Of All the Mysteries in Harry Potter, Oliver Wood's Absence is the One We Can't Get Over

There's no denying that the Harry Potter saga is one of the most complex book series the fantasy world has seen in a long time, with hundreds of interesting characters populating each chapter of the boy-who-lived story.

And while characters like Ron, Hermione, or Draco have remained relevant throughout the whole series, others have not been so lucky, especially in the adaptation. That is not surprising, of course, as the producers had to cut a lot of original content to keep their movies from feeling bloated.

One such underused character is definitely Oliver Wood, the Gryffindor student who first introduced Harry to Quidditch in the first film of the franchise.

Oliver Wood was the goalkeeper and captain of the Gryffindor team, and he was the one who taught Harry the basics of the game. However, after being a role model for Harry in The Sorcerer's Stone, Oliver was almost nowhere to be seen in the second film of the cycle and disappeared for good before the third movie.

Fans of the franchise have long wondered where Wood went, but he was actually quite present in the original books, even after Chamber of Secrets.

For starters, Oliver played a major role in Prisoner of Azkaban, captaining the Gryffindor team and leading them to victory over Slytherin after his fiery speech. And even after he left Hogwarts, Wood could be seen from time to time, such as during the World Cup in Goblet of Fire.

And in fact, fans who thought Sean Biggerstaff as Wood never appeared in the franchise again after the second movie are actually wrong. The character returned in the blink-and-you-missed-it scene during the Battle of Hogwarts in the very last film, leading his fellow Quidditch players into battle against Lord Voldemort.

Obviously, Wood's presence in the movies was cut short due to the limited resources of the producers, but some fans think that he could play a bigger role in the upcoming HBO Max's reboot of Harry Potter. The serialized format will allow the writers to spend much more time developing secondary characters like Wood, and fans are hopeful they'll fully embrace this opportunity.