The HBO Harry Potter series needs to avoid mistakes with this particular Gryffindor character

The HBO Harry Potter series received a new update on Monday, June 09, 2025. WBD revealed nine new cast members who would appear in the first season, which included Sienna Moosah's Lavender Brown. The character did appear in the movies, but was played by three different actresses. However, it seems that Moosah will be playing Lavender through all seven seasons.

But both the books and movies failed to portray Lavender Brown as a character properly. However, things have changed, and people are expecting a lot more from Francesca Gardiner, who is set to serve as the showrunner of the Harry Potter show, the first season of which will be adapting the first book, Philosopher's Stone.

The Harry Potter books and movies have an unfair disdain towards Lavender Brown:

While Lavender Brown was seen in the background as a Gryffindor in both the movies and books, she became a prominent character in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, the sixth book. That's because she briefly becomes Ron's girlfriend, a plotline that was even adapted in the sixth movie.

Over the years, in light of Rowling's recent comments against the transgender and asexual community, people across the world have started to analyze countless problematic aspects of the books and movies. The author came under fire for naming minor, but key Harry Potter characters Kingsley Shacklebolt and Cho Chang. But another character that's done dirty is Lavender Brown.

In the third book, Prisoner of Azkaban, Lavender buys into Sybill Trelawney's predictions. Trelawney is the professor who teaches Divination, i.e., studying the future. Through this character, Rowling goes way too far and is mean in judging people for believing in astrology and its related fields.

After writing Lavender way too harshly in Prisoner of Azkaban, Rowling only wrote the character even more harshly in Half-Blood Prince. In that book, Lavender Brown is deliberately written as an annoying and girly character, way too invested in her relationship with Ron. The young girl is intentionally written in a way that the reader only roots for Ron to end up with Hermione.

However, this minor Harry Potter character has undergone a cultural reappraisal. Scores of commentators have rightfully pointed out that while Lavender is just a teenager, and therefore she goes overboard in expressing her love for Ron. Nowadays, it is far more accepted that Ron was a terrible romantic partner to Lavender by being uncommunicative and being too judgmental of her.

The Harry Potter movies made a terrible mistake when it comes to Lavender Brown:

As stated earlier, Lavender Brown could be seen in several Potter movies as a background character before Half Blood Prince. In recent years, the movies have been criticized for race-swapping Lavender. You see, in the sixth movie, the character was played by British actress Jessie Cave.

However, both Chamber of Secrets (the second movie) and Prisoner of Azkaban (the third one) showed us a Lavender Brown played by British actresses who are POC. Kathleen Cauley played her first role in the second film, and Jennifer Smith in the third one. This recasting hasn't gone down well because both Cauley and Smith had no lines in their respective movies.

However, when a movie required Lavender to have lines, it was ultimately played by an actress of a lighter complexion. Therefore, it looks like the HBO series has avoided the same mistake when it comes to casting Lavender.

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