Anyone who knows me well, knows that I love love love Harry Potter. Ever since I was little I’ve had an affinity for the wizarding world, and as nerdy as that sounds, I do not care. I completely embrace my nerd side. Just as I embrace my unpopular opinions about Harry Potter. Some of these opinions may be more unpopular than others (I am not one to set your spectrum of popularity), but if you agree: awesome! Please comment why! And if you don’t: still awesome! Please comment why as well!

ALRIGHT, here we go. Prepare to unlock the Harry Potter side of my brain.

1. Dumbledore kind of sucks.

Let’s go ahead and start off with a controversial topic. Dumbledore was a pompous man who, yes helped Harry, but let’s all agree that while he did quite a lot for Harry, he could’ve done these things with more clarity. Harry felt left out in the dark on a lot of things about Dumbledore and the prophecy and horcruxes and this caused some unneeded strife.

Also Dumbledore, understandably ashamed of his dark past full of tragedy, kept it hidden from Harry. Harry didn’t even feel he knew Dumbledore after he found out about his past and the fact that Harry felt they could have had more of an understanding for each other (especially because of Godric’s Hollow, but Dumbledore didn’t share this with him) proves to me that Dumbledore cared more about Harry viewing him as a high, wise, powerful wizard rather than sharing his story with a child who is like himself in many ways.

I think the slight downfall of Dumbledore was much needed in the books; Dumbledore was set on a pedastal and it was good to see him knocked down a few pegs to prove that he was still human and he made many terrible mistakes. I don’t hate good ol’ Dumblydore, but he’s far from my favorite character and his death and following decline in popularity were vital to the plot and to Harry realizing that he really had to rely on his abilities and his friends’ help, not on Dumbledore.

2. Severus Snape was a bully.

Sure Snape was in love with Lily and the Marauders were terrible to him, but that gives him no right to be terrible to students, giving them detentions for no reason, insulting them, and allowing abuse and turning his giant nose away from it.

(That was not a stab at Alan Rickman, by the way, he did a wonderful job portraying Severus Snape, and his character is no doubt interesting, but Snape’s nose is abnormally large).

Something that gets me is Snape’s relationship with Neville. He treats Neville like scum, so much so that Neville’s boggart, what turns into your greatest fear, was Snape. After all Neville had been through, the thing he feared most was a professor at school.

That is absolutely disgusting. And another thing is that he couldn’t let go of the past taunting events that the Marauders put him through, so he outted Remus Lupin (a personal favorite of mine) as a werewolf and forced him to resign his position at Hogwarts and go into hiding and treated Harry and his friends terrible.

I am in no way condoning what they did to Severus in school, but I am also not going to say that Snape’s actions were justified because of it. He should’ve made sure no students were ever treated like that agian, but he instead continued the mistreatment of others at Hogwarts.

Though I don’t like Snape very much, I do find his character intriguing. Especially this whole contradicting relationship between him and Harry. Yes, he hates Harry because he looks and sometimes acts like James, but he has Lily’s eyes and Snape must protect him. You are one twisted dude, Severus.

3. Kreacher won me over in the books, but not in the movies and that’s upsetting.

I hate comparing the movie series and the book series because I know that there are stipulations to making books into cinematic features. Obviously we can’t get all the Peeves and Winkys in our beloved movie series, but they had already included Kreacher in all his bigotted loyalty to the pureblood Black family, but failed to give him the redemption that JK Rowling warranted in the books.

In Deathly Hallows, Harry starts being nicer to Kreacher and Kreacher becomes delightful. He cooks fair meals and cleans Number 12 Grimmauld Place and is genuinely happy to be loyal to Harry.

So much so that when the Battle of Hogwarts came about, Kreacher led the house elves at Hogwarts in fighting alongside Harry, against those to which he once before swore his allegiance to wholeheartedly. It makes me sad that we couldn’t see this redemption for this house elf.

4. Harry and Ginny’s name choices aren’t my favorite.

This isn’t something I’m super die-hard about, but I do think Harry and Ginny should have named their kids better and they had so many more options than Snape and Dumbledore for inspiration (ie Sirius, Remus, heck I’d even take Dobby or Mad Eye over Albus Severus). You know my opinions on Albus Dumbledore and Severus Snape; I feel this point has been made.

P.S. I do love that they named their girl after Luna (Lily Luna). I am incredibly partial to Luna Lovegood.

5. The Marauder’s generation is a generation I want more of.

The marauders seem so much more interesting to me than Harry’s generation. Give me a series on James Potter, Sirius and Regulus Black, Remus Lupin, Peter Petigrew, Lily Evans, Severus Snape, I’d even take Petunia in with these stories. I want to know more about these people, and specifically Minerva McGonagall’s relationship with the Marauders and exactly how the marauder’s map was created. Thank you.

6. I think Harry is in the wrong profession.

In my opinion, Harry should have been the DADA professor, not an auror- after a life of fighting against the dark arts I feel he’d want to be away from all the action and just teach others how to combat dark magic.

Also I have this picture of him and Neville wearing sweaters and drinking coffee and herbal tea and protecting all students and I just think this makes me happier and would give Ron something that he wouldn’t be compared to Harry in.

Ron could thrive and have the spotlight and Harry would read about Ron catching a dark wizard and Hermoine protecting the rights of magical creatures in the Daily Prophet and the only thing he’d have to worry about is all the questions he would get from students after Binns taught on the Battle of Hogwarts in History of Magic.

7. Mad Eye Moody is underrated.

I feel as if we were all cheated out of knowing more of the gem that Moody was. Give me a few side stories about Mad Eye, like stories of being an auror, was he ever in love, what’s his favorite Bertie Botts Every Flavor Beans flavor? I WANT TO KNOW MORE ABOUT MAD EYE MOODY.

8. I think Sirius and Remus (and thus Tonks) needed to die.

Though I do LOVE Sirius and Remus, and it pains me to say, it feels right that they died to be with James and Lily. Also it would be less of a heartache for Tonks if she passed too, and though they left Teddy behind, Harry would be there. While Teddy is in a very similar position that Harry was once in, Harry can be what he wishes he had in those dark times.

9. I see no reason for Dobby’s death and it’d be hard to convince me otherwise.

I honest to goodness do not understand why Dobby had to die (or Fred Weasley, for that matter). I understand that everything can’t be all sunshine and roses in the midst of political warfare and utter tragedy. I get that. And I understand the logic behind killing one of the Weasleys because, yes, statistically speaking one of them would have to go, but that logic is a heck of a downer to subscribe to, especially since it meant killing Fred Weasley. But I see no good reason for Dobby, if you have one, please explain!

10. Gryffindors are super overrated.

This is probably just unpopular amongst gryffindors, but I think it’s true. As a gryffindor, I feel I can say that the other houses definitely do not get get as much hype as they deserve. Let’s keep the level of hypeness for gryffindors up and just raise up the hype levels for the other houses. They’re all important to the foundation of Hogwarts and though there are stigmas, it doesn’t mean that those traits are the only traits about a person nor does it mean those traits always reign true. Sure gryffindors are the bomb.com, but so are the other houses.

Here we are, at the end of (some) of my Harry Potter opinions. Thanks for going on this journey through the magical world of my fangirl brain