What is wrong with the Harry Potter series in your opinion?

I actually liked Hermione and Ron, but I agree that all the other romances were terrible. I especially hated Tonks/Lupin and how she basically ruined Lupin's character in the final book.

I also didn't like was how stupid Voldemort became in the final book and how much of Harry's success was due to luck. He never really had to train to become a better wizard. I didn't like the whole Elder Wand thing - it seemed way too convenient.

I'm not sure I ever understood the logic behind Dumbledore having to die.

JK Rowling says she mapped out the whole series from the very beginning, but this is clearly not true.

In the first book, Harry thinks that Snape is bad. By the end of the book, it turns out that he is good. This "twist" plays out again over the whole seven-book series. We thinks he's bad, but he's secretly good.

If she had planned the whole tale from the beginning as she claims, she would not have the first book essentially give away the big reveal of the seventh book. It would be terrible storytelling otherwise, and she is a master storyteller. I get that it's in her interest to foster this creation myth, but it doesn't hold up under scrutiny.

No full frontal nudity by Harry or Ron or any of the other guys.

Never read any of the Harry Potter books. Literature for sheeple.

It's a book series for children, honey.

Shake and bake modern fantasy largely made up of ideas dreamt up by more original writers, warmed over to appeal to 21st century types. Pretty appalling really.

Oh, and what R6 said.

I believe I inspired this thread, having discussed Rowling's terrible romance writing on another thread yesterday. She obviously put Harry and Funny together so that Harry could be part of the Wesley family, which didn't work because Ginny is such a nonentiety.

Bit as a murder mystery reader, I really appreciate her tight, detailed, hole-free plotting! In that respect she's a terrific writer, and does it while building a believable fantasy world with its own rules, rules that she sticks to so well that they become believable. The only other writer I've seen do the same is Terry Pratchet, may he rest in peace.

I was a keen fan until The Order Of The Phoenix. The fifth book is terrible. Almost unreadable. Long chapters of a newly politicised Hermione campaigning for this and that are plugged in, interrupting the story.

I hated it so much that I skimmed the 6th book and skipped the 7th.

The villains are too mustache-twirling and have no nuance. Harry is perfect and amazing at everything.

The writing.

The primary issue, which tend to be true of writers who become more and more famous, is that editors tend to become more timid with each book giving them free range when some tightening would have served the work much better.

R3 I've always assumed her grand plan was more of an "if it's successful, here's where I'll take it" plan.

[quote]ruined the trilogy.

Oh, dear...

[quote]I'm not sure I ever understood the logic behind Dumbledore having to die.

I believe the idea was to take away Harry's protectors until he had no choice but to rely on himself.

[quote]I believe the idea was to take away Harry's protectors until he had no choice but to rely on himself.

To expand on that, his parents were his first protectors and he lost them. Then Sirius and then Dumbledore.

I thought her grand plan was to get off the Dole, R13.

And R2, the mentor/father figure HAS to die, like Dumbledore and Obi-Wan, so that the hero's on his own and totally responsible for the course of events. It's a rule of the genre, going right back to the "Hero's Journey" tropes. And BTW I thought Dumbledore's death led to one of the better things about the series, the fact that after Dumbledore's death Harry realizes that Dumbledore wasn't a saint or someone to whom he should be blindly loyal, he was as flawed as any human being and not nearly as nice or loving as Harry had assumed. So when Harry came to the crisis that would determine the fate of the Wizarding world, he didn't act for love of Dumbledore, but because by that point he really understood the big picture.

Thank you R17 for explaining it better than I could.

R11 is right. Rowlings was a great at coming up this fantastical world, but the writing was pedestrian.

Books 4, 5, 6, and 7 needed to be chopped in half. Prisoner of Azkaban was the best one, and it was a much more tightly plotted book than the last 4, which meander all over the place. But after the first 3 books were such successes, I guess no editor could tell Rowling what to do.

R9 if you are referring to Hermione’s “SPEW” campaign, that was the 4th book, The Goblet of Fire.

Time-Turners should have never been introduced. Those things were problematic in so many different ways.

I also hated how Dumbledore cheated to make Gryffindor the house cup winner year after year. It sent out the wrong message that it was the only Hogwarts house that mattered.

Another thing that was a bit too convenient was how the big showdown between Harry and the bad guys always took place at the end of each school year. It was almost like Voldemort wanted those kids to have an uninterrupted school year so they could absorb in the much-needed knowledge.

There is no trans woman in the show!

R22 I’m sure you’re right about the time turners, but tell us why.

[quote] It was almost like Voldemort wanted those kids to have an uninterrupted school year so they could absorb in the much-needed knowledge.

Lol, I never thought of that, but you’re right. He could have swept in and took the lot during Christmas break and nobody could have done a damn thing about it.

[quote] I'm not sure I ever understood the logic behind Dumbledore having to die.

I was more bothered by Hedwig's death. And Dobby's. And Fred's.

F&F the 2015 bump troll at R14.