Harry Potter is one of the most beloved characters to ever grace the pages of a book. Ever since he debuted in Harry Potter and The Sorcerer’s Stone (Or Harry Potter and The Philosopher’s Stone depending on what side of the Atlantic you’re on) the boy who lived has thrilled audiences all over the globe. The character, created by J.K. Rowling hooked audiences with his earnest demeanor, a fierce sense of friendship, and ever-present bravery.
That love of the character has led to not only millions of book sales but also one of the most successful film franchises that have ever existed. In the films, he was played expertly by excellent child actor Daniel Radcliffe who just added more wood to the fire of his likability.
All of this popularity can really give one rose colored glasses though. Despite all of the great qualities of everyone’s favorite Gryffindor, Harry has plenty of flaws. His headstrong attitude may lead him to more than a few heroic deeds but it also got him into quite a lot of trouble. Despite having the weight of the world on his shoulders, Harry rarely ever thought things through. He usually just rushed into things head first and lucked his way into victory. It was good for him, and the entire wizarding world that luck was more than enough. While no flaws can truly tarnish the love fans everywhere have for Harry, there are undoubtedly moments of his life that they put blinders on for.
Here are 20 Things Wrong With Harry Potter We All Choose To Ignore.
20. He Still Wears Glasses
There’s nothing wrong with wearing glasses, in fact, a lot of people wear who don’t even need glasses these days wear them for the style. Lots of people wear them and lead perfectly normal lives. None of those people have to save the world from an evil wizard nazi, though. Presumably, at least.
Throughout the series, Harry’s glasses are broken or provide a problem multiple times. It seems odd that nothing in the wizarding world can properly fix his vision. Seriously, Madame Pomfrey can regrow the bones in an arm overnight but she can’t fix a small vision problem? Even if she can’t, Harry’s from the muggle world. They had contacts in the ’90s!
19. He’s A Bad Student
There are lots of students at Hogwarts who don’t take their studies seriously, just like every other student in the Muggle world. For someone like Ron, skirting by with okay grades isn’t the end of the world. For Harry though, it might be.
Throughout the series, Harry is routinely confronted with magical creatures and problems he doesn’t understand. For someone who faces a deadly challenge at the end of each school year, you’d think he’d take his studies on the wizarding world more seriously. It might’ve been helpful had he known what Deathly Hallows were before the absolute last moment.
18. He Cursed Draco
Spells are extremely dangerous. Especially unknown ones. That’s why it’s very irresponsible to curse someone with a spell that you don’t know. Even if that person is shooting spells at you.
Unfortunately, that’s exactly what Harry did to Draco in The Half-Blood Prince. When Harry and Draco were battling it out in a Hogwarts bathroom, Harry shot the Sectumsempra curse at Draco. While Draco survived, he was horribly injured. Harry truly lucked out that Draco wasn’t hurt much worse. He took the curse out of an old textbook. He’s very lucky he didn’t accidentally eliminate him. It would’ve been hard for even Harry Potter to not get expelled for that.
17. He’s A Bad Father
Okay, fatherhood is hard. It’s almost impossible to raise a son and not mess him up in some way or another. When most fathers screw up, their sons don’t almost rewrite the entire space-time continuum. For those who haven’t seen or read Harry Potter And The Cursed Child, that’s exactly what happens.
In the play, Harry’s son Albus befriends a Slytherin named Scorpius who is rumored to be Voldemort’s son. This puts a bit of a wedge between the two Potter men. At one point in the play, Harry even goes so far as to exclaim that he at times wished that Albus wasn’t his son. While this was certainly quite hurtful to young Albus, it wasn’t nearly as bad as Albus causing Voldemort to win the Battle of Hogwarts and rule the world. Harry and Albus reconcile but one would think that a visit to family counseling would’ve been preferable to nearly ending the world.
16. He Didn’t Finish Hogwarts
Harry’s tenure at Hogwarts may have been the focus of the first six books of the series, but not the last one. In the final book, Harry, Ron and Hermione all skip out on their lessons to save the world. No big deal there.
While Hermione does return to finish her last year at Hogwarts, Ron and Harry elect not to. It seems like a strange choice considering all the work they’d done in school up to that point. Harry loved his time in Hogwarts, it’s kind of sad that he didn’t finish out his last year. Maybe eliminating a dark lord of evil counts for a GED in the wizarding world.
15. He Rarely Rode His Broom
Of Harry’s many skills, the one that gets the most attention is by far his natural skill at riding brooms. From the first time he gets on a broom in The Sorcerer’s Stone, it’s clear that he’s a prodigy. Unfortunately, he doesn’t utilize this special skill to nearly the extent that he could.
In combat situations, for example, he could easily use his broom to give him an added edge. In his final fight against Voldemort, it would’ve been a great advantage for him to zoom around the dark lord instead of facing him on foot. If he took it down to the Chamber of Secrets, the Basilisk would’ve had a much harder time trying to end him.
14. He Used Unforgivable Curses
In Harry Potter And The Goblet Of Fire, Mad-Eye Moody (well, Barty Crouch Jr. in disguise) introduced the concept of the three unforgivable curses. As their name might suggest, these are three of the worst spells in the wizarding world. Most users of these spells are dark wizards while good wizards stick to incapacitating their enemies instead of going for pain, mind control, or anything else.
Harry decides in that he’s okay with using unforgivable curses several times in the series. He attempts to use the Cruciatus curse on Bellatrix after she eliminates Sirius. He then tries to use it on Snape after he eliminates Dumbledore. While he fails at both of these the first time, in Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows, he successfully cast the Imperius and Cruciatus curses. Although he was supposed to be sent to Azkaban for these crimes, he didn’t get in any trouble at all. Apparently, the Ministry thought they owed him one after he saved them all from an evil authoritarian regime.
13. sirius met his fate because of him
One of the big plot points in Harry Potter And The Order Of The Phoenix is how Harry and Voldemort’s minds are linked. He is warned several times that Voldemort could use this to spy on or manipulate him. Dumbledore even goes so far as to schedule him regular lessons with Snape to resist these effects.
Despite this, he’s still manipulated into going to the ministry to try and save Sirius. Unfortunately, this was all a manipulation. Harry and his friends all get in over their heads as they’re ambushed by Death Eaters. Ironically, Sirius ends up getting eliminated by trying to rescue Harry while Harry was trying to rescue Sirius. Had Harry listened to Snape or Dumbledore’s advice, maybe he would’ve been able to prevent this manipulation and in turn actually save Sirius’ life. Well, at least until Deathly Hallows. Almost everyone passed away in Deathly Hallows.
12. He Got Dumbledore Fired
Harry Potter And The Order Of The Phoenix has Harry go up against an enemy much scarier than Dementors, Basilisks, or even Lord Voldemort. He has to face down bureaucracy. This enemy is terrifyingly personified in that year’s defense against the dark arts teacher, Dolores Umbridge. Throughout the book, Umbridge slowly gains more and more power over how Hogwarts is run.
In order to combat this and to help his friends prepare for the war ahead, he forms his own team and teaches them all that he knows about self-defense. He names this group Dumbledore’s Army. That name comes back to bite him when Umbridge finds out about it. The ministry assumes that Dumbledore instructed Harry to form the team. This leads to Dumbledore getting sacked and Umbridge to become the new Headmistress. Had Harry named the team something else, that may never have happened. That or he could’ve lied and said that Dumbledore’s Army was his band name.
11. He Leaned Too Much On Hermione
The book series is named after Harry Potter but that doesn’t mean he was the one always doing the heavy lifting. Behind every solved mystery and last minute plan, Hermione was usually the brains of the outfit. Her expertise and ingenuity saved Ron and Harry several times across all seven books.
Hermione conjured Polyjuice Potion for him, helped figure out almost every mystery in the series, and carried around the most useful purse in the history of useful purses. Without her, Harry and Ron would’ve been eliminated several times over. Perhaps Harry Potter And The Time Hermione Figured Out Everything About The Chamber Of Secrets is just not as good of a title.
10. He Didn’t Care About House Elves
Harry didn’t get off to a great start with his first House Elf experience. Dobby was the first of the species he met. Dobby heard of Lucius Malfoy’s plan to give out Voldemort’s diary and decided he needed to keep Harry safe. He hid Harry’s letters from Ron and Hermione, tried to prevent him from going to Hogwarts, and almost eliminated him during a Quidditch game.
All that aside, the two still became friends in the end. Harry even helped free him from Malfoy’s service. That’s why it’s so strange that Harry showed relative apathy to the idea of House Elf rights. When Hermione started the Society for the Promotion of Elfish Welfare, or S.P.E.W., Harry shows little interest in it. He seems apathetic to the idea of the House Elves basically being an enslaved race. One would hope he felt guilty about that after Dobby sacrificed his life for Harry. Maybe S.P.E.W. lives on. Hopefully with a better name.
9. He Didn’t Utilize The Hallows
The Deathly Hallows are some of the most powerful artifacts in the wizarding world. The Elder Wand is the most powerful weapon in existence. The Resurrection Stone has the ability to briefly return those from the afterlife to the real world. The Invisibility Cloak is the most useful way to hide in the entire series. While Harry makes great use of the cloak throughout the series, he seriously wastes the other two.
After the Battle of Hogwarts, Harry is left with the Elder Wand. Instead of using the wand to help rebuild Hogwarts and the wizarding world, he snaps it in half and throws it aside. The entire world was taken over by evil wizards, it’s safe to assume that the most powerful wand in existence may have been helpful. The Resurrection Stone also may have been of great use after the battle. Many wizards were eliminated before their time. It would’ve been the kind choice for Harry to allow these wizards to say a proper goodbye to their loved ones but he threw it away instead. He really doesn’t think things through.
8. He Didn’t Use Muggle Technology
While the wizarding world certainly has a wide array of fantastical objects, there are several ways that the muggle world is a bit superior. Harry, being a child from both worlds really fails to utilize muggle technology while he’s in the wizarding world. He may not have been able to properly use the internet in the mid-’90s, but if he and Sirius both had beepers or old fashioned cell phones, Sirius may have been able to tell Harry that he wasn’t in the ministry during Order Of The Phoenix.
Not to mention the fact that perhaps the UK military could’ve been helpful with the whole Voldemort taking over the world situation. Harry spends much of the last book not knowing what to do, but he never once thinks to make an alliance with the muggles and their wide array of powerful jets and missiles. While Muggle technology might not have worked on Hogwarts’ grounds, but for every battle in the outside world, he might have found use for them.
7. He Nearly Got Arthur Fired
Harry never knew much of a family of his own. The Dursleys were more of his jailers than his loving family. That’s why it was so special when Harry had his first visit to the Burrow in Chamber of Secrets. The Weasleys treated him as if he were one of their own and Harry got to feel familial love for the first time. That’s why it’s quite the betrayal when he nearly gets Mr. Weasley fired later on in the book.
Harry and Ron fail to enter the platform, and they’re afraid they won’t be able to get to Hogwarts, so they take Arthur’s enchanted car and fly off on their own. This was about the most dramatic reaction the two wizards could’ve possibly had. It’s highly unlikely that the problem couldn’t have been sorted out before the afternoon was up. This is what happens when Harry and Ron don’t have Hermione around. The incident gets Arthur in some hot water at work. He very nearly loses his job over the enchanted car he made. Harry and Ron were both very aware of this risk and took it anyway. Harry does make it up to Arthur later when he saves his life from a vicious snake attack. That more than makes them even.
6. He Impersonated Another Hogwarts Student
In Harry Potter And The Chamber Of Secrets, the gang is convinced that Draco Malfoy is Slytherin’s descendant and the mastermind behind the various attacks that happened that year. In order to prove this, they decide to catch Draco when his guard is down. Their plan to do this? Make their fellow classmates go unconscious and impersonate them, and this is actually a Hermione plan.
While wizards may have different ideas of what impersonating another person is, in the muggle world, we consider that identity theft. Also, Crabbe and Goyle may be jerks, but no one deserves to be roofied. It’s hard to imagine that Hogwarts doesn’t have strict rules against these sorts of things. Of course, this is a school that has werewolf teachers and giant snake monsters in the pipes so who knows?
5. He Had No Plan To Defeat Voldemort
Much of Harry Potter And The Half-Blood Prince was concerned with Dumbledore finally coming clean to Harry about (almost) everything he needed to know in order to defeat Lord Voldemort. He learns all about Tom Riddle’s past and the Horcruxes he uses to extend his life. By the end of the book, Harry knows what he needs to do to end the threat of Voldemort once and for all. So he uses that summer to meticulously plan his strategy on how to do that, right? Not exactly.
His big plan in the final book mostly comes down to just winging it. While he does manage to wing it into a victory for good wizards and witches everywhere, it’s by the skin of his teeth. One would think that someone who had the weight of the fate of the entire world on his shoulders would at least work out an outline of a plan or something. It’s hard to say whether or not an extended camping trip would’ve been on the agenda or not.
4. He Spied On People Using The Marauder’s Map
Harry gets more than his fair share of cool magical items throughout the series. Of all of these items, the marauder’s map may be the ultimate fan favorite. The map is gifted to Harry from Fred and George but it originated with Harry’s father and his friends. It ends up being one of the most useful items in the series, but also one of the creepiest when you stop and think about it.
At any given time, Harry has in his possession an item that lets him spy on literally everyone in Hogwarts. For any fan out there who is more than a little creeped out by the idea of the NSA spying on them, that has nothing on the marauder’s map. Harry might not be the nosiest character in the series, but it’s safe to assume that he probably spent at least one or two bored nights spying on his classmates without their knowledge.
3. His Hair Is Always Messy
Harry’s hair is one of the physical descriptions that is most prevalent throughout the series. Pretty much every time it is described as a mess that goes everywhere. This might be perfectly understandable for a boy of eleven, but at some point in the series, one would think he would’ve learned how to tame it.
He lives in a society where magic can fix almost any problem a wizard might have. It’s hard to imagine that there aren’t dozens of spells and products that might have helped with this issue. If not that, he could’ve spent some time in the muggle world shopping for hair gel or something. Unless Harry’s sloppy hair is another curse brought on by Voldemort’s attack, like his scar. That seems like the kind of random thing Rowling might announce one day on Pottermore.
2. He Didn’t Use His Money Well
Harry gets a lot of surprises in Harry Potter And The Sorcerer’s Stone. Not only does he find out that he’s a wizard and that his parents were eliminated by a dark lord, but he also learns that his parents left him behind a small fortune. When this is initially revealed, it seemed as if this would go on to be a major plot point in the series.
Unfortunately, it’s hardly ever something that comes up. Harry has a lot of struggles in the series, it seems like a vault full of gold might help with at least a few of them. He is tortured every summer by his greedy monstrosity of an Uncle. Surely there exists some sort of wizard in Diagon or Nocturne Alley that might be able to convert at least some of Harry’s vast fortune into muggle cash. He could’ve at least tried to pay off the Dursleys. Or at the very least he could’ve looked into getting a bodyguard.
1. He Caused The Battle Of Hogwarts
The Battle of Hogwarts is without question the most epic single moment in the entire series. It’s a brutal and brilliant set piece that features many fan-favorite moments and heartbreaking moments. It seems as though the whole story was building towards this big epic moment. Only, it didn’t have to.
Harry, Ron, and Hermione return to Hogwarts in order to find the last of the Horcruxes. One would think that the best way to handle this situation would be as covertly as possible. This wouldn’t be much of a challenge for someone who possesses a literal invisibility cloak. Instead, he brazenly announces his presence to everyone in Hogwarts. The scene plays out pretty wonderfully in both the book and movie but it leads right into a slew of carnage. It’s a fantastic scene, but all those passings might have been avoided had Harry been just a little bit more subtle. Though that’s not really his deal.
Did we miss any crazy Harry Potter moments? Let us know in the comments!
