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* [[SadistTeacher Severus Snape's]] views about Harry are regarded in the books and by readers as being highly biased and insensitive, but when he calls Harry a mediocre wizard who survived thanks to sacrifices by better wizards, you realize Harry never truly achieved anything by his own skill, talent and abilities.
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* [[SadistTeacher Severus Snape\'s]] views about Harry are regarded in the books and by readers as being highly biased and insensitive, but when he calls Harry a mediocre wizard who survived thanks to sacrifices by better wizards, you realize Harry never truly achieved anything by his own skill, talent and abilities.
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* With the exception of Quidditch, which developed because he was
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* With the exception of Quidditch, which developed because he was \"naturally gifted\" ([[spoiler:he had prior broom riding experience so he \"knew what to do\" even though he couldn\'t remember when he had ridden prior to Hogwarts]]), Harry is mostly a middling student, not significantly different than Ron or Neville, and [[BrilliantButLazy constantly slacks off on his studies]].
Except Neville was much worse student that Harry, while Ron was never shown to be particularly bad in the first place. While Harry DID have a lot of help from Hermione, as far as the results go, when he did put an effort in OWL studies he managed to score a good grade in every subject he cared about. So whole not a top shelf, he was still pretty good student.
* As far as his Defense Abilities goes, he always had the AdvantageBall since the Death Eaters were ordered by Voldemort [[LeaveHimToMe not to kill him]], and Harry was specially protected against Voldemort by advanced magic nobody knew a lot about. The only times Harry fights duel against competent opponents [[spoiler: are Order Of The Phoenix where his successful good use of his environment is negated by [=LeStrange=]\'s superior spell casting and Half-Blood Prince where he is on the wrong end of a CurbstompBattle at the hand of Snape]].
I don\'t see how his competence against adults who fought in the previous war when he was shitting diapers gives ANY credibility to Snape\'s argument that he\'s weak student. It\'s hard to expect a teenager to win a fight against war veteran.
* Compared to the magic done by his parents\' generation at Hogwarts,[[note]]James and his friends had made themselves animagi whilst still at Hogwarts, while the teenage Snape was creating his own curses and making improvements to official potion recipes[[/note]] not to mention Grindlewald, Riddle and Dumbledore at the same age, Harry\'s unimpressive in terms of creative ability and skills.
Comparing him to Tom, Albus or Gellert who were absolute best of their time at school is completely unfair. If Dumble claimed that Harry is a prodigy while Snape claimed he\'s not, it would\'ve been a decent argument in Snape\'s favor, but when Snape claims he\'s mediocre while Albus claims he\'s pretty good, then claiming he\'s worse than three biggest badasses of the wizarding world isn\'t really an argument. Comparing him to his parents is more on point, but still, the Marauders mastered the Animagus transformation because they needed it. Harry never had any particular need for that so he didn\'t. He DID need a Patronus spell to defend himself against dementors and mastered it at the age of 13, which is a very impressive feat. So while he exceled in different area, he wasn\'t really worse than James.
* Even with Quidditch, as gifted as Harry is, Gryffindor managed to win the Cup twice without him, which shows Harry isn\'t exceptionally gifted in any area and is more a JackOfAllStats who gets by through luck to find a PlotCoupon.
Claiming what Gryffindor could do without him says NOTHING about his skills. There where exactly two matches when Harry lost, both times it was not because he was bested, but because he was taken out of the game by circumstances beyond his control. Every other time he won. He also has some feats like staying on a crazy broom in his first match and catching the GoldenSnitch in 5 minutes flat in the second one.
* In fact, [[spoiler: Harry ultimately triumphs over Voldemort not because of his superior talent, but because Voldemort makes a major mistake by using Harry\'s blood in his resurrection and is arguably brought down by his own blindness and arrogance.]].
And no one claims it was otherwise. But it wasn\'t Harry\'s final exam so it has nothing to do with Snape\'s argument about his skills as a student.
** Likewise, Snape keeps bullying Hermione by calling her an insufferable know-it-all, but has Hermione ever really created and innovated in magic? Most of the time she recreates spells and potions described in books perfectly but she hasn\'t really demonstrated ability to, say, improve potions experiments.
Snape wasn\'t meant to be wrong about calling her insufferable know-it-all. Snape was a dick because of how and why it happened. During a lesson when Snape asked a question about something WAY ahead of what they were doing Hermione knew the answer, but her raised hand was completely ignored. When Snape called the class out on not knowing the answer, she answered and then Snape took points from her from talking without permission. Snape was blatantly unfair towards her and THAT is what he was meant to be wrong about.
* Likewise, she readily dismisses areas of magic that are unknown or experimental (for example, she dismisses the idea that there could be unregistered animagi in the world simply because a book lists them all, and dismisses the Deathly Hallows as a hoax despite the evidence of the Invisibility Cloak in front of her).
The argument about her ignoring more controversial aspects of magic is legitimate character flaw. She was called out on this, not by Snape, but by Xeno, and Harry agreed with him later. Since Xeno was never meant to be wrong, this isn\'t a strawman argument.
Except Neville was much worse student that Harry, while Ron was never shown to be particularly bad in the first place. While Harry DID have a lot of help from Hermione, as far as the results go, when he did put an effort in OWL studies he managed to score a good grade in every subject he cared about. So whole not a top shelf, he was still pretty good student.
* As far as his Defense Abilities goes, he always had the AdvantageBall since the Death Eaters were ordered by Voldemort [[LeaveHimToMe not to kill him]], and Harry was specially protected against Voldemort by advanced magic nobody knew a lot about. The only times Harry fights duel against competent opponents [[spoiler: are Order Of The Phoenix where his successful good use of his environment is negated by [=LeStrange=]\'s superior spell casting and Half-Blood Prince where he is on the wrong end of a CurbstompBattle at the hand of Snape]].
I don\'t see how his competence against adults who fought in the previous war when he was shitting diapers gives ANY credibility to Snape\'s argument that he\'s weak student. It\'s hard to expect a teenager to win a fight against war veteran.
* Compared to the magic done by his parents\' generation at Hogwarts,[[note]]James and his friends had made themselves animagi whilst still at Hogwarts, while the teenage Snape was creating his own curses and making improvements to official potion recipes[[/note]] not to mention Grindlewald, Riddle and Dumbledore at the same age, Harry\'s unimpressive in terms of creative ability and skills.
Comparing him to Tom, Albus or Gellert who were absolute best of their time at school is completely unfair. If Dumble claimed that Harry is a prodigy while Snape claimed he\'s not, it would\'ve been a decent argument in Snape\'s favor, but when Snape claims he\'s mediocre while Albus claims he\'s pretty good, then claiming he\'s worse than three biggest badasses of the wizarding world isn\'t really an argument. Comparing him to his parents is more on point, but still, the Marauders mastered the Animagus transformation because they needed it. Harry never had any particular need for that so he didn\'t. He DID need a Patronus spell to defend himself against dementors and mastered it at the age of 13, which is a very impressive feat. So while he exceled in different area, he wasn\'t really worse than James.
* Even with Quidditch, as gifted as Harry is, Gryffindor managed to win the Cup twice without him, which shows Harry isn\'t exceptionally gifted in any area and is more a JackOfAllStats who gets by through luck to find a PlotCoupon.
Claiming what Gryffindor could do without him says NOTHING about his skills. There where exactly two matches when Harry lost, both times it was not because he was bested, but because he was taken out of the game by circumstances beyond his control. Every other time he won. He also has some feats like staying on a crazy broom in his first match and catching the GoldenSnitch in 5 minutes flat in the second one.
* In fact, [[spoiler: Harry ultimately triumphs over Voldemort not because of his superior talent, but because Voldemort makes a major mistake by using Harry\'s blood in his resurrection and is arguably brought down by his own blindness and arrogance.]].
And no one claims it was otherwise. But it wasn\'t Harry\'s final exam so it has nothing to do with Snape\'s argument about his skills as a student.
** Likewise, Snape keeps bullying Hermione by calling her an insufferable know-it-all, but has Hermione ever really created and innovated in magic? Most of the time she recreates spells and potions described in books perfectly but she hasn\'t really demonstrated ability to, say, improve potions experiments.
Snape wasn\'t meant to be wrong about calling her insufferable know-it-all. Snape was a dick because of how and why it happened. During a lesson when Snape asked a question about something WAY ahead of what they were doing Hermione knew the answer, but her raised hand was completely ignored. When Snape called the class out on not knowing the answer, she answered and then Snape took points from her from talking without permission. Snape was blatantly unfair towards her and THAT is what he was meant to be wrong about.
* Likewise, she readily dismisses areas of magic that are unknown or experimental (for example, she dismisses the idea that there could be unregistered animagi in the world simply because a book lists them all, and dismisses the Deathly Hallows as a hoax despite the evidence of the Invisibility Cloak in front of her).
The argument about her ignoring more controversial aspects of magic is legitimate character flaw. She was called out on this, not by Snape, but by Xeno, and Harry agreed with him later. Since Xeno was never meant to be wrong, this isn\'t a strawman argument.
