Do you think harry is more similar to lily or James
thank you very much for the ask, anon!
i think the assessment of harry's character which dumbledore gives to snape in deathly hallows is more or less the correct one:
“He is his father over again -”
“In looks, perhaps, but his deepest nature is much more like his mother’s.”
which i think can be expanded upon really interestingly as an example of something which the series does really, really well - how it obscures the fact that lily is the key to the mystery right up until the last minute.
the things harry has in common with james - not only his looks, but his quidditch talent, his impulsivity, his disregard for the rules, his arrogance, his cunning, his beef with snape, his adoration of sirius, his belief that his uncle is faintly ridiculous, and his bold, flashy courage - are big and explicit and demonstrative, and the text lampshades that they're inherited from his father at every opportunity.
[and not only in how many characters mention that he looks like james. voldemort - for example - mentions james' demonstrative bravery - facing him "like a man" - every time he and harry interact; sirius and lupin never mention lily when discussing harry's personality, even when what they're talking about is how he's not like james.]
the text also goes out of its way to suggest that similarly big aspects of lily's character have not been inherited by her son - the most obvious example of which is that, in half-blood prince, the incandescent talent at potions which has slughorn raving about how like his mother harry is... is actually the result of harry cheating [and cheating from a textbook he's convinced for much of the book might have belonged to james].
the only thing the text emphasises again and again that harry has inherited from his mother are his eyes.
and - in doing this - the series is actually telling us something very clear about what it understands harry to have in common with lily.
eyes are a frequent motif throughout the text, which are almost always connected to the themes of authenticity and truth.
dumbledore's eyes give away his true feelings in goblet of fire - when the "gleam of something like triumph" comes into them after he learns that voldemort used harry's blood to resurrect himself - before serving as a metaphor for the way the information about the prophecy is being withheld from harry in order of the phoenix when he refuses to make eye contact with him.
[dumbledore's eyes also stop "twinkling" after voldemort returns, in a sign of how serious the situation - which the ministry never appreciates the full gravity of - is becoming.]
occlumency and legilimency - the obscuring and seeking of truth - depend on eye contact. the teenage tom riddle's eyes - with their gleam of red - give away his true depravity, even when he's still outwardly charming and beautiful. the teen snape sees the reason for his obsession with the marauders "wrenched from him against his will" at the force of lily's glare [and the adult snape frequently averts his own gaze from harry when he clearly doesn't want to risk seeing anger or pain in lily's eyes]. ginny's love for harry - her "never giving up" on him, her willingness to wait and endure while he goes off on the horcrux hunt - is communicated by a "blazing look". the basilisk kills by looking - but doesn't kill anyone in chamber of secrets, since the truth about the culprit isn't known. and so on...
which is to say - the series regards the eyes as the windows to the soul [an idea which is connected to a verse in chapter six of the gospel of matthew - the verse immediately preceding which, "for where your treasure is, there will your heart be also", is inscribed upon kendra and ariana dumbledore's graves] and to the true, inner nature of a person.
in mentioning again and again that harry looks like james except for his eyes, what the narrative is doing is hinting to the reader that harry's big, obvious, showy similarities with his father mustn't let them miss that the more subtle traits of his personality - his steadfastness, his quiet courage in the face of hopelessness, his ability to love so much it changes the entire course of history - come from his mother, and that what he inherits from lily will be much more important to the resolution of the story than the things he inherits from james.
this is a clue it plays with really nicely - particularly because harry doesn't really care at any point prior to the last third of deathly hallows about what he inherits from lily more than he cares about what he inherits from james.
we - as readers - go through his experience of learning that his mother is the key to the whole mystery in real time - when we join harry in snape's memories - and we walk into the forest with a harry who now knows the whole truth: that he's more like his mother than he's previously realised, and that he'll therefore be able to do the same thing that she did, and die so that others might live.
“You won’t be killing anyone else tonight,” said Harry as they circled, and stared into each other’s eyes, green into red. “You won’t be able to kill any of them ever again.”
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