Five years ago today, the film “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 1” was released in theaters. Today I am going to answer the third question in this series: “What is your least favorite Harry Potter book?”
3. What is your least favorite book? Why?
Choosing a least favorite book is just as challenging as picking a favorite! I love them all! During the past year, I read the books a third (or was it fourth?) time following my trip to The Wizarding World of Harry Potter in Orlando. I think I will write a blog post on this trip in the future, since not a day has gone by since that trip that I haven’t wished I was back there! My trip to Harry Potter World in February reinvigorated my obsession with the series and after re-watching the movies the minute I got home, I decided I wanted to read the books again too.
What I found interesting was that in the time since I had last read the series, I had subconsciously moved some books to the bottom of my list. But when I read them again this year, I found I enjoyed those more than I remembered! One example is Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. When I look at the cover, I think of the part of the book when Harry and part of Dumbledore’s Army and the Order of the Phoenix are fighting the Death Eaters in the Department of Mysteries. That scene wasn’t my favorite compared to parts of some of the other books, so I moved that book down a few pegs in my mind. But when I read it again I was reminded of the evil entity that is UMBRIDGE! Her dialogue is so intensely passive aggressive that it makes me look up from the book in disbelief quite a few times. I will delve more into the topic of Umbridge in another post, but needless to say, that book climbed the ranks this year for me.
So even though my opinions have changed on some of the books this year, if I have to pick a least favorite book I suppose I’ll go with Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. It came down to either book one or book two and I decided that I liked Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone more because of all the fun introductory content. Plus, it’s the first book, the one that started it all! That holds some weight in my opinion.
The reason I liked Chamber of Secrets the least probably comes down to my indifference/annoyance about Dobby. A lot of people love him and mourn his death, but the elf never really appealed to me. He claims to be attempting to save Harry by trying to keep him away from Hogwarts, but does it in very ineffective, cumbersome ways: stealing Harry’s letters from Ron and Hermione, dropping a cake on the Dursley’s guests, locking the entrance to the train platform, and tampering with a bludger. None of them worked, and each of them made Harry’s life more difficult, rather than improving it.
I understand that he was disobeying his masters’ orders by trying to warn Harry about the Chamber of Secrets, so he couldn’t come right out and say why Harry was in danger, but I feel like he could have at least tried a little harder. How would injuring Harry during a quidditch match force him to go home? Dobby must not have considered Madam Pomfrey’s healing skill!
Other than my issues with Dobby (maybe I don’t like him because I’m afraid of E.T.? Dobby reminds me of him a bit…), I guess I just enjoyed the plot of this book less than the others.
One thing I don’t understand is how the giant snake was actually petrifying people? I get that the basilisk was traveling through the school in the pipes, but when people were coming across it they were usually in the corridor. So was the basilisk slithering out the pipes briefly to attack? How did the mechanics of that work, exactly? If the basilisk was slithering around outside of the pipes for brief periods, why did no one else see it? And when it petrified the victims through indirect eye contact, why didn’t it just take it a step further and attack them with its venomous teeth to finish them off? Perhaps because the petrification made them too stiff for its fangs to penetrate? Maybe I’m missing something. I know that the victims didn’t die because they didn’t look into the basilisk eyes directly, but I’m just having trouble picturing the attack. I feel like a creature that dangerous could have caused much more destruction if it wanted to, but perhaps that was Voldemort’s plan: lure Harry Potter to the Chamber to kill him without creating so much danger that the students would be sent home. Maybe I should take to twitter and ask J.K. Rowling herself!
Which of the Harry Potter books did you enjoy the least? Leave a comment!
Thanks for reading!
-Rebecca
I adapted this questionnaire from Over the Moony.
1. What is your favorite book? Why?
2. What is your favorite film? Why?
3. What is your least favorite book? Why?
4. What is your least favorite film? Why?
5. Who is your favorite character? Why?
6. Who is your least favorite character? Why?
7. What would your patronus be?
8. Which of the Deathly Hallows would you choose?
9. Which house would you be in?
10. If you could meet any member of the cast, who would it be?
11. If you were on the Quidditch team, which position would you play?
12. Were you happy with the ending?
13. How much does Harry Potter mean to you?
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