An epic
hero is a hero that participates in a cyclical journey or quest, faces
adversaries that try to defeat him in his journey, gathers allies along his
journey, and returns home significantly by his journey. The epic hero illustrates traits,
performs deeds, and exemplifies certain morals that are valued by the society
from which the epic originates. They usually embody cultural and religious
beliefs of the people. Epic heroes have no superpowers but they're smart,
brave, and have fears but overcome them to protect their friends, families, and
countries. An epic hero can also be a warrior of some sort who performs
extraordinary tasks that most find difficult. This hero is loyal, smart, and
brave.
Harry is an epic hero because he
goes through many challenges on his journey to find and destroy the horcrux’s
made by Tom Marvolo Riddle, better known as Voldemort or the Dark Lord. At the
end of his journey he finally found his ‘home’ of peace and tranquility as the
last sentence of the book was, “The scar had not pained Harry for nineteen
years. All is well” (Rowling 759). He gets ostracized as being “the boy who
lived” and has to deal with people wanting to try and destroy him. He may not
fear much as he fears dementors which is fear itself. He is a powerful wizard
and will use his abilities to protect anyone in need. He is loyal, brave, and
intelligent in many occasions.
Though he does have a sort of ‘superpower’,
it being the ability to produce magic out of a wand, he is an epic hero for
what he accomplishes; the rid of the Dark Lord. After having Death Eaters, evil
werewolves, and all powerful (besides Dumbledore and Harry of course) wizards
that want him dead, he survives the challenges faced with his two companions,
Ron Weasly and Hermione Granger. They help him fight the battles and take the
load of saving the world partially off his shoulders, seeing as he is the only
one who can defeat him, without the help from his best friends. Although Ron did
leave them after a fit of rage, he pulled through and contributed to the end of
the evil wizard, Voldemort.
Harry demonstrates being
an epic hero (the whole book series) when he is told by Dumbledore in the
previous book, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, to go out and
find the remaining horcrux’s that need to be destroyed in order to defeat Voldemort.
A Horcrux is a powerful object in which a Dark wizard or witch had hidden a
fragment of his or her soul for the purpose of attaining immortality. To create
a horcrux you would need to kill a person. Voldemort had made seven of these
horcurx’s, a diary, a ring, a locket, a cup, a diadem, and a snake. Also he
accidentally made Harry his seventh when Harry was a baby because his curse on Harry
rebounded and struck him weakening him and splitting his soul as he had killed
Lily, Harry’s mom. Harry was protected by his mother’s love as she threw her
body between him and Voldemort. Harry uses his knowledge of horcrux’s and finds
and destroyed them, besides the ring because Dumbledore had already taken care
of that one and the diary since Harry had already destroyed that one in the
chamber of secrets in the second book, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets.
His quest had its bumps in
the road as they were caught by snatcher, followers of Voldemort. In the
beginning of the book they needed to transport Harry somewhere save as to keep
him safe and to do that they needed to leave false trails and seven different
Harry’s thanks to the polyjuice potion. Even with all of the precautions, he
still found Harry, but his attempt was in vain as Harry had escaped and the
journey began.
