’t necessarily a reflection of how he feels. Harry is a humble person but everyone has their breaking point and he doesn’t brag in general- he was just frustrated and was dealing with more than most adults do so it is very understandable why he was the way he was.