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Culture War Roundup for the week of November 10, 2025

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He wants to be a hero, to soak up all this adulation and special treatment that he's been craving all his life, and it's down to him being basically a decent kid and making the right friends that manages to steer him along the right path.

Problem is that JK speaks through a magical macguffin and the Mirror of Erised makes it clear that his real desire is to be with his family.

It's Ron who sees himself as a hero who finally outshines his many brothers when he looks at it. Harry simply doesn't seem to value that in the same way, which makes sense because he already has fame and adulation and it has nothing to do with him: in his mind his fame is unearned, creates insane expectations and is frankly grotesque in that it was born out of the death of the life he could have had.

To try to reconcile both views: I think Harry's drive is less about getting the adulation of being a hero and more just a sort of instinctive mistrust of authority figures and the sense that he should do things himself (he also doesn't like the idea of friends suffering for him which is how Voldemort finally gets him). It being a YA novel, he's at least sometimes right which makes things worse.

I don't think he wants to be a hero for the sake of "lookit me the big damn hero", it's because of the crushing weight of expectations. He's the Boy Who Lived, but that's because his parents sacrificed themselves for him. How can you repay that? You have to justify your existence somehow by being extra-special, and if you haven't earned the attention and praise you are getting, then you have to go out and be that big damn hero in order to deserve the deaths that spared you.