I adored CAPSLOCK!Harry too! Whenever someone says he was irritating, I feel like yelling YES, THAT'S THE WHOLE POINT! (no visual pun intended) Of course he was irritating and dickish and moronic -- that's what fifteen year olds are, especially when they're under enormous pressure, are suffering from trauma, and almost everyone around them is distant and/or sneering at them. And that's why when this fifteen year old was put into adult circumstances he's not mature enough to handle, the results were so emotionally overwhelming and eventually tragic. And when the fifteen-year-old in question comes from a neglectful family who forced him to keep all his emotions bottled up as simmering resentment and cynicism, of course his outbursts are going to be of rage, not weeping and shivering and woobiness. I tell you, I have never, ever, ever been so able to feel the sincerity and immediacy of a fictional character's thoughts and emotions as vividly as I felt Harry's in OotP.

In that book, I could feel and understand and empathize with every thought Harry had and line he said, and absolutely adored every moment of his assholish, irritable, rage-suppressing, whiny, narrow-minded, idiotic, explosive, sarcastic, passive-aggressive, impulsive, constantly-screaming douchebaggery.

In spite of his completely atypical circumstances and the fact that the book couldn't explicitly describe any sexual thoughts, he was the most believable fifteen-year-old I've ever read.