...is that the exact intricate nature of the magic working between Voldemort and Harry is not necessarily fully explained. I don't really think it could be, and I don't think it needs to be. Personally, I like that the exact nature of the magical connections in the stories have some mystery to them. I think the King's Cross chapter is amazing, but I don't think it answers everything. And I like that. It allows my imagination to form my own ideas, which is a wonderful part of reading fiction. Magic is mysterious. The magic at work in Harry, in Dumbledore, in Voledmort is mysterious. I don't see that as a cop-out. I don't want a mathematical proof showing how it all works. But that's just me. I'm not saying everyone HAS to be happy with this answer. But I do not think it is lazy or sloppy writing at all

In regards to Harry not being an exceptional wizard...He was clearly one of the most talented wizards in Hogwarts from his 4th year on. Besides the patronus, he learned a lot of DADA and charms that no other student in the school would know. He was as talented as the legitimate Triwizard Champion for Hogwarts.

Once in his 5th year, he was teaching DADA to 7th years. Once Harry saw that there was a practical use to a spell, he put his all into it and mastered it better than the other students. He's able to articulate to them what it takes to make spells work better than any DADA teacher they ever had. He's probably even more talented than his OWLs reflect. In charms for example, some of the spells he learned for the TriWizard tournament were probably beyond OWL level and thus wouldn't be tested.

Hermoine, who's obsessively intellectual, seemed to learn every spell possible. But Harry's not like that. He's not going to learn a spell until he thinks it's practical. And that doesn't make him lazy; it makes him practical, and there's an important difference. A lazy person wouldn't bother to learn a spell even if he thought it was practical.

The simple answer is no, he doesn't. Hermione explains that what makes a horcrux so difficult to destroy is the strong enchantments that are put on it. Harry has no such enchantments because he was never deliberately made into a horcrux.

When Harry intentionally attempts to die to protect his friends he also invokes Deeper Magic. In other words it isn't just Self-Sacrifice--it is Self-Sacrifice plus INTENT

What? I'm actually surprised and disappointed in you Ms Snape.

We could say this about literally everything in the books. Harry wasn't really a great flyer, JKR just gave him this gift. Harry wasn't really brave, JKR just gave him this trait.

Are you gonna take away Hermione's or Percy's great results too.

Harry earned those results through a decent level of ability and a great deal of work in his 5th year.
He put little effort into some of his classes in his first four years. But when he had to learn something, and made a determined effort he could. In his OWL year, he did this.

JKR shows us and tell us repeatedly in the books that Dumbledore never wanted Harry to become like him, because he said himself that his search of power and immortality through the Hallows was a colossal mistake

all their last conversation in DH is about showing that DD always wanted Harry to refuse the power of the Hallow, the temptation of power, and by doing so become the greater man. Dumbledore says to him at the end of DH that Harry has shown to be the better man precisely because he resisted the lure of that immense power, because he chose Horcrux over Hallows, because when he finally had the Elder Wand, who would have made him (as you seem to want) the most powerful wizard in the world, he chose to refuse its power and repaired his old, ordinary wand instead.

This apparently is what you can't seem to understand: the search for absolute power is not the message of this series, or JKR would have made Harry keep the Elder wand and become the annoying Gary-stu, perfect superhero that you seem to want him to be.

Harry was never meant to become a second Dumbledore, because Dumbledore regretted forever his choices, his ambition for power and the tragedies it brought him.

Honestly, I'm a teenager, and I only have one real ambition. I want to be a journalist. Okay, maybe there's a part of me that wants to be lawyer simply because journalism is a dying art and I should have a more steady back up plan, but all my schooling and studies are going to be focused on those potential careers. I've wanted to be either a journalist or a lawyer from the time I was eight, and I still do. I see myself as having a lot of ambition, and I don't think the number of potential careers you want should have anything to do with ambition or personality. Some people will change their life goals frequently, others won't. It doesn't demonstrate a lack of character. I commend Harry for striving to do anything, seeing as most other students never display an active interest in any career in the books.

Well, typically the same general things make people feel the same way. If someone you love dies, you are sad. If you win a big sporting event, you're happy. If you're friend calls you a liar, you get upset. Harry conveys his feelings in a way that only Harry does. Harry tends to have a dramatic personality, and has no reserves in letting his emotions show. Lupin tends to be slower to anger and more of a peacemaker usually, Hermione cries when she's emotional, and Ron bottles things up. None of these are generic.

So when he sat in Dumbledore's office, wishing he wasn't a human any longer, or when he thought that he was a danger to everyone at Grimmauld Place, or when he inwardly is glad Ginny is not the crying sort of girl, or when he gets upset at Lupin for leaving his child, and instead of trying to talk it out yells at him like he hasn't yelled at anyone since Dumbledore about Snape, and then instantly regrets it, or when he thinks Dumbledore has betrayed him, these aren't real thoughts and feelings?

That's different, though. Harry's words and actions are what make up his character. But his OWL grades don't reflect anything that Harry actually said or did.

For an example, let's use the end of PoA, where Harry produces the mega-Patronus (as wickedboy calls it ). J.K. wrote that Harry was able to produce the Patronus, and that it was powerful enough to drive all those dementors away. But even though J.K. assigned Harry that power and ability, the achievement is still his. Because J.K. had already written a Harry who was focused, determined, and skilled enough to pull it off. The achievement -- producing the Patronus, and repelling the dementors -- was a direct result of Harry's previous actions: thus, it is believable that Harry could do it.

But his OWL grades are not a direct result of anything Harry says or does. Sure, we saw him studying. But we never see Harry's actual exams. We are given a few of his HoM and Astronomy exam questions, but, for the most part, we don't know what the test questions were, and we certainly don't know what Harry's answers were. And I seriously doubt J.K. knows either. I'm sure she didn't waste her time writing up actual exams, and then writing in "Harry's" answers to the questions. Instead, she just decided what his grades were. It wasn't a totally arbitrary decision, because it was based on Harry's prior performance in the books. She couldn't have decided that he gets all Os, because that wouldn't have been believable. But still, the grades weren't a direct result of anything Harry did. They were the grades J.K. wanted him to have.

Yes, you're a teenager, and look how much time and effort you have obviously put into planning your future. Does Harry ever show signs of have any such plans?

It's not the number of ambitions you have, it's the time and effort you spend thinking about and working on them. And Harry spends absolutely zero time thinking about his career, until Moody suggests he be an Auror. Has there ever been a teenager in existence who never gave his future one single thought, until the ripe old age of 14?

No, they're not. Because -- except for the Lupin example -- they come from nowhere. They bear no relation to Harry's past experiences. People's behaviors and attitudes are a direct result of their life experiences. But nothing affects or changes Harry, and thus, his emotions and actions don't come from him. When you ask yourself, "Why? Why does Harry do that? Why does he feel that way?" there's never an answer in his past. His feelings seem arbitrarily assigned to him, instead of the result of anything in his past.

And I think one of the main reasons for this is that Harry doesn't really have a past. Besides the Dursleys' neglect, and a handful of childhood experiences described in Books 1 and 5, Harry's past is a total blank. So there isn't much to base his present thoughts and actions on.

Again, I ask: Does he have any beliefs and goals at the beginning of the series, that changed by the end? For that matter, does he have any beliefs or personal goals (not his career goal) at all? Is his outlook on life any different at the end of the series? In fact, what is his outlook on life? Does he have one? What aspects of his personality, exactly, show how he was affected by his time with the Dursleys, or by anything else? Are there any passages or quotes that display any particular world view, any set of beliefs and ideals, any personal desires or motivations?

I suggest that J.K. have written Harry to have a more active role in Book 7, instead of spending the whole book waiting around to be told what to do, and being saved/helped by miraculous luck, or other people's hard work. At the very least, I suggest J.K. have written the final chapters so that Harry himself works out that he's supposed to die, instead of needing Snape to simply tell him. Perhaps DD was able to figure out most of the solution, but needed Harry to put together the missing pieces.

Ok, I thought you just meant he should have been more proactive after he saw Snape's memories in The Prince's Tale. That he should have gone off and found an alternative solution to destroy the piece of Voldemort's soul inside him.

But yeah, I'd agree that I would have liked him to have known a bit more about what had to be done to destroy the horcruxes. I basically agree with what Ron's reasons for leaving Harry and Hermione halfway through the campign trip.

The thing about Harry's walk into the Forest, is that he hasn't chosen it himself to do that, at no point whatsoever. He learns that this is what needs to be done, and just accepts it (however he may have felt then), and does it. But he never ever chose to do it, he just displays his feelings about this fact, about learning that he has to do it, but he doesn't actually choose to do it. He's merely executing it.