10 Worst-Adapted Harry Potter Characters, According to Reddit

And while the movie adaptations of JK Rowling's books are largely well-loved, fans have some issues with how some of the characters were written in the movies.

Here are the 10 worst-adapted Harry Potter characters, in approximate order of how much rage they generate.

While Redditors don't have the passion for this character that they do for everyone else on the list, the subreddits still echo with the question… whatever happened to Peeves?

Everyone's favorite poltergeist is missing from the HP movies, and Hogwarts is the lesser for it.

Turns out, Peeves was originally supposed to be part of the Harry Potter film world, and he was even included in the filming.

English actor and stand-up comic Rik Mayall was cast for the role and shot multiple scenes in Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, but was ultimately cut for time.

To be fair, it doesn't seem that many Redditors take issue with the characterization of Dobby – there's a lot of affection for his character design and squeaky lil' voice – but the adaptations failed him in one crucial way: he's simply not present enough in the movies.

Dobby appears in five of the seven Harry Potter books, where he provides essential plot aid as well as some pretty on-point comedy.

But everyone's favorite house-elf made it into only two of the movies. We never get to see him tottering around Hogwarts under three feet worth of knitted hats or painting portraits of Harry for Christmas.

Because we see so little of Dobby in the films, his death – while sad – doesn't pack nearly the emotional punch that it should.

Justice for the house-elves! Like Dobby, Kreacher's role was much reduced in the films.

He never gets to display the full, hilarious heights of his malevolent snark – but neither do we get to experience the depths of his loyalty, despair, and loneliness.

While Dobby might have deserved more screen time for his comedy chops, Kreacher deserved more screen time because his redemption arc underlined the entire point of the series.

As Dumbledore says to Harry in The Deathly Hallows:

"That which Voldemort does not value, he takes no trouble to comprehend. Of house-elves and children's tales, of love, loyalty, and innocence, Voldemort knows and understands nothing. Nothing. That they all have a power beyond his own, a power beyond the reach of any magic, is a truth he has never grasped."

Giving Kreacher his due in the movies would have allowed us to witness the truth of Dumbledore's words – that one "insignificant" being might turn the tide of a war.

A small but mighty contingent of Redditors maintains that it's not just screen time or lack of a proper arc that makes for a badly-adapted character… it can also be just plain bad acting.

With all the respect in the world to the divine Helena Bonham Carter, it seems like someone told her "it's just a kids' movie," and she hammed it up accordingly.

Next to some of the other performers in these movies, Bellatrix comes across as a cartoon villain.

Love him or hate him, you have to admit that in the books Slughorn is at least ONE representative of Slytherin House that is neither compulsively nasty nor out-and-out evil.

Slughorn might have been ambitious and petty, but at the end of the day he stood up for what was right, leading the reinforcements at the Battle of Hogwarts and actually dueling with the Dark Lord himself, alongside McGonagall and Kingsley Shacklebolt.

If there's one weakness in the Harry Potter universe, it's the idea that being a Slytherin (ie ¼ of the Hogwarts population) automatically makes you racist, evil, and ugly to boot.

After the revelation that Snape was a double agent, Dumbledore implies that maybe Snape never belonged in Slytherin.

With that implication, we're left with only Slughorn as a representative of a non-evil Slytherin member… until, that is, the movies gave him short shrift.

Was there ever a better example of "zero to hero" than the (book version of) Neville Longbottom? First he's a shy, bumbling classmate who can barely look Snape in the eye.

Then he's revealed as a tragic parallel to Harry – another young wizard whose family was destroyed by Voldemort. (The scene where he visits his catatonic mum in St. Mungo's? Tearjerker.)

Finally, Neville emerges as the hero who keeps the Hogwarts resistance alive during Harry's absence in Deathly Hallows. He stands up to Voldemort directly and destroys the last Horcrux.

Sure some of that is present in the movies, but Reddit is quick to point out just how much of Neville's journey gets lost in the shadows of Harry's plotlines.

To be fair, you'd need much longer movies to fit it all in… but if there's ever an HP television show, perhaps we'll get the in-depth character development Neville deserves.

Is it even possible for an actor to capture the essence of Albus Dumbledore (affectionately referred to in HP subreddits as "Dumbles")?

To really capture the spirit of the character, you would need to be simultaneously wise yet silly; powerful yet mild; scattered yet laser-focused; deeply compassionate yet capable of great rage; and all this while running a decades-long game of 4D chess.

But even with all that in mind, some users have a hard time letting go of what they see as egregious mistakes in the adaptations, particularly from Michael Gambon (who replaced the original Dumbledore, Richard Harris, after that actor's passing).

Gambon's Dumbledore lost a lot of the backstory and subtleties that were present in the books, but Redditors have more of an issue with his lack of calm.

This Dumbledore shouts, gets angry, and is authoritative without the softness and twinkle that should be the hallmarks of this fan-favorite character.

In the books, Ginny starts out as a nervous little girl with a not-so-secret crush on Harry. By the time Deathly Hallows rolls around, she's a smart-mouthed, courageous rebel who is more than a match for The Chosen One.

It's not a surprise that Harry falls in love with Ginny in the books. She's brave. She's HILARIOUS. She has to be physically restrained from fighting in the Battle of Hogwarts… but then sneaks her way in anyway.

RIP book Ginny. In the movies, she's a weirdly non-present milquetoast with absolutely zero chemistry with Harry. Where are all of her quips?

Where is all of her cool? If you've never read the books, you would never know that Ginny should have been a badass.

Ginny might be badly adapted because she's not cool enough… but ironically, Hermione is badly adapted because she's way TOO cool.

Book Hermione is three-dimensional and well-rounded. Yes, she's a brainiac and a loyal friend. She's also bushy-haired, easy to fluster, freezes up in a crisis, and is, well… kind of a nerd.

Why did the movies try so hard to make Hermione perfect?

Now instead of being the dork of the friend group, she's beautiful, cool, adept in every situation, and generally takes over all of Ron's good qualities, leaving him as a dummy sidekick so she could get Mary Sue-d. Speaking of which…

Poor Ron. In the books, he's Harry's best friend, confidant, and defender; the closest thing to a brother Harry will ever have.

He's funny, sharp, snarky, has important wizarding knowledge his friends lack, and above all, is SMART. Remember the fact that he won a chess game designed by adults when he was ELEVEN YEARS OLD?

That's not to say Ron is a perfect hero in the books. But he deserved more than he got in the movies, which was being turned into a dumb-dumb sidekick.

If you doubt Ron being at the top of this list, Redditors will be only too happy to remind you of the many, many instances where Ron's funny, smart, or loyal lines were taken away and given to Hermione.

Case in point: In the book Harry Potter and Prisoner of Azkaban, it's Ron who stands in front of Harry (on a broken leg, no less) and declares, "If you want to kill Harry, you'll have to kill us too!"

Who gets this line in the movie? Hermione. Of course. Sigh.