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Spoilered for size, it is quite a long ranking of mine. 

Spoiler

She asked us to rank them! I’m going to do just that! Care to read it?
*7) Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince:* Now don’t get me wrong, I love this book to bits and pieces, it’s still my seventh favorite book in the series. We get a lot of time developing Harry and Dumbledore’s relationship which is great, especially because of more Dumbledore, one of the series’ best characters imo. We also get to learn all about Voldemort’s origins and how he will be defeated later on, and Draco gets so much great development in this book. The mystery in this one (about the assassination attempts and what Draco is up to, not the Half-Blood Prince) is one of the better ones in the series as well. And of course, the twist at the end was fantastic, and so was the very ending itself, probably my favorite ending in the series. The book is acknowledging we know what’s going down in the next book, Harry knows what’s going down in the next book, and for the first time Harry feels truly on his own. It’s a cliffhanger, but it leaves you satisfied at the same time. So why is it my least favorite? Two main things: the execution of Voldemort’s backstory scenes and the focus on romance. First off, Voldemort’s backstory is quite interesting. However, the way it’s presented in the book really kills the pacing. Things are moving along in the plot and we’re suddenly dragged to Dumbledore’s office for yet another exposition scene; sometimes without even knowing what’s going on. The biggest offender of this is the first memory, which is the only time I’ve ever actually been bored while reading one of these books. The pacing crawls to a halt as we get dragged off to this mundane, not magical area that gets described while not a lot actually happens in this scene. The same feeling comes from most of the other memory scenes in my opinion, but they’re usually more interesting, it’s just... the pacing. Ouch. The second problem with this one is the focus on romance because it’s not very good. Harry’s sudden infatuation with Ginny is just that, and it piles on way too quickly. His feelings aren’t described any better by J.K., I doubt I need to remind anyone of Harry’s love monster. Their romance also doesn’t feel natural because Ginny’s thing for Harry is well, over, in our eyes. She hasn’t been all shy and blushing around him in recent books and she’s even dating someone else! But then suddenly they’re the couple now? Huh. And Harry’s thing for her is completely out of left field. Lavender with Ron is very cringy, however this is the point so that’s actually well done. Last thing to touch on is that we have no real reason to really care all that much about who the half blood prince is. He just wrote really helpful stuff in a potions book with no ill effects, I really don’t see why his identity matters all that much. People often call this one the foil for Deathly Hallows and such, and while that is very much why the story is the way it is, I personally think it stills works well as a standalone story. All in all, it really is an incredibly great read, it’s just the worst of the best.
*6) Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets:* This book is a great second book. It takes what we learn in the first one and expands upon it, teaching us a lot about life in the wizarding world through Harry’s time at the burrow and Dobby. Lockhart is also so much fun as a character, his vein obliviousness never fails to put a smile on my face. I would say it definitely has the best mystery in the series, it kept me on the edge of my seat. The plot is a bit too convenient in places, I like how they set up Phoenix tears being able to cure wounds, but other than that a lot of stuff just sort of happens without an immediate explanation. It works, however, since it’s mostly in the tense climax, and is explained thereafter. The huge exception being the flying car at the end. How does it have sentience now? How?? What’s also convenient is that not one single person died from the Basilisk, some of it making sense and some of it not. Like Collin with his nose always in his camera and Hermione having just figured out the mystery, great. But there just happened to be water on the floor for Mrs. Norris to see the basilisk through? And seeing it through a ghost doesn’t count as directly seeing it, even though you’re looking right at it?Anyway, swinging back to positives, we do meet Dobby in this book, who I love. He serves the plot and the world building at the same time in such a clever little way. That world building is what makes this such an excellent novel, and the overall plot and mystery is quite thrilling and one of the more entertaining of the series, it’s only when you look at the details that things don’t pan out, imo.
*5) Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix:* Hey look, the number of the book and its ranking match! Order of the Phoenix has Umbridge, who is so hate-able thanks to the very high quality writing. It has the titular order of the phoenix, which is very cool to learn about. We get a lot of Sirius/Harry time in this book and that relationship is also great, especially considering his death at the end. It also does a great job at showing us that the kids will even more have to rely on themselves with the ministry, the tone is excellent at this feeling of helplessness, which pairs excellently with us learning a lot about the ministry in this book. Dumbledore’s Army is also a very cool secret organization, plus Luna is introduced in this book! Everyone knows Luna is great. The Harry and Voldemort mental bond link thing was also very cool and interesting, and is a very thrilling plot device because we’re left on the edge of our seats with what’s going on being taunted at us, never knowing the full picture. It’s only really used twice but still. However... I’m not the biggest fan of angsty Harry. Yes, yes, I know, he had good reasons for that, but it’s really the scene in Dumbledore’s office that bothers me, because Dumbledore has been so so kind to Harry all this time and Harry isn’t just shouting, he’s destroying a good portion of his possessions. He spends quite a bit of time in this book being a jerkwad, and he isn’t presented as very sympathetic with his reasons during these times, making it hard to root for him. And actual events in the plot can feel a bit lacking at times, it relies quite a bit on its sideplots quite often, leaving the overarching plot quite weak. It’s a Harry Potter though, and as number 5 in this ranking, it’s still the 5th best book ever.
*4) Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows:* The Deathly Hallows is a very thrilling conclusion to Harry Potter. It might start off slow, sure, but in my opinion the second half more than makes up for that. It’s action packed and tense, with the very place we’ve spent 6 books getting to know in love being attacked, in flames and falling apart, and lots of characters we know and love (and other characters love 😞) dying, yet it never feeling forced or unnecessary. The hunt for the horcruxes throughout is just such an epic journey, especially when they’re running around Hogwarts with the battling raging on outside. We learn about Snape’s backstory and motivations in this book, as well as Dumbledore’s, both of which are simply fantastic, and following up with Dumbledore’s motivations, we learn of Harry being a horcrux, which might just be one of my favorite twists ever. Hermione and Ron takes off in this book, and in quite an effective way since whole chapters aren’t devoted to it. Lastly, they ride a dragon in this book. That just feels worth mentioning. The biggest flaw with this one, though, is the one you hear everyone complain about: the camping. Yeah, yeah, but it really is hard to find much interest in our heroes sitting around like this, and of course it’s not too good for the pacing either when, after thrilling stuff, we get to go back to chapters of camping. That’s really my only big flaw with the book, the first half is quite slow. But the second half is an intense and thrilling conclusion to an epic series, that left me very satisfied.
*3) Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban:* Hey look, the number of the book and its placement matches again. Anyway, I will open this section like this: the scene at the shrieking shack where everyone shows up is one of the best scenes I’ve seen in fiction... period. It’s incredibly written, it twists and turns so much for one single scene yet pulls it off so well. But moving on from that, we meet Lupin and Sirius, though we don’t get much of him in this one, another two of my favorite characters. The dementors are also fascinating magical creatures, and we learn about the marauders! The mystery is greatly executed in that we get smaller, seemingly unrelated mysteries instead of one huge one (well, we kind of get a huge one), that are all tied together in that shrieking shack scene, and it just works oh so well. Like you can’t tell me anyone read the part where they are asked about Animagus...es? and thought “oh yeah, this is definitely because the mystery of how the villain is getting in and out is because he’s one of those”. And that scene at the three broomsticks, where we learn that Sirius is Harry’s godfather? So well done! We also get a lot of Quidditch in this book, with them actually winning the cup this time, and while Quidditch itself doesn’t make much sense, it is exciting to read and gets bonus point for that. Divination was also a fascinating subject to learn about, let’s just pretend that J.K. Rowling’s stupid tweet about it didn’t happen. Nope... just the novel... The time travel was something I could never really get behind though, I get that all the time turners  were destroyed after this one, but the fact that Hermione’s had one the whole book and how and why she got one is quite the plothole. Now of course, everyone knows you can’t be a Harry Potter book without being ridden with plotholes, but this one definitely has the most plotholes, even with how the time travel itself is used in the story. That’s my only big complaint with the story, that hecking time travel.
*2) Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone:* This book is how you introduce a world and a series right. Even though I know this entire world and the storyline and all the backstories in the books and so on, it still never fails to hype me, the experience is simply... magical. Rowling has taken all the legends around witchcraft and wizardry, two staples of fantasy writing, and applied them to a modern setting in the most clever of ways. From the moment Harry steps into Hogwarts, this book is hard to put down. As we learn about the world with Harry, the world building really shines through, since his experiences are our primary source of it. The mystery is great in this one as well, particularly with how it sets itself up by hinting at things that will happen later in the book earlier. Instead of an overarching plot, this book follows the structure of Harry having a bunch of smaller adventures throughout Hogwarts with everything he learned culminating in the end to go save the Sorcerer’s Stone. This book and the next one (which you should already know since it’s the only one left) are the only ones that I don’t have any really big criticisms with. If I had to say something about this one, it would be that it has a lot of plotholes. It’s just oozing them. But that’s more of a nitpick since none of them really impact the story that much, imo. What I said at the beginning was my best summary of my feelings on this book, as the first book in this extraordinary world it’s such a thrill to read, since this is where we learn about it all. (Unless you read them out of order which, shame on you!)
*1) Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire:* This book, to me, really screams Harry Potter. Action, adventure, magic, mystery... Harry Potter! As the “transition book”, as fans dub it, combining the light hearted, magical whimsicality of the first books with the dark, more serious plot lines of later novels, this book starts off as the former of the two, but the climax heading toward the latter, this book perfectly captures the spirit of Harry Potter in my mind. It has a thrilling, interesting premise (the Triwizard Tournament), and great subplots strewn about that make it highly difficult to put down once the book gets going. Once that happens I usually make it though the rest very quickly, which is hundreds and hundreds of pages, because it’s just that darn good. The mystery is the best developed in this book out of any book I have ever read, period. When you get the twist at the end, everything else just so naturally falls into place without much explanation needed, leaving the most satisfying feeling. Rowling perfectly balanced dropping hints and not making it too obvious, that the mystery is constantly being developed, yet you’re never that much wiser, left always anticipating the next chapter. Character subplots also start to really take center stage in this one, and I love how Ron is handled in this one, having to deal with his jealousy over Harry that fits so well with his established character. We get to learn so much about the wizarding world by seeing the students from some of its other schools and hearing about said schools. I love this book to bits and pieces, it excels in every department. If I had to pick something to complain about it, it would probably be that it takes quite a bit to really get going, and while the bits before that are certainly enjoyable, they’re not the same as the story in full gear, that being an exciting mystery and magical adventure packed with twists and subplots and character development. What a masterpiece.

So, how would you rank them? I’m not seeing too many ranks here, I’d love to discuss them!

 

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I mean, it doesn’t surprise me. Children are one of the few things Trump loves almost as much as himself, so of course he would end up being like one.

If this gets me a warning, so be it.

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