Harry Potter: Neville Longbottom’s 5 Best Traits (& 5 Worst)

Neville Longbottom is a character from Harry Potter that many fans underestimated at the beginning. He starts out as an extremely shy and rather dorky kid who doesn’t have any self-confidence, but his character arc is one of the more satisfying in the series.

Neville Longbottom is definitely a heroic and good character, and he has many positive personality traits. However, he does also have his flaws and areas where he’s not as strong.

10 Worst: Insecure

Neville spends a lot of his time at Hogwarts being insecure and shy.

This isn’t entirely surprising given that his grandmother and most of his extended family really weren’t nice to him and also because he had lost his parents in a traumatic way. So, it’s hard to blame him for being insecure when he was bullied so much, and he also didn’t spend all of his life feeling bad about himself.

9 Best: Loyal

When Neville is younger, it might seem like he shouldn’t be sorted into Gryffindor.

In some ways, he fits better as a Hufflepuff because he has a rather gentle disposition and isn’t as flashy about things as many Gryffindors. However, his loyalty is strong, and he has many of the best Gryffindor traits. He definitely cares about the friends he has and is willing to help them no matter what.

8 Worst: Easily upset

As a pre-teen, Neville gets upset somewhat easily when things happen. Once again, it’s hard to completely blame him for this as he was often picked on, so, after being bothered over and over, it makes sense he would start to get upset.

However, he did sometimes react a bit dramatically such as when he would lose things.

7 Best: Caring

As the Harry Potter books are told from Harry’s perspective, fans don’t always get as much information on some of the side characters. Harry doesn’t know all that much about how Neville spends his life, but from what we do see of Neville, it’s clear he’s’ a compassionate person.

Neville isn’t the type of individual to bully or harass others, and he mostly just wants to have friends and be treated kindly. He himself has been bullied, but he doesn’t turn this pain around on others.

6 Worst: Easily embarrassed

Being a pre-teen and teenager can be really rough as it’s a time of life when people care a lot about what their peers think. So, seeing as how Neville was never a cool or popular kid by any means, it makes sense he would feel embarrassed by this.

He does also seem to grow out of this trait, but he probably would have found friends easier if he just took some of the more embarrassing things that happened to him in stride.

5 Best: Invested

Neville might not be as good at magic right away as students such as Hermione and Harry, but just because he’s not immediately and naturally gifted doesn’t mean he doesn’t try hard.

Neville is great at Herbology, and he devotes a lot of time to plants and their study. He also does try very hard when he joins Dumbledore’s Army, and there he starts to catch on once he’s not being treated poorly by his teachers.

4 Worst: Distant

Neville is a more soft-spoken and introverted person. Because of this, there are times when he comes off as being more distant and aloof. While he’s a kind and caring person, he doesn’t really invest all that much time in getting to know other people either.

This is likely because he doesn’t feel that other people would want to take the time to get to know him, so it’s fortunate he becomes more confident with time because he’s definitely a wonderful person.

3 Best: Courageous

Neville has many wonderful Hufflepuff traits, but he makes the most sense as a Gryffindor because he exemplifies a couple of the best traits of the house.

Courage is an attribute that Neville has in excess even if it might take him a while to fully see this in himself. Whether it was sticking up to the trio at the end of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone or cutting off Nagini’s head, Neville was a courageous person.

2 Worst: Too sensitive

Overall, it’s hard to find bad personality traits that Neville has. For one thing, we just don’t know all that much about him except for what we see from Harry, and for another, most of the things that might seem like poor traits have more to do with the way he was treated by other people around him.

But, one of the few negative traits Neville possessed was being a bit too sensitive.

1 Best: Brave

Along with being courageous, Neville was also quite brave. This becomes more apparent as he gets older, and this trait can be seen especially at the end of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.

However, throughout that entire book, Neville is being very brave even if Harry didn’t see it. Neville, along with Luna and Ginny, started up Dumbledore’s Army again and created a resistance under Voldemort’s nose.

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