Have you ever been waxed by the magical plot holes in Harry Potter? Join the club. I’ve recently finished reading the series for the second time with my younger kid. While some of the plot holes were obvious the first time I read them, I didn’t really paid much attention, figuring that I must have missed something or just didn’t understand correctly. But now, I tried to really get it through my head and let me tell you, some things don’t add up.
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Before ya’all grab your pitchforks and fire up them torches, I am a fan. I love the series and I really love the fact my kids enjoy it as much as I do. I even look forward to movie nights at my house featuring Harry Potter films, despite the fact that I’ve seen each of them at least three times by now. I think J. K. Rowling is an absolutely fantastic author, but there are few omissions that I find interesting in the Harry Potter universe and I feel we need to talk about them. And that’s the point of any good literature, making people talk about it. If I may paraphrase, a good book has many flaws, a bad one only one – being bad. Let’s be honest, nobody really cares about plot holes in Disney’s Frozen.
For instance, what’s up with Triwizard Cup? Imagine you are a kid in Hogwarts and you learn that this legendary tournament is being held in your school and you get to watch it. How excited would you be? But the thing Dumbledore doesn’t tell you is that there isn’t much watching going on really. OK, the first event is awesome. Fighting a live, fire-breathing dragon is entertainment in anyone’s book. But then comes the water challenge. Everybody is excited, the audience is cheering, the contestants go into the water and…nothing happens for hours. You spend a very cold afternoon staring at the lake. Then comes the maze. They go in and you are left on the stands waiting for sparks to appear in the sky. Good thing they didn’t charge admission fees for this one.
After spending hours searching the Internet for explanations, I’ve found out that some of the plot holes do have a reason behind them. J. K. Rowling explained quite a few of them during the years. However, these 11 plot holes in Harry Potter weren’t explained. Listed in the order of how much they bothered me, here they are:
11.The portkey
Let’s start with something rather innocent and inconsequential. Portkeys are magical items designed to transport people and return them to their starting point. Harry and Cedric Diggory are transported by one of these in Goblet of Fire during the Triwizard tournament. Cedric is killed by Peter Pettigrew and Harry has a duel with Voldemort. He manages to use the portkey to return to Hogwarts, but instead of the center of the maze where they found it, it transports him all the way to the entrance. It isn’t affecting the story much, but still a plot hole nonetheless.
10. Marauder’s Map
Fred and George Weasley have had Marauder’s Map for years and yet not once had they noticed on it that there’s always one more name next to their brother Ron almost wherever he went: Peter Pettigrew. Or when’s in Harry’s possession he didn’t notice that Mad Eye is in fact Barty Crouch Jr. And before you say “they are disguised”, we are talking about the magic item that was able to detect Harry Potter under his invisibility cloak, a cloak powerful enough to hide his wearer from Death itself.
9. Thestrals
Thestrals are magic beings that appear first in the series when Harry arrives at Hogwarts for the first time, although we can’t see them. They are pulling the “horseless carriages that transport the students from the train station to the castle. Only a person who has witnessed death can see them. Harry can see them after he witnessed the death of Cedric Diggory in the fourth book. But, Harry had seen death before, when Voldemort killed his mother. J. K. actually tried to explain this one, by stating that Harry wasn’t fully aware of his mother’s death, since he was a baby when it happened, but even she admitted that is rather a poor excuse for this magical plot hole.
8. The Philosopher’s Stone
So, we have this stone, one of the most powerful relics in Harry Potter’s universe. Dumbledore knows that Voldemort is after it and he hides it. In order to keep it safe, he and other professors design a set of traps and protections that were supposed to keep You-Know-Who, one of the most powerful wizards in all history, from getting to the stone. Yet three first-year students waltz right in past them and into the secret chamber. How did they imagine they could stop the Dark Lord himself if they couldn’t even stop three 11-years old?
7. Chamber of secrets and ghosts
Chamber of secrets is a secret location within Hogwarts. The Heir of Slytherin opens it and strange things start happening in school. The chamber becomes the target of a frantic search once Ginny Weasley disappears and is finally found with the help of Harry’s knowledge of parseltongue. Everybody’s happy and the banquet is in order. But…there’s always but, isn’t there? Did it not occur to anyone in the school to ask some of gazillion of ghosts floating around through walls, floors and ceilings to search for the Chamber? Could have made for a very short book, I suppose.
6. Harry, you’ve got your mother’s eyes
How many times have we heard this in the movies or read it in books? Harry, in general, has his father’s features, but eyes are the spitting image of his mother’s eyes. Except for one small detail. In books, Lilly Potter’s eyes were green. Daniel Radcliffe’s got blue eyes. Whether a casting error or simply unwillingness on director’s part to force young Daniel to wear contact lenses, this mistake could have been easily remedied, that is why it is so annoying.
5. Foreign wizards
Throughout the whole series, we are constantly reminded of an existence of a large international community of wizards all over the world. Triwizard tournament features wizardry schools from France and Scandinavia, Charlie Weasley goes to Romania to study dragons, Victor Crum is from Bulgaria etc. Yet when Lord Voldemort attacks Hogwarts, none of the foreign wizards comes to the aid of one of the most famous schools of witchcraft and wizardry. It is as if the Dark Lord is a minor issue concerning British wizards only. Not even the famous International Confederation of Wizards, a UN-like organization of wizards and witches, does anything. Why is that? This has always bothered me, which is why it is number 5 on the list of 11 magical plot holes in Harry Potter.
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4.Veritaserum
See here, we have this potion, a very potent truth serum. Perhaps we could use it, I don’t know, to extract the truth from criminals? Maybe discover some of Voldemort’s plots and save few lives? Oh, there are rules and regulations regarding its use, you say? So, it is perfectly OK sending innocent people to Azkaban to be tormented for the rest of their lives or letting loose bunch of Dementors among children, but using a perfectly harmless truth serum if a big no-no? C’mon…
3. ABC
As a teacher, this is a big one for me. It was my daughter who first point it out to me. Muggle kids aren’t told anything about wizardry until they are 11 when their Hogwarts letter arrives. Until then, they go to regular schools, where they learn to read and write. But what about pureblood kids? Do they get any education prior to Hogwarts? What about kindergarten? Daycare? Yet, when they arrive at Hogwarts, they all can write and read on a very advanced level. It is very hard for me to believe that all pureblood kids are homeschooled. I mean, can you imagine Lucius Malfoy teaching little Draco ABC song? Yeah, me neither.
2. Secret Keeper
This one has the potential of unraveling the whole series. When James and Lilly Potter went into hiding, they decided to turn down Dumbledore’s offer of becoming their Secret Keeper and choose Sirius Black, him being one of two James’ best friends. Just as the Fidelius Charm was about to be cast, Sirius suggests that perhaps he is too obvious of a choice and maybe Peter Pettigrew would be a better solution. All parties agree and Pettigrew become Potter family’s Secret Keeper. He later betrays them to Voldemort, who kills them and Harry Potter begins. Let’s rewind a bit. First of all, James, Sirius, Lupin, and Peter were inseparable during the Hogwarts years. Why suddenly is Sirius the “obvious choice” and Peter completely unsuspecting solution? Not to mention how such a cowardly person could become a member of Marauders and the Order of Phoenix and even be entrusted with such a secret. And even so, what if everyone knows Sirius is Potters’ Secret Keeper? The whole point of Fidelius Charm is that a person under it can’t be coerced into divulging the secret he’s sworn to keep. He can only disclose it voluntarily. So, even if Sirius is captured by Voldemort, Potters’ secret is perfectly safe.
1.Time-Turners
The magical plot hole in Harry Potter that is most irksome to me is the introduction of time-turners. These magical timepieces are in fact miniature time-travelling devices. Without even going into the possible practical application of such a device in a time that clearly calls for desperate measures, (instead of using them to beef up Hermione’s grades, how about using them to stop the Dark Lord from destroying the world?) why even have them? The only useful thing they are used for is saving Sirius and Buckbeak, but a writer of J.K. caliber should be able to easily come up with a different way of doing it without resorting to time travel.
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