There were so many missed opportunities here. Like much of the rest of the series, JKR set up something really interesting, and then wimped out on following through.
For instance: if Snape is so horrible, then shouldn't Harry eventually grow to the point that he notices McGonagall is actually quite similar overall, but isn't specifically focused on Harry? (Neville might have noticed more similarities...) That plenty of people Harry likes say just as many thoughtless or nasty things, or have prejudices, or hold grudges? This would require actually interrogating what all this means. Decide to let everyone off the hook, including Snape, because turns out everyone does it? Decide to condemn everyone as lost causes? Try to work out the exact proportions of each person's guilt? Try to figure out what actually does the most harm (e.g., not just "am I the target or not," but "is this action actually worse/aimed at a more vulnerable target/etc.")? Decide since everyone's hopeless, he should just judge based on whether he likes someone or they're nice to him personally?
And if he decides at least some of this behavior is truly harmful, whether perpetrated by Snape or by his friends... then what? We never do get that next step in the series. I mean, it's not like I expect to see Harry researching child psychology and developing a new Hogwarts teacher training program (...though someone really should), or dedicating his life to preventing school bullying. But it sure would have been nice if he'd really, truly noticed that he'd unfairly overlooked McGonagall's flaws as a teacher and administrator because she didn't focus much on him personally, or that maybe the Twins were just as awful--or worse--to someone else as any Slytherin bullies ever were to Harry. And if he'd at least felt a little differently about people once he realized these things. And if this had influenced the plot, which by DH dearly needed something other than "it's in the script" to keep it going and didn't get it! Remember how supposedly the Aurors got as cruel as anyone on the "dark side" in the first war? What if Harry had to face up to members of Team Harry, people he liked, being just as cruel and harmful as anyone he was fighting? What should he do then?
But he never had to face such a dilemma. And he kept his double standards well intact. JKR just wimped out in so many ways at the end of the series. She raised issues like the Marauders just maybe being awful people, and wizards treating other intelligent species and Muggles like second-class citizens (or worse), and Dumbledore being ridiculously untrustworthy, and Harry learning to enjoy causing pain enough to Cruciate properly, and then just... dropped them. Not in a way that implied life was complicated and not everything could be fixed instantly, just as if these problems never existed in the first place, were were retroactively no big deal. So disappointing.
Harry could have realised not paying attention in History hurt him. In DH having to make a deal for the sword with the Goblins - thinking if I had listened I would know the history of Goblins and how to approach them.
Or thinking about how fake Moody fooled him, realizing someone could pretend to be on your side, yet really working against you.
Oh, yes. Don't even get me started on how this series stomps all over the idea of history as something that matters. (And, you know, an actual discipline where it takes a lot of work to research and piece together fragmentary and contradictory sources and you will never have the One True Answer to most questions...) For having a plot that depends so much on stuff that happened in the past, the books really go out of their way to spit on history.
You'd think being tricked by Fake Moody for a whole year would have been a good wake-up call to be careful. Apparently not...
For instance: if Snape is so horrible, then shouldn't Harry eventually grow to the point that he notices McGonagall is actually quite similar overall, but isn't specifically focused on Harry? (Neville might have noticed more similarities...) That plenty of people Harry likes say just as many thoughtless or nasty things, or have prejudices, or hold grudges? This would require actually interrogating what all this means. Decide to let everyone off the hook, including Snape, because turns out everyone does it? Decide to condemn everyone as lost causes? Try to work out the exact proportions of each person's guilt? Try to figure out what actually does the most harm (e.g., not just "am I the target or not," but "is this action actually worse/aimed at a more vulnerable target/etc.")? Decide since everyone's hopeless, he should just judge based on whether he likes someone or they're nice to him personally?
And if he decides at least some of this behavior is truly harmful, whether perpetrated by Snape or by his friends... then what? We never do get that next step in the series. I mean, it's not like I expect to see Harry researching child psychology and developing a new Hogwarts teacher training program (...though someone really should), or dedicating his life to preventing school bullying. But it sure would have been nice if he'd really, truly noticed that he'd unfairly overlooked McGonagall's flaws as a teacher and administrator because she didn't focus much on him personally, or that maybe the Twins were just as awful--or worse--to someone else as any Slytherin bullies ever were to Harry. And if he'd at least felt a little differently about people once he realized these things. And if this had influenced the plot, which by DH dearly needed something other than "it's in the script" to keep it going and didn't get it! Remember how supposedly the Aurors got as cruel as anyone on the "dark side" in the first war? What if Harry had to face up to members of Team Harry, people he liked, being just as cruel and harmful as anyone he was fighting? What should he do then?
But he never had to face such a dilemma. And he kept his double standards well intact. JKR just wimped out in so many ways at the end of the series. She raised issues like the Marauders just maybe being awful people, and wizards treating other intelligent species and Muggles like second-class citizens (or worse), and Dumbledore being ridiculously untrustworthy, and Harry learning to enjoy causing pain enough to Cruciate properly, and then just... dropped them. Not in a way that implied life was complicated and not everything could be fixed instantly, just as if these problems never existed in the first place, were were retroactively no big deal. So disappointing.
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Or thinking about how fake Moody fooled him, realizing someone could pretend to be on your side, yet really working against you.
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You'd think being tricked by Fake Moody for a whole year would have been a good wake-up call to be careful. Apparently not...
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