The Harry Potter series was a fundamental part of many people's childhoods, and though it continues through games like Hogwarts Legacy and the Fantastic Beasts films, there's nothing quite like the original. The thrill of Quidditch, the awe of entering a magical world, and the Hogwarts Houses, have become fundamental parts of how many millennials and Gen Zs define themselves.

However, some fans have gone back to re-read the books that changed their lives over a decade ago and have found some flaws. One element that many fans have taken to Reddit to discuss are parts of the series that feel more like fanfiction than canon. Fanfiction can be well-written and expand stories to make them even better, but it also has a reputation for being overly simplistic. Many fans have agreed that Cursed Child is simply bad fanfiction, but several Redditors pointed out elements of the original books that are similarly amateurish.

Life-Long Relationships

Although many films and television shows romanticize the importance of first love, the reality is that it rarely lasts. This was one of Redditor blueyesbrandon95's complaints about the Harry Potter series. They explain, "Ron and Hermione, Harry and Ginny, and long lasting relationship based on Middle and High School dating. I know it's a children's book, but I feel like if there was a Wizarding college. All these characters would have dated different people."

Because the entirety of their developmental years were spent at Hogwarts, it felt only natural for relationships that took years to build to end in marriage after the war was over. However, many people meet their significant others in college, at work, or elsewhere. The idea that all adolescent crushes turned into life-long relationships feels overly simplistic and childish, which is a common problem with bad fanfiction.

Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows

While the first six Harry Potter books had relatively clear plots and directions, Deathly Hallows spent much of the book rambling endlessly. This is common in fanfiction, where character development often trumps the plot. Redditor jeremiahishere explained that they "called a friend to check I wasn't reading a fanfic by accident when they wandered through a forest for 40 pages."

While this comment only got 97 upvotes, several other Redditors made similar comments, pointing out the rampant character death, angst, and exposition dumps that are common in fan fiction. Deathly Hallows felt so different from the previous books that some fans even reject the final book in favor of fix-it fanfiction.

Harry And Ginny's Relationship

While the relationship between Ron and Hermione had been building for years, the relationship between Harry and Ginny felt like an odd dynamic. Redditor spider-Manna called this out, explaining that, "at least in the sixth book," their romance was weak. Over 100 other Redditors agreed.

Readers knew Ginny had a crush on Harry from the beginning, but she largely disappeared in Chamber of Secrets, only to emerge a drastically different character in Order of the Phoenix. She was suddenly a strong witch who dated several of the fifth-year Gryffindor boys and was amazing at Quidditch, which helped Harry realize he liked her back. It felt like a serious case of wish-fulfillment, à la self-insert fanfiction.

The Department Of Mysteries

Order of the Phoenix introduced readers to the Department of Mysteries, and while it was a lot of fun, it was vastly unorganized and confusing. As hippopotameaffame explained, "I feel like a lot of what is in the Department of Mysteries feels like what excited fans would come up with if asked. A brain room? Time room? The portal to death? It just didn't like a cohesive workplace, office, or research facility."

While the Ministry was written as a chaotic mess, it was also supposed to be an example of bureaucracy gone wrong. The sheer insanity of the Department of Mysteries felt more like window dressing to tell the audience they were in a fantasy world than a reasonable in-world research center. Just over 150 upvotes show that this sentiment was widely shared.

Unrealistic Romantic Dynamics

Harry and Ginny were directly paralleling James and Lily, but neither love story felt as grounded and authentic as others in the series. As Educational-Bug7985 pointed out, "Lily and James’ romance is literally your typical Wattpad trope. Ginny and Harry’s relationship is also pretty poorly-written for my taste but not as bad."

James was the perfect, brilliant, loyal bad boy, and he and Lily easily played into the enemies-to-lovers trope. Meanwhile, Harry and Ginny were more akin to the celebrity-loves-you-back sub-genre. In either case, the perfect girl fell in love with the popular boy, with long periods of pining on one side followed by requited feelings.

Myrtle's Romantic (And Sexual) Dalliances

Moaning Myrtle was an odd character in Chamber of Secrets, but she got pretty uncomfortable as the books went on. One particular element of this that lettiestohelit pointed out was "Myrtle liking Malfoy." Though this comment only had 70 upvotes, several responses were playing on the idea that Myrtle was attracted to every male character.

Myrtle was a 14-year-old when she died, and her sexualization is very in-line with the variety of fanfiction writers that write smut during the early and middle years at Hogwarts when the characters were literal children. Myrtle admits to watching the prefects bathe in Goblet of Fire and then falls into the "Draco Malfoy is just sensitive and misunderstood" trap that largely emerged from Tom Felton's portrayal.

Poor Worldbuilding In Deathly Hallows

There was a lot of space in the Harry Potter series for new concepts to be subtly woven in, and while many elements worked, plenty of others (like the Deathly Hallows) felt like they came out of nowhere. As MasterOutlaw explained, "DH in general feels like it was crammed full of new plot points and revelations that needed time to simmer, but instead, we just rushed right through them."

This comment got over 100 upvotes, and several other users shared elements that they felt were shoved into the final book with little build-up. The Deathly Hallows were never mentioned until the last book, which felt like an AU addition that a fanfiction writer might add to make their story unique.

Harry Potter And The Chamber Of Secrets

While Deathly Hallows felt poorly done because so many characters died, Redditor jamuntan found that Chamber of Secrets was weak because "literally no victim dies. they all escape because of some coincidence. it makes no sense that they all see the basilisk through various reflective surfaces." This answer had over 500 upvotes, and there's definitely some merit to it.

When Voldemort raised the basilisk, a student immediately died. But when Ginny did it, four students, one ghost, and one cat all saw the basilisk and managed to survive. The sheer number of accidental survivors has no in-world explanation, which unfortunately weakens the whole story.

"The Jealousy Monster"

School often teaches students to use metaphors freely, but there are some insanely cringe-worthy metaphors in fanfiction and some published novels. In Fifty Shades of Grey, it is Anastasia's "inner goddess." In Harry Potter, it's "the jealousy monster inside Harry," which was brought up by Redditors Lord_Parbr and samiksha66, with over 1,000 upvotes between them.

The jealousy monster was only ever mentioned in Half-Blood Prince, but it made an impression on fans. When Harry discovered that Dean was dating Ginny, he got insanely jealous, which was described as "something large and scaly erupted into life in Harry's stomach, clawing at his insides." The phrasing was extremely uncomfortable, and many readers are shocked it was able to make it to print.

The Epilogue

The most popular example of Harry Potter being similar to bad fanfiction was BarryCuda4's comment: "Honestly the epilogue. I'm sorry but there's no way everyone just smiles and nods at malfoy. That might be just the movies though haven't read the books in forever so if so forgive me." With over 1500 and dozens of comments, fans shared the elements of the Epilogue that they hated.

The epilogue felt jarring after seven books of growing darkness involving bigotry and government negligence because it promoted the idea that killing one bad guy fixed all of society's problems. It was too much of a happy ending, and the painful, uncomfortable post-war scenes of books like The Hunger Games and Ender's Game did a far better job. And to be fair to the fans, plenty of fanfiction managed those elements better too.

NEXT: The Most Popular Harry Potter Fanfiction For Each Major Ship, According To Ao3