5 Harry Potter Book Characters Who Weren't Good Enough for the Movies

The Harry Potter movies are usually considered to be a fairly faithful adaptation, which at most changes emphasis on certain events or characters but largely avoids making severe alterations to the source. Nevertheless, the films still made a number of pragmatic omissions and even excluded certain minor characters entirely.

Let's remember five characters who did not make it to the screen, and whose absence was actually felt.

Peeves the Poltergeist

He was basically a comic relief character with minimal, if any, impact on the plot. However, we did love him in the books, and some of the poltergeist's lines would really work well in the movies.

The Muggle Prime Minister

Also called 'The Other Minister.' Though he is only a single-scene character, the Minister's existence is one of the few ways in which the books acknowledge that the Wizarding World actually coexists with the world of muggles.

Winky

Winky was a house elf who served the Crouch family until fired by Crouch Sr. and finding refuge at Hogwarts. Unlike the other omitted characters, she was actually relevant to the plot, as the circumstances surrounding her dismissal were among the hints pointing at the whole deal with Crouch Jr. in The Goblet of Fire. Also, witnessing Crouch's cruel treatment prompted Hermione to start championing the rights of house elves.

Perhaps the film series' producers thought that the character was too complicated for a children's movie, as Winky herself considered her dismissal a disgrace and was driven to alcoholism because of it.

The Gaunt Family

Voldemort has a brief but effective origin story in the books — a boy from a horribly broken family, with the makings of a serial killer, whose entrance into the world of magic started with a 'might is right' lesson. Unfortunately, the movies skip the Gaunt family story, and Harry doesn't get to see Voldemort's mother, uncle, and grandfather through the Pensieve.

Without his story presented to viewers in its entirety, Voldemort becomes more of a bad guy doing bad things because he's bad.

Hepzibah Smith

Hepzibah Smith is another posthumous character, seen through the Pensieve. She was the collector of magical antiquities, whom Voldemort murdered to get the Hufflepuff Cup and the Slytherin Locket. Though unimportant by herself, interactions with Hepzibah demonstrate how attractive, charismatic, and deceitful Voldemort was when he was still called Tom Riddle, and how he managed to attract numerous followers.