Spanning seven books, eight movies, and dozens upon dozens of spin-offs of varying degrees of quality, Harry Potter is a franchise that can be enjoyed by anyone at any point in time. It is a story so rooted in its own logic that it will go down as one of the greatest pieces of literature if only because of how all-encompassing it is. This is not to say that JK Rowling is some master of prose, but her ability to craft a world with believable characters is one that is rivaled by very few in the industry at the moment.

At the same time, Harry Potter is a bit of a mess, isn’t it? The quality isn’t exactly consistent, the story has its fair share of problems, and the movies are basically in their own world, interpreting Harry Potter as they please. Whichever version of the series you choose to consume, you won’t be getting a “perfect” Harry Potter experience. With so many passionate fans, it can be hard to see the franchise’s flaws clearly, but they are there. You may not want to admit it, but Harry Potter is flawed. When it works, it works. When it doesn’t… things get messy.

25 Mad-Eye Moody Never Becomes His Own Character

The biggest twist in Goblet of Fire, outside of the whole fiasco with Voldemort near the end of the book, has to be the revelation that Mad-Eye Moody was Barty Crouch Junior all along. After spending an entire year trusting Moody with his life, Harry finds himself utterly betrayed by the one man who seemed to be looking out for him all year.

Moody deserved better. 

When the real Moody is introduced properly in the next book… nothing really happens with him. For as much development as Moody got in the fourth book, it wasn’t really his development, but Barty Crouch’s. The real Mad-Eye Moody is severely underdeveloped, never coming into his own. As a result, it’s incredibly hard to actually care about him. At least the real him.

24 Ron Would Never Abandon Harry And Hermione

As the final book in the series, it's not surprising that Deathly Hallows really amps up the drama. The series has gotten darker than ever, and characters are at their breaking point. Even Ron, who has stood by Harry and Hermione through thick and thin, is ultimately challenged, going so far as to abandon his friends.

While Ron has always been moody, would he really abandon his two closest friends out of pettiness and frustration during an incredibly dangerous time? He does come back, and in a big way too, but he never should have needed to come back. In the series’ darkest hour, Ron abandoning his friends sours his character.

23 Albus Dumbledore Is Not A Good Man

Although Deathly Hallows does attempt to deconstruct the idea of Albus Dumbledore as an infallible character, the rest of the series leans far too heavily into the “good” Albus where this late series takeaway may not land. It certainly doesn’t help that Rowling is attached to her characters to the point where Albus’ flaw are just that: flaws.

A cruel kindness is still cruelty. 

In universe, his flaws have massive consequences, though. He is in many ways responsible for who Tom Riddle is; he blatantly used Harry for his own agenda, raising him just to lose his life; and his friendship with Grindelwald directly lead to his sister’s untimely demise. Albus Dumbledore is not a good man, and the series does not acknowledge this nearly as much as it should.

22 Too Many Characters Lose Their Life Offscreen

It is honestly absurd just how many characters end up losing their life off-screen. Just look at the Battle of Hogwarts during Deathly Hallows if you need an example. Remus Lupin, one of the main characters and the last surviving member of the marauders, is only mentioned in passing. Harry walks by his corpse and that’s it.

Remus does not get a proper goodbye in the slightest, and this is not a trend unique to him. JK Rowling is perfectly comfortable offing characters while Harry isn’t around. While this does make the series more “realistic,” it does deprive it of some added drama and closure. Maybe it’s important readers don’t get closure in some sense, but that doesn’t exactly make for a strong narrative.

21 Order Of The Phoenix Is Way Too Long

When Harry Potter was still coming out, Order of the Phoenix being as long as it was may have been seen as a positive. After all, who wouldn’t want more Harry Potter? In hindsight, however, for as good as the novel actually is, its length is its biggest problem. Brevity is the soul of wit, and book 5 is anything but brief.

Harry can only complain about life for so long. 

Far too much time is spent building up to the fifth year in Order of the Phoenix. Once the school year begins in proper, the story moves at a more reasonable pace, but getting to that point can be a genuine slog. Harry is at his lowest point and the supporting cast feels off without Harry interacting with them positively. It makes for a very exhausting read.

20 Half-Blood Prince Is Way Too Short

On the flip side, Half-Blood Prince is just way too short of a book. While this does ultimately result in some of the strongest pacing in the series, its short length does mean that very little can be done with the cast outside of Harry, Snape, and Dumbledore. These are the book’s three stars mainly because no one else has the chance to shine.

There’s an entire plot revolving around Draco in the background, but it’s easy to miss thanks to just how short HBP actually is. By the time Harry and Dumbledore set out to find the Horcrux, the book is already coming to an end. Rowling went too long with book 5, but book 6 is just too short. Even its ending cuts off too early.

19 Snape Never Gets Redeemed

This is less a problem with the books and more one with how the fandom interprets the books: Severus Snape does not have a redemption arc. He is not a character who redeems himself by the end of the series. From start to finish, he is a jerk who is legitimately trying to undermine Harry’s growth as a student, wizard, and person.

He's always been a bad man. 

Just because Snape does something positive for Harry at the very end of the series does not absolve him of all the awful things he’s done to get up to this point. The movies try to play up this angle a bit more, but the books are actually restrained, leaving Snape to pass away on a quiet note.

18 JK Rowling Is Too Sympathetic Towards Snape

Of course, not helping matters is JK Rowling’s approach to Snape as a character. Despite very clearly writing him without an overt redemption arc, Rowling attests, either in interviews or on twitter, that Snape met the end of his life as a heroic figure. Rowling genuinely preaches that Snape was a good man by the end.

He wasn’t, though. The text clearly implies that this is not the case. Snape may have been playing for the right side, but he was still bitter, jealous, and needlessly cruel. His job was to protect Harry, but he consistently allows Harry to put himself in danger. Snape, like Dumbledore, was not a good man in the slightest.

17 Harry’s Relationship With Ginny Isn’t Built Up

Although it makes sense for Harry to end up with Ginny, especially since it places him as a legitimate member of the Weasley family, their relationship itself is not built up nearly as neatly as it should have been. In the movies, it’s outright glossed over with Ginny barely being a character, but the books go for the bare minimum.

The love ain't there. 

Ginny has a crush on Harry, Harry reciprocates, they kiss, they don’t get together, they want to date, they wind up apart for a while, and then they get married in the epilogue. There’s no substance to their romance. It isn’t built over the course of the series. It just happens at the reader and at Harry.

16 Sorcerer's Stone Isn’t Consistent With The Rest Of The Series

For as endearing as Sorcerer's Stone can be, it paints a portrait of the wizarding world that isn’t exactly cohesive with the rest of the series. The first book leans quite heavily on the idea that the wizarding world is one primarily made up of whimsy. While there is a dark backstory in place, it’s just that: backstory.

The series lacks in its depth and drama, and, more often than not, it appears that JK Rowling is throwing ideas to the wall in an attempt to see what will stick. Going back after reading the entire series, the first book feels tonally off with a Harry who has yet to come into his own. It reads like the start of a different series entirely.

15 The Movies Are Bad Adaptations

Although beloved by fans to this day, the movie adaptations of Harry Potter are far from perfect. Entire subplots are cut out, characters are given diminished roles in favor of the leads, and each movie simply isn’t long enough to cover all the content found in the books. As a result, you end up with a series filled with plot gaps.

Just read the books. 

Mind you, the later movies are actually quite good from a filmmaking perspective, the third and fifth through eighth especially, but they fail as adaptations. They capture the spirit of Harry Potter, but miss out on all the nuances of the narrative. Let’s not even get started on the horror that was Voldemort’s fate in the movies. A complete mockery of his end in the books.

14 James Was Not A Hero...

When Harry first finds out that his father was not only a school jerk, but also Snape’s personal tormentor, he goes through a very realistic arc where he questions everything he heard about his father. He does not want to be a bozo like James was and eventually comes to learn that his father did grow up.

While this is a good message, it doesn’t change the fact that Harry gets over his dad being a pretty awful teenager rather quickly. We even see later on how James aggresssed Snape and it’s not particularly pleasant. At that point, though, Harry doesn’t really care since he knows his dad will grow out of it. The thing is, that doesn’t make what James did alright.

13 There Are No Good Slytherins

Harry Potter likes to preach about the idea how everyone should unite and work together, but the Slytherins, save for Slughorn, are pretty much all villains. There is not a single heroic Slytherin student in the entire series. The most likable Slytherin is Draco, and he spends 95% of the series actively tormenting Harry.

Slytherins needs role models too. 

Hogwarts, as a result, feels disconnected. The student body has a massive divide that, while does drive the plot, does not seem to reflect a “normal” wizarding world. Pottermore even goes so far as to clarify that there were good Slytherins. Just not in the books apparently, which is a shame as the books desperately needed them.

12 Draco Spends Too Much Time In The Background

As Harry’s literary foil and antithesis, Draco winds up one of the most important characters in the series. His plot, no matter how brief, always ends up countering Harry’s in some sense. They are characters at fundamentally different points in their lives who counter one another consistently. Too bad Draco doesn’t appear enough.

Easily the biggest problem with Draco is just that Harry barely interacts with him in the grand scheme of things. Half-Blood Prince and Deathly Hallows do more with their Draco time than earlier books, but it’s still not enough. Draco is a character brimming with depth, but he’s relegated to the background 90% of the time.

11 The Movies Ruin Ron

Rupert Grint is a phenomenal actor who does everything he can with the neutered movie version of Ron. In the books, Ron is more than just comic relief. He has his own arcs, grows alongside Harry, and even has his own complexities. Some of the best lines in the series are Ron’s. Unfortunately, the movies don’t like Ron.

Rupert Grint deserved better. 

Much of Ron’s best qualities and scenes are instead, inexplicably, given to Hermione. As a result, Hermione comes out of the movies with a far larger role than she ever deserved and Ron feels like an afterthought. The movie versions of Harry, Ron, and Hermione aren’t three friends. They’re two friends plus Ron.

10 JK Rowling Was Clearly Planning For Harry And Hermione To Get Together

The early portion of the series is quite interesting in that it’s obvious JK Rowling didn’t know exactly where Harry Potter was going to go as a narrative. There is no doubt that she had the broad strokes planned, but the extraneous details were absolutely modified post-Prisoner of Azkaban. Just look at Harry and Hermione.

In the first two books, Harry and Hermione lack the sibling flare that goes on to define their relationship. Even in Goblet of Fire, Rowling is still playing with the idea of the two getting together. It’s clear that she was seriously considering this relationship at some point before pairing Hermione off with Ron and Harry with Ginny.

9 Harry Is Incredibly Rude To Luna

Fans love to ship Harry with Luna thanks to their endearing interactions in the books, but let’s get one thing straight: Harry is not a good friend. With an alarming amount of consistency, Harry treats Luna with an incredible amount of rudeness, undermining her and belittling her views at almost every corner.

Harry does not accept Luna’s eccentricities in the slightest. He finds her legitimately odd and frustrating to speak with. He does not enjoy his time with her and all her attempts to bond with him are thrown back in her face. The mere fact that Luna is still able to be friends with Harry after how he behaves speaks volumes to just how good of a person she is.

8 Everything About Winky

In case you were starting sympathize with the house elves, JK Rowling made sure to introduce Winky, a character so obnoxious and unlikable that you would surely never wish for the house elves to truly be free. Winky is so counterproductive to the series that you can’t help but wonder what was going through Rowling’s mind when she introduced her.

Winky adds nothing of value to Harry Potter. 

In the same book that Hermione is going all out on SPEW, Winky is in the background causing mayhem, severely undermining the cause with her sheer unlikability. Winky is a character who should not exist. Her presence actively hurts the point Rowling is trying to make through Hermione. It is genuinely counterproductive.

7 Dobby Is Insufferable In Chamber Of Secrets

Dobby is unquestionably meant to be a sympathetic character, especially in the back half of the series. Dobby’s role in Deathly Hallows is especially emotional, tying into one of the series’ more powerful moments. That said, Dobby did not always begin as sympathetically as he should have. He is legitimately insufferable in his first appearance.

Every single appearance of Dobby in Chamber of Secrets serves to ultimately hurt and undermine his character. He is constantly holding Harry back to the point where Dobby ends up being the worst part of the book. This is all intentional to lead up to the payoff of Harry setting him free, but his character is simply too abrasive for most readers and viewers to actually care about him.

6 The Movies Don’t Even Bother Adapting SPEW

If you’ve only watched the movies, you probably have no clue what SPEW is. The Society for the Promotion of Elfish Welfare, SPEW ends up playing an enormous role in Hermione’s character arc, especially in the context of Goblet of Fire. This is the first book where she begins to have her ideals challenged, and SPEW paves the path for the rest of her arc.

Hermione's arc simply isn't complete without SPEW. 

Through SPEW, Hermione can become a genuine activist along wish coming into her own. As the movies do not adapt this storyline, Hermione loses a massive chunk of her arc. While SPEW doesn’t play a particularly large role in later books, it does infer where Hermione will go as a character and is thus critically important to her arc.