Resolving the wrong story problem

[sunnyskywalker]

Film Crit Hulk’s essay “Black Widow and the Latent Last Act Blues” has some interesting thoughts about story beginnings and endings and how they work together to provide catharsis. (I haven’t yet seen Black Widow, but the essay makes sense anyway, so don’t worry if you haven’t either unless you care about spoilers.) He thinks the beginning of the movie is pretty great in isolation, but doesn’t properly set up the end, which makes the emotional resolutions at the end feel tacked-on and lackluster.

“that’s supposed to be the big lesson that’s at the heart of everything, right? And we genuinely do get the sentiment / fallout of it, but we’re still missing the most important thing that makes us care for it. Because there isn’t that first act thing where we experience the heartbreak of that along with them. […] ‘What is the thing they can do at the end of the movie that they couldn’t do at the beginning?’”

And this helped me crystalize one of my main problems with Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. Now, there are a lot of problems with that book. The one I’m going to focus on here is Harry’s resigned march to his death. There are a lot of problems with this scene too — and I think one of them is that it wasn’t set up properly.

This is where one of the main themes of the whole series reaches its climax: that you have to accept death, not try to fight it forever. But…did Harry need to learn that lesson?

Voldemort, yes. Dumbledore, yes. But Harry? He accepted his own death multiple times already, starting with the time seven years ago he clung to Quirrelmort to stop him at any cost. Not to mention that time in the fifth book when he was starting to look on the bright side of death and reassuring himself that he’d see Sirius and his parents again soon. No, Harry never really struggled with the idea of dying. He reliably rushed into danger he wasn’t sure he would survive from start to finish, and was explicitly resigned to dying, even eager, when it seemed inevitable, years before his (temporary) death.

And that makes his suicide march feel a lot more manipulative. Yes, it’s sad that a teenager who should have his whole life ahead of him is about to die. But we haven’t seen him struggling against a fear of death until that point, so it doesn’t resolve a character arc and doesn’t provide catharsis. It’s just depressing.

How might this climax have been set up better? I can think of a bunch of possibilities, some better than others. You’d need to add enough of these, or other scenarios which serve the same purpose, to make it clear that Harry is sufficiently afraid of dying that he might not be able to knowingly march to his death even to save the world. Preferably, his attempts to avoid dying would have caused him or someone else significant trouble at least once.

• Harry could have wondered if there was a way to make the philosopher’s stone produce the Elixir of Life really quickly so he could survive Voldemort’s second attempt to kill him, or tried to keep it from Voldemort partly so he could use it himself, or felt disappointed that he wouldn’t get any Elixir as a reward afterward.


• Tom could have offered to spare Ginny if Harry would volunteer to die in her place, and Harry might have hesitated. Then the Hat-and-Fawkes intervention spared him from making the choice, or he realized that Tom wouldn’t keep his promise anyway. But it could have left Harry wondering if he could knowingly choose death.


• He could have tried to convince Hermione to give him the time-turner and pretend she’d lost it during the adventure, or outright tried to steal it, in case he ever needed it to escape death. I mean, suppose he hadn’t realized in time that he had cast the Patronus that saved past-him and past-Sirius? Then he’d need a time-turner to get that time, wouldn’t he? So he’d better hang onto it in case he runs into similar situations.


• He could have ducked behind Cedric in the graveyard. It might not technically matter since Peter would have aimed at Cedric regardless, but it would show a fear of death.


• He could have delayed reporting Nagini’s attack on Arthur because he was worried about getting the Dementor’s Kiss as punishment — long enough that Arthur died.


• He could have lost his nerve after years of mortal peril and decided not to rescue Sirius, only to be talked into it by his friends.


• He could have started wondering if this Prince fellow had left any notes on alchemy. Could Harry learn to make a philosopher’s stone so that he would never need to die?


• He could have stood frozen and silent under his invisibility cloak while Snape killed Dumbledore not because he was magically Petrified, but because he was too scared to act.


• He could have been tempted to search for the Hallows rather than the Horcruxes so that he could become Master of Death and, you know, not die in the fight against Voldemort. Or ever.


• He could have been tempted to use Hermione’s pilfered Horcrux books and his window into Voldemort’s mind to learn how to make a Horcrux. Only so that he could survive to kill Voldemort, honest. Would it be so very wrong if his victim wasn’t an innocent one? Maybe he could ambush Yaxley in Grimmauld Place…

Alternatively, with different set-up, the emotional climax and the meaning of the suicide march could have been different. Harry could have had a problem letting other people knowingly sacrifice themselves, overcome this problem in time to let Snape do so, and then (after learning the full truth) truly understood how those other people felt when he discovered it was his turn to die. He might have sneaked off alone specifically so that his friends wouldn’t suffer the way he did in their places, and hoped Ron and Hermione would feel that he was always with him the way the shades from the Resurrection Stone were with him as he went to meet Voldemort.

As it is, Harry usually tried to prevent other people’s deaths, grieved when they died, and sometimes didn’t want to believe someone had really died — but he didn’t have plot-affecting trouble letting others risk or sacrifice their lives. So what might set up this alternative?

• He could have tried to stop Ron from sacrificing himself on the giant chess board, leading to Ron getting an even worse clonk on the head than he otherwise would have. Hermione would drag Harry away, arguing that “Snape” (who they thought was the thief) would kill them all on his way out of the maze if he got the stone and became immortal, so the only way to save Ron was to stop “Snape” first.


• Voldemort could have tempted Harry with the idea that the Elixir of Life could bring back his parents. Then when Dumbledore later explained that Lily died to save Harry, we’d wonder if bringing her back — if that were possible, because of course we wouldn’t trust Voldemort’s promises, but maybe there was some other way — would destroy the magical protection.


• He could have wondered why, if they could use the time-turner to save Buckbeak and Sirius (and himself), no one used a time-turner to save his parents.


• He could have tried to keep Hermione’s time-turner in case he needed it to save other people.


• He could have fantasized about having a time-turner to save Cedric, or tried to run back to the time room in the Department of Mysteries to get one to save Sirius from the Veil, or to warn himself and Dumbledore to land anywhere but the Astronomy Tower.


• Voldemort’s false vision could have been that Sirius had allowed himself to be captured — for a strategic reason, or because it would save someone else, or whatever. Harry couldn’t bear the idea of letting Sirius choose to sacrifice himself and rushed off to save him — which led to Sirius putting himself in fatal danger for real.


• Harry could have tried harder to run through the Veil after Sirius — close enough to have a noticeable effect. Maybe his bangs made it through and something happened to them.


• He could have wondered if he could learn to make a philosopher’s stone so that no one he loved would ever die again.


• Maybe he could have escaped the Astronomy Tower before the Death Eaters arrived but chose to stay and “protect” the weakened Dumbledore, which led to him witnessing Snape kill Dumbledore, which meant that instead of everyone thinking Draco or the Carrows or Greyback killed Dumbledore, Snape’s cover was blown and he couldn’t pass the Order vital information anymore. Which would get someone killed.


• He could have tried to stop someone from jumping in front of a Killing Curse to save him during the Seven Potters battle…which would go badly wrong and lead only to someone else getting hit by the curse. Saving Hagrid only to lose Moody, maybe.


• He could have thought that the Horcrux hunt might fail without Remus’s help for some reason, but shamed Remus into staying home with his family because it seemed safer for all of them. At some point on the quest he’d realize that Remus would have been able to provide critical help and they wouldn’t be in such dire straits if only he’d let Remus decide for himself what risk was acceptable.


• He could have been seriously torn between joining the fighting at Hogwarts to save people in immanent danger and finding the diadem to save people in the future.


• He could have realized that Snape was deliberately withholding the truth about who disarmed Dumbledore from Voldemort, saving Draco at the cost of his own life. And wanted to interfere, but forced himself not to because he was finally learning his lesson. Though this wouldn’t work very well, because if Snape died without passing on his final memories, they probably would have lost — and Harry had no way of knowing Snape had critical information to pass on or that Snape would live long enough after Voldemort left to do so. Kind of a muddled message.

What would you add to these lists?

Can you see other story problems the existing ending could have resolved if only they had been set up properly?

What about suggestions for a different spin on the ending or different ending altogether that resolves the existing story problems to that point? For that matter, what do you see as the problems Harry has to resolve in the story as it stands?

Comments

[chantaldormand]

I 100% agree with you here- Rowling failed to set up things properly for a satisfying payoff during DH. I think a combination of elements you mentioned would make for an interesting story- Harry having heroic moments where he is ready to die but after he cools down he panics over his actions because now that adrenaline is out of his system he realises he could have died. With a lack of proper support from adults in his life and his friends not being prepared for handling these kinds of problems it would be an ongoing not resolved problem for many books.

I have another situation you can add to both lists: Have Harry learn about being Horcrux early. After all it's one thing to be brave in a moment, but when you know you are about to die in the near (but not too near) future it's harder to be ok with it. Especially when your life was more about surviving than living. Maybe the trio overheard something in HBP they weren't supposed to overhear and after the wedding with help of some diagnostic spell from books about Horcruxes they figure it out. Maybe Severus pissed off Voldemort early in DH and got killed, but he had set up Dead's Man Switch that made sure vial with his memories would end up in Harry's hands. Maybe Severus realised he really isn't ok with Dumbledore's plan and wanted to give kids advantage by anonymously sending them memories.

And then Harry realises he isn't as ok with dying as he thought- instead of those empty months where he obsesses over Hallows, he is trying to figure out how to destroy the Horcrux without killing himself. Or maybe he is afraid that Voldemort won't destroy the Horcrux when he kills Harry- after all according to everything the trio knows about Horcruxes the vessel of Horcrux needs to be destroyed to destroy the Horcrux. And Voldemort loves killing people with AK- spell famous for not leaving any trace on the victim. And he is afraid that after his death Horcrux will take over his body and kill/hurt his friends.

(on side note I always wondered why after PS Harry either didn't end up with strong fear of touching anyone or went out of his way to touch every "evil person" in hopes they either would stay away from him or burn like Quirrellmort)

[arjanenl]

Thinking of it, a Harry knowing he’s a Horcrux but fearing the vessel needs to be destroyed may have acted very differently in the Room of Requirements in Deathly Hallows: for once, he has in Crabbe an opponent who would gladly kill him by destroying his body. Letting himself get taken down along with Ravenclaw’s Diadem could be tempting.

[sunnyskywalker]

Ooh, yes, that would have added another layer of tension. Will Harry choose the right time and way to die?

And it would have been extra wrenching if he realized that maybe in theory there was a way to get the soul-bit out without dying...but he doesn't have it. Dumbledore either failed or wasted the years he could have been researching that, Harry hadn't figured it out in a few months with limited resources, and now Voldemort is holding the school hostage. He's out of time. He shouldn't have had to die, but now he does. It's not fair!

[chantaldormand]

It would also work well with doubting Dumbledore we briefly see in DH. On better days Harry thinks that suerly Dumbledore ran out of time or resources, he is a busy man and Harry isn't his only responsibility. On bad days he starts to think that maybe Dumbledore set him up. Works extra nasty if he starts to ponder on his OotP post-MoM raid talk about prophecy. Extra points if Harry needs for de-Horcruxify a rare magical ingredient that Albus could easily get- like Phoenix's blood freely given.

Also depending on how you handle the knowledge you can get interesting and highly emotional scenes. If Hr&R don't know Harry is Horcrux and he starts to try to end himself rightly you get tug-o-war where Hr&R do their best to save their reckless friend and Harry grows increasingly frustrated with them. Or if they know and Harry manages to convince them it's the only way. Only for them to realise they can't do it, they can't force themselves to murder their best friend in cold blood.

You can also have panicked Harry think- even if for just a moment- that maybe he can bargain with Voldemort to back down. That Tom wouldn't risk one of his Horcruxes. And maybe, just maybe Harry could come out of this war alive...

[sunnyskywalker]

Those all sound like great dramatic scenarios.

[sunnyskywalker]

Harry learning he's a Horcrux earlier could have been great. That would actually make sense of his sudden obsession with finding the Hallows--maybe if he collects them all, he can de-Horcruxify himself without dying! He spent ten years sleeping in a cupboard and trying to be invisible; now he wants to live. And if his friends don't know, that would make Hermione telling him to forget the Hallows and focus on the Horcrux hunt extra painful. She'd be right based on what she knew, but what she didn't know would make all the difference.

The more stories I read, the more I agree that authors usually shouldn't hold back so much information in hopes of surprising us. It's much better when we have almost all the information. Then we have more to worry about, and that final surprise does an even better job of yanking the rug out from under us because we thought we had things figured out and were horribly wrong.

Hah, yeah, why didn't Harry start wearing his quidditch gloves around so he wouldn't accidentally crispify his classmates? Wait, never mind. He doesn't care about his classmates. He should have been trying to grab Umbridge, though. The whole school would have sworn to the Aurors that Harry had nothing to do with Umbridge somehow turning into a pile of ash. Nope, he was in a totally different part of the castle, honest! Then he gets a chance to try it when Hermione leads Umbridge into the forest...and nothing happens. Uh-oh. You do actually have a plan, right, Hermione?

[chantaldormand]

I can't remember who said it but as a general rule of thumb, you shouldn't out of nowhere bring up such big revelations unless they are properly foreshadowed and there is a point to the revelation. But I think there is another issue that in DH rubbed you the wrong way. HP books from start have mystery elements: What is behind the mysterious doors? Who is the Slytherin's Heir? Who is the Half-Blood Prince? But in DH I feel like we are missing this element. Yeah, Harry doesn't know what Voldemort's other Horcruxes are and where to find them, but I feel like kids this time didn't earn their scout badge in this department.

Harry realising he wants to live after multiple books where he walks straight into deadly situations like sheep lead to slaughterhouse would be powerful. And if he still does a suicide march while internally strugling- because he wants to live but can't let his loved ones be killed would nicely tie up sacrifices theme and line up with nonsense Albus spouted in OotP about Harry's special power being love.

Another thing that has been rattling in my brain for the past few weeks is Basilisc venom and Phoenix tears Harry has been injected in CoS. A very rare powerful magical substances that I don't think are well-researched.I find it curious that only a few months before Harry gets bitten we see the first on-screen spell casted by Harry, but about a month (?) after CoS Harry performs powerful accidental magic and a year later he casts Patronus capable of chasing away a hundred of Dementors. Could either Phoenix tears alone or combined with Basilisc venom boost someone's magic? Is this why Voldemort supposedly is afraid of Albus?

[sunnyskywalker]

Maybe Chekhov's Gun? It's often summarized as "don't fire a gun in Act 3 if it wasn't hanging over the mantel in Act 1" (i.e., set it up properly so it doesn't come out of nowhere). I think the original was something more like, "Don't have a gun over the mantel in Act 1 if no one is thinking of firing it," which is more about including only details relevant to character motivation. Both versions are useful for thinking about these books!

It would also finally make use of Dumbledore's comment about doing what is right rather than what is easy. As it is, Harry was in despair and resigned and didn't fight walking to his death. It wasn't exactly easy, but it was probably the easiest thing he could do at that point. But if he'd desperately wanted to live? And realized risking his life hadn't been that hard before because he never had time to think about it and kind of figured he'd survive somehow, but this time he really had to feel what he was losing? Ouch.

Really interesting thoughts about the basilisk venom and phoenix tears. Both very powerful and with few chances to study them, as you say--and how often are the two combined? And mixed with living human blood, too.

[chantaldormand]

I kind of want to see canon Harry dealing with his "death" after DH. Rowling pretty much swept whole problem under rug, but fuck I can't imagine the sheer amount of trauma in preparing for your own death so other people can live, and then suddenly being alive and everybody wanting something from you.

That feels like the perfect sequel for HP series if DH didn't include the ill-fitting epilogue.

[sunnyskywalker]

Now I kind of want a version where it's like Babylon 5 and what you think will be the big climactic battle happens in the middle of the series. Harry dies and returns and Voldemort dies for good, yay--but there are three books to go! What now? (Probably Harry thinks the Ministry is now his main enemy, only to discover that they are a secondary enemy and Dumbledore is behind the biggest problems. Not least because oh yeah, remember how Dumbledore's also Chief Warlock of the Wizengamot as well as the boss of the entire educational system? He isn't fighting The Man; he is the Man. Harry must team up with Snape, another person who's suffered grievously as Dumbledore's Man, obviously...) Rowling probably wouldn't have been able to pull this off, but it would be fascinating.

[chantaldormand]

The funny (and depressing) thing about HP books is you could easily have that- the way Jo wrote the first 4 books (or even 5, but I have a lot of issues with OotP) you could have easily ended Voldemort arc in OoTP and use two following books she was contracted for to defeat the true villain. After all, we already have Albus' shifty behaviour starting from the very beginning and in as early COS we can see that there is something very wrong with MOM

Writer could have in OotP, where Albus keeps his distance from Harry, have Harry start to question Albus' past actions. Why Albus in PS spent so much time in MOM that he only arrived to save Harry's ass? Surely, he knows how to apparate if Artur does. What exactly Dumbledore in COS meant by never truly leaving Hogwarts? etc. In beginning, Harry is in denial about what his subconsciousness tries to tell him and he focuses on the obvious enemy- the corrupted Ministry from which nobody is protecting him. Considering how skilled canon Harry is at denying reality, it probably would take Harry accidentally walking in on... maybe Severus doing something shifty and having an argument where both of them lose their temper?

I would love to read something like this. It's hard to find anti-Dumbledore ffs that don't have him to be a moustache-twirling villain, let alone well-written ffs with this premise.

[sunnyskywalker]

They're both so good at losing their tempers! That could work.

HARRY: I knew it! You've been behind shifty thing X all along!

SEVERUS: What are you talking about, you stupid boy? I'm trying to prevent X, as usual. The headmaster told me to do Y toward that end.

HARRY: But he told me you didn't even believe X was a problem.

BOTH: ...

There would have to be some telling detail neither of them could have known about unless Dumbledore told them to convince them that wait, he really did give them contradictory stories that would make them not trust each other. What's up with that?

It would be great if Harry went through the whole journey of "well maybe he doesn't mean to do anything wrong and doesn't realize and also he had a hard childhood and stuff," then realizes that may all be true but it doesn't stop Dumbledore from doing harm by using all of wizarding Britain to act out his psychodrama. Even if he's ultimately a victim himself, he still needs to be stopped.

[chantaldormand]

I think in this scenario Albus should be doing fucked up things with good intentions. After all, he was the one who said choices show who you are and I'm all for Dumbledore's past self-righteous speeches biting him in his ass. Also, it makes for a great ending to children/YA series.

[arjanenl]

I think he wouldn’t have tried it with Umbridge because that’s after Voldemort’s resurrection and demonstration that crispy Voldy is off the menu. He probably would have tried it with Sirius in Prisoner of Azkaban though. Or with Malfoy, senior or junior.

[sunnyskywalker]

Just because Voldemort's immune doesn't mean Umbridge is! He can hope, right? I mean, when you're desperate, you'll try even unlikely things.

But yeah, Harry grabbing Sirius in the Shrieking Shack to try to pull him off Ron and hopefully crispify him, only to find that nothing happened, would have been fun. Then later he'd go, "Ah, but he wasn't really trying to hurt me, so that's why it didn't work! Yep, definitely going to find an excuse to grab Malfoy ASAP. First Quidditch match we play against each other next year at the very latest..."

[chantaldormand]

“But why couldn’t Quirrell touch me?” “Your mother died to save you. If there is one thing Voldemort cannot understand, it is love. He didn’t realize that love as powerful as your mother’s for you leaves its own mark. Not a scar, no visible sign…to have been loved so deeply, even though the person who loved us is gone, will give us some protection forever. It is in your very skin. Quirrell, full of hatred, greed, and ambition, sharing his soul with Voldemort, could not touch you for this reason. It was agony to touch a person marked by something so good.” (direct quote from PS)

IMHO after this explanation, if I was Harry I would get touchy-feely with half of the school to know who I could trust. Which admittedly would lead to me being betrayed but that is on Albus and his explanation of the problem.

[arjanenl]

I think that a solution for J.K. Rowling would have been to, for once, take the focus away from Harry: put it on wizarding society at large. I mean, Harry’s pulling a suicide march and has never shown any concern with dying. Ok. That means a lesson of teaching acceptance of one’s eventual demise is off the table but she could still work with it: what about his friends? Dumbledore’s confidents? All those who “supported” Harry knowing the plan is for him to die? And more: what about the Order of the Phoenix? Dumbledore’s Army? The proverbial “man in the street” of Wizarding Britain? All those who are quite willing, when all is said and done, to have a teenager fight their battles? The realisation post Battle of Hogwarts could have been fodder for a lot of chapters. Hell, if one wants added irony — but I doubt Rowling would have been willing to countenance it — one could have a Death Eater widely seem as irredeemable like a Carrow raise the point and kick off the realisation. Well, them or someone like Crabbe senior.

[sunnyskywalker]

Yeah, she set up this whole scenario where everyone's counting on one teenager to save them, to the point of spending most of their time sitting around waiting for him to grow up enough to do something useful--and then didn't do much with it. Especially with Dumbledore, you have that real World War I vibe of old men sending boys to die for them.

Crabbe Sr. get lines? Surely not! It took his poor son seven whole books to get a couple of lines in a single scene! (Since Mottsnave's tongue-in-cheek one-shot The Dark Arts isn't canon, that is.)

[jana_ch]

I think part of the problem is JKR's fixation on courage on the be-all and end-all of virtues. She cannot allow her hero to be afraid of anything, even dying. Ron and Hermione can be afraid, Snape can be afraid, but our heroes Harry and Dumbledore are never truly afraid of anything. Even when Harry encounters Dementors he experiences the memory of his mother's fear of the Dark Lord, not his own. Harry, the Average Guy as Hero, is allowed to be foolish and incompetent, relying on luck and more intelligent friends, but he is never allowed to be afraid of genuine danger. He walks to his death feeling nothing at all, because the Chosen One must not feel fear.

[sunnyskywalker]

That's a really good point. Harry is brave, great! But then trying to focus the overarching story on overcoming a fear he didn't have in the first place means he has nowhere to go. I mean, imagine trying to pitch it that way. "A boy who isn't really afraid of anything has to overcome humanity's general fear of death--which again, he personally doesn't feel--to save the world." That's a pretty big structural problem.

Either he can have that particular fear even if he's brave in general, or he needs a different problem to resolve. Rowling could have portrayed courage as a necessary prerequisite to virtues Harry didn't yet have rather than making courage the only thing that mattered. Maybe some other characters have much better grasps of what the right thing to do is, but don't have the courage to do it, for contrast. Harry could learn it the other way around. And maybe use some of that courage to reach out to other people, form genuine connections, and learn to ask for help instead of trying to go everything alone?

[chantaldormand]

IMHO if Harry is never allowed to not be brave by design, then he should grow into being smart. Or at least that is what organically follows this kind of character, only the smart character slot is already filled by Hermione who solved her obvious character flaw when she told Harry all about rumours in girls' toilets.

But, oh no it would mean Hermione and Ron would have to grow even more than in canon, and that is too hard for Rowling to grasp. After all from what we see in the cursed play if you don't agree with Rowlings canon you might end up as cat lady public servant without any prospects for marriage... le gasp!

[sunnyskywalker]

She even laid some of the groundwork for that! One of the Dursleys' chief rules was "don't ask questions." Harry continues asking very few questions throughout the entire series as it stands, but that could have been a major conflict. Bad things would happen because he didn't ask questions, he'd try to start asking them only to do it badly and cause more bad things to happen, until finally he learned to not only ask good questions but to investigate them and figure out something that helps him defeat Voldemort.

Hermione's knowledge usually involves specific spells or potions, which in wizarding terms kind of makes her The Muscle, not The Brain. Except for that one time with Snape's logic puzzle. And Ron started off having some strategic thinking ability with his chess skill. Harry could have learned from them and vice-versa.

[chantaldormand]

How about we take a reverse look at the problem?

What kind of story fits the ending? If Harry never needed to conquer his fear of death, then what other obstacles organically he should tackle in DH?

[sunnyskywalker]

I think your idea of Harry learning to be smart could work. Or maybe frame it as "ask questions and think critically." This might involve him figuring out at least some of Dumbledore's plan and the Harrycrux problem before he gets Snape's infodump. Then he asks some questions the adults hadn't because they were all so locked into believing Dumbledore's explanations, and discovers something unexpected. He throws out everyone else's bound-to-fail plans and makes a new one, which works.

Learning to trust and work with others could have been good too. He struggled with that thanks to the Dursleys, and in the end he needed help to defeat Voldemort, so why not make that a real arc? Harry keeps not telling people things and trying to do heroic things alone, and sometimes it works but sometimes it goes catastrophically wrong. He makes progress when Hermione pushes him into leading the DA and he discovers he likes it, but then screws up badly when he disbands the group. Also he only used it to tell people stuff and did not learn to listen to them. Then he'd discover that even if he counts Hermione and Ron as basically his appendages, he still can't defeat Voldemort "alone." He needs a real team. Neville has spent the year creating one, and Harry needs to cooperate with him and at least a handful of other characters (preferably including at least one Slytherin!) to come up with a new plan. This requires not just telling them what he thinks, but listening to them and working out something that's the best of all their ideas. Then he has to rely on them to execute their parts of the plan. After the battle, he isn't alone.

Learning to stop equating good with "is nice to me" and evil with "doesn't like me" wouldn't hurt. He'd finally figure out that some people who flatter and agree with him are bad, actually. (Maybe Dumbledore saying that Petunia and Vernon have harmed Dudley makes Harry start thinking too. Because wait, wouldn't Dudley have reason to think his parents are great people if he judges solely by whether they always do what he wants? And yet they are not great...maybe not even for Dudley? Hmm...) Probably one of them betrays him. And some people who think he's a jerk are also trying their best to do the right thing (i.e., they are not the Dursleys and failing to give Harry his heart's desires is not necessarily terrible oppression) and he probably needs their help. He'd have to step back from his knee-jerk reactions and start looking at things like, "Do this person's actions usually lead to good outcomes? Do they seem to be acting based on principles, and do I agree with those principles?"

These aren't mutually exclusive. And I'm sure there are more possibilities. I'd love to hear more ideas!