Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban Plot Hole Nobody Explained in Years
Mischief managed... but not really.
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban starts off with Harry basically breaking one of the most basic rules in the Wizarding World, the violation of which could land him in hot water. But if you think about that incident with Harry inflating his aunt and sending her floating all across the town, you are wrong.
Technically, in the movie, Harry is seen breaking the magical law in the very first seconds, when he is seen practicing the Lumos spell under his blanket for whatever reason.
This plot hole is solely the courtesy of the movie; in the books, Harry used a muggle flashlight to read under the covers. But Alfonso Cuaron, the director behind the third movie, apparently cared more about a cool opening scene than about consistency.
Many Harry Potter fans who loved and read the books blast the movies for making cinematic choices simply for aesthetic reasons that totally contradict canon. However, one Redditor has another opinion on the inconsistency.
"Both the books and movies have characters use Lumos when they shouldn't be allowed to. My head canon is that Lumos is such a low-level spell that the Trace doesn't bother with it, since the result of the magic can easily be mistaken for a torch," Redditor InvaderWeezle noted.
In the books, Harry used Lumos to find his wand in The Order of the Phoenix before the dementors attack and he used Patronus to fend them off. However, fans note, it was only the Patronus spell he got in trouble for.
Despite the Lumos plot hole in Prisoner of Azkaban, many fans regard Cuaron's movie as the best from the entire saga when it comes to directing. It's true that the Prisoner of Azkaban does stand out among the rest of the Harry Potter movies, mainly due to it switching the color palette to dark and cold when compared to Chris Columbus' first two movies, as well as its pace and crafty use of zooming in. Another thing people praise Cuaron for is his execution of the time travelling sequence.
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban premiered in 2004.