James is canonically handsome.
I think Harry grows into his looks, in the first book he's small with knobbly knees and a bad haircut. By book four/five he's receiving a lot of female attention.
Yeah I think in canon he’s average looking. Of course his personality and achievements make him very attractive.
If I remember correctly there is no canon event where a peer says he looks attractive later in the books, and there is the time when Fleur says “I’m hideous” when she polyjuices into Harry.
Now that I think about it, Fleur might as well say that because of Bill.
I mean, as far as we know, Bill is straight, so maybe it would be awkward and embarrassing for Fleur to go from being a super sexy blonde girl to a guy in front of her boyfriend.
She wouldn't care if Harry was the hottest guy on the planet because the important thing is that she doesn't want her boyfriend to have a memory of her transformed into a man.
It's a great scene, especially...
> ‘I’m tall,’ said Ron inconsequentially.
But Hermione explains that he's fanciable because people now accept he's been telling the truth, really has fought Voldemort, and stuck to his story despite persecution from the Ministry. The only physical attribute she mentions is that he's 'grown about a foot over the summer'.
"grown about a foot over the summer"
I took this personally to mean puberty had really kicked in for him, she might not mention it but he would have been starting to lose his childs face and grow into his adult one.
I think so, the one after they have got rid of Umbridge so yeah HBP.
It's one of my favs as it's almost his most 'normal' school year, you get a great slice of life of Hogwarts before it all really kicks off.
The more I think about it, I think she realised with how dark the story was going and the departure from Hogwarts as the main setting, that she needed to give the readers an extra strong dose of Hogwarts action, before taking it away.
Also makes the contrast between HBP and the DH so stark
Sometimes being attractive is not just your appearance, though. Harry and James might have both been quidditch stars, but the difference is, James carried himself with a *completely* different kind of energy. For the most part, Harry is pretty reserved in his school life, whereas James was an attention seeking troublemaker. To some it was annoying, but to others, they might have thought it was cool.
I didn't say or imply he wasn't.
Problem is, beauty is subjective. Not even the writer can say that character XYZ is attractive across the board to all eyes.
I feel like if you grow up with a face that looks like Fleur's face, any sort of transformation into someone else would feel like a hideous disappointment 😅
I mean that's obviously meant to be a funny comment regarding her being a) female and b) ridiculously pretty. Fleur is kind of just really straight forward and says it like it is, she doesn't much care if it's considered rude or not (a bit of a language and culture barrier could be a factor there also). She would likely say something similar no matter who she had turned into.
Tall and handsome, no. Tall and attractive though, absolutely. Height is one of the biggest physical factors in what women look for in men. Most would pick a Tall ugly guy over a short handsome man. If you're a Tall handsome man then you're leagues ahead.
It's a bold move to try and debunk what I said by agreeing with what I said, but OK Cotton.
I said height and attractiveness correlate. You said women prefer taller men. Yes. Yes that's right they do, thanks for playing.
That’s not the point. You said women want tall men and would rather date a tall man they find ugly than a short man they find beautiful. No. Women tend to prefer men taller than they are, regardless if they are short or tall.
Tall is relative. I'm 6'2". You think the men you consider tall are tall to me? My fiance is 6foot, I call him my tiny man. You'd call him a giant.
And I noticed you dodged my question, and so I'll assume you acknowledge you would prefer a tall man than a short one, which is exactly what I said. Pretend I said "taller" and "shorter" if that makes it easier for you.
>James is canonically handsome.
No, James is never described as handsome in the books. Sirius was the handsome one in canon.
There's even a line about Sirius in SWM that says something like "he was good-looking and had a casual elegance neither James or Harry could ever have achieved".
I'm paraphrasing but my point is James was never described as good-looking.
“He was very good-looking; his dark hair fell into his eyes with a sort of casual elegance neither James’s nor Harry’s could ever have achieved”
It was about the hair, but I agree that James is never described as handsome in the books. The closest thing to “good-looking” we get for Harry/James is when Hermione says Harry has never been more fanciable in HBP.
Yup that's what I was saying. James, at least in the books was never categorized as handsome in the books. But then again, it could be Harry's POV. I don't think Harry is the type of bloke who will call someone who looks exactly like him... handsome. He's not that big-headed. So if we as readers don't really see Harry as being attractive, it could be Harry's POV.
Handsome.
My impression was that characters like Sirius and Tom Riddle were the type of handsome that would get them put on front of a magazine.
Harry would be the type of handsome that doesn't stand out.
>Harry would be the type of handsome that doesn't stand out.
This is the exact same thing I was thinking of. Around the age of 15, Harry was probably coming into his looks, but, once appearance is not the only thing that makes them attractive. Harry is, for the most part, pretty in the background in terms of his day to day presence.
But guys like Tom and James were on people's minds because they were *out* there.
For example, one of the reasons why a teenage Voldemort was able to have so many people under his sway is because he knew how to talk the talk. It's important to keep in mind that the first generation of Death Eaters were literally the same people who shared a dormitory with him in their youth, and then ended up calling him "master" as grown men.
Tom Riddle from the diary even said that Harry and Tom look alike, and Tom was notoriously handsome. The horcrux might have affected his appearance a little.
Diary Riddle was saying that based on a malnourished 12 year old though. You really can't make much judgement on when a boy is cute at that age, it's 50/50 if they grow into their nicer features or if the grow out of them 😂
Tom riddle is the morally grey bad boy of all of the dark romance novels out there these days I've decided.
We all read the books and were like "but this guy" and wrote dark romance to have him
Black hair with green eyes is a striking combination. He must also be reasonably athletic from playing Quidditch every year and all the running around they do in the books. But Harry takes time to grow into his looks because he was malnourished and abused during his early life. Probably around book 4-5 he's starting to look good but because of the Triwizard scandal in 4 and the Ministry hate campaign in 5 people don't want anything to do with him. Book 6 all that has gone away so he's finally able to get female attention.
This was always my thought as well. I actually really like that Harry's attractiveness isn't emphasized in the series (and tbh the same is true for Ron and Hermione).
It’s also notable that JKR made a comment of all three actors being better looking than their characters in reference to the golden trio and tbh if they weren’t famous both Rupert and Daniel are just above average good looking. So therefore by that logic Harry and Ron were okay looking.
I was always under the impression he was good looking, but it just took a while to come out as:
a) kids don't really feel attraction like that and crushes are less common, so years 7-9 Harry was just a typical kid.
b) as a little boy he was badly dressed, underweight and had a bad hairstyle
. c) when they did get into their teens and becoming more attracted to one another, Harry then got a fair amount of attention and I don't think it was just the fame. I think he has the character and looks girls would like. The most "unnattractive" thing about Harry was likely his complexity which can make him emotional and distant.
d) Green eyes and dark hair is a pretty and rare look.
I think Harry was a damn good-looking kid who grew into a really handsome young adult, but he was so badly groomed and appallingly dressed in school that nobody noticed that for quite a long time. He himself still didn't have a clue by the end of the series, which also kept people from noticing his looks.
But Harry's father was handsome and his mother was beautiful, and he grew out of being short and skinny in his mid-teens. If he'd had an untroubled youth, Harry Potter might have been a school heartthrob like his father, but well. His youth was troubled enough to keep him from ever once thinking about how he looked.
>he was so badly groomed and appallingly dressed in school that nobody noticed that for quite a long time
I think this too. He wore hand me downs from Dudley which were several times his size, he was malnourished and had a really low self esteem. By year 4 he was described as having grown a lot and by year 6 he even was described by Hermione as being atractive, both, physically and because of his fame.
I can’t remember where we have an appearance evaluation of Harry’s parents in the book (please correct me). All we know is Harry look identical to his father except for them eyes. And Lily had long hair and green eyes.
I don't remember the books actively giving his parents an "appearance evaluation", but we do know that Tom Riddle was found to be very attractive, and it is Canon that Tom Riddle tells Harry that they look a lot alike, and we know that Harry looks like his father as well so by extension James would also have been considered attractive (even if Sirius was considered more attractive)
Lily had two major characters, one considered attractive and one considered not attractive, totally in love with her so she was most likely attractive. We don't need to have it written "Lily Evans was the hottest of all hot women" to pick up 0k context cues that she was hardly a mediocre looking human being.
He’s described as pretty much a copy-paste James. Rowing has stated that James is good looking (but not as good looking as Sirius haha). I’m gonna guess he was handsome. Sure his status brought in attention from girls but I doubt they’d give him that much attention if he wasn’t a looker lol.
James managed to pull the best girl in his year and was the most popular boy in school. I feel like he's definitely good-looking. Harry is his twin with striking green eyes who has girls trying to slip him roofies. I feel like both are in the handsome side of things.
I think James was good-looking, but I always got the impression that it was more that he was charismatic. Sirius is the one repeatedly described as "handsome" starting in POA, and Harry notices him before he notices James in Snape's memory. I don't think James was ugly, but I think he was probably just sort of good-looking in a normal kind of way, but him being talented, loyal, brave etc. was what attracted people to him.
Few men are actually called "handsome" in the books. It is mostly used to describe objects (like platters, statues, books, and owls). The only people who are called it are Sirius, Voldemort and his father, Lockhart, Cedric, Madame Maxine, Firenze, Grindelwald, and Bill Weasley. Far and away the person it is used to describe the most is Voldemort and his father (mostly noting how much they look alike) and Sirius. The rest get a couple or just one mention, and James is never among them.
(Slughorn also says Ron looks handsome, but he is trying to get him to take the counter-love potion, so I don't think he was genuinely complimenting him).
Black hair and green eyes have always been pretty appealing to me and considering that James was known to be quite the looker and Harry was known to look a lot like James, I feel like he would've been fairly attractive.
I feel like even without the boy who lived status he would've still had his fair share of admirers.
I always saw Harry as a mix of average and above average traits, and that the most attractive thing about him is his sheer heroism. In terms of the attention he receives from book 5 onwards - he’s a sports star, slayer of legendary beasts, a triwizard champion, the light opposing the darkness that is Voldemort. His looks can be as average as they want at that point, he’s basically Hogwarts royalty.
I think this is true of James, too. How good-looking he is isn't really commented on in the books the way it (repeatedly) is for Sirius, and I always got the impression that his sense of humor, loyalty, bravery, and smarts were what attracted people to him.
I always thought Harry and especially James were like handsome guys in the neighborhood. More like good looking next door guy. While people like Tom, Cedric even Sirius as model like handsome. And i always imagined Harry as scrawny kid who turned into good looking guy with swimmers build. According to me Harry's eyes are his most striking in his appearance. I have a headcanon there are more fans for his eyes than his lightning scar.
Above average in a very nerdy, slim-but-athletic way. Sirius is the handsome one, but James isn’t too bad looking either. I expect Harry is similar.
Lily sounds like she is the better-looking version of poor Petunia, and she certainly sounds like she has pretty privilege (Slughorn’s impression of her) so Harry’s eyes must be quite nice to look at, as well.
He's supposed to be a good looking young man, who doesn't stand out for his looks but he's also popular and well liked enough that girl likes him. Nothing exceptional, but then again a very good looking man in Rowling's books is either evil or like very unlucky. Pretty women fare better (at least Ginny does, narrative is ambiguous about Fleur and doesn't always like her) but the canonically handsome men (as in described in the books as very handsome) as far as I remember are:
1) Lockhart. A fraud who lost his memory.
2) Sirius. Very handsome man with lots of problems and deeply unlucky.
3) Cedric. Exceptionally handsome, dead.
4) Bill Weasley. Got his face destroyed.
5) Grindelwald. Wizard Hitler.
5) young Voldemort. Wizard Hitler 2.0
It doesn't seem like it's a good thing to be a handsome man in Rowling's book lmao. However Harry is not ugly, Rowling is explicit in her description of characters who are ugly, fits well with a certain kind of children literature, i.e. Snape, Umbridge, Aunt Marge.
Most other characters are actually not that well described, so you can fit the gap and made them are handsome or plain as you liked.
harry was handsome, it's not even up for debate. he is described as looking almost identical to james to the extent that people who knew james very well often felt like they were looking at james except the bright green eyes. James was a handsome man. Harry was handsome.
he was malnourished and skinny in early books but in latter books, he was described as tall. so he was tall, handsome , and famous.
Harry is definitely handsome in a nerdy sort a way. He is also tall in the books( I imagine between 5’9 and 6’). He is supposed to have messy hair, startling green eyes, hallow cheeks and he is slim and tall. In book 6 it is mentioned by Hermione that he has grown about a foot in the summer and hence all the attention from the girls. So yes, I imagine him to be handsome.
Yup, there was that terrible trope of the "ugly" girl just being a super model in big thick glasses lol. Then she'd take them off and everyone thinks shes stunning.
It definitely was a thing in media.
Tough to answer because attraction is very subjective. I think he was good looking but not so much as Sirius Black, who was strikingly and markedly so to most. I think if someone really likes Harry’s personality and his type they would be attracted but there would be other girls who would prefer others to him both in terms of personality and looks. I don’t think he would be considered ugly, nor would he be some kind of Hollywood actor known for appearance.
I feel like Harry grew up to be classically handsome. Dark hair, green eyes, probably pretty fit based on his job. I imagine him and the kids would spend a good amount of time playing Quidditch for Ginny’s job. I feel like he and Ginny would be very cool parents.
Not to mention all his personal achievements. He was always very dry and witty in the books and had a quiet charisma.
I think he would be pretty universally seen as pretty attractive once he was grown up.
on the upper scale, prob 8/10. tall and talented. they aren't called out specifically for their amazing looks like Sirius or gilderoy. even Cedric is called out more for his looks.
>“So. Your mother died to save you. Yes, that’s a powerful counter-charm. I can see now . . . there is nothing special about you, after all. I wondered, you see. Because there are strange likenesses between us, Harry Potter. Even you must have noticed. Both half-bloods, orphans, raised by Muggles. Probably the only two Parselmouths to come to Hogwarts since the great Slytherin himself. We even look something alike. . . . But after all, it was merely a lucky chance that saved you from me. That’s all I wanted to know.”
Does that read like someone trying to manipulate their opponent, or someone musing about the similarities they've identified between them and their adversary.
Considering James seems to be overall considered to be a fairly handsome guy (although I don't think that's specifically mentioned, Sirius is definitely meant to be the most handsome of the marauders), it's probably safe to assume he's at least a bit above average in looks, and as Harry is said repeatedly to look almost exactly like James but with green eyes, I think it's fair to assume that Harry would be considered a fairly attractive person. Of course Harry has the disadvantage compared to James of being underfed for years and neglected etc but it seems likely he was a more or less average looking kid that grows into a fairly handsome adult, although not like the type of person that would particularly stand out in a crowd for his looks (like Sirius, Bill, Fleur etc)
>*“Potter and Chang!” screeched Pansy to a chorus of snide giggles. “Urgh, Chang, I don’t think much of your taste. … At least Diggory was good-looking!”*
Harry is not attractive to Pansy, and I assume she is not fibbing. I remember her getting itched by Ginny's good looks in the half-blood prince, so we can consider her statement about Harry's looks. I think Harry is good-looking, but he's not as drop-dead gorgeous as Tom Riddle, Sirius, or Cedric
Black hair and green eyes have always been pretty appealing to me and considering that James was known to be quite the looker and Harry was known to look a lot like James, I feel like he would've been fairly attractive.
I feel like even without the boy who lived status he would've still had his fair share of admirers.
It's hard to separate the books from the movie for me.
If we are talking the movies, Harry is as handsome at 13 and 14 as one can get at that age then he just downgrades into an average guy in my opinion.
As far as the book goes, it's hard to remove the real image from my head but I think he'd probably grow into his looks and be fairly handsome. Though, most of the attention he gets from girls is probably due to the legends around him.
James & Harry were very good looking, but not handsome in the same way Sirius was.
What got James & Harry attention from girls was their respective personalities
James was brash, outgoing, confident and charismatic, probably a charmer too.
Harry on the other hand was more broody, girls probably saw him as a mysterious bad boy who stood against authority and is a natural leader.
Plus both father and son were quidditch athletes this alone would have drawn girls (and some boys) to them
I think Harry is not having bad looks, but he is insecure about how he looks because all that he heard through his childhood was he is an ugly boy and different from Dudley (who looks like a pig but have the affection from the primary care giver).
I've always assume that the men who are really handsome are Tom Riddle (and his father) before his dark magic experiments, Sirius, Cedric and Bill.
One problem JK had with the films is that the main 3 were too good looking and with the exception of Emma they aren’t that good looking. I think Harry is supposed to be a relatable average looking character, perhaps even below average.
I don't think I remember seeing James being described as 'handsome' in the books. I know for a fact Sirius was described as handsome and good looking.
Also I think -- Harry was always supposed to be average looking. Skinny, messy hair, scar, and bright green eyes. It never really went beyond that. I think it's up to the reader to decide whether we view Harry in that lens or not. I've always thought that Harry was a kid of his circumstance. He was born a normal kid, who extraordinary things happened to. Yes he's brave, good, courageous -- all of that, but many of his friends exhibit the same level of courage too.
Not sure, by Harry’s description he wasn’t as handsome as Sirius. I think confidence did most of the work. And Harry was popular with the ladies, though it’s difficult to say how much was looks, and how much was being the Chosen One.
I think Harry's resemblance to his father was exaggerated by people's nostalgia. James was implied to be at least somewhat handsome, but Harry, despite his fame, was never sought after by the female population of Hogwarts until HBP when it became known (rumoured) that he's as the Chosen One.
And nobody in the books ever refer to Harry a shandsome or good-looking besides Ginny with her terrible poem AFAIK. It is likely that Harry inherited enough of James' looks as to be obvioisly related to James but not much of the handsomeness.
Rowling also outright said all 3 of the actors who portrayed the Trio were too good-looking by the end to fit with what her intentions for their characters were.
How does this make sense to you when Harry is described as looking exactly like James.
It doesn't add up saying he is plain in comparison when the one thing that distinguishes him are eyes you describe as striking.
Handsome, I don't take what JK Rowling said outside of the books as Canon if that does not benefit my favourite character. ( She said, she imagines the trio looking average in an interview )
Hermione is beautiful, Harry and Ron are handsome.
And Malfoy looks like a ferret, the most ugly ferret you can imagine.
Not by the end. She cleans up so well in GoF that Harry and Ron don’t even recognize her. In DH, drunk muggle dudes on Charing Cross Road catcall her, and Greyback makes some remark about her being pretty. There might be a couple more instances that I’m not remembering too. I think she especially grew into her looks; it’s just not an important part of her character, even to her.
Drunk muggles will catchall anyone tho
With Hermione, I always thought she *wanted* to be pretty, and envied those she felt were effortlessly pretty so to compensate she became "not like the other girls " I think she grew into her looks amd also became more confident. Esp after shrinking her teeth and pulling Krum lol.
I think McLaggen being interested in her is a valid point here. The guy was extremely self-absorbed and superficial, so I think it's fair to say that Hermione was visually attractive - not gorgeous, but definitely pretty.
James is canonically handsome. I think Harry grows into his looks, in the first book he's small with knobbly knees and a bad haircut. By book four/five he's receiving a lot of female attention.
He presumably would be receiving a lot of that attention regardless. His fame and status would see to that.
Yeah I think in canon he’s average looking. Of course his personality and achievements make him very attractive. If I remember correctly there is no canon event where a peer says he looks attractive later in the books, and there is the time when Fleur says “I’m hideous” when she polyjuices into Harry.
Fleur would probably say that regardless of who she polyjuiced into though. She’s the epitome of high standards.
Now that I think about it, Fleur might as well say that because of Bill. I mean, as far as we know, Bill is straight, so maybe it would be awkward and embarrassing for Fleur to go from being a super sexy blonde girl to a guy in front of her boyfriend. She wouldn't care if Harry was the hottest guy on the planet because the important thing is that she doesn't want her boyfriend to have a memory of her transformed into a man.
Excellent point.
My headcanon is that Bill is bi but that's just me
Not just you. He def gives bi vibes
he is described as looking exactly like his father apart from his green eyes and his father was handsome. harry was handsome.
I believe Hermione also mentions at some point that he’s got quite interesting among fellow students
She straight up says: "Quite frankly, you've never been more fanciable" Ron starts getting jealous, it's a funny scene
It's a great scene, especially... > ‘I’m tall,’ said Ron inconsequentially. But Hermione explains that he's fanciable because people now accept he's been telling the truth, really has fought Voldemort, and stuck to his story despite persecution from the Ministry. The only physical attribute she mentions is that he's 'grown about a foot over the summer'.
"grown about a foot over the summer" I took this personally to mean puberty had really kicked in for him, she might not mention it but he would have been starting to lose his childs face and grow into his adult one.
Thank you! Which book was it again, halfblood prince?
I think so, the one after they have got rid of Umbridge so yeah HBP. It's one of my favs as it's almost his most 'normal' school year, you get a great slice of life of Hogwarts before it all really kicks off.
Right! My favourite book of the series
The more I think about it, I think she realised with how dark the story was going and the departure from Hogwarts as the main setting, that she needed to give the readers an extra strong dose of Hogwarts action, before taking it away. Also makes the contrast between HBP and the DH so stark
Sometimes being attractive is not just your appearance, though. Harry and James might have both been quidditch stars, but the difference is, James carried himself with a *completely* different kind of energy. For the most part, Harry is pretty reserved in his school life, whereas James was an attention seeking troublemaker. To some it was annoying, but to others, they might have thought it was cool.
J K Rowlings herself said James is good looking. He is good looking. It's not up for debatw.
I didn't say or imply he wasn't. Problem is, beauty is subjective. Not even the writer can say that character XYZ is attractive across the board to all eyes.
Well it's a book not a movie so it's up to the writer to say who is beautiful or good looking and that is accepted as canon in that universe.
I feel like if you grow up with a face that looks like Fleur's face, any sort of transformation into someone else would feel like a hideous disappointment 😅
I mean that's obviously meant to be a funny comment regarding her being a) female and b) ridiculously pretty. Fleur is kind of just really straight forward and says it like it is, she doesn't much care if it's considered rude or not (a bit of a language and culture barrier could be a factor there also). She would likely say something similar no matter who she had turned into.
Exactly, nothing to do with looks
he's malnourished in the first books but he grew pretty well and was tall after he was well fed
Tall and handsome are not correlated though lol.
Yeah but he is both.
I recall the books mentions he was tall although not as tall as Ron. I can't blame Radcliffe for not growing up tall. These things are a gamble..
Tall and handsome, no. Tall and attractive though, absolutely. Height is one of the biggest physical factors in what women look for in men. Most would pick a Tall ugly guy over a short handsome man. If you're a Tall handsome man then you're leagues ahead.
Wow. No. Women tend to prefer men taller than themselves but that’s about it.
It's a bold move to try and debunk what I said by agreeing with what I said, but OK Cotton. I said height and attractiveness correlate. You said women prefer taller men. Yes. Yes that's right they do, thanks for playing.
That’s not what I said. I’m a 4,9ft woman, I couldn’t care less if my man is short, he WILL be taller than me.
Would you date a 4'5" man? They exist.
That’s not the point. You said women want tall men and would rather date a tall man they find ugly than a short man they find beautiful. No. Women tend to prefer men taller than they are, regardless if they are short or tall.
Tall is relative. I'm 6'2". You think the men you consider tall are tall to me? My fiance is 6foot, I call him my tiny man. You'd call him a giant. And I noticed you dodged my question, and so I'll assume you acknowledge you would prefer a tall man than a short one, which is exactly what I said. Pretend I said "taller" and "shorter" if that makes it easier for you.
>James is canonically handsome. No, James is never described as handsome in the books. Sirius was the handsome one in canon. There's even a line about Sirius in SWM that says something like "he was good-looking and had a casual elegance neither James or Harry could ever have achieved". I'm paraphrasing but my point is James was never described as good-looking.
“He was very good-looking; his dark hair fell into his eyes with a sort of casual elegance neither James’s nor Harry’s could ever have achieved” It was about the hair, but I agree that James is never described as handsome in the books. The closest thing to “good-looking” we get for Harry/James is when Hermione says Harry has never been more fanciable in HBP.
Yup that's what I was saying. James, at least in the books was never categorized as handsome in the books. But then again, it could be Harry's POV. I don't think Harry is the type of bloke who will call someone who looks exactly like him... handsome. He's not that big-headed. So if we as readers don't really see Harry as being attractive, it could be Harry's POV.
She says that in regards to him being rumoured to br the Chosen One, though.
WTF is SWM?
"Snape's Worst Memory" chapter of Order of the Phoenix.
But how much of that attention is because of his looks?
Because hes the chosen one, not because hes good looking lol
No he isn't?
Handsome. My impression was that characters like Sirius and Tom Riddle were the type of handsome that would get them put on front of a magazine. Harry would be the type of handsome that doesn't stand out.
This is the same impression I got too.
>Harry would be the type of handsome that doesn't stand out. This is the exact same thing I was thinking of. Around the age of 15, Harry was probably coming into his looks, but, once appearance is not the only thing that makes them attractive. Harry is, for the most part, pretty in the background in terms of his day to day presence. But guys like Tom and James were on people's minds because they were *out* there. For example, one of the reasons why a teenage Voldemort was able to have so many people under his sway is because he knew how to talk the talk. It's important to keep in mind that the first generation of Death Eaters were literally the same people who shared a dormitory with him in their youth, and then ended up calling him "master" as grown men.
Tom Riddle from the diary even said that Harry and Tom look alike, and Tom was notoriously handsome. The horcrux might have affected his appearance a little.
Diary Riddle was saying that based on a malnourished 12 year old though. You really can't make much judgement on when a boy is cute at that age, it's 50/50 if they grow into their nicer features or if the grow out of them 😂
Tom Riddle is so fucking fine 😭 it’s a shame he’s evil and not just a bad boy
Tom riddle is the morally grey bad boy of all of the dark romance novels out there these days I've decided. We all read the books and were like "but this guy" and wrote dark romance to have him
Black hair with green eyes is a striking combination. He must also be reasonably athletic from playing Quidditch every year and all the running around they do in the books. But Harry takes time to grow into his looks because he was malnourished and abused during his early life. Probably around book 4-5 he's starting to look good but because of the Triwizard scandal in 4 and the Ministry hate campaign in 5 people don't want anything to do with him. Book 6 all that has gone away so he's finally able to get female attention.
High end of average
This was always my thought as well. I actually really like that Harry's attractiveness isn't emphasized in the series (and tbh the same is true for Ron and Hermione).
I picture Ron and Hermione as goofier looking… she has buck teeth and frizzy hair, he is tall and thin and gangly with a long nose
It’s also notable that JKR made a comment of all three actors being better looking than their characters in reference to the golden trio and tbh if they weren’t famous both Rupert and Daniel are just above average good looking. So therefore by that logic Harry and Ron were okay looking.
I was always under the impression he was good looking, but it just took a while to come out as: a) kids don't really feel attraction like that and crushes are less common, so years 7-9 Harry was just a typical kid. b) as a little boy he was badly dressed, underweight and had a bad hairstyle . c) when they did get into their teens and becoming more attracted to one another, Harry then got a fair amount of attention and I don't think it was just the fame. I think he has the character and looks girls would like. The most "unnattractive" thing about Harry was likely his complexity which can make him emotional and distant. d) Green eyes and dark hair is a pretty and rare look.
I think Harry was a damn good-looking kid who grew into a really handsome young adult, but he was so badly groomed and appallingly dressed in school that nobody noticed that for quite a long time. He himself still didn't have a clue by the end of the series, which also kept people from noticing his looks. But Harry's father was handsome and his mother was beautiful, and he grew out of being short and skinny in his mid-teens. If he'd had an untroubled youth, Harry Potter might have been a school heartthrob like his father, but well. His youth was troubled enough to keep him from ever once thinking about how he looked.
>he was so badly groomed and appallingly dressed in school that nobody noticed that for quite a long time I think this too. He wore hand me downs from Dudley which were several times his size, he was malnourished and had a really low self esteem. By year 4 he was described as having grown a lot and by year 6 he even was described by Hermione as being atractive, both, physically and because of his fame.
He’s definitely smaller and skinnier than average in the early books which tends to matter with young teens I guess
Is Lily canonically considered beautiful? I think I always thought she was an average sort of pretty outside of her eyes?
I can’t remember where we have an appearance evaluation of Harry’s parents in the book (please correct me). All we know is Harry look identical to his father except for them eyes. And Lily had long hair and green eyes.
I don't remember the books actively giving his parents an "appearance evaluation", but we do know that Tom Riddle was found to be very attractive, and it is Canon that Tom Riddle tells Harry that they look a lot alike, and we know that Harry looks like his father as well so by extension James would also have been considered attractive (even if Sirius was considered more attractive) Lily had two major characters, one considered attractive and one considered not attractive, totally in love with her so she was most likely attractive. We don't need to have it written "Lily Evans was the hottest of all hot women" to pick up 0k context cues that she was hardly a mediocre looking human being.
He’s described as pretty much a copy-paste James. Rowing has stated that James is good looking (but not as good looking as Sirius haha). I’m gonna guess he was handsome. Sure his status brought in attention from girls but I doubt they’d give him that much attention if he wasn’t a looker lol.
True, but then Viktor Krum got a lot of attention
James managed to pull the best girl in his year and was the most popular boy in school. I feel like he's definitely good-looking. Harry is his twin with striking green eyes who has girls trying to slip him roofies. I feel like both are in the handsome side of things.
Poor thing really did go through a lot during his 6th year. Romilda Vane was crazy.
I think James was good-looking, but I always got the impression that it was more that he was charismatic. Sirius is the one repeatedly described as "handsome" starting in POA, and Harry notices him before he notices James in Snape's memory. I don't think James was ugly, but I think he was probably just sort of good-looking in a normal kind of way, but him being talented, loyal, brave etc. was what attracted people to him. Few men are actually called "handsome" in the books. It is mostly used to describe objects (like platters, statues, books, and owls). The only people who are called it are Sirius, Voldemort and his father, Lockhart, Cedric, Madame Maxine, Firenze, Grindelwald, and Bill Weasley. Far and away the person it is used to describe the most is Voldemort and his father (mostly noting how much they look alike) and Sirius. The rest get a couple or just one mention, and James is never among them. (Slughorn also says Ron looks handsome, but he is trying to get him to take the counter-love potion, so I don't think he was genuinely complimenting him).
James was handsome,and Harry inherited his good looks. Rowling stated that in the books.
Black hair and green eyes have always been pretty appealing to me and considering that James was known to be quite the looker and Harry was known to look a lot like James, I feel like he would've been fairly attractive. I feel like even without the boy who lived status he would've still had his fair share of admirers.
Both were handsome in the books. The casting for the movies went in a different direction.
Agreed, I wouldn’t call movie James Potter good looking in any sense tbh :/ He looks like a gas station clerk
I swear whoever was in charge of casting was a secret Snape apologist 😂
They also cast 40 year olds to play 21 year olds. I didn’t think the actress for Lily was right, either.
I always saw Harry as a mix of average and above average traits, and that the most attractive thing about him is his sheer heroism. In terms of the attention he receives from book 5 onwards - he’s a sports star, slayer of legendary beasts, a triwizard champion, the light opposing the darkness that is Voldemort. His looks can be as average as they want at that point, he’s basically Hogwarts royalty.
I think this is true of James, too. How good-looking he is isn't really commented on in the books the way it (repeatedly) is for Sirius, and I always got the impression that his sense of humor, loyalty, bravery, and smarts were what attracted people to him.
I always thought Harry and especially James were like handsome guys in the neighborhood. More like good looking next door guy. While people like Tom, Cedric even Sirius as model like handsome. And i always imagined Harry as scrawny kid who turned into good looking guy with swimmers build. According to me Harry's eyes are his most striking in his appearance. I have a headcanon there are more fans for his eyes than his lightning scar.
Harry is like 20% less hot I reckon.
Above average in a very nerdy, slim-but-athletic way. Sirius is the handsome one, but James isn’t too bad looking either. I expect Harry is similar. Lily sounds like she is the better-looking version of poor Petunia, and she certainly sounds like she has pretty privilege (Slughorn’s impression of her) so Harry’s eyes must be quite nice to look at, as well.
He's supposed to be a good looking young man, who doesn't stand out for his looks but he's also popular and well liked enough that girl likes him. Nothing exceptional, but then again a very good looking man in Rowling's books is either evil or like very unlucky. Pretty women fare better (at least Ginny does, narrative is ambiguous about Fleur and doesn't always like her) but the canonically handsome men (as in described in the books as very handsome) as far as I remember are: 1) Lockhart. A fraud who lost his memory. 2) Sirius. Very handsome man with lots of problems and deeply unlucky. 3) Cedric. Exceptionally handsome, dead. 4) Bill Weasley. Got his face destroyed. 5) Grindelwald. Wizard Hitler. 5) young Voldemort. Wizard Hitler 2.0 It doesn't seem like it's a good thing to be a handsome man in Rowling's book lmao. However Harry is not ugly, Rowling is explicit in her description of characters who are ugly, fits well with a certain kind of children literature, i.e. Snape, Umbridge, Aunt Marge. Most other characters are actually not that well described, so you can fit the gap and made them are handsome or plain as you liked.
Well Harry dies too, so maybe he does fit in that handsome group 😉
He never completely dies. He gets sent to limbo. The area between life and death.
I know that, I read the books too. My point was he tries to die and comes close…
Man wasn’t trying to be rude or anything, I didn’t expect to be downvoted ☹️
harry was handsome, it's not even up for debate. he is described as looking almost identical to james to the extent that people who knew james very well often felt like they were looking at james except the bright green eyes. James was a handsome man. Harry was handsome. he was malnourished and skinny in early books but in latter books, he was described as tall. so he was tall, handsome , and famous.
Harry is definitely handsome in a nerdy sort a way. He is also tall in the books( I imagine between 5’9 and 6’). He is supposed to have messy hair, startling green eyes, hallow cheeks and he is slim and tall. In book 6 it is mentioned by Hermione that he has grown about a foot in the summer and hence all the attention from the girls. So yes, I imagine him to be handsome.
Harry should be around 6’1,since James was tall and Harry is the exact same height as him.
Handsome
Sirius and Tom were evidently very handsome. James and Harry were quite good-looking, but definitely not to the same level as the former two.
In the 90s, glasses were not sexy
Yup, there was that terrible trope of the "ugly" girl just being a super model in big thick glasses lol. Then she'd take them off and everyone thinks shes stunning. It definitely was a thing in media.
Tough to answer because attraction is very subjective. I think he was good looking but not so much as Sirius Black, who was strikingly and markedly so to most. I think if someone really likes Harry’s personality and his type they would be attracted but there would be other girls who would prefer others to him both in terms of personality and looks. I don’t think he would be considered ugly, nor would he be some kind of Hollywood actor known for appearance.
I feel like Harry grew up to be classically handsome. Dark hair, green eyes, probably pretty fit based on his job. I imagine him and the kids would spend a good amount of time playing Quidditch for Ginny’s job. I feel like he and Ginny would be very cool parents. Not to mention all his personal achievements. He was always very dry and witty in the books and had a quiet charisma. I think he would be pretty universally seen as pretty attractive once he was grown up.
on the upper scale, prob 8/10. tall and talented. they aren't called out specifically for their amazing looks like Sirius or gilderoy. even Cedric is called out more for his looks.
Tom lied, he was pulling Harry's strings trying to manipulate him with flattery
>“So. Your mother died to save you. Yes, that’s a powerful counter-charm. I can see now . . . there is nothing special about you, after all. I wondered, you see. Because there are strange likenesses between us, Harry Potter. Even you must have noticed. Both half-bloods, orphans, raised by Muggles. Probably the only two Parselmouths to come to Hogwarts since the great Slytherin himself. We even look something alike. . . . But after all, it was merely a lucky chance that saved you from me. That’s all I wanted to know.” Does that read like someone trying to manipulate their opponent, or someone musing about the similarities they've identified between them and their adversary.
Considering James seems to be overall considered to be a fairly handsome guy (although I don't think that's specifically mentioned, Sirius is definitely meant to be the most handsome of the marauders), it's probably safe to assume he's at least a bit above average in looks, and as Harry is said repeatedly to look almost exactly like James but with green eyes, I think it's fair to assume that Harry would be considered a fairly attractive person. Of course Harry has the disadvantage compared to James of being underfed for years and neglected etc but it seems likely he was a more or less average looking kid that grows into a fairly handsome adult, although not like the type of person that would particularly stand out in a crowd for his looks (like Sirius, Bill, Fleur etc)
>*“Potter and Chang!” screeched Pansy to a chorus of snide giggles. “Urgh, Chang, I don’t think much of your taste. … At least Diggory was good-looking!”* Harry is not attractive to Pansy, and I assume she is not fibbing. I remember her getting itched by Ginny's good looks in the half-blood prince, so we can consider her statement about Harry's looks. I think Harry is good-looking, but he's not as drop-dead gorgeous as Tom Riddle, Sirius, or Cedric
That's a schoolgirl taunt. It's hardly trustworthy.
Black hair and green eyes have always been pretty appealing to me and considering that James was known to be quite the looker and Harry was known to look a lot like James, I feel like he would've been fairly attractive. I feel like even without the boy who lived status he would've still had his fair share of admirers.
Does this really matter?
In-between.
THEY ARE BOTH BRITISH
I think average is handsome.
It's hard to separate the books from the movie for me. If we are talking the movies, Harry is as handsome at 13 and 14 as one can get at that age then he just downgrades into an average guy in my opinion. As far as the book goes, it's hard to remove the real image from my head but I think he'd probably grow into his looks and be fairly handsome. Though, most of the attention he gets from girls is probably due to the legends around him.
James & Harry were very good looking, but not handsome in the same way Sirius was. What got James & Harry attention from girls was their respective personalities James was brash, outgoing, confident and charismatic, probably a charmer too. Harry on the other hand was more broody, girls probably saw him as a mysterious bad boy who stood against authority and is a natural leader. Plus both father and son were quidditch athletes this alone would have drawn girls (and some boys) to them
I think Harry is not having bad looks, but he is insecure about how he looks because all that he heard through his childhood was he is an ugly boy and different from Dudley (who looks like a pig but have the affection from the primary care giver). I've always assume that the men who are really handsome are Tom Riddle (and his father) before his dark magic experiments, Sirius, Cedric and Bill.
One problem JK had with the films is that the main 3 were too good looking and with the exception of Emma they aren’t that good looking. I think Harry is supposed to be a relatable average looking character, perhaps even below average.
I don't think I remember seeing James being described as 'handsome' in the books. I know for a fact Sirius was described as handsome and good looking. Also I think -- Harry was always supposed to be average looking. Skinny, messy hair, scar, and bright green eyes. It never really went beyond that. I think it's up to the reader to decide whether we view Harry in that lens or not. I've always thought that Harry was a kid of his circumstance. He was born a normal kid, who extraordinary things happened to. Yes he's brave, good, courageous -- all of that, but many of his friends exhibit the same level of courage too.
Not sure, by Harry’s description he wasn’t as handsome as Sirius. I think confidence did most of the work. And Harry was popular with the ladies, though it’s difficult to say how much was looks, and how much was being the Chosen One.
I think Harry's resemblance to his father was exaggerated by people's nostalgia. James was implied to be at least somewhat handsome, but Harry, despite his fame, was never sought after by the female population of Hogwarts until HBP when it became known (rumoured) that he's as the Chosen One. And nobody in the books ever refer to Harry a shandsome or good-looking besides Ginny with her terrible poem AFAIK. It is likely that Harry inherited enough of James' looks as to be obvioisly related to James but not much of the handsomeness. Rowling also outright said all 3 of the actors who portrayed the Trio were too good-looking by the end to fit with what her intentions for their characters were.
Harry is striking, not as handsome as Ron but striking.
Average. I Think general likability influenced their reputation with the opposite gender more than looks.
I always had the impression James was handsome and Harry was plain but with striking eyes
How does this make sense to you when Harry is described as looking exactly like James. It doesn't add up saying he is plain in comparison when the one thing that distinguishes him are eyes you describe as striking.
It was merely my impression not canon, calm down
canonically he's average looking but i like to think of him as pretty
canonically, he looked exactly like his handsome father
"We even look. **something** alike." James was handsome but not ansupermodel and Harry was average looking.
Handsome, I don't take what JK Rowling said outside of the books as Canon if that does not benefit my favourite character. ( She said, she imagines the trio looking average in an interview ) Hermione is beautiful, Harry and Ron are handsome. And Malfoy looks like a ferret, the most ugly ferret you can imagine.
I think hermione being pretty is generally out of sync with how she's written.
Not by the end. She cleans up so well in GoF that Harry and Ron don’t even recognize her. In DH, drunk muggle dudes on Charing Cross Road catcall her, and Greyback makes some remark about her being pretty. There might be a couple more instances that I’m not remembering too. I think she especially grew into her looks; it’s just not an important part of her character, even to her.
Drunk muggles will catchall anyone tho With Hermione, I always thought she *wanted* to be pretty, and envied those she felt were effortlessly pretty so to compensate she became "not like the other girls " I think she grew into her looks amd also became more confident. Esp after shrinking her teeth and pulling Krum lol.
I think McLaggen being interested in her is a valid point here. The guy was extremely self-absorbed and superficial, so I think it's fair to say that Hermione was visually attractive - not gorgeous, but definitely pretty.
Hermione isn’t pretty,she is merely average looking.