This is actually addressed in the books. There’s a part when Harry is whining how nobody believed him when he said Voldemort was back and Hermione basically goes “Dude, you convinced Cedric to touch the cup at the same time you did, then you both disappeared and you came back with his dead body screaming about an evil wizard who has been dead for more than a decade. I only believed you because I’m your friend.”
For an intelligent take on Harry Potter I can recommend https://hpmor.com/ I found it better than the original books.
Fair warning: what this is, is, Elizer yes-that-guy Yudkowsky wrote a one-and-done Harry Potter novel, and it is everything you would expect. Some aspects are fantastic! Others… yikes. Within two chapters, it goes from spotting Umberto Eco’s Ur-Fascism in the Death Eaters’ whole pitch, to declaring Hermoine an NPC unless she can pass a gatekeeping knowledge-check about quarks.
A detail I love that’s not a spoiler: Crabbe and Goyle are well-characterized to act exactly the way they are in canon. They’ve been molded as bodyguards since they were little, and now they’re in wizard middle school getting to play tough-guy bruisers on Draco’s behalf, so of course they’re tryhard doofuses that he finds mildly embarrassing. But when Quirrel invites one of them to spar, demonstrating the ancient mystical defense known as… judo… Goyle quietly asks what belt he has. Quirrel says “seventh dan.” The tough-guy act comes right back up, and Goyle throws himself into it, because he knows he’s about to get his ass kicked, safely.
The whole thing is ultimately about modeling people on these layers of facade. A lot of it gets overly analytical and kinda up-its-own-ass. Certain characters call that out and condemn actions at face value, so some of it’s deliberate writing for the protagonist and antagonist. But only some.
Even with abundant benefit of the doubt, figuring ‘this guy wrote Harry like a know-it-all child,’ any recommendation would be complicated.
My spouse has been relistening to the books on tape recently and so I have been hearing it by proxy.
The narrators really put in the work to make some flimsy writing seem engaging. Like in one of the later books there’s this significant scene where some evil magic makes an evil visage of Hermione. In the subsequent chronological scene the real Hermione is super angry at Ron and not once does the writing reference or make a connection with any of the imagery between the two.
Eh, read Diana Wynne Jones instead.
Just literally any books other than Harry Potter instead. Joanne had a generation locked in. Every form of media, spin-off, merch, a effing section of Universal Studios, etc. with unlimited money, and she could’ve just disappeared to do whatever she wanted to. Instead, she gets online and mouths off incessantly, alienating a good chunk of her base, and revealing what an awful human being she actually is. She could’ve been illegally racing panda bears in go-karts around her back yard and no one would ever have known. Just doing eccentric rich person stuff. It’s one of the biggest disappointments.
