History YMMV / HarryPotterandthePhilosophersStone

* SlowPacedBeginning: Notably, it takes about a third of the novel before Harry gets to Hogwarts. And quite a few children readers were turned off by the first few chapters for being too slow-paced; not to mention most of Rowling's dry satire on middle-class insecurities flying straight over their heads.

** Percy Weasley saying at the Start-of-Term Feast that Dumbledore is a genius, but "a bit mad" becomes this by the fifth book, when Percy is loyal to the Ministry of Magic that's trying to make Dumbledore look like a power-hungry loon.

** While, as said above, Malfoy's scene is debatable, Dudley receiving a pig's tail in the book is nothing short of UnintentionallySympathetic. In that scene, Dudley had done nothing at all- it was Vernon who insulted Dumbledore. The film subverts this by having Dudley eat Harry's cake, although even that comes across as DisproportionateRetribution.

** Fred and George's winter prank on Quirrel becomes much funnier after the reveal at the end.

** "Wingardium Leviosa!" and "It's Levi-OH-sa, not Levio-saaah."
** "No post on Sundays!"
** "...Before you two come up with another bright idea to get us killed. [[SkewedPriorities Or worse, expelled!]]"

** "Yes, yes, well done Slytherin, well done Slytherin - ''[[DeusExMachina HOWEVER!]]''"

** Malfoy's first interaction with Harry and Ron can come off as this. This is Draco's big EstablishingCharacterMoment, marking him as the stuck-up, mean, SpoiledBrat that he is, but Ron ''did'' invite a reprisal by rudely snickering at his name after Malfoy introduced himself to Harry.

* SugarWiki/AwesomeArt: The illustrated edition, released in fall of 2015, features over a hundred stunning color illustrations by Kate Greenaway-award-winning artist Jim Kay.

* OutOfTheGhetto: The film. As with its literary counterpart, ''Harry Potter and the Philsopher's Stone'' broke through with a kid-skewing fantasy story that managed to pull in audiences of all ages and genders. Before then, fantasy films centered around and aimed at children typically had low budgets, indistinguished casts aside from maybe a notable actor or two who wanted a new house, and seldom had a story and world comparable to more higher-age fare. Warner Bros. was so skittish over the idea of the film falling into the ghetto that they bandied around ideas to make it palatable for American audiences, from moving the film to the U.S., aging up the characters into teenagers, making it an animated film, or making sure there was a reputable name behind the camera (Steven Spielberg emerging as a strong candidate) and in front (recent Oscar nominee Haley Joel Osment was a highly rumored name for an Americanized version). J.K. Rowling, however, vetoed their ideas and strongly insisted the film stay true to the source and its British roots. As a result, WB threw all its weight behind that focus, spending blockbuster resources, grabbing cutting-edge effects houses, a laundry list of British acting legends, legendary composer John Williams, and highly successful director Chris Columbus. Hewing close to the beloved novel and marketed with an all-out blitz, the film was a massive success, scoring the biggest opening weekend of all time and finishing with the second-highest worldwide gross ever, even beating fellow ghetto-busting fantasy ''The Fellowship of the Ring'' at the money till. This opened a wave of more fantasy and YA adaptations with more resources behind it, as well as kicking off one of the most profitable series in cinematic history.

** After TheReveal about her in Book 5, was Mrs. Figg letting Harry have some joy while being babysat by her after she broke her leg due to the injury? [[spoiler:Or could she just not take having to mistreat him any longer and let her {{Jerkass}} facade crack?]]
** Did [=McGonnagall=] know Hermione was fibbing about why she, Harry, and Ron were in the bathroom with the troll? If so, did she let it slide because she was mostly just glad they were alive? Because she was glad that Hermione had finally made some friends? Or because she figured fighting the troll was punishment enough?

** One moment that could be this or (even more) HilariousInHindsight is the passage in the Christmas chapter describing the Weasley Twins enchanting snowballs to bounce off the back of Professor Quirell's turban after you've read the end of the book and discovered what he's keeping under there.
*** This arguably sails into HarsherInHindsight after ''Deathly Hallows'' has [[spoiler:Voldemort get some payback.]]
** Another passage involves Hagrid forbidding Harry to buy a ''solid-gold'' cauldron. Imagine if Harry ''did'' buy that kind of cauldron, y'know, for ''Potions'' class...

** Dumbledore saying he trusts Hagrid with his life. [[spoiler: While what happens in ''Literature/HarryPotterAndTheHalfBloodPrince'' isn't even Hagrid's fault, it still comes across as harsh.]]
** In this book, we learn that Halloween is one of a handful of perennial occasions for which Hogwarts hosts a feast, but in ''Literature/HarryPotterAndTheDeathlyHallows'', we learn that Voldemort killed Lily and James Potter on Halloween night in 1981 (and nearly decided to kill a trick-or-treater he came across on the way to their house for the fun of it, as well).
** Harry's thoughts about the Dursleys taking all of his Gringotts money had they known about it becomes this with the reveal that one of the reasons uncle Vernon started disliking wizards is that when Lily arranged a meeting between their families, Vernon took the tales of James's usual wizard routine (like moving around in flying brooms as opposed to cars) as wizards living off government help, just to have James casually tell him that his family is in general quite rich and goes as far as to explain wizard currency (which involves ACTUAL gold and silver coins) and mention his own (later Harry's) Gringotts vault. To make it worse, James wasn't even trying to be malicious about it but Vernon still took it badly...

* ValuesDissonance: Petunia suggests bringing Harry to the zoo on Dudley's birthday but leaving him in the car when they can't find a babysitter. No one would bat an eye to this in 1997, but with the 2010s came highly publicized cases and increased awareness of this being dangerous and potentially fatal to children. That said, the Dursleys are ''meant'' to be abusive dickholes, anyway, so the dissonance is downplayed a bit.

* UnintentionallySympathetic: While the Slytherin house are meant to be AssholeVictims, Dumbledore bait-and-switching their House Cup celebrations by giving Gryffindor ''exactly'' enough points to win - for ostensibly rule breaking, at that - at the absolute last minute can come across as surprisingly mean spirited.

* ValuesDissonance: Petunia suggests bringing Harry to the zoo on Dudley's birthday but leaving him in the car when they can't find a babysitter. No one would bat an eye to this in 1997, but with the 2010s came highly publicized cases and increased awareness of this being dangerous and potentially fatal to children.

* {{Squick}}: Dumbledore's experience with the Every Flavor Beans. He lost his liking to them a long time ago because of a ''vomit''-flavored one, and when we see him actually try another, it was ''earwax''-flavored.
** If that isn't disgusting enough, George Weasley claimed to have eaten a ''booger''-flavored bean.

%%Is this entry correct? I think the OP may be confusing things; doesn't Hermione conjure up the fire and keep it in a jar afterwards? And when she sets Snape's robes on fire, doesn't she put the flames back in the jar so he doesn't know what's happening, since distracting him was the intent?* BigLippedAlligatorMoment: In the book, when Hermione sets Snape's robes in fire, he extinguishes it by drawing it towards a flask he pulls out from his pocket. This goes nowhere in the story and is never really explained. Why couldn't Snape, one of the most powerful and knowledgeable wizards in the series, simply put out the fire, especially one created by a first year student? What did he want to keep the fire for?

* BigLippedAlligatorMoment: In the book, when Hermione sets Snape's robes in fire, he extinguishes it by drawing it towards a flask he pulls out from his pocket. This goes nowhere in the story and is never really explained. Why couldn't Snape, one of the most powerful and knowledgeable wizards in the series, simply put out the fire, especially one created by a first year student? What did he want to keep the fire for?

** In this book, we learn that Halloween is one of a handful of perennial occasions for which Hogwarts hosts a feast, but in ''Literature/HarryPotterAndTheDeathlyHallows", we learn that Voldemort killed Lily and James Potter on Halloween night in 1981 (and nearly decided to kill a trick-or-treater he came across on the way to their house for the fun of it, as well).

** In this book, we learn that Halloween is one of a handful of perennial occasions for which Hogwarts hosts a feast, but in ''Literatute/HarryPotterandtheDeathlyHallows", we learn that Voldemort killed Lily and James Potter on Halloween night in 1981 (and nearly decided to kill a trick-or-treater he came across on the way to their house for the fun of it, as well).

** Rereading the opening of this book with Dumbledore telling [=McGonagall=] about how little they have had to celebrate for even years... and with the knowledge of how bad things were under Voldemort was when he was in charge in ''Deathly Hallows''...

** Harry's thoughts about the Dursleys taking all of his Gringotts money had they known about it becomes this with the reveal that one of the reasons uncle Vernon started disliking wizards is that; when Lily arranged a meeting between their families, Vernon took the tales of James' usual wizard routine (like moving around in flying brooms as opposed to cars) as wizards living off government help just to have James' casually tell him that his family is in general quite rich and goes as far as to explain wizard currency (which involves ACTUAL gold and silver coins) and mention his own (later Harry's) Gringotts' vault. To make it worse James wasn't even trying to be malicious about it but Vernon still took it badly...

* OutOfTheGhetto: The film. As with its literary counterpart, ''Harry Potter and the Philsopher's Stone'' broke through with a kid-skewing fantasy story that managed to pull in audiences of all ages and genders. Before then, fantasy films centered around and aimed at children typically had low budgets, indistinguished casts aside from maybe a notable actor or two who wanted a new house, and seldom had a story and world comparable to more higher-age fare. Warner Bros. was so skittish over the idea of the film falling into the ghetto that they bandied around ideas to make it palatable for American audiences, from moving the film to the U.S., aging up the characters into teenagers, making it an animated film, or making sure there was a reputable name behind the camera (Steven Spielberg emerging as a strong candidate) and in front (recent Oscar nominee Haley Joel Osment was a highly rumored name for an Americanized version). J.K. Rowling, however, vetoed their ideas and strongly insisted the film stay true to the source and its British roots. As a result, WB threw all its weight behind that focus, spending blockbuster resources, grabbing cutting-edge effects houses, a laundry list of British acting legends, legendary composer John Williams, and highly successful director Chris Columbus. Hewing close to the beloved novel and marketed with an all-out blitz, the film was a massive success, scoring the biggest opening weekend of all-time and finishing with the second-highest worldwide gross ever, even beating fellow ghetto-busting fantasy The Fellowship of the Ring at the money till. This opened a wave of more fantasy and YA adaptations with more resources behind it, as well as kicking off one of the most profitable series in cinematic history.
* ShipToShipCombat: Probably few people realized just how big and vicious of a battle this book would begin among its fans, most prominently among Harry/Hermione and Ron/Hermione shippers.

** Hagrid [[spoiler:takes Harry, Ron (only in the film), Neville (in the book), Hermione and Malfoy into the Forbidden Forest to look for a Unicorn Murderer]] for detention. HarmfulToMinors does not begin to describe Hagrid. Then again, he didn't really know what to expect. Justified in-universe by Hagrid telling Malfoy that this is the sort of useful thing students do for detention instead of 'writing lines'.

** Rereading the opening of this book with Dumbledore telling [=McGonagall=] about how little they have had to celebrate for 11 years... and with the knowledge of how bad things were under Voldemort was when he was in charge in ''Deathly Hallows''...
** Dumbledore saying he trusts Hagrid with his life. [[spoiler: While what happens in ''Literature/HarryPotterAndTheHalfBloodPrince'' wasn't even Hagrid's fault it still comes across being harsh.]]
** Harry's thoughts about the Dursleys taking all of his Gringotts money had they known about it becomes this with the reveal that one of the reasons uncle Vernon started disliking wizards is that; when Lily arranged a meeting between their families, Vernon took the tales of James' usual wizard routine (like moving around in flying brooms as opposed to cars) as wizards living off government help just to have James' casually tell him that his family is in general quite rich and goes as far as to explain wizard currency (which involves ACTUAL gold and silver coins) and mention his own (later Harry's) Gringotts' vault. To sink it further, James wasn't even trying to be malicious about it but Vernon still took it badly...

** When Malfoy makes a rude crack about the mental ward in St. Mungo's hospital, [[BewareTheNiceOnes Neville responds by punching him in the face]]. In ''Goblet of Fire'', [[spoiler: Harry and the audience discover that Neville's parents (former Aurors who fought in the first war against Voldemort) are permanent residents of St. Mungo's mental ward because the Death Eaters tortured them into insanity, which made what Malfoy (the son of a Death Eater) said very personal to him]].