While killing time on the internet a few months back, I came across an article that ranked the Harry Potter books from worst to best. While my rankings of the books is slightly different than the author of that particular article, I found it to be enjoyable and interesting, along with, I’m sure, tens of thousands of Harry Potter fanatics the world over. I didn’t read the books until I was in college. I thought the first two were a little childish and only pressed on because my girlfriend at the time always wanted to talk about them. I might have been a little older than most people who read the third book for the first time. I thought it was great really, as I’ve re-read all of them at least 20 times at this point, I think they are all great, but Azkaban doesn’t really approach the top of my list as it does for so many others.Īnyway, I got to thinking that it would be cool to see a list of each individual chapter in the Harry Potter universe ranked from worst to best.

I searched and searched, but the internet let me down. So I figured, what the heck, it can’t be too long of a project, I’ll just do it myself. Since then, I’ve re-read each book two more times. I tried to critically analyze each chapter. I invented a rating system to judge the overall worth of the chapter. While mostly based on enjoyment, things like importance to the series and overall story arch gave certain chapters giant bonus points (I’m looking at you Mudbloods and Murmurs). I even catalogued things that were introduced in each chapter (i.e. characters, locations, wizarding items, wizarding terms, even spells). I got so into it and, amazingly, I never got tired of doing it. I am continually amazed at the brilliance of Ms. She basically used five entire books to familiarize the reader with the wizarding world and the characters involved, in order to tell the true story that really takes place over the final two books. What is this crazy guy talking about? Coming from a guy who could probably win any Harry Potter trivia contest in the world at this point, trust me. The true story is about Harry and Voldemort and Harry’s mission to destroy Voldemort’s horcruxes. All of the books before that just establish the characters and setting.

The single most amazing thing to me is that she clearly had the complete story outlined prior to writing the first word. She created this entire world and story before she ever knew it was going to be published. So, here’s a quick look at my book order from worst to first and basic explanation. Order of the Phoenix (Book 5) – This one is the only book that at any point can be accused of dragging (I know people don’t like the camping going down in Hallows, but I’m a big fan of it actually). Phoenix is too long by about 250 pages, contains the longest consecutive stretch of bad chapters that basically just has Harry getting teen-angsty and unreasonably angry at everyone and living in a miserable flat in a dingy part of London. And she doesn’t get killed by the centaurs. Suffice to say that there is a lot I can say about this one but the reason it sits at the bottom of my rankings is because it could have been absolutely great as it sits right in between my two favorites, but it was really only “good” and just takes too long to move the plot along. The Chamber of Secrets (Book 2) – This is basically a rehash of Book 1.

Salvia hexio