this post was submitted on 03 Jan 2026
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I feel like this is not the popular consensus...
Times Top 100 Fantasy Books
NPR top 100 fantasy
Highly rated on Goodreads
Like... maybe some people aren't a huge fan, but saying poorly written seems harsh. Maybe you just don't like fantasy?
I’m not denying that Brandon Sanderson sells a lot of books, which is what those lists track. His aggressive mediocrity is, in many ways, precisely why he’s on those lists.
Not to speak of this particular series one way or the other but... Popular things can also be poorly written. Case and point: Harry Potter.
Regardless of how you feel about the author, Harry Potter is not poorly written.
Yeah my son was given a copy for Christmas and reading it for the second time ever I have to agree it's well written. Lots of little details that are simultaneously fun and world/character building.
Eg: Hagrid giving Dudley a pig tail and then grumbling that he'd tried to turn him into a pig, but it turns out he's already so piglike he's only missing a tail. It is funny (for a 7 year old), it builds Dudley's character and also foreshadows Hagrid's iffy relationship with magic.
I loved it as a kid. But it was one of the first books I ever read so I didn't have much to compare it to. I tried rereading it a few years ago and it's fine up until about the third or fourth book. Rowling loses control over the world building and the plots become boring. So many things could have been avoided if Dumbledor wasn't so secretive about Harry's past. There's no reason Harry should have thought that Sirius killed his parents and was a crazed lunatic. Dumbledor just hid the truth for no reason. Petrigrew not being spotted by George and Fred was a huge oversight. There's too many contradictions by the end of the series. Also the fourth book is just a mess with all the side plots like Hermione trying to free the house elves from Hogwarts. Hilariously no one gives a fuck at all and she just abandons trying to do the right thing. Even Harry who didn't grow up as a wizard was just like "if they wanna be slaves then let them". Its fine for kids, especially as a first series, but there's too many issues to ignore.
That's fair.