I’ll admit, as much as I (allegedly) hate the beach, coming back from vacation only to have to step back into the daily grind again sucks more.

"I'll set this place on fire..."

I may not be going back to school, and most of my friends will still be around to hang out with anyway, but this still feels like the end of summer…

…

Heck with it. We’ve still got a little vacation left, so I’ve decided to wrap up my summer by getting in a few last words on one of my summer highlights: seeing “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows part 2.” I don’t have much else to say about the movie itself, but it was a great night spent with friends and now that I’ve seen it, yeah, I’m still a little sad that it’s over. I loved the series, the books and the movies. It was a part of my life for over 10 years, after all. It was a cultural phenomenon.

Gahhh!! Go away! Go away! WHY WON'T YOU DIE?!?

I meant a GOOD cultural phenomenon! Get lost, “Twilight.”

Anyways, something that important needs some closure. And now that the movies are all said and done, I thought this week would be a good time to look back on all that’s been and point out my favorites. Which of the Harry Potter books and movies are my favorites? And which do I like the least? This is completely opinion-based, based on personal preference instead of any statistical fact. I’m going to split this into two articles, with the movies in part two, but for now let’s look at what I consider the best and the worst Harry Potter books…

Best Harry Potter Book: “Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban” (book 3)

After saving up enough gold, Harry could finally afford his own flying mount.

Figures. The first choice I have to make is probably the hardest one to decide. Can’t I just say that I like them all for their own reasons? But I suppose, if I had to choose, “Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban” wins out. This is the one that I love the most. Explaining why, however, can be a little complex.

At its most basic, I like “Prisoner of Azkaban” because it’s the last of the more “innocent” years at Hogwarts. I first started reading Harry Potter when my grandma, who worked at a Borders bookstore, bought me a box set of the first three books. So they hold a special place in my heart for being “the first,” and together I think books 1-3 are the ones that introduced readers to a hidden world of magic and adventure.

"Come with me... and you'll be... in a world of pure imagination..."

I see the next book in the series, “Goblet of Fire” as the turning point of the whole series, when evil Lord Voldemort returned and everything got serious. Suddenly what started out as a simple story of a whimsical, magic world grew up and started dealing with issues of death, war, and corruption. It was an important change, but I still love the lighthearted magical world more, where whimsical things happened at random and the fate of the world wasn’t at stake. If I remember correctly, “Prisoner of Azkaban” is the one book in the series where Voldemort doesn’t appear at all. It has its darker, scarier moments, such as the spectral dementors or the ominous Sirius Black, but “Prisoner of Azkaban” was the last of the simpler, lighter adventures of Harry Potter.

The other major reason I really love the third book is because it has time travel. The climax of “Prisoner of Azkaban” involves Harry and Hermione going back in time to change events and help themselves, all while making sure not to be seen or disrupt the timeline. You get to see events happen twice from different perspectives. And that’s just awesome. Nevermind that it’s totally inconceivable that they’d let schoolkids time-travel, or that it’s never used again in the series, it’s just fun.

Yeah, my thoughts went here, too.

One of my favorite moments in the book comes when Harry finally grasps that they’ve actually managed to go back in time and simply states, “This is the weirdest thing we’ve ever done.”

Aside from that, “Prisoner of Azkaban” just has a lot of memorable scenes and things that I like. The Marauders’ Map, the boggart, Hogemeade, winning the Quidditch Cup, Buckbeak, Sirius Black and Remus Lupin… “Prisoner of Azkaban” is full of some of the best moments in the series.

And now…

Worst Harry Potter Book: “Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix” (book 5)

For some reason, "Harry Potter and the Order of the Unicorn Faeries" just didn't sound right.

This one is a little easier to decide. While I don’t consider any of the books bad, “Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix” is the one I probably like the least. And if I had to say why, I think it’s because I see this one as being, essentially, filler.

“Order of the Phoenix” is one of the longest books in the series, but it didn’t have to be. The previous book, “Goblet of Fire,” was also very lengthy, but there was a lot of plot crammed into it. “Goblet of Fire” had the Quidditch World Cup, the Triwizard Tournament, a fallout between Harry and Ron, the first task, the Yule Ball, the second task, the third task, Voldemort returning, Harry and Voldemort’s Duel, and the reveal of Barty Krouch Jr. That’s a lot.

And this happened.

“Order of the Phoenix” is also very long… but there’s just not enough plot to fill the pages. For me, the book boils down to just two memorable things: the vile Dolores Umbridge and the climactic fight at the Ministry of Magic. The introduction of Professor Umbridge is enjoyable, as she’s a revolting, mean-spirited person easy to hate, but she doesn’t make the story. She’s more of a self-important side character.

She is every mean teacher you've ever had.

Really, the entirety of the plot of “Order of the Phoenix” comes down to Harry piecing together that Voldemort wants to break into a room in the Ministry of Magic and finally confronting him there at the end of the schoolyear. That’s it. The whole plot of the book can be summed up in, “Voldemort wants to open a door.”

The other thing that upsets me with “Order of the Phoenix” (and, in a similar way, “The Half-Blood Prince”) is how a lot of the problems Harry ends up facing could easily be avoided if Dumbledore just TOLD HIM WHAT WAS GOING ON. Information about the mysterious “prophecy,” Harry’s premonitions, the fact that Voldemort is able to manipulate Harry’s thoughts, the Horcruxes… If someone had actually told Harry what was going on instead of keeping things from him “for his own safety,” maybe he could have made an intelligent decision that didn’t put the lives of his friends at risk. I bet Sirius might have lived longer, anyway…

If he can make fun of it, that makes it okay, right?

Beyond that, the book’s just a lot of filler. We get some political allegory with the way the Ministry of Magic tries to interfere with the school, but that’s not the main plot, either. The teen romance, Professor Umbridge, Hagrid’s giant half-brother… it all just feels like extra stuff to pad out a book that didn’t need to be. I consider it the low point of the series.

But enough of that. Now it’s time to look at the movies…

(to be continued)

- Natron out