Harry, as Necratoid pointed out, does fit the classical definition of hero for the first five books. I do notice, though, that you did not list anything for books five and six, which is the time when he should be fighting the main villain. This, I think is what tends to color people's opinions of Harry so much. When he should have been confronting Voldemort, he took too long, and when he finally did, he won because of an improbable series of lucky coincidences. (Him surviving the Killing Curse again, Voldemort deciding not bring the body back to Hogwarts with him intact, and especially the Elder Wand mastery thing. If anyone had defeated Draco before Harry, which wasn't unlikely, the whole thing wouldn't have worked, and if Voldemort had decided that it would more demoralizing for the defenders to see Harry's head on a pike, well, that's that.)
Part of the problem as I see it was that Rowling had Voldemort make so many horcruxes. The reason that I think most villains don't usually have more than one or two soul keystones is because it is usually boring to tell a story about a scavenger hunt, and so the hero can dramatically destroy it in front of the villain. Personally, I think Rowling should have had someone give a prophecy containing vague clues to the horcruxes, so at least we as readers can see that they aren't wandering aimlessly, watch them struggle to figure out the clues, and fall into traps because of misinterpretations, instead of wandering into them based on a hunch.
As it was, the last two books, where Harry should have been reaching the top of his game, and being the hero we had seen hints of in the earlier books, instead had Harry trusting everything to faith and luck, and winning because of that, and not anything he intentionally did. When most people think of the question: "Was Harry a hero?", their minds will jump to what is usually a hero's defining moment, when he faces down his greatest foe, which unfortunately was a moment when Harry completely failed, and only won due to sheer luck. He didn't even try to use any sort of spell,which if not for his luck regarding the whole wand mastery thing, which was introduced earlier that book and had never even been alluded to prior to that as best I can recall, would have resulted in his death, and Voldemort's victory.
-----
Stand between the Silver Crystal and the Golden Sea.
"Youngsters these days just have no appreciation for the magnificence of the legendary cucumber." --Krityan Elder, Tales of Vesperia.
Part of the problem as I see it was that Rowling had Voldemort make so many horcruxes. The reason that I think most villains don't usually have more than one or two soul keystones is because it is usually boring to tell a story about a scavenger hunt, and so the hero can dramatically destroy it in front of the villain. Personally, I think Rowling should have had someone give a prophecy containing vague clues to the horcruxes, so at least we as readers can see that they aren't wandering aimlessly, watch them struggle to figure out the clues, and fall into traps because of misinterpretations, instead of wandering into them based on a hunch.
As it was, the last two books, where Harry should have been reaching the top of his game, and being the hero we had seen hints of in the earlier books, instead had Harry trusting everything to faith and luck, and winning because of that, and not anything he intentionally did. When most people think of the question: "Was Harry a hero?", their minds will jump to what is usually a hero's defining moment, when he faces down his greatest foe, which unfortunately was a moment when Harry completely failed, and only won due to sheer luck. He didn't even try to use any sort of spell,which if not for his luck regarding the whole wand mastery thing, which was introduced earlier that book and had never even been alluded to prior to that as best I can recall, would have resulted in his death, and Voldemort's victory.
-----
Stand between the Silver Crystal and the Golden Sea.
"Youngsters these days just have no appreciation for the magnificence of the legendary cucumber." --Krityan Elder, Tales of Vesperia.