Every house in Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry is well known for certain qualities that they value and aspire to above all else. Hufflepuff values kindness and hard work, Gryffindor values bravery and boldness, Slytherin values ambition and cunning, and Ravenclaw values wit and wisdom. So it’s no big surprise that Ravenclaw house has the reputation of being the smartest house in the world of Harry Potter.
While the vast majority of Ravenclaw students are at least above average in their intelligence, being in Ravenclaw certainly isn’t a guarantee that someone is smart. There have actually been quite a few Ravenclaws that seem to be downright dumb. What distinguishes Ravenclaw students is that they value intelligence over everything else, but the fact that they value it doesn’t mean that they actually possess it themselves. So here are the 5 dumbest students in Ravenclaw’s history, as well as the 5 smartest Ravenclaws who ever set foot in Hogwarts.
Dumbest: Quirinus Quirrell
Professor Quirrell is obviously a skilled magician and liar, but he doesn’t seem to be the brightest student in Ravenclaw’s history books either. Quirrell did manage to keep his head being half-Voldemort a secret for almost an entire school year, but that honestly says more about the stupidity and lack of inquisitiveness of the people around him than it does about his intelligence.
It’s simply hard to believe that he couldn’t come up with a slightly smarter plan then sticking a piece of Voldy onto the back of his own head. And finally, he couldn’t even outwit Harry in his first year, which is saying a lot about this adult teacher.
Smartest: Cho Chang
When it comes to students in house Ravenclaw, what really shines bright about Cho Chang is, well, pretty much everything. Cho is an exceptional quidditch player, a very good student, well-liked by everyone, and she is just generally an extremely well rounded individual who seems to excel at everything that she tries.
Cho is clever but she’s not only a book worm, she exhibits a lot of different kinds of intelligence. She’s actually one of those students who would have fit in well to any of the Hogwarts houses, because she could use every positive trait of each house to her advantage when she saw that it was advantageous.
Dumbest: Marcus Belby
Marcus Belby’s appearance in the Harry Potter book and film series was mercifully brief, but the few moments that Harry Potter fans got to see of him left many people wondering how in the world he was sorted into Ravenclaw in the first place.
He seems like one of those kids that should have just been dumped into Hufflepuff because he has no exceptional qualities, but just based on his behavior and social skills it still seems like he would have been better matched with literally any other house besides Ravenclaw. Belby piqued Horace Slughorn’s interest because of his exceptional wizard lineage, but that appears to be all he has going for him.
Smartest: Garrick Ollivander
Garrick Ollivander is arguably one of the greatest wand makers in history, and he is a literal genius. Most people wouldn’t expect a shopkeeper and wandsmith to be one of the most intellectually brilliant wizards in the entire wizarding world, but the very fact that Mr. Ollivander remembers every single wand he’s ever sold and who it’s gone to is a spectacular display of his extraordinary intelligence.
Rowena Ravenclaw said that wit beyond measure was man’s greatest pleasure, and Garrick Ollivander definitely has a wit that is beyond measure. Surely he would have done Rowena herself very proud.
Dumbest: Sybill Trelawney
Perhaps Professor Trelawney is intelligent in a variety of other ways, but as a teacher and a soothsayer she seems to be downright idiotic. Divination is obviously the kind of subject that you have to feel your way through and interpret artistically instead of just thinking it through, but you’d think that as a divination teacher she would understand that her skills as a tea leaf reader or crystal ball diviner are sorely lacking.
It’s exceptionally ironic that the one thing she seems to genuinely believe about herself (that she can see the future) is actually true, although she has no actual memory of the one time she made a legitimate prophecy.
Smartest: Filius Flitwick
As a professor at Hogwarts and the head of Ravenclaw house it seems like you’d be able to assume that Professor Filius Flitwick is a pretty clever man, but based on the history of Hogwarts professors that’s not a particularly safe assumption. However when it comes to Professor Flitwick, he really is far beyond what most people would expect of even a fairly skilled Hogwarts professor.
This human-goblin hybrid professor is one of the most knowledgeable and skilled masters of charms in the world, and he could very easily be doing great things outside of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry if he chose.
Dumbest: Moaning Myrtle
Not that we need to be extra savage towards Moaning Myrtle after her unfairly short life and her extremely miserable afterlife, but for a Ravenclaw she definitely doesn’t seem to be particularly clever. No one could have predicted that she would come face to face with a basilisk when she was in the bathrooms of Hogwarts, but Moaning Myrtle is absolutely obsessed with her own death and has been dead for decades.
It seems that she has never even questioned the bizarre circumstances or attempted to figure out how it was that she actually died, even though someone with a pretty basic knowledge of magical creatures could have guessed it.
Smartest: Luna Lovegood
Luna Lovegood is undoubtedly the most iconic Ravenclaw student in the Harry Potter series, and she truly embodies everything that Rowena Ravenclaw was hoping to find when she set out to collect the most intelligent students in the school for her house.
Luna is a traditionally smart girl, but what makes her so extraordinary is her ability to do more than just think outside of the box. Luna lives and breathes outside of the box, which is why she comes up with insights, ideas, and solutions to problems that no one else could ever even think of. Luna makes human thought feel like an art form.
Dumbest: Gilderoy Lockhart
As any Harry Potter fan knows by now, students can be selected for a specific Hogwarts house for a myriad of reasons. Presumably, Gilderoy Lockhart was chosen to be in Ravenclaw because he actually did value intelligence over everything else. The only problem was that he was a total buffoon.
He had one specific talent that he used to get himself quite far in life, but he was more than happy to steal the achievements of others and call them his own because he wanted everyone in the wizarding world to believe that he was one of the most brilliant minds in history when he was just a conman.
Smartest: Rowena Ravenclaw
When it comes to the cleverest Ravenclaws in history, it would be a shame to overlook the literal Ravenclaw who created the house of “wit and measure is man’s greatest pleasure” in the first place. Rowena Ravenclaw was undoubtedly a brilliant witch, but what made her so exceptional compared to even very intelligent and powerful witches and wizards that came before or after her is the fact that she actually wanted to spread her knowledge and foster the intellect of other witches and wizards who wanted to enhance their cleverness.
Many people who are super smart don’t want to face any competition, so the fact that she made it her goal to make other smart magicians even smarter says a lot about her.
