Character goals and story goals

Lately, I’ve been running across a lot of “goals” writing advice – the sort that wants me to decide on my characters’ goals for the story, chapter, or scene before I sit down to write it. Preferably all three, and of course, the scene/chapter goal should get the character closer to the story goal.

What got me particularly interested in this were several posts by different advisors. The first stated firmly that “From the very start, Harry Potter’s main goal is always to defeat Voldemort.” The sec...