Harry Potter, the franchise that brought back magic to the world. The book series that was a must read for children of all ages when it was coming out. The books that had midnight releases. They single handily cause Hollywood to make more young adult movies. Hunger games are a movie because of Harry Potter. Harry Potter changes the way we see young adult novels. There is something about Harry Potter that makes it great. Yet, when you look at it closer, there are so many problems with it. I have the answer to why Harry Potter was just a huge hit with children. But first we need to talk about what makes Harry Potter so bad. The short answer is to look at Slytherin house.

There is a reason that Lord of the Rings had different races working with each other. But in HP we have one group of people majority working together. Yes, I know about Dumbledore’s army. But even then none of them were Slytherin. It is because zero Slytherin think Lord Voldemort is evil? Do none of them respect Dumbledore. Do any of them like Harry Potter or even cares that people have tried to kill him multiple times. Now, I hope you are seeing the problem here. Lets compare this to Lord of the Rings. There were no race was against destroying the right of power. The Orcs in the lore are just Elves that was torture and turn. For the sake of this argument, I am counting them as one. Not saying there weren’t outliers, but that was what they were outliers. Slytherin not one join Harry’s team to defeat the big bad. Heck, it even gets worse. They turn their back on the school. Professor Minerva McGonagall asks the students to fight and the students who won’t fight leave. Slytherin left. Yes, they came back in the final hour, but they will let their school get destroyed.

There was a video sometime ago. It talks about Harry Potter and what should have happened if the hat chooses you to be in Slytherin house. That they should kill them. The comment section went crazy and talked about all the random people were in Slytherin house. Like the dead Merlin, but that doesn’t matter. During Harry Potter time, being associated with Slytherin was the closes to being a nazi. Why wouldn’t we kill all the potential nazi? Yes, other houses could join Lord Voldemort, but Slytherin had a bigger percentage. Even if that wasn’t true, they will let the villain win. They rather sit on the sideline and let a classmate die than fight the ultimate evil. Why should the other houses trust the Slytherins?

I haven’t even talked about how the kids act. They were prideful and hate the wizards and witches that weren’t pure. Heck, even the Slytherin traits aren’t found in any meaningful way in any of them. They are supposed to be cunning, ambition, and a tendency to look after their own. Well, that last one might work but the other two. Let’s laugh. Are we supposed to called Crabbe and Nott cunning and ambitions? Now, I don’t mind that the students aren’t parallel to their respected houses, but can anyone think of any Slytherin that isn’t an adult with those qualities? Are we going to argue that Slytherin aren’t just a bunch of racist punks that have no redeemable qualities in the book? Beside, the adults, the kids were punks. Even then, Sirius Black wasn’t a Slytherin. Snape is the reason that harry’s parents died. Umbridge was an awful teacher that wanted to hurt Potter. There were so many awful people in Slytherin that looking back now, I don’t see a reason to keep them alive. The kids are bad; the adults are even worse.

Rowling at no point wanted these guys to be relatable. Well, she made an easy villain in the school. It is lazy writing. That being said, she wrote the book for younger kids. So, I will let that go. I have seen other books better books that also went this route, but it is ok. It is a writing style, and it works in this story. At least that house had a purpose in the story unlike the other two Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff. They are just houses. That are here to cheer on Gryffindor and laugh at Slytherin expense. It is so bad the three main characters all married within the house. No one is good enough for them beside another Gryffindor. Heck, Potter gets a girlfriend from a different house and they break up because of her friend. Cho lost the battle the moment she was in Ravenclaw. Ha, you think you are getting with a Gryffindor, no they are the super special awesome club. Hermione at one time dated an older Krum, which was like dating a pro athlete, but was he a Gryffindor? Nope! So, in the trash he goes and from the trash she picks Ron. Ron, a person who bully her constantly. Heck, Malfoy didn’t bully Hermione as much as Ron did. And he hated people were like her. Malfoy could learn a thing or two from Ron in being a bully. This is a great way to dive into my next point.

Now, I can go off key and talk about all the other plot points that ruins Harry Potter, but that goes hand in hand in which makes Harry Potter a Billion dollar franchise. Harry not being a Mary Sue. Oh, I will get a lot of hate for this but Harry is one of the few Main Characters that aren’t a Mary Sue in this median. Now, I think everyone has a different definition of a Mary Sue, and it is a just people that they hate that are super powerful. I like my definition, but I bet many people would hate it. The reason being my definition of a Mary Sue puts almost all action, fantasy, and sci-fi heroes into this definition. I think by my definition 95% or more will fall under Mary Sue. Here is my definition of Mary Sue, they are more talents than everyone also none of strengths or weakness that they create cause them to lose. What I mean by this. Think of a child that learns how to play basketball and can beat 5 all-stars 1v5. Something unhuman like and with that lose only battles that the opponent takes advantage of because he is a kid or small. Let me give an example so everyone to better understand. Let’s look at Luke from Star Wars. By my definition he would be a Mary Sue, so would Rey shut up. But Luke in this case is a better example. Luke is the top rebel pilot, can fix droids, and is a Jedi Master. He beat Vader, who have killed other Jedi Master. He learns to become a Jedi Master with little training from other masters and becomes the rebels top pilot after 1 mission. I know many people will say. Well he lost to Vader or that he didn’t become a Jedi Master until 6 years later. That means nothing in the long run. Luke is still very talented and never does his own weakness or strenght cause him to lose. He loses to Vader because he wanted to save his friends. This is noble and to be a hero, he had to save his friends. This isn’t a true weakness. James Bond is a drunk. That is a weakness that he can solve by not drinking, but because James Bond is a Mary Sue. His drinking never comes back to bite him in the butt.

I will show a non Mary Sue but have the talent part lock down. Ender from Ender’s Game. Ender strenght is he cannot lose. He plays games, and he wins. So, here is a question how does be good a winning cause someone to lose? This is easy to give him a game in which he doesn’t know the consequences of winning would cause. Ender final game is one that he commits genocide. They warned him to quit playing games. They warned him that winning wasn’t everything. He watched as his friends and teammates go crazy and fall apart while playing a game. Yet, at no time does Ender quits the game. He must keep play. At no point does he lose. Losing isn’t an option. Because of these things, he commits a genocide. See people took advantage of his strength and use it against him.

Now let’s put Harry Potter to the test. Is he a Mary Sue? Nope! No! Harry isn’t talented when you compare him to his group of friends. Hermione makes him dumb. Quidditch one of the few things Harry is good at. His two girlfriends might be superior than him in. Yes, he beats Cho but don’t forget he had the best broom in Quidditch while she was using garbage. We can say the same about Ginny. Ginny beats Cho, who once again could complete with Harry with a garbage broom. He is only better at everyone else at dueling in his age group because he keeps getting into trouble and has a lot of practice. We haven’t started with the older generations yet. Comparing Harry to his dad is unfair. His dad was a protagonist. His dad used to bully someone that could create spells. He could also use Animagus spell. He also used to play with a werewolf. The bulling part is very important. James Potter used to bully Snape. A person who created his own spells. Snape isn’t a nobody he could easily be the top 5 wizards in the world during Harry Potter. He might be number three only behind Lord Voldormort and Dumbledore. Let’s not forget Lord Voldormort trusted Snape always. Never does he realize that Snape betrays him. Looking back it is funny Harry beats Voldormort.

Harry wasn’t an A student, well he might be who knows. He didn’t act like he was. This I think makes Harry Potter special. The author made Harry Potter normal in a fantasy setting. He doesn’t have any qualifications as a Mary Sue. For his weakness is his stubbornness is on full display in book 5. Snape the person who have tried to save Harry’s life on multiple occasions. Was an order by Dumbledore to teach Harry a way to close his mind to Lord Voldormort. What does Harry do? Cries and whines that it hurts and wants a new teacher. Even though Snape is the most trust person to Lord Voldormort and is the only one that can trick him. How many times have tried to save Harry’s life? Harry refused to learn from Snape and got someone close to him killed. Harry is nothing but an average wizard child thrown into the magic word.

But this is great about Harry Potter. It is one of a million. Most authors write stories with a Mary Sue in mind. They are talented enough to get themselves out of trouble or need very little help. Everyone has to hold his hand to help him. In the second book, vs. the basilisk who does most of the work? The Pheonix. In the fourth book, the main villain had to walk Harry though all the trails. Harry is so lucky, he should always play the lottery. If Harry had anymore helped the moment Lord Voldormort came back to life, lightning should come down killing him on the spot. But this made Harry unique. He is one of the kind of hero not only that but he was one most people can identify with. Neo, Luke, Rey, ect… heroes that are blank slates. That a normal person can identify with. Harry does it better than any of them. Majority aren’t the chosen like the rest. We all want to the protagonist of our own live, but are just mediocre. Most of us aren’t A students or fantastic at anything. We have people we hate and would do stupid things around them. Harry is a character greater than any of the others.

That being say Harry Potter is trash and the reason it is trash because he isn’t a Mary Sue, or better yet he has 0 qualifications to be one. Well, there are other problems as well but him being spoon feed to the goal seems worse than someone is powerful and beat the villain with their natural over baring talent. This is how I would fix Harry Potter.

The first I would do is put everyone into a different house. There is a reason we have this cliche it is because it works. We will do it Lord of the Rings style. 4 different houses 4 different friends that include adding Malfoy. Also, for fans that love relationships turn Malfoy into a girl and make her Harry’s partner. Now, I know people dislike gender swapping, but people enjoy paring different people together. Having two girls and two guys makes it easy. Also, there is another reason it would make it easier for a Slytherin and Gryffindor union. The point is to bring the houses together and the fastest and easiest is for them to be a couple.

Next is to fix their personalities and looks. Harry being this normal kid will not cut it. I will make him a talented wizard. His talents could drive him away from his adopted family and normal humans. Think of a kid that was super talented and also everything goes their way. They can either be loved or hated. People would be jealous of his talent. His parseltongue would be his undoing. Getting along with snakes would make him weird and unapproached. Let him have snakes following around him. He could be their boss and the snakes his followers. Give him this ability at a young age. Who wants to be friends with the kid that walk around with snakes and talks to them? He will still be an outcast.

Next Ron, which is an easy fix. Make him nice. Yes, that is all. He can still be an idiot and useless but I have one roll for him that is very important that I will talk about later. Hermione is also a simple fix. Take her ability to understand right and wrong. Also, she should be more of a creative type. What I mean by this, she should want to create spells and crap. She wants to see how far she would go.

Last but not least, Malfoy. Changing him into a girl isn’t the only change I would make. I would also make her closer to a Sirius Black type. Someone who hates her family and will do anything to disobey them. I will also change her personality. She would be a Tomboy with a mischievous streak. Well, that would be everyone in Slytherin. They would be closer to class clowns and the Gryffindor students would love them. Let’s get back to the girl Malfoy. She will be the tactician of the group. Ambition, cunning, leadership, and resourcefulness makes not only a good leader but also a tactician. The leader of the group is potter no duh.

They will follow Harry because of different reasons and goals. Ron is a friendly dude and harry is one. Malfoy wants to piss off her parents and Harry seems like someone who not only piss them all but he has her sense of humor. Hermione is following because he is bold willing to test her spells and potions. They all become fast friends. They are all different with different backgrounds and personalities working together.

The plot mostly would be these 4 character working together to get strong enough to beat the dark lord. I would change some stuff in the story like the spells. Magic would be closer to the Dumbledore vs Lord Voldemort fight. Then standing around yelling spells at each other.

Well now, I think about it. It is funny. Even if I fixed Harry Potter, the odds are that it would have done worse than the Rowlings one. Making Harry normal was a brilliant idea. Unless she didn’t know that would have made him super popular. Which makes the Rowling one of the worst writers, I have ever seen.