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A comic page; see below for a transcript

Past Harry stands outside Hagrid's hut, facing away from it.
PRESENT HARRY: I should have destroyed that hut. I should have burnt it to the ground! that place where one man's good name is more important than ten years of abuse! { pause } I was too weak. { pause } Instead, I ran and hid, in an unused room I'd found where there as a strange mirror that reflected everything except for me.

Past Harry stands in a dark room, facing a tall, ornate, tinted mirror. There is an unreadable inscription on its frame. There's a table nearby, which is reflected in the mirror. Harry is touching the mirror with two fingers, but those fingers are not reflected.

PRESENT HARRY: And then...

DUMBLEDORE'S VOICE { from off-page }: Ah, Harry, I thought I might find you here.

PAST HARRY: You!!!

(hide transcript)

(content warning: depicts child abuse, cartoon blood.)

(content warning: depicts attempted suicide.)

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encourage me

Usually, if a character destroyed a building in a fit of rage, we'd consider that to be a character flaw. Here, Harry considers the fact that ze didn't do that to be a character flaw!

If a character does something that you think is a bad idea, but they disagree and think it was fine, then it's not “a character flaw”, it's just “somebody doing something you don't like”.

I personally don't find the concept of “character flaws” to be a useful concept, in general. Categorizing people's attributes into “good” and “bad” is an oversimplification that doesn't really help me understand either the attributes or the people. I sometimes simplify things when I'm trying to decide what to do in real life, but when I'm building a story, the important thing to do is to understand deeply.

Approximate readability: 10.96 (610 characters, 137 words, 6 sentences, 4.45 characters per word, 22.83 words per sentence)

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Comments

Untamable Spirit · December 12, 2014 · Permalink · Reply

YES! I love that Harry sees not destroying Hagrid's hut as a character flaw, not that it's inherently bad to hold yourself back from something like that, but Harry clearly does not want to hold zemself back in this case. Harry's inability to bring zemself to react the way ze wants to is clearly preventing Harry from doing what ze wants to do. I'm really glad you brought up the distinction between something being an actual flaw that prevents the character from accomplishing their goals and something that you just don't think they should do. Of course, a lot of people will read this scene and think that it's a character flaw that Harry considers it a character flaw that ze couldn't burn down Hagrid's hut, so I'm glad you addressed that in the notes :-)