The Ringer article inspired me to write a similar article for my blog. However, instead ranking all the Harry Potter books and movies, I'm just going to rank the books ( But for what it is worth, I do think Prisoner of Azkaban was the best of the 8 movies. Alfonso Cuarón did a remarkable job directing that movie. I loved how he used the Whomping Willow to mark the changing of the seasons. ). Before going forward, I should warn anyone who hasn't read all the Harry Potter books that this post will be full of spoilers. Of course, if you haven't read all the Harry Potter books already, you should stop reading this blog post immediately and get your hands on all of the books you haven't read already.
Before getting to my rankings, I'd like to write a little bit about how I came to be a Harry Potter fan. I was a little bit later to the party than most Potterheads. I was 28 and childless when the first book was released in the USA, so it wasn't as if I was looking for children's fiction to read at the time. I wasn't aware of the Harry Potter universe at all until March of of 2000, when I read the following ( 6-month old ) article on a plane to ( or from ) Taiwan in the following edition of Time magazine.
I was fascinated by the fictional universe described in the article. A few days later, Ruth went out and got the first 3 Harry Potter books for us, and we've been huge fans ever since. We took turns reading the first 3 books, and by the time Goblet of Fire came out in July of 2000, we had each just finished Prisoner of Azkaban. It was tough to wait for Order of the Phoenix after devouring the first 4 books in 3 months, but anything Potter-related is worth the wait ( Well, except for The Cursed Child ).
Anyway, I want this to be a quick post, so rather than give any kind of detailed review of each book, I'm just going to list all seven books from worst to best ( "worst" is a relative term here - I think all the books were great ) and make some comments to explain why I liked some books better than others. I'm also going to group the books into three tiers of quality, with the first tier being the best. So, with that said, here are my rankings ...
Tier 3
7) Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets
6) Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
As I noted above, I love all the Harry Potter books, but I think these two are a notch or two below the other five. There is a lot of fascinating exposition in Half-Blood Prince, and Deathly Hallows wouldn't work without all the groundwork laid by it, but I sometimes think that a better name for the book would have been Harry Potter and the Pensive or Harry Potter and the Background Information. Also, I was never a fan of the Harry/Ginny relationship that begins in this book. I'd been shipping Harry and Luna since Luna's character was introduced, and I was disappointed to see him wind up with Ginny. Seriously, Harry makes some odd romantic choices. He's the most famous wizard in the world, and the two people he decides to hook up with in the series are a girl who is morning her dead boyfriend and his best friend's sister? C'mon Harry, you're better than that!
As far as Chamber of Secrets goes, all I can say is "meh", and despite the "meh", I still wish it were longer.
Tier 2
5) Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone
4) Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
You can't have a great book series without a great first book, and Sorcerer's Stone certainly fits the bill. However, as great as Sorcerer's Stone was, I've got to rank Prisoner of Azkaban higher, because Azkaban added richness to the saga that hadn't been there before. The Azkaban book starts to flesh out Snape's character by giving us a window into his school days with James, Sirius and Lupin. Almost as significant, the book introduces us to Sirius and Lupin and gives us important information about how and why Harry's parents died. We learn about both dementors and patronuses, and despite the problematic plot holes that can be introduced by time travel, I really enjoyed the time-turner plot in this book.
Tier 3
3) Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows
2) Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
1) Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
It was hard to decide which order to put these three books in, because if I were ranking these books on a scale of 1 to 100, they would all be north of 99. So, with that in mind, Deathly Hallow's third place finish shouldn't be seen as a knock against it. Everything from The Prince's Tale going forward just might be the best 100 pages I've ever read, but it ranks behind the other two books because the 658 pages that lead up to the The Prince's Tale do not quite measure up to the top two books on this list.
I don't think there is anything I didn't love about Order of the Phoenix. I loved the Order; I loved the DA; I loved to hate Umbridge, and I loved the strength, resolve, and determination Harry displayed in defying her. The Snape/Occlumency stuff was great, the battle at the Department of Mysteries was fantastic, and the Harry/Sirius stuff tugged at your heartstrings in just the right way. On top of all that, this book had the two greatest badass Dumbledore quotes in the entire series.
"Well -- it's just that you seem to be laboring under the delusion that I am going to -- what is the phrase? 'Come quietly' ..."
"It was foolish to come here tonight, Tom"It's hard to say exactly why I have Goblet of Fire ranked ahead of Order of the Phoenix. If I simply added up all the great parts of each book, I think the Order would finish ahead of Goblet. However, I think Goblet has some kind of special charm that I just can't quantify. I could point to a lot of great stuff in Goblet like the Quidditch World Cup, the Triwizard Tournament, and the graveyard scene, but the part the really pushes it over the top for me is everything related to the Yule Ball. I had been hoping that Ron and Hermione would become a couple from the first time they met in that train compartment, and all the Yule Ball stuff finally confirmed they were in love, even though they wouldn't admit it to themselves until years later. It was also nice to see Hermione finally get the attention she deserved ( from Krum ), and I enjoyed how the Patil sisters left Harry and Ron in a cloud of dust when the boys failed to be good dates. Most of all, I think I was touched more by Harry's failed attempt to date Cho than his successful attempt in the next book. I felt an all-too-familiar pit in my stomach when Harry was about to ask Cho to the Yule Ball, and the disappointment he felt afterwards made him a more relatable character than he had ever been before.
I should also mention that it was well worth the 4 books of waiting to finally see Voldemort in the flesh. Somehow, his duel with Harry in Goblet of Fire was more compelling and emotional that the duel in Deathly Hallows, even though there was clearly more at stake in the Hallows duel.
In the end, you really can't go wrong with any of the Harry Potter books. There's almost nothing I would change about those book, with the notable exception of the rules of Quidditch. That whole Golden Snitch thing thing is ridiculous. Why even bother to try to score goals when the Snitch is worth 150 points? Why the hell would Krum catch the snitch with his team down 160 points ( What, he couldn't wait a few minutes to see if his team could score two goals to cut the deficit to 140? )? Seriously, if somebody made me the manager of the Chudley Cannons, I'd moneyball the shit out of that sport. I'd play with 1 keeper and 6 seekers and we'd catch that snitch long before any of our opponents could accumulate 15 goals. If I ever found myself in the Harry Potter universe a muggle like me probably wouldn't be able handle a wand, but I sure as hell could be a dominant Quidditch manager.
Rich
P.S. Seriously, I'd moneyball the shit out of it.
