What is the best Harry Potter book?: Pop Culture Throwdown

Welcome to Pop Culture Throwdown, a weekly column where Mashable’s Entertainment team tackles the big questions in life, like what Star Wars movie is best and which superhero would win in a fight.

This week, we asked each other (and all of you, on Twitter): What’s the best Harry Potter book? Let the throwdown begin.

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s/Philosopher’s Stone

There’s something so pure about Sorcerer’s Stone, the way the reader gets introduced to the world of magic through the bright eyes of a young kid. There’s a simplicity to this fish-out-of-water story, unraveling the richness of Hogwarts, witches, wizards, spells, and creatures while staying relatively self-contained. 

As everything comes together at its conclusion and the protagonists end up on top with a big celebration, it elicits pure elation. Gryffindor wins. Evil was defeated. Harry, Ron, and Hermione crushed it. — Kellen Beck, Entertainment Reporter

Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban

Looking back at Prisoner of Azkaban, it’s incredible to think it was the last “short” book in the series. So much of what fandom loves about Harry Potter, including the Marauders, Harry’s relationship with Sirius, Hogsmeade, Dementors, Crookshanks — it all makes a first appearance in PoA! Later books took two or three times as long to put together a fully coherent plot, but none of it would make any sense without the groundwork J.K. Rowling laid with Harry’s Voldemort-free adventure in Book 3. 

Harry, Ron, and Hermione were growing up in real time in this book, and its readers were growing up with them. The first two books told the story of plucky children barging their way through adventures, but PoA ends with them taking a small victory for Buckbeak and learning that truth doesn’t always mean much in an unjust world. Prisoner of Azkaban expanded the series beyond the world of Hogwarts and elevated Harry Potter from the story of one boy wizard to an examination of fantasy itself. Also, and I’ll only say this once: Remus Lupin. That’s all. — Alexis Nedd, Senior Entertainment Reporter

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

Order of the Phoenix is, to put it simply, the one where shit gets real. The trauma of the past several years finally catches up to Harry, expressing itself in his prickly new attitude. The full extent of the Ministry’s corruption is revealed, through its support of Dolores Umbridge and its unwillingness to act against Voldemort. (We can, unfortunately, relate.) Harry and his friends respond by rising to the occasion, forming Dumbledore’s Army. 

And as if all that weren’t enough, the book ends with two of the series’ biggest gut punches: the death of Sirius Black, and the reveal of the prophecy. With Phoenix, Harry Potter finally grew up, and brought us along for the ride. — Angie Han, Deputy Entertainment Reporter

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince

It’s positively impudent for the penultimate book in a series to be the best standalone, but Half-Blood Prince hones Rowling storytelling into beautiful form. It has the perfect balance of light and dark, humor and heaviness, romance and the buildup to an epic battle of good and evil. Harry, to quote Hermione, has “never been more fanciable,” now fresh off a year of underground resistance and learning how to handle his grief. He’s at the top of his game in school, thriving in Potions with the Prince’s help and living large as Quidditch captain and Ginny Weasley’s boyfriend.

And in between these marvelous depictions of high school life at its most magical, we prepare for the monumental fight to which Harry’s whole life has been leading. Dumbledore and Harry’s relationship deepens in a way he and we always craved but never experienced before Book 6. The flashbacks to Voldemort’s past are chilling, piecing together his history in a manner that makes him both more real and less human than ever. Dread pervades the final chapters, giving way to devastating loss and then grim clarity. It’s the beginning of the end, and it’s a stunning one. — Proma Khosla, Entertainment Reporter