Favourite "Harry Potter" books

[Relish in Chaos]

What are your favourite Harry Potter books? My favourite has always been The Half-Blood Prince because of Malfoy's character development, Snape's character development and further backstory, Harry's relationship with Dumbledore, exploration into Voldemort's backstory, and Dumbledore's death.

 

[Ultress]

I'd have to go with Order of The Phoenix mainly because of the deliciously evil Dolores Umbridge,she is so much fun to hate.

 

[DugMachine]

Prisoner of Azkaban is my favorite by far. Only one I've read twice

 

[Ultress]

I'd have to go with Order of The Phoenix mainly because of the deliciously evil Dolores Umbridge,she is so much fun to hate.

Really I found that the worst one :/

I don't know why I just couldn't enjoy it. The movie was also easily the weakest too.

OT: Chamber of Secrets. Thoroughly enjoyed that one.

Yeah most people tend not to like it because of Harry's whiny/self important attitude. I never felt he was out of line and the book did do nicely at shaking things up.

Also Chamber of Secrets s my second favorite.

 

[Relish in Chaos]

I'd have to go with Order of The Phoenix mainly because of the deliciously evil Dolores Umbridge,she is so much fun to hate.

Really I found that the worst one :/

I don't know why I just couldn't enjoy it. The movie was also easily the weakest too.

OT: Chamber of Secrets. Thoroughly enjoyed that one.

Yeah most people tend not to like it because of Harry's whiny/self important attitude. I never felt he was out of line and the book did do nicely at shaking things up.

Also Chamber of Secrets s my second favorite.

I personally didn't dislike The Order of the Phoenix, but I think it was one of the weakest books because...well, I think it was the longest one, but a lot of it was, to be frank, just Harry and co. faffing around. But it does have the novelty of being the first book to actually explain why Voldemort wanted to kill Harry, with the prophecy and everything.

After The Half-Blood Prince, I think my second favourite was The Goblet of Fire because of the Triwizard Tournament, followed by The Chamber of Secrets. Although, in the film series, my favourite ones were the first two, because I think they were the ones adapted the most faithfully. After that, with the books getting larger and more things being added to the universe, they had to leave some stuff out.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

5-6 were the best ones, IMO. 2 was probably the worst, followed by 4.

7 was pretty uneven/questionable, particularly in the epilogue, which was arguably the worst part of the entire series.

 

[Dragoon]

Chamber of Secrets for me, it was the first one I read (I know that's strange but I couldn't buy the first at the time) and it was also my favourite movie. Goblet of Fire is my least favourite, I just didn't like the whole Triwizard thing.

 

[Relish in Chaos]

5-6 were the best ones, IMO. 2 was probably the worst, followed by 4.

7 was pretty uneven/questionable, particularly in the epilogue, which was arguably the worst part of the entire series.

Why do you think 2 was the worst? Everyone I've talked to liked both the book and the film of The Chamber of Secrets.

As for the last one, I agree. To be honest, I think I only enjoyed it more because of it giving us answers to the questions that we'd been asking throughout (or, at least, since about 5), rather than the narrative. The whole thing with them searching for the Horcruxes was a bit boring.

 

[Doopliss64]

Chamber of Secrets for me, there's just something about the balance between the lighter tone of the early stories and the darker themes of the later ones. It just perfectly exemplified the mysterious tone that I love about the series. Not to mention that the chamber itself and the basilisk were pretty freaky for me as a kid, and that it had what I believe to be the best portrayal of Voldemort.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

Why do you think 2 was the worst? Everyone I've talked to liked both the book and the film of The Chamber of Secrets.

Lacked the whimsy/discovery of the first book, and the darker/more adult themes of later books. Kids routinely made stupid decisions that made very little rational sense. Big bad was kind of dull. It was a fine book insomuch as they're all fine books, I just think it was the weakest of the lot.

As for the last one, I agree. To be honest, I think I only enjoyed it more because of it giving us answers to the questions that we'd been asking throughout (or, at least, since about 5), rather than the narrative. The whole thing with them searching for the Horcruxes was a bit boring.

She turned the Macguffins up to 11 with that book. She earned a lot of goodwill with the series, that has always been viewed as "young adult", so she kind of got a pass from everyone on that, but it was terribly lazy writing. If a more established author had tried the same thing they would've been crucified.

 

[Relish in Chaos]

Why do you think 2 was the worst? Everyone I've talked to liked both the book and the film of The Chamber of Secrets.

Lacked the whimsy/discovery of the first book, and the darker/more adult themes of later books. Kids routinely made stupid decisions that made very little rational sense. Big bad was kind of dull. It was a fine book insomuch as they're all fine books, I just think it was the weakest of the lot.

I dunno, the whole thing with them trying to discover the identity of the Heir of Slytherin, as well as all the people that were being Petrified, was similar to the first book. And the people being Petrified, as well as the Basilisk (that giant scary snake, although it may've just been scary for me, because I have ophidiophobia), was pretty dark. But, yeah, you could say that Riddle's role in the book was pretty dull.

As for the last one, I agree. To be honest, I think I only enjoyed it more because of it giving us answers to the questions that we'd been asking throughout (or, at least, since about 5), rather than the narrative. The whole thing with them searching for the Horcruxes was a bit boring.

She turned the Macguffins up to 11 with that book. She earned a lot of goodwill with the series, that has always been viewed as "young adult", so she kind of got a pass from everyone on that, but it was terribly lazy writing. If a more established author had tried the same thing they would've been crucified.

Yeah, I thought that too.

 

[Yopaz]

This is a tough one. I think all of them are pretty good, but Order of The Phoenix got a lot of dull parts. However it also shows a lot of character growth and there's Harry stepping up as a commander when it's needed so I can't bring myself to hate it or even dislike it.

Book 6 and 4 are probably my favourites though. Book 4 shows a lot of different challenges and there's never a moment where there's no danger involved. Book 6 is awesome in its own way.

Now I liked the last book, but like the 5th it had its dull moments and the epilogue wasn't really needed. It was pretty sad at times, but it didn't carry the weight of the deaths we had in the 5th and 6th books did. I also feel the last book lacked the happy moments from the earlier books which caused it to lack contrast.

 

[namhorFnodroG]

I have to pick The prisoner of azkaban as my favorite. It just had a perfect mix of Lightness and Darkness, and It was very enjoyable to read. It also opened up allot of intresting backstory for most of the characters. My second most liked Book gotta be The Half-Blood Prince, which had allot of very intresting turns of events and allot of story got unfolded.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

The 5th was my favorite, though the movie was terrible. I liked the darker turn it took, and it had one of the more interesting overall plots.

Frankly, all the movies are terrible, with the exception of 7. They're absolutely riddled with pacing issues and tonal misreads of the books.

Casting was almost uniformly excellent though.

 

[The Wykydtron]

For the books I liked the 4th because it goes through a load of mythical creatures and that shit's more interesting than random teenage drama.

For the films, I liked the 7th part 2 because fucking Voldie is amazing. He knows he's evil and he loves it!

BEHOLD!


<3

 

[Occams_Razor]

The Half-Blood Prince was probably my favourite. Lots of great character development, good sub-plots, unseen twists(definitely did not see that ending coming, actively tried to deny that it happened until the book finally ended).

And honestly, those some people don't like it, Deathly Hallows is once of my favourites. I'll be the first to admit that it gets a bit ridiculous sometimes, but I feel like its able to touch on things that give it more emotional depth than most of the other books. There is a genuine struggle, lots of internal and external conflict, emotional hardship. I guess it just felt richer to me than most of the other books.

 

[Scarim Coral]

My is Goblet of Fire since that was the turning point of the entire series (the part at the end).

 

[In Search of Username]

I also enjoyed 5 the least, because despite how fun it is to hate Umbridge, Harry is just irritatingly pessimistic and aggressive in that one. You can't really sympathise with him.

Not too sure on a favourite; I know my favourite film in the series is Deathly Hallows Part 1, because they actually kept with the pacing of the book for once - and because I managed to successfully guess the exact point in the story it would end at before watching the film.

Honestly I'd probably agree with you that six is the best. Seven was good but suffered a little from not having the school as a kind of frame for the action - and the epilogue completely spoiled it with its sheer stupidity. So yeah, six.

 

[afroebob]

All of them are undeniably good, but I would have to put The Deathly Hallows at the very best. It was extremely well written and there is nothing better than a great ending.

Oh, and this thread proves something for me. On the internet, even something as wonderful as Harry Potter still has people bitching here and there.

 

[PPB]

For a long time my favourite was PoA; it's the only book I read in one sitting, staying awake until about 4AM so I could finish it. After re-reading it a few times though, it kind of lost its glow. The ending is a bit long when you know the surprises. My favourites nowadays are probably GoF and HBP, but PoA is still rather dear to me.

My least favourites are OotP and DH. OotP is simply too long for its own good. DH answers a lot of questions, but I don't like how they litterally spend half the book doing absolutely nothing. It's just not the same when they're not at school it seems.