Books Least Favorite Harry Potter Characters

Riding on the coattails of the awesome thread What's your favorite Harry Potter characters?, let's talk about our least favorites, shall we? This oughta be fun for annoying people, especially because my first choice is:

Severus Snape
Snape is fighting my top spot for least favorite HP character with Dolores Umbridge, but everyone hates Umbridge so she'd be no real surprise. Snape is a fun character in his own right, but he is an awful person. The movies tried to portray him as some kind of hero, but the books were more forthright in his bullying, crappy nature. And before anyone pulls the "but he had a bad childhood!!" card, so did Sirius. So did Lupin. So did Harry. So did Neville. So did Luna. Know what all those characters have in common? They turned out to be good people.

But Snape didn't. He was always a little snot who bullied people because they weren't pureblood. He called Lily a mudblood and tried to play it off like he didn't mean it, and that she wasn't 'like any of the other muggle-borns'. Sounds elitist, but okay. Then he tried to cry victim when James and the Marauders had enough and fought back. It's funny to me how Lupin can feel guilty for doing nothing when James and Sirius bullied Snape (after knowing Snape is jackass incarnate), but Snape doesn't have these same feelings of guilt for anything outside of Lily. He is actively a jerk, even to Hermione when Draco performed that spell on her to enlarge her teeth. He didn't vilify Draco (and I don't either -- Draco was an indoctrinated child), and instead chose to mock Hermione and make her cry.

Oh yeah, and he ripped a picture of Lily being happy with James and Harry in half so he could keep the Lily half and be creepy.

So who do you guys dislike? Anyone outside of the usual ones like Umbridge, Filch, or the Black family? Except Sirius who is cool, if you put Sirius as one of your least favorites I will come out of your computer screen and say Biggie Smalls in your mirror 3 times.

I.... think my least favourite might be Ron. As I've grown older I've thought of his character as really annoying and I can't specifically think of why. Obviously though, I can't stand Umbridge. Perhaps even more than Voldemort ahaha. She's such a perfect villain and literally scared me as a child.

Apart from obvious least favourites (Umbridge) - definitely Peter Pettigrew. Also Cormac McLaggen, Professor Lockhart etc. and for some reason I didn't really ever like Ginny :(

tbh I liked Snape before his whole backstory reveal - he was a complete dick and he had pretty valid reasons for it all things considered. Having him a secret remorseful tsundere felt like a very cheap (and ultimately pointless) cop-out, especially after he went beyond all redemption. If anything the book seven reveals gave him even MORE ammunition to be a complete dick, and it made his actual motivations make even less sense. The way he was written prior to that completely contradicted what was revealed in the seventh book and it was just...bad, honestly. I liked Snape better when I hated him.

Both Cho Chang and Ginny made me cringe, too - they were both painfully artificial romance plot devices who had no personality beyond the fact that they liked Harry. I mean, if Rowling had bothered to remember Ginny had existed between the second book and the sixth, maybe, but...well, she didn't. It felt like she was casting around for a love interest for Harry and remembered she'd given Ron a younger sister who she didn't actually kill off in the second book, and she would do.

Cho Chang..... I mean. That's really the name JKR is gonna go with for like the only asian student. Plus she gets like zero development.

Dawn said:

tbh I liked Snape before his whole backstory reveal - he was a complete dick and he had pretty valid reasons for it all things considered. Having him a secret remorseful tsundere felt like a very cheap (and ultimately pointless) cop-out, especially after he went beyond all redemption. If anything the book seven reveals gave him even MORE ammunition to be a complete dick, and it made his actual motivations make even less sense. The way he was written prior to that completely contradicted what was revealed in the seventh book and it was just...bad, honestly. I liked Snape better when I hated him.

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Book 7: hey guys guess what he was actually just a huge incel the whole time
waste of a great character

Umbridge, Ron, Ginny, Hermione, Moaning Myrtle are all tied as my least favourite characters with Ginny being at the absolute top. If I may lay it directly on the line, I do not fancy Gryffindors as a whole. I was going to add Sirius to my least of most disliked but, I realised that I do not entertain his existence often enough for him to warrant a place on any list; I tend to forget his existence until I see him on the screen or read about him.

Crabbe, Goyle, Filtch, Wormtail/P. Pettigrew, and James Potter

I never particularly liked Ron much. He's just kind of a prick and I'm not the biggest fan of his red-pill energy.

And of course Wormtail and Umbridge.. but I kinda like to dislike them, you know? They suck and that's the fun. Ron just legitimately gave me moments of "ugh, really?". :/

Umbridge - Abusive and just downright cruel
Snape - Despite his intentions and his loyalty (he showed open disgust about Dumbledore using Harry) he still abused basically every not slytherin student, especially Harry.
Fudge - While he started off well, his desire for control and paranoia, using Harry as a scapegoat, etc was just wrong. Harry was 15, come on.
The whole Gaunt family, though I do feel for Merope.
Bellatrix - Mrs Weasley killing her was a good choice, it showed that she was quite a powerful witch despite appearances not always suggesting, plus revenge for her kids.
WORMTAIL - Literally the most cowardly back stabbing sob. James and Lily were essentially killed by him and he condemned his best friend to 12 years of essentially hell.
EDIT: Rita Skeeter, almost forgot about her.

About the Malfoys, it's clear that Lucius and Narcissa deeply loved their son, and Draco was only a kid. Narcissa betrayed Voldemort for her son and in the end they all did because of their strong familial bond. I can't really bring myself to hate them.

Umbridge
Rita Skeeter
Cho Chang

Among the trio, I find Ron boring

Snape was my favorite character so admittedly I'm biased but I took his character arc as a good example of what happens when you don't let go of the past before it consumes you. In Snape's case he couldn't get over his childhood bullying, losing Lily as a friend and then watching her get closer and ultimately romantic with his former tormentor. Instead of trying to move on from the past he allowed himself to fall further into darkness and became a much more bitter and nasty person because of it. It's not an uncommon cycle for the bullied to eventually become the bully. His backstory was meant to explain his actions and motives, not justify them. Only Harry viewed him as a hero because Snape gave his life to watch over and protect him but even the good that Snape did came from a misguided place. Not even Dumbledore who knew his full story seemed to view him as much more than a pawn. Nobody but Harry seems to have much reverence for him and I think that's the point.

You guys are still free to dislike Snape of course. I just think it's worth pointing out that we weren't meant to celebrate his negative characteristics and they were very much intentional. Some characters end up being anti-heroes for the wrong reasons like Travis Bickle from Taxi Driver. To dislike them because of their flaws is almost like disliking a villain because they're villainous.

As for characters I dislike? I don't know if I have any. However I was disappointed in how Draco ended up being a non-factor towards the end. He was Harry's biggest antagonist outside of Voldemort so it would've been nice to see him actually help Harry in the final fight rather than meekly falling into the background.

CiCi said:

Severus Snape
Snape is fighting my top spot for least favorite HP character with Dolores Umbridge, but everyone hates Umbridge so she'd be no real surprise. Snape is a fun character in his own right, but he is an awful person. The movies tried to portray him as some kind of hero, but the books were more forthright in his bullying, crappy nature. And before anyone pulls the "but he had a bad childhood!!" card, so did Sirius. So did Lupin. So did Harry. So did Neville. So did Luna. Know what all those characters have in common? They turned out to be good people.

But Snape didn't. He was always a little snot who bullied people because they weren't pureblood. He called Lily a mudblood and tried to play it off like he didn't mean it, and that she wasn't 'like any of the other muggle-borns'. Sounds elitist, but okay. Then he tried to cry victim when James and the Marauders had enough and fought back. It's funny to me how Lupin can feel guilty for doing nothing when James and Sirius bullied Snape (after knowing Snape is jackass incarnate), but Snape doesn't have these same feelings of guilt for anything outside of Lily.

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Haha I mean this playfully but your interpretation of events reminded me of this video all of a sudden. :laugh-squinted:



Snape was definitely rough around the edges even as a kid but making a rude comment in passing to Lily (which he immediately walked back) and merely snickering under his breath at James was hardly grounds for the latter to "fight back" by trying to trip him and later target him for ongoing bullying with the help of his friends. Snape also had to deal with watching his father abuse his mother at home. Personally I'm willing to cut him some slack for occasional rudeness as a kid but that could be my bias speaking again.