Rubeus Hagrid: Books vs Movies

Added: 2026-05-05

[00:00:00]Rubius Hagrid is one of those characters that you love immediately. He shows up at a shack on a rock in the middle of the sea, tears the door off its hinges, gives a 10-year-old boy a birthday cake, and calmly informs him that he is a wizard.

[00:00:10]>> You're a wizard, Harry.

[00:00:12]>> And whether you've read the books or only seen the films, Robbie Col Train's performance is so warm that it's almost impossible to imagine anybody else in the role. But as great as Col Train is, there's a version of this character in the books that's quite different. You see, the movie softened Hagrid in some places. They cut him in others and they made some general changes to his character. And in doing so, they kind of lost some of what makes book Hagrid one of the most layered side characters in the Harry Potter series. So, in this video, I'm going to go through exactly how the films changed Hagrid and what we missed out on because of those changes.

[00:00:44]So, in the books, Hagrid is described as being twice the height of a normal man and five times as wide. His hands are the size of dust bin lids. And you know, this is a half giant. This man is huge.

[00:00:54]Let's take the average male height of 5'9 and the book says he's twice as high as a normal man. So we'll double it.

[00:00:59]He's 11 1/2 ft tall. Now Robbie Colin was just over 6 ft. And the production team did everything they could. They forced perspective. They used green screen. They had oversized props. A full animatronic Cold Train head on a giant stunt double. And even with all of that, Movie Hagrid lands at around 8 ft, which is impressive. But there have been 30 human beings who are recorded as being over 8t tall. So it doesn't exactly scream half giant. Like it's still 3 and 1/2 ft short of where he should be. And it's important. Like I understand they can't probably frame certain shots in the movie if they had him massive and the kids next to him really small. But his physicality is the whole point of Hagrid firstly because he is otherred for being a half giant. Like we know the wizarding world has an issue with things that are different whether that's centaurs or werewolves or half giants or muggleborns. Even Vera to an extent. I think that's why Flur gets so much crap from the Weasley's who are otherwise a very lovely group of people. And Hagrid is different because he's a half giant and he is treated differently because of it. He gets called an oath. He gets compared to a troll. There's a whole hit piece about him in the prophet that Rita Skita writes in the Goblet of Fire. Part of me thinks that's why he was so like effortlessly condemned for being behind the opening of the Chamber of Secrets.

[00:02:09]Like no one looks to prove if it's actually him or not because it's easy to believe that he's guilty when society already sees him as being so different, right? And that is visually represented by him being 11t tall and 8 foot wide.

[00:02:22]But it's not just about him being otherred, right? It's also the charm of Hagrid because you have this half giant, right? Who looks like he could overturn a bus and he's crying at a spider's funeral and offering a rock cake. The comedy comes from the contradiction, right? The bigger the creature, the more absurd and more touching it is that he's so completely hopelessly soft. And the movies get the warmth right, like that scene where he comes out wearing an apron. But when Hagrid isn't quite the impossible, impractical giant that he is on the page, you kind of lose the impact of it.

[00:02:53]So, here's where the books and the movies really start to separate in the ways they actually change who Hagrid is as a character. Because if you've only seen the films, Hagrid's love for dangerous creatures is basically a background quirk, right? Norbert the dragon gets one scene and then disappears. Gorp shows up in the Order of the Phoenix, but the film like pulls its punches, you know? But Gro is way more violent. He's an ongoing liability.

[00:03:13]And then there's the blastended scruts as well. They don't appear in the films at all, but they tell you everything about who Hagrid really is, right? Cuz in the books, we learn they are a cross between a manticor and a fire crab that Hagrid bred himself illegally, I might add. And then he assigns them to fourthyear students as homework. And they look like these pale shellless lobsters, but they can burn, bite, and sting simultaneously. He's giving them to 14year-olds. Bearing in mind the previous year there was that whole Draco injury with the hippocs, which we'll get to in a minute. Also, these blastended scoots, they smell overwhelmingly of rotten fish. And over the course of the year, they grow so large that they're actually big enough to be an obstacle for Harry to face in the tri- wizard tournament. They're one of the creatures he has to fight in the maze. Hagrid's response to all of this, he thinks they're brilliant. He can't understand why the students aren't equally delighted. And here's the thing, Hagrid's love for magical creatures, like in the movies, it's turned into like being eccentric, you know? But in the books, Hagrid isn't just eccentric, he is negligent. When Draco gets injured in class in their third year, sure, he's definitely overplaying it, and the movies really lean into that, right? He barely seems hurt at all, but he's sobbing and whimpering, and he talks about how Hagrid's going to get himself fired. But in the books, to give Draco a tiny little bit of grace, he is described as essentially being covered in his own blood after Buckbeak attacks him. Like, a hippogri can be dangerous, and these are 13year-olds, and Hagrid definitely doesn't do enough in terms of safeguarding. A theme that is consistent in the books, but not really in the movies. And that's not just like a fun quirk to his book character. It also gives us a really important parallel for the story. And the films just don't give it to us at all. Right? Because Harry has the exact same blind spot for Hagrid as Hagrid has for his magical creatures.

[00:04:50]And I bet you at the root of Hagrid's character, it's the fact he's otherred for being a half giant is to why he relies on these magical creatures. Why?

[00:04:57]That's where he finds his love and his companionship and his community. Why when he's a student at Hogwarts, it doesn't seem like too many of the other students are his friends. And so he turns his attention to Aragog and to the werewolf cubs that he's breeding. To the creatures in the forbidden forest, the centaurs and the thestrals that he becomes the first breeder in England to domesticate. The creatures freed Hagrid from the torment of being otherred as a half giant in the same way that Hagrid freed Harry from being tormented by the Derslley's. And so when Hagrid can't see creatures in any shape or form as being dangerous or negative in any way, Harry kind of has the same blind spot for Hagrid. His loyalty for him never waivers no matter what. And that dynamic between the two of them is really fascinating, but the movies just give us like a warm scene and then and then it moves on.

[00:05:41]Now, the films do establish the broad strokes of Hagrid's history. Expelled from Hogwarts as a student after Tom Riddle framed him for opening the Chamber of Secrets, allowed to stay on as groundskeeper thanks to Dumbledore, one snapped, magic officially revoked, and he turns his attention to the grounds of Hogwarts, to serving Dumbledore, to looking after all these creatures in the forest. That's all in there. But there's a layer to it that the movies consistently underplay. Let's dive deeper. Right. In the Philosopher Stone, in the book, there's a moment at Ollivanders, doesn't make it into the films at all. Ollivander looks at Hagrid and immediately asks about his wand. He says, "Oke 16 in rather bendy, wasn't it?" And then he points out that it was snapped when Hagrid was expelled. And as he says it, Hagrid grips his pink umbrella very tightly. And Ollivander notices because the umbrella isn't a prop. It is a snapped wand hidden in plain sight and being used to perform magic that he's technically not allowed to do. But Ollivander doesn't say anything more. So Ollivander knows what happened to the wand and Hagrid knows that Ollivander knows, but everybody just moves on. And it's a tiny scene, but it tells you everything about how Hagrid exists in the wizarding world.

[00:06:43]He's always sort of performing a version of belonging that he's not technically feeling entitled to. like his hut is on the edge of the Hogwarts grounds, not inside the castle. Presumably, all the other teachers do sleep inside the castle. The creatures that Hagrid tends to are the ones that nobody else wants.

[00:07:00]Nobody else breeds thestrals in the way that Hagrid does. Centaurs are otherred in the same way that werewolves and half giants are, but Hagrid has a fond relationship with them. Aragog and the spiders are banished into the forbidden forest, but Hagrid has built up a rapport with them such that Aragog and his children will not eat him. That broken wand is hidden inside the umbrella. Close enough to use, but never quite legitimate enough. It's not quite an actual wand. It's a great metaphor because Hagrid is allowed to stay within the wizarding world, within that culture, but it's not the same as belonging. And tell me, that is not very similar to mirroring how Harry feels, at least when he first gets to Hogwarts, cuz he certainly doesn't feel like he belongs at all. But in the movies, Hagrid doesn't carry any of that weight.

[00:07:42]We have that I shouldn't have said that running gag, right? which was actually invented by the screenwriter Steve Cloves and it doesn't appear in the books. It's funny, but it accidentally tells you something like Hagrid in the movies is relaxed enough to be careless because he feels at home. But book Hagrid never really feels at home. He's always one wrong move away from losing the belonging that he's been allowed to keep, but he still doesn't really feel like it's his. And we see it in the Chamber of Secrets when one small thing with the Chamber of Secret, well, it's not a small thing. A lot of muggleborns are getting petrified and almost killed, but one thing happens and they're like, "Hagrid, we're going to have to take you off to Aszkaban." Like I say, he's one wrong move away from losing the belonging that he's been afforded in the wizarding world. And then there's his parentage as well. In the Goblet of Fire, Rita Skita publishes a piece exposing that Hagrid is half giant. And it breaks him. He stops teaching. He has to be coaxed back by Dumbledore. And when he finally opens up to Harry Ron Hermione, we find out that his mother, a giantess named Fred Wulfa, she left him and his father when Hagrid was around 3 years old. Like Hagrid has been carrying that his entire life. The shame of what he is, the stigma of being seen as lesser, the fact that his own mother walked away. And so when that Rita Skita article comes out, it doesn't just embarrass him. It reopens everything that never really closed. And again, that abandonment, his mother leaving him, his wand being snapped, him being kicked out of Hogwarts and expelled. Him having to live on the outskirts of the grounds. There's this whole subplot with Hagrid where he never truly fits in, but he also never complains about it. Not really. But the movie, they mention his giant ass mother briefly almost in passing, but they don't give any of that context. Any of the abandonment, any of the shame, any of the lifetime of being treated as less than. So, you don't really understand why it hits him so hard.

[00:09:19]Now, if you've only seen the movies, you might not understand how brave and active Hagrid is in the resistance against Voldemort. And not just in like a showing up when needed kind of way, but he puts himself on the line every single day. While Snape and the Carols are running Hogwarts and students are regularly being tortured, Hagrid is throwing secret support Harry Potter parties. And as I say it, I'm starting to realize it's also very reckless, which is something we've already talked about with Hagrid's character because the students who attend those parties are definitely at risk of being tortured by the Caros and Snape. But parking that safeguarding issue, Hagrid has no political authority. He has no legitimate wand. He has no official standing whatsoever. But he throws these parties in defiance of Hogwarts being controlled by death eaters because he wants the students to have something to hold on to. The movies don't mention that happening at all. And we mentioned earlier, we know how Harry can be blind to Hagrid's flaws because he's loyal to him. Well, Hagrid is just as loyal to the people he loves, and we see it through actions like this. He is brave, he is defiant, and he is so loyal. We see it in loads of other moments through the books as well that the films just don't put in. In the Goblet of Fire, when Karkarov spits at Dumbledore's feet after Victor Crumb is attacked, Hagrid grabs him and pins him against a wall.

[00:10:27]He doesn't hesitate because Dumbledore is his person and someone just disrespected him and Hagrid is not going to have any of that. It's over in a flash, but it tells you exactly who Hagrid is when it counts. And then there's Dumbledore's funeral, right, which the Half Blood Prince films cut entirely. In the books, it's Hagrid who carries Dumbledore's body to its resting place. And he cries while he does it, but he holds himself together. And because the movies cut this, you completely miss the parallel to when Hagrid carries Harry's body up to Hogwarts in the Deathly Hallows as well.

[00:10:52]But the point is, with Dumbledore's funeral, you understand what Dumbledore meant to Hagrid from the books. Cuz this is a man who gave him a chance when everyone else would have thrown him out.

[00:11:00]Who let him stay when the wizarding world had already decided what he was worth. Who fought for him to remain at Hogwarts once he was expelled. Probably, if we're honest, gave him the umbrella with the wand in it. And let him cling to those small feelings of belonging that he had left.

[00:11:16]Now look, none of this is about Robbie Col Train. That's worth saying clearly.

[00:11:19]He gives one of the warmest, most consistently human performances in the entire series. And that affection between him and the role, it it's so clear in every scene that he's in. But the movies made a choice, and it's worth naming. They made Hagrid feel safe. Not like safe for us like a safe place, but he felt like he was safe in the wizarding world. And so his dangerous creatures become quirks rather than genuine liabilities. His grief about his parentage became a throwaway conversation. His wand snapped, broken, and secretly carried inside the pink umbrella, it never gets the moment of significance that it had in the books.

[00:11:50]And the I shouldn't have said that gag, funny as it is, papers over something real. Because for me, fundamentally, the thing about book Hagrid, he's a man who has to spend his entire life being treated as lesser. He's too big. He's too dangerous. He's not a wizard. He's not human enough, but he's also not giant enough. He's not quite anything the wizarding world has a clean category for. And we know the wizarding world likes putting people in boxes. So what does Hagrid do with that? He shows up anyway. He throws the parties. He carries the body. He plants himself in the doorway of whatever is threatening the people he loves. He holds the line.

[00:12:21]The movies give you the warmth of that, but they leave out the cost of it all.

[00:12:24]And without the cost, the warmth doesn't quite hit as hard as it should. And if you enjoy listening to me talk about the differences between Hagrid in the books and Hagrid in the movies, I do the exact same thing with the character of Dumbledore in this video, which you might want to watch next.