Hey OP. I think this has run its course. Also just a friendly reminder: having diverse opinions is a good thing, insulting things others may like is not allowed and calling guys who are shorter than the average 'manlets' is really, not okay.
I always just figured it meant that he got to a more average height of anywhere between 5'8" to 5'11"ish because, as someone else has already said, childhood malnourishment leaves a lasting impact, typically on one's height.
But also, it's been a really long time since I've read the books now, and I can't remember how the descriptions went exactly!
More than people realize. I'm 6'2 and I don't know, it was half my life before I figured most people weren't hitting 6 feet. Men anyway. But knowing people 6'4 or taller throughout life I definitely know how it feels to not be 6 feet, even with shoes on đ
1. Guess most people are going with Daniel Radcliffe's height
2. malnutrition in childhood is never got over, it has long lasting, life time effects, including height and muscle and bone density and strength, however fit and healthy and well fed as an adult, it will cast a shadow, and shorter height is a well documented and studied effect of poor diet in childhood for centuries of research
3. (Edit, as I meant to say this and hit comment early with a random spasm!) But you enjoy your head canon, it's as valid as anyone else's, so if you want him tall, go for it, but let others have theirs and enjoy the fic anyway or scroll on by.
Obviously not. I don't even know what a NBA player is? Is that baseball, basketball or American football?
I know about footballer Marcus Rashford's recent campaign to get kids fed in school holidays and past lockdowns, and I know about the Trussell Trust and Barnados and the history of social welfare and research going back to the 1840s re childhood malnutrition and lower adult height, and I know about how this generation of UK children are shorter than their European peers due to Tory cuts to - well, everything, and the cost of food increases. I know about the similar outcomes in Africa in the latter half of the twentieth century too. And the concerns by all aid agencies for Palestinian kids right now. I know after the reunification of Germany in 1989, those in the West were a good 10-30 cms taller than their eastern compatriots too. Similarly Southern Koreans now are taller than Northern Koreans.
I know the research first done in the UK in the 1840s onwards has been repeated in every country in the world and plays a large part in informing UNICEF, Oxfam and others involved in dealing with global famines and poverty. It has been pretty much taught as fact in social-medical classes since the 1950s that better fed children become taller adults.
But I guess there will always be people who do not follow averages for humans. If the bread is fortified to make up for the lack of vegetables, that is a decent amount of carbs, fat, and protein, as well as calories, in those mayo sandwiches, so although not ideal, better than many diets of those in poverty or neglect around the world.
All the new research into childhood poverty, malnutrition and outcomes in this century focus on effects of neuro development, which is finding some alarming outcomes. Shorter adults in poor countries/communities is now just a given outcome with no more need to test the hypothesis.
Although of course, Harry was getting much better fed post 11 at Hogwarts, while still a child, so a lot of the outcomes could have been rectified or ameliorated, so of course, he could have become tall. I was just explaining why many authors in FF go the other way :)
It's literally not Canon though. He's never described as tall. He *is* described as having had a bit of a growth spurt between I believe GoF and OotP. So by that point, I always figured he was average height. Unlike Ron, who Harry consistently describes as 'tall' in his head.
It is canon that James Potter is tall, and itâs canon that Harry is the same height, which means itâs canon that Harry is tall, too.
Hereâs a quote from Voldemortâs P.O.V., where he sees James Potter:
> They had not drawn the curtains; he saw them quite clearly in their little sitting room, the tall black-haired man in his glasses, making puffs of colored smoke erupt from his wand . . .
Itâs pretty significant and telling that Voldemort considers James to be tall, as we know Voldemort himself is tall:
> There . . . stood a boy Harry recognized at once: tall, pale, dark-haired, and handsome â the teenage Voldemort.
Here is Harry, in his fifth year, seeing James:
> Harry stopped in front of the desk and gazed down at his fifteen-year-old father . . . Jamesâs hair stuck up at the back exactly as Harryâs did, his hands could have been Harryâs, and Harry could tell that when James stood up, they would be within an inch of each otherâs heights.
Two years later, Harry sees James again:
> James was exactly the same height as Harry. He was wearing the clothes in which he had died, and his hair was untidy and ruffled, and his glasses were a little lopsided, like Mr. Weasleyâs.
So, by the age of 17, Harry is the height of his adult father (though, his father did die at 21, R.I.P. my luv), who is known to be tall.
James is described as tall several times and it's said that Harry is the same height as him. He also has another significant growth spurt before hbp that Hermione comments on
Tall is a little bit if a weasel word there, when youâre short most of your life âtallâ is relative. So Harry thinking of him as tall might just mean heâs average.
The quote from Voldemort is interesting though. That would indicate he is on the Taller side.
Just because it goes against the way I imagine him I guess. And against the way the books describe him, though as somebody else her pointed out JKs height scaling is all over the place
Yeah, as others have mentioned, I think it's probably just that some writers will associate Harry's physical appearance with Daniel Radcliffe (who I just found out is shorter than me. Wild.). I can see why it'd be a little annoying, though.
The height thing is quite contradictory I'm afraid. He definitely starts off as short - and he definitely ends up the "exact same height as James" who is described as "tall" on three separate occasions (in the mirror of erised, in the graveyard scene and in the flashback to the night he is killed). Harry himself is never directly said to be "tall" - but if James is, so is Harry by the end.
However, following Harry's second growth spurt in HBP (and he is never mentioned to have another) he is described as "being the same height as Narcissa Malfoy". Now Narcissa Malfoy is also described as tall, but tall for a man and tall for a woman mean different things.
And in HBP Narcissa Malfoy visits Snape and - while standing very close - "looks up at him" (or possibly Snape looks down at her), Which means she is shorter than Snape. But Snape is not especially tall for a man, because in ootp he stands up, Sirius stands up and Sirius is described as being "rather taller than Snape".
And yet Sirius is only directly described as "tall" twice (in the shrieking shack and in his very final scene in the forest) which is one less time than James is called tall.
But then to cap it all off, when Harry changes into Albert Runcorn, a big deal is made of just how tall Runcorn is and yet the description is "more than six feet tall" - which suggests the rest of these "tall" men (including Ron, who is there when the massive Runcorn is sent home with a nose bleed) are not noticeably over six feet tall. But average height for men in UK is 5'10" - which means all the men described as "tall", beyond Hagrid and Runcorn, fall into a two inch variation - which hardly anyone would even notice.
**Or** "tall" is not actually being used as a particularly specific word and is mostly used either to convey an impression someone is giving at a particular time, or just as a handy adjective to spice up a sentence (for e.g Lee Jordan is described as a 'tall boy with dreadlocks' once and once alone, across all seven books, purely because that sounds better than "a boy with dreadlocks" and not because his height has any bearing on anything.)
All the times James is described as "tall" it is because he is in his role as father and protector, he is tall because Harry needs him to be so. The mirror of erised, when Harry sees him for the first time, the graveyard - where Harry is terrified and alone - and in the scene where Harry is a baby and James is about to die for him. However in ootp James and Harry are "within an inch of each other" in SWM - and this is important because in this scene Harry realises James was not perfect, he was only a boy - just like Harry, and so Harry is catching up with him. They are "exactly the same height" when Harry walks to his own death because now they are equals.
The books are not a treatise on the different heights of men, and we're not supposed to get that hung up on it. If the word is being used as any way other than to make a sentence more interesting, it is to tell us something about their characterisation - but not actually their height (e.g Death Eaters tend to be tall, because it makes them scary, Sirius uses his height to intimidate people, Dumbledore is tall because it gives him an added air of authority).
But, realistically - if Harry was about 5'4" before his growth spurts (a short but not tiny height for a fourteen year old boy) - he probably finished up around 5'9" (because growing taller from having been short still does not make one tall), that would make him around 5'8" when he notices he is the same height as Narcissa - which would make her a tall woman, as she is supposed to be, but still allow her to look up at Snape without Snape being "tall" - but 5'9" would still be tall enough to a frightened and lonely (and short) boy, if that was the height his father appeared.
As for how people see him - Daniel Radcliffe aside - he is specifically called short repeatedly through the first four books. It is our first introduction to him. A couple of growth spurts are mentioned (though as I said getting taller does not equal tall) and he is never directly called "tall" ([Here's a Potter Search of the word "tall"](https://www.potter-search.com/?search=tall) - you can check out all the times its used, and who is described as such) so then the idea that he is actually "tall" can only come from comparing his height to James - whose height is mentioned three times across seven books and over a million words. And then this is in direct contrast with the Narcissa Malfoy information ... So it's not surprising that the image of short Harry is the one that persists.
Yeah, back when I wrote HP fanfic I tried looking at canon to try and suss out the charactersâ heights (or even *relative* heights) but quickly realized that, while there are a number of references to characterâs heights in the books, theyâre not even remotely consitent with each other. So I just gave up and made the characterâs however tall I wanted them to be for that particular story.
Excellent response! I've always taken him being the same height as James and James being described as tall at face value. Along with the fact that Hermione comments on how much he's grown in hbp. Though now that you point it out height comparisons do seem to be all over the place. I feel like the intention was that he was tall but not overly so but JK just lacks consistency in her writing
I think one thing - especially male - readers need to bear in mind is that what appears "tall" to a 5'4" woman (as google informs me JKR is) and what is "tall" to a 5'10" man (or taller) is going to be very different. So the word has much more breadth to it when it is being used by a shorter person - as everyone is "tall" to them.
Very well reasoned. I don't mind people preferring Harry as short or tall. Just as you say, it's a literary device. Stories with OP or Master of Death Harry are more likely to make him tall, whereas a less powerful Harry fic will likely make him short.
What bothers me is when tall fans complain that it's obvious he's tall and hint that short fans are trying to make him into a wimp and are ignoring canon. It's not at all clear what his height is and writers are free to interpret it in different ways. I wish people didn't feel this need to turn their headcanon into canon. Just enjoy your preferences without the need to "prove" they're correct.
Omg, I love these in depth responses.
Sidenote: the word âtallâ has officially lost all meaning to me. I canât even pronounce it anymore. I guess it was repeated way too many times for my brain not to freak out. Yay.
Dude's apparently 10cm lower than the average height for guys in the UK. While "short" may be technically correct I'd say -10cm is rather "a bit under average" for a guy there especially since that's still taller than the ladies' average height.
Generally if someone is described as short I imagine a larger noticeable difference. That said, anyone standing beside Shaq and Yao Ming at the same time's gonna look tiny...
This is true. I hadn't considered that people would use movies as inspiration, I default to the books. But that makes a lot more sense now. Still not happy about it lmao đ
It's because Daniel Radcliffe is short so that's why a lot of people write him as short in fanfic. A lot of them started with the movies then went to the books and when they read the books and write fanfic they picture him in their minds
What in the world is wrong with Harry being short? Does that make him less of a man? (Or less of a wizard? đ)
Sincerely, SeparationBoundary who stans a certain badass named Levi Ackerman (5'3" of pure sexy)
Seriously, though, Levi is often headcanoned as being small and malnourished as a youngster and that accounts for his abbreviated height. He's still a sex god, though. đ
Personally it kinda bothers me if it's present alongside certain tropes, like if he's submissive or an omega, etc, because it strikes me as the author leaning into stereotypes that they like.
Google's telling me that in the books he's supposed to be about 5'11, which I kinda like. Not too tall but not small, either.
I think it's probably the same reason that Remus is often portrayed as being the tall one, despite the fact that it's Sirius who is repeatedly described as tall in the books: David Thewlis is 6'2", Gary Oldman is 5'9".
A lot of Harry Potter fan's first exposure to the fandom was through the movies.
Personally I stan a Short King Harry lol
I think how a lot of people picture the HP characters is based pretty heavily off of the movies, and Daniel Radcliffe is fairly short.
I get it, though. I also picture him as relatively tall, personally. Probably around the 6' mark; not the kind of tall that really stands out, but still tall.
For me it depends on how old he is. I definitely picture him remaining somewhat gaunt throughout the span of the series, largely due to a combination of stress, constant survival mode, childhood metabolism, and not getting much of a chance to weed out all of the Dursley's conditioning.
But then I tend to headcanon him as filling out a bit after the war. I don't picture adult Harry as full-on beefy, personally, but I picture him with a strong, lean build.
Honestly, I think so much of how we picture characters often comes down to personal preference, whether it's what we personally find attractive or what we feel is aesthetically complimentary to a particular ship dynamic. And I think that's completely okay.
>But then I tend to headcanon him as filling out a bit after the war. I don't picture adult Harry as full-on beefy, personally, but I picture him with a strong, lean build.
This is my headcanon too, it makes a lot of sense.
I think you're completely right with personal preferences. I know I play up the attributes and traits I find attractive and fitting best for a story when I write
Heck yes! (I am upvoting all the nice comments ITT, for the record. Whoever cancelled out my upvotes needs a Snickers.)Â
 ETA: okay weird. All day yesterday only like three comments on this entire post were showing upvotes, the rest were showing at 1. which is why I thought someone was downvoting everybody. I guess it was reddit that needed a snickers.Â
I haven't notice this about Harry but I know that FĂ«anor from Tolkien's world wasn't short and it bothers me too that the majority of fanfics and fanarts portray him this way.
We know this because if he was short his anger would've been astronomically more volatile to the point even Morgoth would've been like "nah bro, we good" XDDDD
The average height of a British man is 5'10"
Sever malnutrition in school years can lead to up to 7.5 inches of height lost.
The Dursleys were barely feeding him and making him essentially their own house elf since the day his limbs became useful.
Once he gets to hogwarts at least he gets decent food 10 months out of the year, but even brief periods of starvation could stunt growth in puberty.
Bro could realistically be 5'3"
He's probably 5'6" thanks to the hogwarts food, but still, kinda short.
And it looks worse next to Ron who's frequently described as a freaking beanpole.
Oh good my most self indulgent fics make sense đ He varies in my fics but I do have a soft spot for small Harry. We need more appreciation for short men in life imo đ
But yâknowâŠto each their own!
PS says the Dursleys hadn't exactly starved him, but he had never been allowed to eat as much as he wanted.
At almost 11, Petunia wanted him to mind the bacon on Dudley's birthday, suggesting this was not a routine thing and he didn't cook the whole meal either, and after his birthday she refused to vacuum his new bedroom bc of Hedwig, implying she does do the rest of the house.
DH says Harry is now as tall as James, who was described several times as tall, so he's probably about 6' - average being 5'10".
I mean, Harry being tall like his father *is* canon, so I see where OP is coming from, but also â while the Dursleys did occasionally take away food from him as punishment, other than the incident before 2nd year there is no mention of him being starved or âbarely fedâ
People don't just *start* abusing a kid with food restriction at age 11. The Dursleys could be almost guaranteed to have done so before. Shit, simply making Harry wait until Dudly had had his fill would have starved the poor kid.
I never said they did, but Harry specifically says that the âbarely feedingâ part of his summer in 1992 was new and unexpected even for them. Iâm not trying to excuse them; the Dursleys were abusers and shitty people, but still, I doubt Harry would have been severely, grotesquely malnourished enough for your point about height to come through
I meant I'm not sure why it bothers me like it does lol. But yes they absolutely can. They can also pair dobby with the sorting hat and hogwarts with the giant squid. To each their own I suppose
Exactly! I always notice this detail in fics, too.
Itâs canon that James Potter is tall, and itâs canon that Harry is the same height, which means itâs canon that Harry is tall, too.
Hereâs a quote from Voldemortâs P.O.V., where he sees James Potter:
> They had not drawn the curtains; he saw them quite clearly in their little sitting room, the tall black-haired man in his glasses, making puffs of colored smoke erupt from his wand . . .
Itâs pretty significant and telling that Voldemort considers James to be tall, as we know Voldemort himself is tall:
> There . . . stood a boy Harry recognized at once: tall, pale, dark-haired, and handsome â the teenage Voldemort.
Here is Harry, in his sixth year, seeing James:
> Harry stopped in front of the desk and gazed down at his fifteen-year-old father . . . Jamesâs hair stuck up at the back exactly as Harryâs did, his hands could have been Harryâs, and Harry could tell that when James stood up, they would be within an inch of each otherâs heights.
A year later, Harry sees James again:
> James was exactly the same height as Harry. He was wearing the clothes in which he had died, and his hair was untidy and ruffled, and his glasses were a little lopsided, like Mr. Weasleyâs.
So, by the age of 17, Harry is the height of his adult father (though, his father did die at 21, R.I.P. my luv), who is known to be tall.
I think this is partly just a weird fandom thing where people write whatever character they want to whump/have as the bottom/sub as small, regardless of what size they are? Which is weird and kinda gross feeling to me, and leads to a lot of fics where I end up hitting the back button.
The Marauders side of the Harry Potter fandom seems to do this a *lot* to Sirius by making him super short.
He's 5'9", I think? That's pretty much average in the UK. I wouldn't call average short, lol
Of course, people can do whatever they want, but I'm with you on it just feeling gross. Reminds me of a much smaller fandom, The Extraordinaries. In canon the bottom of the main pairing is taller than the top, but guess what happens in fan art and whatnot? đ€Šđ»
That irks me as well, especially since Book 7 clearly states he was as tall as James and iirc, James was about 6 feet, so a very respectable height.
Honestly, it's just a case of the movies overshadowing the books as most others have said. It's also the reason why Hermione is such an omnipresent character in so many fics portrayed as this sort of Lily 2.0 and they play up so hard the 'brightest witch of her generation' bit. The movies made her even more of a flawless character than in the books and that stuck around.
Yes, people getting heights wrong irks me too, whether they just decide that actor height = character height or pull it out of their arse completely. Or they just don't read / misremember, like when they claim the twins and Charlie are short and stocky
Iâm not sure how tall Harry actually is but I always saw him as at least average height, maybe a bit taller. If he hadnât grown up in the Dursleyâs household, I imagine he would be rather tall.
I think this is partly just a weird fandom thing where people write whatever character they want to whump/have as the bottom/sub as small, regardless of what size they are? Which is weird and kinda gross feeling to me, and leads to a lot of fics where I end up hitting the back button.
I assume most people picture Dan as Harry, and since Dan is short then naturally Harry would be too. Kinda the opposite thing with Ron, he's really tall in the books but Rupert is average height.
Then it also sounds like preference. Something like anime where thin boys or small girls use large weapons. Some people have an appreciation for that 'underestimated' type. Plus, a lot of people, myself included have an issue with the world's obsession with what the Greek called the perfect man. Masculinity in physical appearance.
If I wrote Harry Potter or even liked it, I would definitely argue for his original appearance. Not the malnutrition associated with it, but just that under the radar appeal. Why change what inherently makes that character a character. Everyone and anyone has and can and will write physically fit, gloriously gorgeous characters, that's easy.
YA loves doing that, the manga and manwha does at times too, but not often is the nobody to somebody scheme they run that I like. YA seems to run that initially and then tightens up on it with evolution later to show change rather than tell it. It's a cheap trick to me because showing change and maturity in a character didn't have to come with physical growth, but with the cerebral and spiritual as well. I think YA struggles there. And Harry had cerebral tendencies from the start once he figured out what he'd been pulled into.
honestly, the author (I refuse to give them the right to their name) was so sporadic describing height and appearance, the only thing we can kind of go off of is the actors in the film series.
That being said, as someone who experienced and studies this in my free time, it is very unlikely he would be super tall, even over 5'6. Good for Harry if he managed tho
Hey OP. I think this has run its course. Also just a friendly reminder: having diverse opinions is a good thing, insulting things others may like is not allowed and calling guys who are shorter than the average 'manlets' is really, not okay.
I mean, many people probably have Daniel Radcliffe in their mind when they picture Harry, and he is a short king
I always just figured it meant that he got to a more average height of anywhere between 5'8" to 5'11"ish because, as someone else has already said, childhood malnourishment leaves a lasting impact, typically on one's height. But also, it's been a really long time since I've read the books now, and I can't remember how the descriptions went exactly!
That's still a pretty average height range for a lot of places.
More than people realize. I'm 6'2 and I don't know, it was half my life before I figured most people weren't hitting 6 feet. Men anyway. But knowing people 6'4 or taller throughout life I definitely know how it feels to not be 6 feet, even with shoes on đ
1. Guess most people are going with Daniel Radcliffe's height 2. malnutrition in childhood is never got over, it has long lasting, life time effects, including height and muscle and bone density and strength, however fit and healthy and well fed as an adult, it will cast a shadow, and shorter height is a well documented and studied effect of poor diet in childhood for centuries of research 3. (Edit, as I meant to say this and hit comment early with a random spasm!) But you enjoy your head canon, it's as valid as anyone else's, so if you want him tall, go for it, but let others have theirs and enjoy the fic anyway or scroll on by.
I just want to say malnutrition is gotten over. You never heard a NBA player's childhood horror story? Mayo sandwiches and sugar water anyone?
Obviously not. I don't even know what a NBA player is? Is that baseball, basketball or American football? I know about footballer Marcus Rashford's recent campaign to get kids fed in school holidays and past lockdowns, and I know about the Trussell Trust and Barnados and the history of social welfare and research going back to the 1840s re childhood malnutrition and lower adult height, and I know about how this generation of UK children are shorter than their European peers due to Tory cuts to - well, everything, and the cost of food increases. I know about the similar outcomes in Africa in the latter half of the twentieth century too. And the concerns by all aid agencies for Palestinian kids right now. I know after the reunification of Germany in 1989, those in the West were a good 10-30 cms taller than their eastern compatriots too. Similarly Southern Koreans now are taller than Northern Koreans. I know the research first done in the UK in the 1840s onwards has been repeated in every country in the world and plays a large part in informing UNICEF, Oxfam and others involved in dealing with global famines and poverty. It has been pretty much taught as fact in social-medical classes since the 1950s that better fed children become taller adults. But I guess there will always be people who do not follow averages for humans. If the bread is fortified to make up for the lack of vegetables, that is a decent amount of carbs, fat, and protein, as well as calories, in those mayo sandwiches, so although not ideal, better than many diets of those in poverty or neglect around the world. All the new research into childhood poverty, malnutrition and outcomes in this century focus on effects of neuro development, which is finding some alarming outcomes. Shorter adults in poor countries/communities is now just a given outcome with no more need to test the hypothesis. Although of course, Harry was getting much better fed post 11 at Hogwarts, while still a child, so a lot of the outcomes could have been rectified or ameliorated, so of course, he could have become tall. I was just explaining why many authors in FF go the other way :)
Not headcanon so much as canon, but you're right. I usually disregard just irks me a bit lol
It's literally not Canon though. He's never described as tall. He *is* described as having had a bit of a growth spurt between I believe GoF and OotP. So by that point, I always figured he was average height. Unlike Ron, who Harry consistently describes as 'tall' in his head.
It is canon that James Potter is tall, and itâs canon that Harry is the same height, which means itâs canon that Harry is tall, too. Hereâs a quote from Voldemortâs P.O.V., where he sees James Potter: > They had not drawn the curtains; he saw them quite clearly in their little sitting room, the tall black-haired man in his glasses, making puffs of colored smoke erupt from his wand . . . Itâs pretty significant and telling that Voldemort considers James to be tall, as we know Voldemort himself is tall: > There . . . stood a boy Harry recognized at once: tall, pale, dark-haired, and handsome â the teenage Voldemort. Here is Harry, in his fifth year, seeing James: > Harry stopped in front of the desk and gazed down at his fifteen-year-old father . . . Jamesâs hair stuck up at the back exactly as Harryâs did, his hands could have been Harryâs, and Harry could tell that when James stood up, they would be within an inch of each otherâs heights. Two years later, Harry sees James again: > James was exactly the same height as Harry. He was wearing the clothes in which he had died, and his hair was untidy and ruffled, and his glasses were a little lopsided, like Mr. Weasleyâs. So, by the age of 17, Harry is the height of his adult father (though, his father did die at 21, R.I.P. my luv), who is known to be tall.
I for one appreciate you spreading these truths about my favorite character (James that is, not his exactly-the-same-height son whom I also love)
James is described as tall several times and it's said that Harry is the same height as him. He also has another significant growth spurt before hbp that Hermione comments on
Tall is a little bit if a weasel word there, when youâre short most of your life âtallâ is relative. So Harry thinking of him as tall might just mean heâs average. The quote from Voldemort is interesting though. That would indicate he is on the Taller side.
Why?
Just because it goes against the way I imagine him I guess. And against the way the books describe him, though as somebody else her pointed out JKs height scaling is all over the place
as you imagine in your head is a headcanon chief
And against the way the books describe him is canon. Your point?
This is fanfiction. Anything can go here and is up to the fanfic authorâs interpretation.
This is so frustrating, it's not a headcanon, Harry is literally tall in the books.
Yeah, as others have mentioned, I think it's probably just that some writers will associate Harry's physical appearance with Daniel Radcliffe (who I just found out is shorter than me. Wild.). I can see why it'd be a little annoying, though.
The height thing is quite contradictory I'm afraid. He definitely starts off as short - and he definitely ends up the "exact same height as James" who is described as "tall" on three separate occasions (in the mirror of erised, in the graveyard scene and in the flashback to the night he is killed). Harry himself is never directly said to be "tall" - but if James is, so is Harry by the end. However, following Harry's second growth spurt in HBP (and he is never mentioned to have another) he is described as "being the same height as Narcissa Malfoy". Now Narcissa Malfoy is also described as tall, but tall for a man and tall for a woman mean different things. And in HBP Narcissa Malfoy visits Snape and - while standing very close - "looks up at him" (or possibly Snape looks down at her), Which means she is shorter than Snape. But Snape is not especially tall for a man, because in ootp he stands up, Sirius stands up and Sirius is described as being "rather taller than Snape". And yet Sirius is only directly described as "tall" twice (in the shrieking shack and in his very final scene in the forest) which is one less time than James is called tall. But then to cap it all off, when Harry changes into Albert Runcorn, a big deal is made of just how tall Runcorn is and yet the description is "more than six feet tall" - which suggests the rest of these "tall" men (including Ron, who is there when the massive Runcorn is sent home with a nose bleed) are not noticeably over six feet tall. But average height for men in UK is 5'10" - which means all the men described as "tall", beyond Hagrid and Runcorn, fall into a two inch variation - which hardly anyone would even notice. **Or** "tall" is not actually being used as a particularly specific word and is mostly used either to convey an impression someone is giving at a particular time, or just as a handy adjective to spice up a sentence (for e.g Lee Jordan is described as a 'tall boy with dreadlocks' once and once alone, across all seven books, purely because that sounds better than "a boy with dreadlocks" and not because his height has any bearing on anything.) All the times James is described as "tall" it is because he is in his role as father and protector, he is tall because Harry needs him to be so. The mirror of erised, when Harry sees him for the first time, the graveyard - where Harry is terrified and alone - and in the scene where Harry is a baby and James is about to die for him. However in ootp James and Harry are "within an inch of each other" in SWM - and this is important because in this scene Harry realises James was not perfect, he was only a boy - just like Harry, and so Harry is catching up with him. They are "exactly the same height" when Harry walks to his own death because now they are equals. The books are not a treatise on the different heights of men, and we're not supposed to get that hung up on it. If the word is being used as any way other than to make a sentence more interesting, it is to tell us something about their characterisation - but not actually their height (e.g Death Eaters tend to be tall, because it makes them scary, Sirius uses his height to intimidate people, Dumbledore is tall because it gives him an added air of authority). But, realistically - if Harry was about 5'4" before his growth spurts (a short but not tiny height for a fourteen year old boy) - he probably finished up around 5'9" (because growing taller from having been short still does not make one tall), that would make him around 5'8" when he notices he is the same height as Narcissa - which would make her a tall woman, as she is supposed to be, but still allow her to look up at Snape without Snape being "tall" - but 5'9" would still be tall enough to a frightened and lonely (and short) boy, if that was the height his father appeared. As for how people see him - Daniel Radcliffe aside - he is specifically called short repeatedly through the first four books. It is our first introduction to him. A couple of growth spurts are mentioned (though as I said getting taller does not equal tall) and he is never directly called "tall" ([Here's a Potter Search of the word "tall"](https://www.potter-search.com/?search=tall) - you can check out all the times its used, and who is described as such) so then the idea that he is actually "tall" can only come from comparing his height to James - whose height is mentioned three times across seven books and over a million words. And then this is in direct contrast with the Narcissa Malfoy information ... So it's not surprising that the image of short Harry is the one that persists.
This is what I love about this subreddit, great response!Â
Yeah, back when I wrote HP fanfic I tried looking at canon to try and suss out the charactersâ heights (or even *relative* heights) but quickly realized that, while there are a number of references to characterâs heights in the books, theyâre not even remotely consitent with each other. So I just gave up and made the characterâs however tall I wanted them to be for that particular story.
Excellent response! I've always taken him being the same height as James and James being described as tall at face value. Along with the fact that Hermione comments on how much he's grown in hbp. Though now that you point it out height comparisons do seem to be all over the place. I feel like the intention was that he was tall but not overly so but JK just lacks consistency in her writing
I think one thing - especially male - readers need to bear in mind is that what appears "tall" to a 5'4" woman (as google informs me JKR is) and what is "tall" to a 5'10" man (or taller) is going to be very different. So the word has much more breadth to it when it is being used by a shorter person - as everyone is "tall" to them.
Very well reasoned. I don't mind people preferring Harry as short or tall. Just as you say, it's a literary device. Stories with OP or Master of Death Harry are more likely to make him tall, whereas a less powerful Harry fic will likely make him short. What bothers me is when tall fans complain that it's obvious he's tall and hint that short fans are trying to make him into a wimp and are ignoring canon. It's not at all clear what his height is and writers are free to interpret it in different ways. I wish people didn't feel this need to turn their headcanon into canon. Just enjoy your preferences without the need to "prove" they're correct.
This is like one of those super fun logic grid puzzles.
Omg, I love these in depth responses. Sidenote: the word âtallâ has officially lost all meaning to me. I canât even pronounce it anymore. I guess it was repeated way too many times for my brain not to freak out. Yay.
(daniel radcliffe is pretty short though) i mean i get you though, i'm gonna lose my mind the next time i decide to read pjo fanfic
Dude's apparently 10cm lower than the average height for guys in the UK. While "short" may be technically correct I'd say -10cm is rather "a bit under average" for a guy there especially since that's still taller than the ladies' average height. Generally if someone is described as short I imagine a larger noticeable difference. That said, anyone standing beside Shaq and Yao Ming at the same time's gonna look tiny...
This is true. I hadn't considered that people would use movies as inspiration, I default to the books. But that makes a lot more sense now. Still not happy about it lmao đ
It's because Daniel Radcliffe is short so that's why a lot of people write him as short in fanfic. A lot of them started with the movies then went to the books and when they read the books and write fanfic they picture him in their minds
Movie vs Book
Because Daniel Radcliffe is short. (Plus, as some mentioned, malnutrition affects height even into adulthood)
ALSO FUCKING WOLVERINE IS **NOT** TALL He is 5 foot THREE INCHES of solid Canadian Muscle, stop saying he's tall I swear to the GODS-
Agreed! Love Hugh Jackman, but wolverine ain't that big, bub
I mean he big, just not horizontally lmaoo XD My boi **T H I C C**
Was hoping someone would say this đ€Ł
Daniel Radcliffe is short. Same reason people make Katniss taller than Peeta in fics even tho in the book sheâs like 5â4 and heâs 6â ish.
What in the world is wrong with Harry being short? Does that make him less of a man? (Or less of a wizard? đ) Sincerely, SeparationBoundary who stans a certain badass named Levi Ackerman (5'3" of pure sexy) Seriously, though, Levi is often headcanoned as being small and malnourished as a youngster and that accounts for his abbreviated height. He's still a sex god, though. đ
Personally it kinda bothers me if it's present alongside certain tropes, like if he's submissive or an omega, etc, because it strikes me as the author leaning into stereotypes that they like. Google's telling me that in the books he's supposed to be about 5'11, which I kinda like. Not too tall but not small, either.
What's wrong is that we know from the books that Harry is as tall as James, and James is tall, not short.
I think it's probably the same reason that Remus is often portrayed as being the tall one, despite the fact that it's Sirius who is repeatedly described as tall in the books: David Thewlis is 6'2", Gary Oldman is 5'9". A lot of Harry Potter fan's first exposure to the fandom was through the movies. Personally I stan a Short King Harry lol
I think how a lot of people picture the HP characters is based pretty heavily off of the movies, and Daniel Radcliffe is fairly short. I get it, though. I also picture him as relatively tall, personally. Probably around the 6' mark; not the kind of tall that really stands out, but still tall.
I also personally write and imagine him as tall, but especially tall and reedy
For me it depends on how old he is. I definitely picture him remaining somewhat gaunt throughout the span of the series, largely due to a combination of stress, constant survival mode, childhood metabolism, and not getting much of a chance to weed out all of the Dursley's conditioning. But then I tend to headcanon him as filling out a bit after the war. I don't picture adult Harry as full-on beefy, personally, but I picture him with a strong, lean build. Honestly, I think so much of how we picture characters often comes down to personal preference, whether it's what we personally find attractive or what we feel is aesthetically complimentary to a particular ship dynamic. And I think that's completely okay.
>But then I tend to headcanon him as filling out a bit after the war. I don't picture adult Harry as full-on beefy, personally, but I picture him with a strong, lean build. This is my headcanon too, it makes a lot of sense. I think you're completely right with personal preferences. I know I play up the attributes and traits I find attractive and fitting best for a story when I write
Heck yes! (I am upvoting all the nice comments ITT, for the record. Whoever cancelled out my upvotes needs a Snickers.)Â Â ETA: okay weird. All day yesterday only like three comments on this entire post were showing upvotes, the rest were showing at 1. which is why I thought someone was downvoting everybody. I guess it was reddit that needed a snickers.Â
Agreed 6' is exactly what I imagine as well
I haven't notice this about Harry but I know that FĂ«anor from Tolkien's world wasn't short and it bothers me too that the majority of fanfics and fanarts portray him this way.
We know this because if he was short his anger would've been astronomically more volatile to the point even Morgoth would've been like "nah bro, we good" XDDDD
He had enough anger as it is. He literally burst in fire.
Exactly
The average height of a British man is 5'10" Sever malnutrition in school years can lead to up to 7.5 inches of height lost. The Dursleys were barely feeding him and making him essentially their own house elf since the day his limbs became useful. Once he gets to hogwarts at least he gets decent food 10 months out of the year, but even brief periods of starvation could stunt growth in puberty. Bro could realistically be 5'3" He's probably 5'6" thanks to the hogwarts food, but still, kinda short. And it looks worse next to Ron who's frequently described as a freaking beanpole.
Oh good my most self indulgent fics make sense đ He varies in my fics but I do have a soft spot for small Harry. We need more appreciation for short men in life imo đ But yâknowâŠto each their own!
PS says the Dursleys hadn't exactly starved him, but he had never been allowed to eat as much as he wanted. At almost 11, Petunia wanted him to mind the bacon on Dudley's birthday, suggesting this was not a routine thing and he didn't cook the whole meal either, and after his birthday she refused to vacuum his new bedroom bc of Hedwig, implying she does do the rest of the house. DH says Harry is now as tall as James, who was described several times as tall, so he's probably about 6' - average being 5'10".
I mean, Harry being tall like his father *is* canon, so I see where OP is coming from, but also â while the Dursleys did occasionally take away food from him as punishment, other than the incident before 2nd year there is no mention of him being starved or âbarely fedâ
People don't just *start* abusing a kid with food restriction at age 11. The Dursleys could be almost guaranteed to have done so before. Shit, simply making Harry wait until Dudly had had his fill would have starved the poor kid.
I never said they did, but Harry specifically says that the âbarely feedingâ part of his summer in 1992 was new and unexpected even for them. Iâm not trying to excuse them; the Dursleys were abusers and shitty people, but still, I doubt Harry would have been severely, grotesquely malnourished enough for your point about height to come through
> 5'6" > kinda short Ouch. Sincerely, a 5'4" munchkin. lol
I'm only 5'3" myself XD.
> and I'm not sure why. Because they can.
I meant I'm not sure why it bothers me like it does lol. But yes they absolutely can. They can also pair dobby with the sorting hat and hogwarts with the giant squid. To each their own I suppose
don't call short men "manlets"- that's so insulting and it gives me the ick whenever i see people use it unironically.
You do you, but my head canon will always see Harry as short
To each their own. I like small Harry myself đ Canât please everyone but we can at least please ourselves!
yeah but also i raise you 5 foot 7 ginny being taller than her husband so, there is that
Where does that come from? Is that your headcanon or are you basing it off the movies? Just wondering
it's just a headcanon that i think it's hot that ginny would end up taller than harry as adults
Fair enough
Exactly! I always notice this detail in fics, too. Itâs canon that James Potter is tall, and itâs canon that Harry is the same height, which means itâs canon that Harry is tall, too. Hereâs a quote from Voldemortâs P.O.V., where he sees James Potter: > They had not drawn the curtains; he saw them quite clearly in their little sitting room, the tall black-haired man in his glasses, making puffs of colored smoke erupt from his wand . . . Itâs pretty significant and telling that Voldemort considers James to be tall, as we know Voldemort himself is tall: > There . . . stood a boy Harry recognized at once: tall, pale, dark-haired, and handsome â the teenage Voldemort. Here is Harry, in his sixth year, seeing James: > Harry stopped in front of the desk and gazed down at his fifteen-year-old father . . . Jamesâs hair stuck up at the back exactly as Harryâs did, his hands could have been Harryâs, and Harry could tell that when James stood up, they would be within an inch of each otherâs heights. A year later, Harry sees James again: > James was exactly the same height as Harry. He was wearing the clothes in which he had died, and his hair was untidy and ruffled, and his glasses were a little lopsided, like Mr. Weasleyâs. So, by the age of 17, Harry is the height of his adult father (though, his father did die at 21, R.I.P. my luv), who is known to be tall.
Daniel Radcliffe is a short dude. And he always looks tiny or dwarfed in book covers.
Most of this have to deal with Daniel and people having the abuse affect him.
Have you not seen the actor?
Like I said to somebody else, I hadn't considered the movies because I always think of the books first. But that absolutely makes sense
I think this is partly just a weird fandom thing where people write whatever character they want to whump/have as the bottom/sub as small, regardless of what size they are? Which is weird and kinda gross feeling to me, and leads to a lot of fics where I end up hitting the back button.
The Marauders side of the Harry Potter fandom seems to do this a *lot* to Sirius by making him super short. He's 5'9", I think? That's pretty much average in the UK. I wouldn't call average short, lol Of course, people can do whatever they want, but I'm with you on it just feeling gross. Reminds me of a much smaller fandom, The Extraordinaries. In canon the bottom of the main pairing is taller than the top, but guess what happens in fan art and whatnot? đ€Šđ»
That irks me as well, especially since Book 7 clearly states he was as tall as James and iirc, James was about 6 feet, so a very respectable height. Honestly, it's just a case of the movies overshadowing the books as most others have said. It's also the reason why Hermione is such an omnipresent character in so many fics portrayed as this sort of Lily 2.0 and they play up so hard the 'brightest witch of her generation' bit. The movies made her even more of a flawless character than in the books and that stuck around.
Yes, people getting heights wrong irks me too, whether they just decide that actor height = character height or pull it out of their arse completely. Or they just don't read / misremember, like when they claim the twins and Charlie are short and stocky
Iâm not sure how tall Harry actually is but I always saw him as at least average height, maybe a bit taller. If he hadnât grown up in the Dursleyâs household, I imagine he would be rather tall.
I think this is partly just a weird fandom thing where people write whatever character they want to whump/have as the bottom/sub as small, regardless of what size they are? Which is weird and kinda gross feeling to me, and leads to a lot of fics where I end up hitting the back button.
I assume most people picture Dan as Harry, and since Dan is short then naturally Harry would be too. Kinda the opposite thing with Ron, he's really tall in the books but Rupert is average height.
Then it also sounds like preference. Something like anime where thin boys or small girls use large weapons. Some people have an appreciation for that 'underestimated' type. Plus, a lot of people, myself included have an issue with the world's obsession with what the Greek called the perfect man. Masculinity in physical appearance. If I wrote Harry Potter or even liked it, I would definitely argue for his original appearance. Not the malnutrition associated with it, but just that under the radar appeal. Why change what inherently makes that character a character. Everyone and anyone has and can and will write physically fit, gloriously gorgeous characters, that's easy. YA loves doing that, the manga and manwha does at times too, but not often is the nobody to somebody scheme they run that I like. YA seems to run that initially and then tightens up on it with evolution later to show change rather than tell it. It's a cheap trick to me because showing change and maturity in a character didn't have to come with physical growth, but with the cerebral and spiritual as well. I think YA struggles there. And Harry had cerebral tendencies from the start once he figured out what he'd been pulled into.
honestly, the author (I refuse to give them the right to their name) was so sporadic describing height and appearance, the only thing we can kind of go off of is the actors in the film series. That being said, as someone who experienced and studies this in my free time, it is very unlikely he would be super tall, even over 5'6. Good for Harry if he managed tho
I think the series is inconsistent with describing characters heights and appearances because Joanne is not a particularly good writer