The INSIDER Summary:
- Despite the intricate storyline of the coveted Harry Potter series, there are a few plotholes in the mix.
- Lord Voldemort is extremely predictable with his timing, and Hermoine's memory is questionable at times.
The fantastic world of Harry Potter is, without a doubt, absolutely incredible. It’s beautifully crafted, charming, engaging, and generally just the best thing to come to children’s fantasy books in a long, long time. However, as much as we love it, it’s definitely not perfect. J.K. Rowling is known for her meticulous planning and research (she spent years planning out the Harry Potter books before writing them, as well as creating character sketches and developing the rules and customs of the wizarding world), and it shows. However, Rowling is not perfect, by any means, and questions have been raised about some fairly major plot holes in her work. Some of these are oversights on her part, and others are issues with the movies, but all of them have left us wondering… what exactly is going on there?!
Here are 15 Massive Plot Holes In Harry Potter That Were Never Explained.
15. Voldemort's knack for timing
This particular plot ‘hole’ is very clearly a structural element to the books, but we’re including it anyway, because Lord Voldemort is bizarrely predictable with his timing – always attacking at the end of the school year. The Dark Lord attacks Harry Potter directly at the end of Years 1, 2, 4, 5, and 7… and we’re guessing that he’s not just concerned about disruption for the students. Why wouldn’t Voldemort make more than one attempt on the Philosopher’s Stone during the school year? Why did it take exactly a school year for Tom Marvolo’s spirit to taunt students about the Chamber of Secrets? Oh, and (more on this in another entry) why construct such a gloriously convoluted plot to get Harry into the Triwizard Tournament? It often seems as though these nefarious plans are designed specifically to take an entire school year.
Of course they are! Rowling obviously wrote her villain this way in order to create engaging stories for her readers, as a more straightforward evil plot that happened mid-way through the summer holidays just wouldn’t be the same. But within this fictional world, his timing doesn’t make sense.
14. Food scarcity during the final books
When Harry, Hermione, and Ron are on the run in the final books, they struggle to find food. It’s one of many sources of frustration and conflict in their lives (along with not making progress, carrying around a Horcrux, and always wondering whose name they would hear on the radio next), and hunger may have been part of the reason that Ron left the way he did. But having enough food shouldn’t have been a problem for the three, thanks to magic.
It’s not possible to create food out of nothing using magic, as it’s one of the five exceptions to Gamp’s Law of Transfiguration. We know this because it’s explicitly stated more than once in the books (and it’s explained that this is why the Room of Requirement doesn’t create food). However, it’s still possible to magic existing food by transforming it, increasing it, or summoning it if you know where it is. In short, they could have just increased their existing food easily.
13. Sirius could have used polyjuice potion
Although Sirius Black was able to clear his name with the Order of the Phoenix by revealing Pettigrew’s secret, he was unable to prove his innocence to the wider wizarding world. As a result, he was shut up at Grimmauld Place, chafing at his inability to get out there and fight alongside the other wizards in the Order. He was so frustrated by this incarceration that he even broke the rules of his confinement to take on his dog form in order to see Harry and get out of the house. Sirius was reminded that the Ministry knew what his dog form looked like, and that he had to be more careful to avoid being sent back to Azkaban.
It’s a sensible precaution, except that he should have been easily able to brew up some polyjuice potion and waltz out of the house whenever he felt like it. Polyjuice appears to be relatively easy to make (even barely-trained students can manage it), and capable of fooling any other wizard. So why didn’t Sirius whip up a batch? He could even have used the hair of another Order member, and effectively taken their place for an afternoon without anyone noticing.
See the rest of the story at Business Insider