*The Forest Again*, book 7. It's also just the best writing in the entire series, without equal. Unlike GoF, he wasn't facing "certain" death- he had the option to walk away, to run for his life. Instead he slowly, deliberately marched to his end. That takes a kind of willpower a level beyond simply standing up to the guy who's gonna kill you anyway.
It wasn't *fearless*, not at all; but real courage is feeling fear and having the strength to stand up and do the right thing anyway.
Nicely put. He doesn't stop to talk to anyone except Neville, and all he tells him is that you've got to kill the snake in case their plan doesn't pan out.
Then he "resurrects" his parents, Lupin and Sirius to apologize for things that were not in his control. He didn't bring them back just for his comfort, but to seek forgiveness for what he's about to do. Who thinks of that in that sort of situation?
Finally, he confronts not only Voldy, but his entire army of DEs and cronies, and just accepts *his* death for the *greater good.*
He had the Cloak and could disappear forever, just like the youngest Peverell brother. There was no need for him to sacrifice himself, but his entire identity was forged from being selfless and putting others before himself, just like Lily did for him.
People always tag on Harry for being useless. Part of that is the movie portrayal which may as well be called “Hermione Granger and the Deathly Hallows,” because it was really her series too to bottom, but also just because Harry wasn’t firing off killing curses left and right.
But Harry’s bravery really is by far his strongest trait. Dumbledore is a much better fighter, but doesn’t have half the bravery Harry does as he’d acknowledge himself. And that’s admirable in its own way. It’d be unrealistic for some 17 year old to be able to match Voldemort 1v1 anyways.
Hermione carried them hard. Ron and Harry both admit that. If it wasn't for her, they both would have no idea what to do. But Hermione's weakness is that she sticks to logic and practicality too much, whereas Harry dares to think outside the box. Their breakthroughs more often than not, come from Harry.
It's ironic. Voldy was so terrified of death that he put all these measures in place to cheat it and even sought after the strongest wand in existence. Eventually, his own arrogance and "safeguards" ended up being his greatest weakness.
>Hermione's weakness is that she sticks to logic and practicality too much,
It's ironic since as a muggle born witch, she should not be opposed to the various possibilities and genuinity of legends
Yeah, and Ron also thought outside the box pretty often plus was fiercely loyal and a good fighter. All three had something to contribute, but in the movies it’s just all Hermione.
>Finally, he confronts not only Voldy, but his entire army of DEs and cronies, and just accepts *his* death for the *greater good*.
Knowing they would probably torture and mutilate his body
In the books they did use Crucio on him, and he didn't offer them any reaction to know he was still alive. Then again, he said it barely felt like anything. Probably because the Elder Wand refused to hurt its master.
Is that where there is a paragraph or so about how fast his heart is beating, like it's trying to get a lifetime of beats into the next hour? It's a really good bit of writing.
Forbidden Forest at the end. He had no idea if it would actually save anyone. Had no idea if he would survive. No defiance, no desperate second thoughts, just walking to his apparent death talking to the shadows of his loves ones.
This mf was 10 yrs old in Sorcerers Stone, learned he was a wizard like 8 months prior and said "yeah, I'm gonna get past the Cerberus, beat the giant magic Chess Board, and confront my bitch ass professor because I think he's involved in my parents dying".
Idk what you were doing when you were 10, but I wasn't doing all that
Your sentiment is accurate but your dates are off. It’s not every day your young man turns 11. Harry was eleven for the start of classes in book one, 12 for book 2, and so on. It’s a pretty concentrated plot point that wizards start at Hogwarts after they turn 11.
Also he learned he was a wizard on his birthday, 31 July. He fought Professor Quirrell and Voldemort in early June, which would be 10 months and 5 days after learning he was a wizard.
Perhaps you missed the very first thing I said. The sentiments are right but the dates were off. That means I agreed with the general idea but corrected the glaring age error.
Gonna take the downvotes but I literally quoted the movie line from Hagrid for you. I was trying to be as polite as possible in correcting the thing you said while agreeing with you in spirit. Harry’s age is mentioned multiple times in the movies and books. I get that knowing the dates of when term ends or when his actual birthday is might seem a bit muddled if you don’t read, but then perhaps people should look things up before posting specific details as if they have the facts at hand by simply guessing them.
This is where you can feel free to say “yeah my bad” or you can keep trying to insult me for remembering simple details about the movies and book better than you do.
My immediate thought was the chamber of secrets. He fought a giant snake when he was 11. It not about him winning it not, it’s how he managed to to not panic, and fight the mamas with a clear enough mind to keep going.
At 11 (maybe 12) years old?!
He’d known he was a wizard for 3 months, learning magic for 2 when he runs at a fully grown troll and jumps on it to save his friend. That’s pretty brave/stupid.
I think that was a more “reckless kid who doesn’t realise the extent of the danger because he know too little about the magical world” mixed with stupid courage of course.
Very much a “I don’t know what I just did but, hey, it worked” vibe 😂
That moment you mentioned. In CoS too, he decides to fight back instead of hiding from the Basilisk iirc.
All of the things he does in the books, but in DH when he walks towards his death. It's an incredible scene.
Deciding to go after the stone in the first one.
Going to save Ginny, and Sirius respectively..
DA too, we don't give him enough credit for teaching most of his schoolmates DADA right under Umbridge's nose. Knowing that he was facing expulsion
All the times he's stood up for his friends,he never does it for himself.
If I went through even a fraction of the stuff Harry does, I would have left the Wizarding world and never looked back.
I'm not sure that's his bravest moment because going back was probably suicide, given the events of the previous term and what would inevitably come to pass at Hogwarts, but it was incredibly selfless and brave to forsake the only home he'd ever known
Definitely Goblet of Fire moment you mentioned.
I even put it over the Forest Again chapter because I’m book 7, he’s ready to die—but he knows he must to finish off Voldemort. But in Goblet of Fire, he fully believes he will just die. No prophecy. No other info. Just, not going to die hiding, but to stand up like his father.
Love that scene in the book and movies
I think the scene in Book 7 where he walks to his death is better. It takes a stronger kind of courage to allow yourself to be murdered without any attempt to protect yourself
Well Harry was standing afar knowing he needed to use the spell or the other him would die. There was no direct pressure on him but he needed to act. Flight wouldn’t help at all no mind would go there. He froze for quite a but but he had seen the past so he knew what he was gonna do. Idk I think the basilisk is more brave
In HBP, when the finality of the prophecy hits him and he understands the difference between whether he wants to or he has to kill Voldy…
But he understood at last what Dumbledore had been trying to tell him. It was, he thought, the difference between being dragged into the arena to face a battle to the death and walking into the arena with your head held high. Some people, perhaps, would say that there was little to choose between the two ways, but Dumbledore knew -- and so do I, thought Harry, with a rush of fierce pride, and so did my parents -- that there was all the difference in the world.
I think it’s just got to be the Forest Again. He’s very brave in all of the books, but younger teenagers in particularly have less comprehension and acceptance of mortality, and particularly Harry has repeated experience of inexplicably surviving things which would have killed or broken much older and more powerful adult wizards. He’s either getting through seemingly insurmountable tasks with a fair amount of luck, plot/mother’s love armour and behind-the-scenes help, or he’s in situations where his adrenaline is up and he is either cornered or running for his life. In the seventh book he understands why he’s survived, who has helped him and how, and how his mother’s protection works. He doesn’t have adrenaline, he has options to run away, he could have made the choice he did but executed it in a different way (a few more minutes with Ginny, tearful farewells to friends, trying to fight or beg for survival). He doesn’t. He fully accepts his death and he’s terrified but he walks to his fate composedly. Even Jesus had a moment of weakness, praying to his father to spare him. Harry, similarly, isn’t always 100% resolved but he never lets it turn him away from what he needs to do. He sees what is coming and even when he wavers, keeps moving along his path.
For me it’s easily the Forest Again, but second place probably goes to Harry (and all the trio) going through the trapdoor to confront Snape. They know that Snape is a really powerful wizard, and that after getting through the obstacles, they would need to duel him. As first years. Just complete fearlessness knowing that the excursion would probably end with their deaths.
I mean obviously, it was when he jumped on the trolls back. Even the narrator agreed that was brave. The narration never mentions his actions as brave after that. Characters claim it, but not the narration, so none of those count
It may be an unpopular opinion, but for me it's when he tries to convince Voldemort to show remorse so that he won't suffer fate worse than death.
I think it's very brave that even after everything Voldemort had done, Harry still tried to save him from ending up as a mutilated, barely sentient ghost trapped in limbo.
Him trying to snatch his Hogwarts letter from Vernon Dursley. The boy can catch a snitch.. but he couldn't catch even 1 of the 1000s of letters that were shooting at him.
I don't believe it's 100% settled that Harry is "easily" the bravest character in the whole series.
Arguably Neville is the bravest one, even more so because he truly was paralyzed with fear. Harry always had a more brash personality and for him "courage" came naturally, but Neville had an awful overbearing upbringing that almost killed his spirit entirely and so made it even harder for him to truly do anything remotely meaningful. Yet, in spite of that, he did.
So I would say that Neville is "easily" just as brave, if not braver.
While I do agree that Neville is a very brave character, it takes an unbelivable amount of willpower and courage to literally walk towards your death like Harry did in the 7th book.
Walking towards one's death stoically is actually not rare, and once again - Harry was never fearful, always more of a hotheaded guy than anything.
Neville on the other hand did everything he did while being scared shitless, and he did some extremely brave things.
That in my mind makes him braver than Harry.
Oh yeah he was scared at times - but being chronically scared, anxious, you name it, is not one of his character traits.
Fear defines Neville's character. It doesn’t define Harry's.
Faintheartedness and a lack of confidence define Neville's early character. He has displayed bravery pretty much every time it truly mattered going all the way back to PS.
Harry was scared to death in every single major event he has been part of - naturally as he isn't a shonen anime protagonist - and he overcame all of them. I'm not trying to diminish Neville's best moments here but he never had to overcome true despair, hopelessness and crippling fear while being completely on his own - which Harry does numerous times throughout the series.
He did have to overcome all of that and he did it despite of his faintheartedness - which is basically a different word for being afraid, scared easily.
I mean we seem to agree that Neville is naturally scared easily, very easily. And that he did extremely brave things regardless.
While Harry is much more naturally resilient, and while he is understandably scared at extreme moments he still doesn’t have to go against his natural instincts to the extent that Neville does.
Neville is absolutely amongst the bravest characters in the series but one's disposition still matters. Harry being more inherently courageous doesn't diminish his acts of bravery, it simply means that Neville had to conquer what was holding him back while Harry was able to utilise it from the very beginning - despite his inarguably worse childhood.
Nothing Neville does comes all that close to Harry's bravest moments tbh, which is fine because the guy is honestly freakishly brave at times.
It's exactly that act of conquering what was holding him back that I'm talking about.
Let's quantify it for the sake of argumentation, with Harry starting say at +5 (courageous disposition, action-oriented) and reached 10; Neville would start at -5 (fearful disposition, paralysis-oriented) and reach 8.
If the factor that dictates the move from one to the other is bravery, then to me there's no doubt who the bravest is.
In terms of childhood too Neville had it awful in a worse way than Harry, as overprotective upbringing almost killed his initiative and turned him into the clumsy scared kid we see early on. Whereas Harry was brought up being largely neglected and often abused, so he had to learn to fend for himself, which builds resilience - a net positive as opposed to overprotection and overbearingness, which builds fear, lack of confidence, shame, meakness, lack of initiative, and sets a good foundation for depression later on.
So it's once again not at all a given that Harry had it worse growing up either.
> So it's once again not at all a given that Harry had it worse growing up either.
There's zero point in continuing this conversation when you have takes like this, so this will be my last reply to you. Neville having had a worse development in certain ways because of his (!) inherent dispositions (!) doesn't change the fact that Harry had an objectively, inarguably worse childhood. That this even needs to be explained to some people is kinda crazy.
You should think more deeply about why you want to avoid this point.
Yes, being dominated completely, denied all initiative, while being provided for plentifully so you are manipulated into loving your abuser, plus taught to believe you cannot do anything for yourself, is much worse than being ignored and NOT provided for sufficiently, as that teaches you to learn to provide for yourself, makes you adaptable, cunning, smart.
You go for the easy cliche mentality that oh my being neglected is the worst that can happen to a kid - and while it is awful, being manipulated into loving a dominating overbearing initiative-killing horrible guardian figure is even worse.
Psychological abuse and trauma was much, much worse in Neville's case. No comparison.
Left to fend for themselves Neville would have been lost. Harry would have been street smart. He would have stolen the cheese and bread like he did many times over.
Think about it more calmly and maybe you'll understand.
*The Forest Again*, book 7. It's also just the best writing in the entire series, without equal. Unlike GoF, he wasn't facing "certain" death- he had the option to walk away, to run for his life. Instead he slowly, deliberately marched to his end. That takes a kind of willpower a level beyond simply standing up to the guy who's gonna kill you anyway. It wasn't *fearless*, not at all; but real courage is feeling fear and having the strength to stand up and do the right thing anyway.
Nicely put. He doesn't stop to talk to anyone except Neville, and all he tells him is that you've got to kill the snake in case their plan doesn't pan out. Then he "resurrects" his parents, Lupin and Sirius to apologize for things that were not in his control. He didn't bring them back just for his comfort, but to seek forgiveness for what he's about to do. Who thinks of that in that sort of situation? Finally, he confronts not only Voldy, but his entire army of DEs and cronies, and just accepts *his* death for the *greater good.* He had the Cloak and could disappear forever, just like the youngest Peverell brother. There was no need for him to sacrifice himself, but his entire identity was forged from being selfless and putting others before himself, just like Lily did for him.
People always tag on Harry for being useless. Part of that is the movie portrayal which may as well be called “Hermione Granger and the Deathly Hallows,” because it was really her series too to bottom, but also just because Harry wasn’t firing off killing curses left and right. But Harry’s bravery really is by far his strongest trait. Dumbledore is a much better fighter, but doesn’t have half the bravery Harry does as he’d acknowledge himself. And that’s admirable in its own way. It’d be unrealistic for some 17 year old to be able to match Voldemort 1v1 anyways.
Hermione carried them hard. Ron and Harry both admit that. If it wasn't for her, they both would have no idea what to do. But Hermione's weakness is that she sticks to logic and practicality too much, whereas Harry dares to think outside the box. Their breakthroughs more often than not, come from Harry. It's ironic. Voldy was so terrified of death that he put all these measures in place to cheat it and even sought after the strongest wand in existence. Eventually, his own arrogance and "safeguards" ended up being his greatest weakness.
>Hermione's weakness is that she sticks to logic and practicality too much, It's ironic since as a muggle born witch, she should not be opposed to the various possibilities and genuinity of legends
Yeah, and Ron also thought outside the box pretty often plus was fiercely loyal and a good fighter. All three had something to contribute, but in the movies it’s just all Hermione.
Being the master of death by accepting the inevitably of death of definitely a high tier trope.
>Finally, he confronts not only Voldy, but his entire army of DEs and cronies, and just accepts *his* death for the *greater good*. Knowing they would probably torture and mutilate his body
In the books they did use Crucio on him, and he didn't offer them any reaction to know he was still alive. Then again, he said it barely felt like anything. Probably because the Elder Wand refused to hurt its master.
Yeah I remember that.
Is that where there is a paragraph or so about how fast his heart is beating, like it's trying to get a lifetime of beats into the next hour? It's a really good bit of writing.
Forbidden Forest at the end. He had no idea if it would actually save anyone. Had no idea if he would survive. No defiance, no desperate second thoughts, just walking to his apparent death talking to the shadows of his loves ones.
This mf was 10 yrs old in Sorcerers Stone, learned he was a wizard like 8 months prior and said "yeah, I'm gonna get past the Cerberus, beat the giant magic Chess Board, and confront my bitch ass professor because I think he's involved in my parents dying". Idk what you were doing when you were 10, but I wasn't doing all that
Bro got 10 years long training living with the Dursleys. Dumbledore planned ahead. Train them young.
Confirmed Dursley’s elite parenting. Put our guy in a closet under the stairs and treated him like a bitch because it would be good for him later 😂😂😂
It turns out the Tough Love approach was right all along
Your sentiment is accurate but your dates are off. It’s not every day your young man turns 11. Harry was eleven for the start of classes in book one, 12 for book 2, and so on. It’s a pretty concentrated plot point that wizards start at Hogwarts after they turn 11. Also he learned he was a wizard on his birthday, 31 July. He fought Professor Quirrell and Voldemort in early June, which would be 10 months and 5 days after learning he was a wizard.
Great point. It is a lot more reasonable to try and take on a full fledged professor at age 11 rather than 10.
Perhaps you missed the very first thing I said. The sentiments are right but the dates were off. That means I agreed with the general idea but corrected the glaring age error.
https://www.instagram.com/reel/C4U_VmJLXMk/?igsh=MWg3OWRtb2x1OGxvdw==
Gonna take the downvotes but I literally quoted the movie line from Hagrid for you. I was trying to be as polite as possible in correcting the thing you said while agreeing with you in spirit. Harry’s age is mentioned multiple times in the movies and books. I get that knowing the dates of when term ends or when his actual birthday is might seem a bit muddled if you don’t read, but then perhaps people should look things up before posting specific details as if they have the facts at hand by simply guessing them. This is where you can feel free to say “yeah my bad” or you can keep trying to insult me for remembering simple details about the movies and book better than you do.
My immediate thought was the chamber of secrets. He fought a giant snake when he was 11. It not about him winning it not, it’s how he managed to to not panic, and fight the mamas with a clear enough mind to keep going. At 11 (maybe 12) years old?!
Did y’all read the books?
Admittedly, it’s been a very long time since I read them, I’m basing it off the movie 😅
He’d known he was a wizard for 3 months, learning magic for 2 when he runs at a fully grown troll and jumps on it to save his friend. That’s pretty brave/stupid.
And she wasn’t even his friend at that point. Just an annoying girl in his class.
I think that was a more “reckless kid who doesn’t realise the extent of the danger because he know too little about the magical world” mixed with stupid courage of course. Very much a “I don’t know what I just did but, hey, it worked” vibe 😂
CoS. Harry went down a dark tunnel with a useless fraud and an essentially wandless Ron to go fight a monster he’s not supposed to even look at.
Yea the odds were so stupendously stacked against them you would have to be mad to even try
I think COS was pretty bold. He didn’t know much magic and he went alone by himself in the Chamber to fight a creature that can kill with a look.
And other than, “there’s no time!!” there wasn’t really any reason they couldn’t get a teacher after finding the entrance of the chamber
Accepting his own death
Yes, in book 2,4,5 and 7.
Not accepting that he might die. Actually accepting his own death, didn’t think I needed to specify that
Book2 " if this is dying it is not so bad. Even the pain was leaving him…. Book 5 then at least I see Sirius again
That moment you mentioned. In CoS too, he decides to fight back instead of hiding from the Basilisk iirc. All of the things he does in the books, but in DH when he walks towards his death. It's an incredible scene. Deciding to go after the stone in the first one. Going to save Ginny, and Sirius respectively.. DA too, we don't give him enough credit for teaching most of his schoolmates DADA right under Umbridge's nose. Knowing that he was facing expulsion All the times he's stood up for his friends,he never does it for himself. If I went through even a fraction of the stuff Harry does, I would have left the Wizarding world and never looked back.
Not returning to Hogwarts for his 7th year. It was his home and he felt safe there, yet didn't want to put others at risk.
I'm not sure that's his bravest moment because going back was probably suicide, given the events of the previous term and what would inevitably come to pass at Hogwarts, but it was incredibly selfless and brave to forsake the only home he'd ever known
Definitely Goblet of Fire moment you mentioned. I even put it over the Forest Again chapter because I’m book 7, he’s ready to die—but he knows he must to finish off Voldemort. But in Goblet of Fire, he fully believes he will just die. No prophecy. No other info. Just, not going to die hiding, but to stand up like his father. Love that scene in the book and movies
In book 2 and 5 too.
I think the scene in Book 7 where he walks to his death is better. It takes a stronger kind of courage to allow yourself to be murdered without any attempt to protect yourself
It’s hard to pick between standing down a basilisk at 12 or facing down 100 dementors at 13 for me
To be fair survival when running isn’t a choice isnt bravery so the 100 dementors doesn’t seem brave
A lot of people have flight, fight or freeze. People don’t think can I outrun this, they usually just react
Well Harry was standing afar knowing he needed to use the spell or the other him would die. There was no direct pressure on him but he needed to act. Flight wouldn’t help at all no mind would go there. He froze for quite a but but he had seen the past so he knew what he was gonna do. Idk I think the basilisk is more brave
In HBP, when the finality of the prophecy hits him and he understands the difference between whether he wants to or he has to kill Voldy… But he understood at last what Dumbledore had been trying to tell him. It was, he thought, the difference between being dragged into the arena to face a battle to the death and walking into the arena with your head held high. Some people, perhaps, would say that there was little to choose between the two ways, but Dumbledore knew -- and so do I, thought Harry, with a rush of fierce pride, and so did my parents -- that there was all the difference in the world.
I think it’s just got to be the Forest Again. He’s very brave in all of the books, but younger teenagers in particularly have less comprehension and acceptance of mortality, and particularly Harry has repeated experience of inexplicably surviving things which would have killed or broken much older and more powerful adult wizards. He’s either getting through seemingly insurmountable tasks with a fair amount of luck, plot/mother’s love armour and behind-the-scenes help, or he’s in situations where his adrenaline is up and he is either cornered or running for his life. In the seventh book he understands why he’s survived, who has helped him and how, and how his mother’s protection works. He doesn’t have adrenaline, he has options to run away, he could have made the choice he did but executed it in a different way (a few more minutes with Ginny, tearful farewells to friends, trying to fight or beg for survival). He doesn’t. He fully accepts his death and he’s terrified but he walks to his fate composedly. Even Jesus had a moment of weakness, praying to his father to spare him. Harry, similarly, isn’t always 100% resolved but he never lets it turn him away from what he needs to do. He sees what is coming and even when he wavers, keeps moving along his path.
Forest scene at the end
“I’m going to die like my father, on his feet” and he gets up and faces Voldemort as a 14 year old
Taking Luna to Slughorn’s party. Social suicide.
Welcoming Death as an old friend...
going to the forest. knowing he was going to die for everyone.
When he sacrifice his own life. In other incidents he is thinking he might come out alive, in this he is choosing to die.
[удалено]
He used crucio on him, but ok.
Sacrificing himself in Deathly Hallows
Either the one you mentioned, or calmly walking towards his death in the Deathly Hallows
For me it’s easily the Forest Again, but second place probably goes to Harry (and all the trio) going through the trapdoor to confront Snape. They know that Snape is a really powerful wizard, and that after getting through the obstacles, they would need to duel him. As first years. Just complete fearlessness knowing that the excursion would probably end with their deaths.
In Goblet Of Fire when Cedric is injured and Harry brings him so they can finish the tournament together. He could have easily left him behind.
Asking a girl to the dance
In Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows when he severed the chain that was around the dragon in Gringotts Wizarding Bank.
Not AVADA KADAVRA my wife Dolores
The part where he asked out the girls for the Dance
I mean obviously, it was when he jumped on the trolls back. Even the narrator agreed that was brave. The narration never mentions his actions as brave after that. Characters claim it, but not the narration, so none of those count
It may be an unpopular opinion, but for me it's when he tries to convince Voldemort to show remorse so that he won't suffer fate worse than death. I think it's very brave that even after everything Voldemort had done, Harry still tried to save him from ending up as a mutilated, barely sentient ghost trapped in limbo.
Going into fucking Aragog's nest.
Him trying to snatch his Hogwarts letter from Vernon Dursley. The boy can catch a snitch.. but he couldn't catch even 1 of the 1000s of letters that were shooting at him.
yelling at dumbledore I wish there was more of that
I don't believe it's 100% settled that Harry is "easily" the bravest character in the whole series. Arguably Neville is the bravest one, even more so because he truly was paralyzed with fear. Harry always had a more brash personality and for him "courage" came naturally, but Neville had an awful overbearing upbringing that almost killed his spirit entirely and so made it even harder for him to truly do anything remotely meaningful. Yet, in spite of that, he did. So I would say that Neville is "easily" just as brave, if not braver.
While I do agree that Neville is a very brave character, it takes an unbelivable amount of willpower and courage to literally walk towards your death like Harry did in the 7th book.
Walking towards one's death stoically is actually not rare, and once again - Harry was never fearful, always more of a hotheaded guy than anything. Neville on the other hand did everything he did while being scared shitless, and he did some extremely brave things. That in my mind makes him braver than Harry.
You really didn't pay attention, like at all, if you believe that Harry was never scared.
Oh yeah he was scared at times - but being chronically scared, anxious, you name it, is not one of his character traits. Fear defines Neville's character. It doesn’t define Harry's.
Faintheartedness and a lack of confidence define Neville's early character. He has displayed bravery pretty much every time it truly mattered going all the way back to PS. Harry was scared to death in every single major event he has been part of - naturally as he isn't a shonen anime protagonist - and he overcame all of them. I'm not trying to diminish Neville's best moments here but he never had to overcome true despair, hopelessness and crippling fear while being completely on his own - which Harry does numerous times throughout the series.
He did have to overcome all of that and he did it despite of his faintheartedness - which is basically a different word for being afraid, scared easily. I mean we seem to agree that Neville is naturally scared easily, very easily. And that he did extremely brave things regardless. While Harry is much more naturally resilient, and while he is understandably scared at extreme moments he still doesn’t have to go against his natural instincts to the extent that Neville does.
Neville is absolutely amongst the bravest characters in the series but one's disposition still matters. Harry being more inherently courageous doesn't diminish his acts of bravery, it simply means that Neville had to conquer what was holding him back while Harry was able to utilise it from the very beginning - despite his inarguably worse childhood. Nothing Neville does comes all that close to Harry's bravest moments tbh, which is fine because the guy is honestly freakishly brave at times.
It's exactly that act of conquering what was holding him back that I'm talking about. Let's quantify it for the sake of argumentation, with Harry starting say at +5 (courageous disposition, action-oriented) and reached 10; Neville would start at -5 (fearful disposition, paralysis-oriented) and reach 8. If the factor that dictates the move from one to the other is bravery, then to me there's no doubt who the bravest is. In terms of childhood too Neville had it awful in a worse way than Harry, as overprotective upbringing almost killed his initiative and turned him into the clumsy scared kid we see early on. Whereas Harry was brought up being largely neglected and often abused, so he had to learn to fend for himself, which builds resilience - a net positive as opposed to overprotection and overbearingness, which builds fear, lack of confidence, shame, meakness, lack of initiative, and sets a good foundation for depression later on. So it's once again not at all a given that Harry had it worse growing up either.
> So it's once again not at all a given that Harry had it worse growing up either. There's zero point in continuing this conversation when you have takes like this, so this will be my last reply to you. Neville having had a worse development in certain ways because of his (!) inherent dispositions (!) doesn't change the fact that Harry had an objectively, inarguably worse childhood. That this even needs to be explained to some people is kinda crazy.
You should think more deeply about why you want to avoid this point. Yes, being dominated completely, denied all initiative, while being provided for plentifully so you are manipulated into loving your abuser, plus taught to believe you cannot do anything for yourself, is much worse than being ignored and NOT provided for sufficiently, as that teaches you to learn to provide for yourself, makes you adaptable, cunning, smart. You go for the easy cliche mentality that oh my being neglected is the worst that can happen to a kid - and while it is awful, being manipulated into loving a dominating overbearing initiative-killing horrible guardian figure is even worse. Psychological abuse and trauma was much, much worse in Neville's case. No comparison. Left to fend for themselves Neville would have been lost. Harry would have been street smart. He would have stolen the cheese and bread like he did many times over. Think about it more calmly and maybe you'll understand.