Ranking The Harry Potter Books

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[lovelyldragon]

_"Put Prisoner of Azkaban at second to last"_
Harry Potter Fandom: *"So you have chosen...death"*

[moonyy]

When she said her favourite character is Lupin I legit had tears in my eyes because WOMAN GOT TASTE

[theog]

Everyone doesn’t care about saying “Voldemort” but everyone calls Cursed Child “The Book That Must Not Be Named.”

[adamjulius]

Sorcerer’s Stone: Most Magical
Chamber of Secrets: Most Mysterious
Prisoner of Azkaban: Most Unpredictable
Goblet of Fire: Most Unique
Order of the Phoenix: Most Dark
Half-Blood Prince: Most Romantic
Deathly Hallows: Most Action

[pretendtheresaname]

One thing I notice in Harry Potter rankings is that they're all very different and personal... but all have Chamber of Secrets at the bottom 😅

[miguelitomarques]

Prisoner of Azkaban was the smoothest one to read imo.
Sirius Black is my favorite character. Remus Lupin a close 2nd.

[williamray]

With regards to Voldemort's planning ability. He clearly cares about Harry's education because he wait until the end of the year to make his move.

[masteroogway]

The Goblet of Fire is one of my favorites solely because the foreshadowing was so well done and amazing.

[gamingwithsheepy]

Task 1 in goblet was the dragon and task 2 was the lake 😜

[JakeAdkinsOfficial]

Me: I'm sure there aren't THAT many issues with Chamber of Secrets..

Merphy: How did Nearly Headless Nick drink the potion? He's a Ghost.

Me: 😦😬😐😶

[maxbrennan]

Unpopular opinion: Voldemort's plan in Book 4 actually makes sense to an extent. If Harry just randomly disappeared and turned up dead, many more people would have been suspicious and Voldemort would probably have been found out. But since his plan was to keep in secret until he could build more followers and strength, it makes sense to have Harry supposedly die in a super dangerous tournament that has a history of casualties. If Voldy killed Harry in the graveyard and then sent his body back into the maze, it would look like he had nothing to do with it and Harry just died on his own. It's a little convoluted, but makes more sense than people give it credit for. The smartest thing to do would actually be to have something in the lake be a portkey, that way the body could plausibly never be found.

[DanielR-lkvg]

I just loved the parts where Harry, Ron, and Hermione were staying with the Order of the Pheonix. Even though it may have been the least exciting part of the series, it was just so awesome to see them all spending time with each other knowing that outside the door was this chaotic dark depressing world out there.

[michaelshort]

JK Rowling "I'm just going to destroy all the time turners and everyone can forget they're even a thing. Until cursed child when I will let them be brought back"

[thedangerousivy]

Half-Blood Prince has ALWAYS been my favorite. Its movie is disappointing compared to the book but the soundtrack is what I listen to while reading. Plus Lupin is my 2nd favorite character

[NosiDM]

Half Blood Prince is my favourite too. It took a while to figure out why, at first I thought it was because I loved just living in the world without crazy plots going on (on the surface)

But I finally figured it out. It's because Harry has mastered Hogwarts at this point. He knows how to stop Peeves, he knows how to avoid Filch and where all the secret entrances are. He's spent 5 years earning that knowledge before this point and it shows. It's the culmination of his life at Hogwarts. Before of course the rug is entirely pulled out from under us and we are propelled into the end game.

[KurtisC]

My list (excluding Cursed Child, which I've never read):

7) Order of the Phoenix – Harry's anger was 100% justified, and I really felt for him. In fact, his suffering resonated so strongly with me that it made the book tough to read at times—and that's not a bad thing! When you get right down to it, there's nothing about Order of the Phoenix that's any less compelling than the rest of the series. The Department of Mysteries is a fascinating place, and Dolores Umbridge is such an utterly loathsome character that you can't help but read on just to see what she does next. The only problem is that it's just a bit too long for my liking.

6) Chamber of Secrets – The only entry in the Harry Potter series where the movie is superior to the novel. I say this because Chamber of Secrets has some goofy bits here and there that detract from its otherwise delightfully spooky atmosphere, like the mandrake life cycle or the Valentine's Day nonsense. These don't feature in the film, and nearly every other alteration made by Chris Columbus is to the story's benefit, all while remaining faithful to the source material. Plus, Kenneth Branagh kills it as Gilderoy Lockhart. Read the book, but also watch the movie (preferably the extended edition).

5) Philosopher's Stone – A children's book at heart, there's something uniquely magical about Philosopher's Stone that the rest of the series has never been able to fully replicate. Like Chamber of Secrets, there are some things that the movie does even better than the book (Ollivander's Wand Shop being a prime example), but this is counterbalanced by the things that the book does better. The two complement each other well, and are best experienced in conjunction with one another. Philosopher's Stone would rank even higher if it didn't feel like the last several pages (i.e. everything after Harry's conversation with Dumbledore) were rushed, but as it stands, it's still a literary classic of our age.

4) Deathly Hallows – Or as I like to call it, the "year-long camping trip". I missed Hogwarts and felt bad that the trio's final year of schooling had to be sacrificed in the name of bringing down Voldemort, but it was an epic conclusion to a legendary saga. There were great and exciting moments mixed in with deep, gut-wrenching tragedies, and it made for an emotional rollercoaster of a read. Deathly Hallows earns huge points for "The Prince's Tale", my favorite chapter in the entire series and the point at which we finally felt like we understood the enigma that was Severus Snape.

3) Goblet of Fire – This book is at its best on your first read-through. A lot of the excitement stems from not knowing what's going to happen next, trying to put all the pieces together to solve the mystery of the Triwizard Tournament, and it all culminates in the second best twist ending in the series (more on that later). Goblet of Fire has a great murder-mystery vibe going for it, and it feels like every time a question gets answered, three new questions pop up in its place. It's still a fun and interesting book to revisit, but there's nothing quite like reading it for the very first time.

2) Half-Blood Prince – Something that doesn't get talked about as much when people discuss Half-Blood Prince is how eerie it is. This was the closest thing to a normal school year that Harry and his friends had yet experienced, and it was set against the backdrop of Voldemort's second reign of terror. It makes for a very uneasy juxtaposition, and the book is filled with subtle reminders of what's going on outside of Hogwarts just to make the effect that much stronger. Otherwise, Half-Blood Prince is less a sequence of big events than it is a novel centered around exposition, something that suits me just fine. Speaking of exposition...

1) Prisoner of Azkaban – It boils down to this: the confrontation in the Shrieking Shack is one of the greatest reveals I've ever experienced in a novel. Everything from the building's existence, to the Whomping Willow, to the tragedies of the Marauders and the truth about Peter Pettigrew, is explained in a way that feels uniquely satisfying and lingers in your imagination for a long time after reading it. Beyond that, Prisoner of Azkaban is the most balanced of the Harry Potter series: not too long, not too short, darker without losing the charm of the first two books, and a few ominous moments counterbalanced by a lingering optimism. Sirius Black and Remus Lupin are two of the most endearing characters in the Harry Potter lexicon, and the Dementors are among the most horrifying creatures in all of fiction. Put simply, it's everything that makes Harry Potter so great all condensed into one gem of a novel.

[cricketreads]

"Muggles would have put cameras up all over the maze...."


My Brain: *flashbacks of reading Hunger Games and Maze Runner*

[katiehoraczek]

“This is the book where we get more Lupin, and more Sirius” and then significantly less Sirius.

[thelastroman]

The Order of the Phoenix has always been my favorite in the series. I think the reason is is because of the intrigue and the simmering tension of the Wizarding World about to explode into another war. The conflict was the most compelling to me as well as the dramatic moments. Which I found to be the best in the series. I say this as a long time Tom Clancy fan which lends me to believe that book five is the most similar to a Tom Clancy novel.

[liajustlia]

Here's the proper book titles of Harry potter (in my opinion):
1) Harry potter and hagrid made a big mistake
2) Harry potter and the plot holes
3) Harry potter and the knight bus doesn't go underwater
4) Harry potter and the ugly mermaids
5) Harry potter and we love to hate Bellatrix
6) Harry potter and Dumbledore finally tells what a horcrux is but he could've told in the last book
7) Harry potter and the end but we want more