See

Harry Potter bugs me.

No, not Harry Potter - note the italics. The books overall are, in my opinion, brilliant. How the author developed the most intricate plot structure I've ever read over a series of seven books that started as a note on a napkin blows my mind and makes me feel inadequate as an author. My membership to the Potter fandom is eternal. But Harry Potter - the man, the character, the scarhead - bugs the shit out of me.

Last summer I had a very intense conversation with one of my bosses about how Harry Potter is actually one of the least active characters in the whole twisted, delicious story. Let's think about how he gained his "chosen" status, shall we? He was zapped. By a wand. Of a powerful wizard. And somehow the zap of that wand of that powerful wizard bounced off his mostly-ordinary-but-somehow-secretly-magical head and destroyed, at the time, the second-greatest wizard who ever lived. And he became "the chosen one" - "The Boy Who Lived." It's as if it were a great battle between a child and the most evil wizard known to the wizarding world, and he somehow defeated him with Chuck-Norris-though-baby-shaped powers.

No.

No, dear friends.

He was an infant. And sat in his crib. And the power that destroyed Lord Voldemort happened to him.

Through the rest of the story he proceeds to acquire more and more followers as Lord Voldemort grows more and more powerful and Harry grows more and more angry. As each of the movies becomes visibly darker (if they had made any more movies they would need Luna to run around shining everybody with a flashlight), Harry becomes more bitter about the position into which he was thrust, frustrated that people are sacrificing everything to support his cause. If you total the people who were massacred because they were Team Harry - and not just the ones who made you cry (>cough<  Fred Weasley) but also the ones who perished behind the scenes even before Harry talked to the snake at the zoo - the number is staggering. And Harry's super grateful and thanks everyone for their undying dedication even in the face of peril, right?

Wrong. Let's turn our attention to how many scenes detail Harry yelling at his closest friends because they're asking him for the answers that he always seems to have.

Oh, and let's also examine those fun interchanges where Harry's yelling at someone (again) because he didn't ask to be the Chosen One. Well....that's very nice, Harry, but the person you're yelling at didn't pick you. There's very little reason to direct your rage at, oh I don't know, Ron Weasley - the most loyal friend in the history of fiction since Lassie, the man who shared his only sandwich on the Hogwarts Express with you.

His sandwich, you ungrateful shit.

Like I said, I love the Harry Potter stories. But I would like to submit that Harry Potter is not a hero like his brethren in fiction portray him to be. The characters who worship him and turn to him for all the answers, rather, are the heroes. Sirius Black, who lays down his life for the cause that he's believed in for as long as his godson has lived, even though he only knew him for two years. Remus Lupin, my personal favorite character, and his young wife Nymphadora Tonks and her pink hair, who were taken from their own young son to protect their friends' child. His parents, whose love (mostly Lily's) saved him and actually made him "chosen." It's the idea of believing in a something rather than a someone, and sticking with that person even when they're a turd.

And that, my friends, is the mark of a hero.

Oh, and I submit that the story should have a tagline: And Also Neville Longbottom, The Underdog Who Actually Kicked Voldemort's Ass.