Have you noticed there’s something about the months of October through December that makes all the cable TV channels run Harry Potter movie marathons? October I can understand because of witches, wizards, trolls, magic, etc.
But it seems people seem to really enjoy the Harry Potter series during the holidays as well. Probably the idea of living in a snowy castle. Me, I can watch the series any time of the year.
Below is my very opinionated list of the eight Harry Potter books, ranked in order from worst to best. Just keep in mind that the ranking of the books is a very different story than the ranking of the films! This list is based purely off of storyline alone.
7. The Sorcerer’s Stone
Starting at the bottom is the first of the Harry Potter series. I put this one first because, let’s be real, at this point it was just a children’s novel. The book was relatively short and the writing very simple.
Although we are introduced to all our favorite characters and our first glimpse of the magical world, as well as Lord Voldemort, this book just serves as the tee up for the rest of the series.
We know there is a special boy named Harry Potter, and we learn that he has a mysterious past, concerning a mysterious dark wizard. But the story is mainly about Harry learning about who he is, making new friends, and feeling like he belongs to a world he had been missing his whole life. Relatively uncomplicated and a little too “green”.
6. The Chamber of Secrets
Second to last is, of course, the second in the series. This one is where we start feeling like things are getting a little serious, and a little bit … darker. There seems to be an active killer on the loose in Hogwarts as various students keep turning up petrified, and our main character is hearing odd voices.
However, the second book still feels like it is primarily written for a young adult audience. I will say the film version of this book is what got me hooked on Harry Potter in the first place, and not the first film. Like I said, it’s a little bit darker so there’s more of a storyline.
On top of that, we keep building on the magical world of Hogwarts. We see more of Diagon Alley (a magical shopper’s paradise tucked away in London), we learn about Hogwarts history through the four founders and a dark past with Moaning Myrtle, and we even get a surprise twist at the end.
5. The Half-Blood Prince
We jump quite far ahead for the third lowest ranked book! This one is the sixth, or second to last, book in the series.
Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you probably have watched the movies or read the books, so we all know what happens in this one. Dumbledore dies.
It was a shocker for most of us and probably the biggest twist J.K. Rowling could have written, so why is it so low on the list? Well, aside from Professor Snape murdering Dumbledore, I feel like the rest of this book was really just an in between for the Order of the Phoenix and the Deathly Hallows.
Why? In the Order of the Phoenix, we see Harry and the others spend their first year with Voldemort officially back in a physical body. It’s the start of something we know is coming. In the Deathly Hallows, we see Harry, Ron, and Hermione work to figure out how to defeat him, plus the Battle of Hogwarts.
The Half Blood Prince? It’s just a set up for Harry to gain the knowledge he needs to learn how to defeat Voldemort. There’s a huge set up throughout the first part of the book on the mysterious character of the Half Blood Prince. It’s a name Harry found in an old potions book, who seems to know all the shortcuts for brewing the most perfect potions … but also knows some dark magic.
We learn at the end that the Half Blood Prince is none other than Professor Snape himself. I’ll admit that it was a good twist, but other than that, it served no other purpose.
4. The Prisoner of Azkaban
This is where we start getting to the good stuff. This book is the third in the series and where I felt like the books officially started taking a darker turn and brought itself out of the children/young adult zone. It also had the most, and BEST, surprise twists out of all the books.
We’re introduced to a new Defense Against the Dark Arts professor named Remus Lupin, as well as a murderous serial killer named Sirius Black who has escaped from Azkaban prison and seems to be on the hunt specifically for Harry. He was sent to prison for betraying the whereabouts of Harry’s dead parents, as well as blowing up a young man named Peter Pettigrew.
We learn Harry can’t take field trips to the local town of Hogsmeade without the consent of a guardian (whom he doesn’t have). But he finds a way thanks to the Maurauder’s Map, created by Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot, and Prongs.
By the end, Sirius Black as finally caught him. But we learn that Peter Pettigrew faked his own death by cutting off his finger. We also learn that Peter is Wormtail. Sirius Black is Padfoot. Remus Lupin is Moony, and Prongs is none other than Harry’s father, James. And all four of them were friends at Hogwarts.
Peter betrayed Harry’s parents to the Dark Lord but let Sirius take the blame. Sirius has come to exact revenge on his dead best friend. Oh, and Sirius is also Harry’s godfather and guardian! Just when Harry felt alone in this world, we realize he still has a little bit of family left.
3. The Goblet of Fire
Third on the list is the fourth book in the series. If you like sports, this one is for you. Not only is there the TriWizard Tournament, where we learn that Hogwarts isn’t the only school in this magical world, but we also see Harry and his friends get to go to a professional Quidditch match … a World Cup no less!
The best part about this book is the shifting point from phase I of the series to phase II. What I mean by that is that in the first part of the series, Lord Voldemort is a figure of the past. He seems to come back in spiritual ways, but he is not a physical threat. This book changes that.
At the end of the book, Lord Voldemort is brought back to life and in physical form for the first time and poses a whole new threat to Harry and the rest of the magical world.
2. The Deathly Hallows
Second is actually the last book in the series. At this point, we are fully embedded in this dark, complex magical world. Rowling has written a beautiful story that is much more involved than we could have originally imagined just by reading the first book.
The story is a lot more than just a boy battling an evil wizard. She has written lots of intricate and carefully-thought storylines about the past and present that come full circle and created a world much in the way other great fantasy writers have, like J.R.R. Tolkien.
By the end of the series, we learn the extent to which Voldemort has taken to preserve his life and what Harry must do to defeat him. Everything culminates in this book, including learning about the history of horcruxes (the story of the three Peverell brothers), the Battle of Hogwarts, the secret Snape has been hiding his whole life, and the meaning of love and sacrifice.
1. The Order of the Phoenix
Last, and first, is my personal favorite out of the whole book series. The Order of the Phoenix is where the books starting getting really lengthy, and really marked a shift in the story becoming much more complex.
This is the first year that Voldemort is back and we see Harry, his friends, Dumbledore, and the others start building an army. We are introduced officially to the Ministry of Magic, and get to witness that magical politics are not that much different than real world politics.
The best part of this book, however, is what Harry and his friends explore in the depths of the Ministry, in the Department of Mysteries. There are various rooms of covert research, performed by Unspeakables: a room with thousands of shelves of glowing glass orbs, a room with a tank of swimming brains, a room with a stone dais and archway with a thin black veil, a dark room of planets floating in mid-air, a room filled with clocks and time-turners, a room that was locked at all times that no spell could open.
What these rooms represent are the intangible concepts we, as humans, try to understand: fate (prophecies), the human mind, death, space, time, and love. This was my favorite concept out of the whole series: that even though a magical world exists with the ability to do anything they wanted, they are still exploring the same thought-provoking concepts as humans, or should I say Muggles.
