I
think that Neville Longbottom is the character whose growth and development has
surprised me the most. From the very start of the series, I knew that Harry,
Ron, and Hermione were destined for great things, but Neville seemed initially
to just be a comic relief figure who was clumsy and unfortunate. Even in Book
One, when Neville wins points at the end of the year for standing up for his
friends, I thought that maybe this was just a small fluke. I never had the
expectation that he would grow up to be a strong and capable character, especially
when he admits so early on in the series that his family thought he might be a
squib. This continued for me well into Book Three with Harry’s comparisons of
Neville and Pettigrew. At this point, it really seemed that Neville, like
Pettigrew, had his circle of friends more because they were in close proximity
to one another rather than because they had actual things in common besides
being in the same house and class. Still, at this point in the series, it didn’t
seem to me that Neville would ever actually “fit in” seamlessly with the other
Gryffindors. However, Book Four was the beginning for me of seeing Neville
develop well as a character and start to grow up. First, there is his notable achievement
in the subject of Herbology. Neville is rather sub-par in most of his subjects,
so I think that the fact that he found a subject that he excelled in helped him
to start believing in himself in other aspects in life. This continues on in
Book Five when he joins Dumbledore’s Army to learn defense against the dark
arts. Neville actually begins to learn and do well when he is in a
non-traditional class setting. This shows that his abilities at Herbology are
not a fluke. While he does not always seem to be grasping concepts because of
his social anxiety, Neville is clearly a very capable wizard when in the right
setting, such as the D.A. meetings. Then, by the end of Book Five, Neville
completely astounded me when he did something heroic by insisting on
accompanying the others to fight Voldemort and the Death Eaters at the Ministry
of Magic. If you would have asked me in Books One through Three whether or not
Neville would be brave enough to fight alongside Harry and others by Book Five,
I would have laughed, but Neville believable progressed to that point in this
series. I think that he exemplifies the theme of the coming-of-age story in
this series because, at least in my opinion, he had further to go than the
others when it comes to learning to display the qualities of Gryffindors. While
Harry, Ron, and Hermione all show a lot of bravery in every book, Neville had
to really learn how to be brave. Also, Neville’s story touches on the theme of
the aftermath of trauma. We learn a lot in Books Four and Five about Neville’s
personal family history. He, like Harry and Voldemort, was forced to grow up
without his parents. He psychologically has to deal with living in his father’s
shadow until the beginning of Book Six when it is revealed that his grandmother
finally seems proud of him after his involvement with the Ministry kerfuffle
the previous year. I think that Neville’s story shows that he really has been a
stronger character than I ever believed even in the earlier books because he
had to deal with such a horrible tragedy at such a young age and yet he seems
emotionally stable. He, like Harry and unlike Voldemort, learned to rise above
his tragedy and still find goodness in the world.
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