Right! thank you both, Ginevra and Horridporrid. This is, after all, supposed to be a story about a boy (1) fighting evil and (2) growing up. If you are to grow to maturity and fight evil effectively, you *must* question. There is no other way to make that journey. Because evil must be fought first of all in our hearts and minds, and Harry doesn't do it. He consistently and repeatedly scapegoats others (mostly Snape) and externalizes evil. To expect an inner journey, as well as a lot of videogame-style action, is not unreasonable, and it's not looking for Barney the dinosaur.

To take one recent example, the Bartimaeus trilogy were not Barney. The Harry Potter books come much closer to being so, IMO.