Oh, and watch where you step. This article contains spoilers from Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.

George was the funniest Weasley twin

There is no competition. George was the Weasley twin blessed with the superior sense of humour. Don’t get us wrong, Fred was obviously funny too – you can’t be born on April Fool’s Day and not be an excellent laugh – George just had the edge.

We do understand why you might automatically think that Fred was the wittier twin. After all, he was the more outgoing of the two. When you reread the stories, you notice that he was mentioned more than his twin – 905 times in comparison to George’s 731. However, being more confident and doesn’t necessarily make you funnier. As George often proved.

Look closely, and you’ll notice that George said a lot of the twins most hilarious lines. The pair may have been very similar, but George had more of a knack for words and an observational style of comedy. His one-liners were unparalleled – from his hilarious reaction to his and Fred’s Weasley jumpers:

To making the horror of the Chamber of Secrets a little less scary:

George’s ability to bring lightness to any situation was unmatched. After all, this was the twin who lost an ear but still immediately managed to joke about it:

Now that’s dedication.

Then there was the Weasley twin pranks. While it is true that Fred was the more prolific of the pair, there is an argument that a lot of the stunts he pulled went too far. The Ton-Tongue Toffee that Fred ‘accidentally’ dropped in the Dursleys’ living room? Yes, it might have been revenge on the cousin that treated Harry badly, but it was also incredibly damaging for Muggle/wizard relations. Fred turning Ron’s teddy bear into a spider when he was three years old? Spiders were Ron’s biggest fear, and this would have been terrifying rather than funny. Fred feeding a Filibuster Firework to a Salamander? Unkind.

When the twins worked together on a prank, that’s when they toed the line between hilarious and horrible – their Portable Swamp was a thing of legend. Being the slightly more level-headed twin, George seemed to have a better understanding of what constitutes a joke and could keep Fred on the right side of funny.

Ultimately, George was the twin with the better understanding of comedy. He may not have said as much as his brother but when he did, he made it count. His way with words. His more compassionate approach. And his ability to find humour in any situation made him the funniest Weasley.

Fred was the funniest Weasley twin

Sometimes, the right answer is the most obvious answer, and that’s okay! Sorry, George – but Fred was, unequivocally, the funnier brother. A successful comedian must put themselves out there, work the room, find opportunities to find laughs everywhere and anywhere. While George was the perfect comedy partner, always naturally in tune with his brother’s rhythms, Fred was the one in charge starting the routines. It takes two to tango, but someone has to take the lead.

As the Master of Ceremonies of the two twins (or you could argue he was MC for the entire Weasley family!) you’ll find numerous occasions across the Harry Potter stories where Fred gets the first laugh. In fact, the very earliest instance of Fred in the books is at King’s Cross Station, where he introduces himself to us all with this solid bit.

Ever the showman, we immediately got a sense of Fred’s assertive tomfoolery, with no target (even his own mum!) too small for his quickfire banter.

Across the stories, Fred’s influence was everywhere. Fred was the one who told Ron a cock-and-bull story about how you have to fight a troll at the Hogwarts’ Sorting Ceremony. Fred was the one who asked Angelina Johnson out to the Yule Ball, just to show the others that the endeavour wasn’t so scary. Fred was the one who immediately found a way to hoodwink Dumbledore’s Age Line for the Triwizard Tournament (although on that occasion, Dumbledore out-mischiefed even him).

And of course, Fred was the one who gave Peeves the legendary instructions: “give her hell from us”, after the twins broke out of Hogwarts under Professor Umbridge’s tyrannical rule.

Most double acts usually have one more eccentric partner while the other plays the stooge. For the Weasley twins, they were both capable of being “the funny man”, but Fred was more likely to get the ball rolling. He just made it all look so effortless, but it does take nerve to always be the ringleader.

Perhaps this is why he was the one who we lost at the end of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – that slight moment of distraction when he was killed at the Battle of Hogwarts, seconds after his brother Percy had made a rare joke: something that Fred absolutely couldn’t leave without making a remark, Maybe that fraction of overconfidence at the wrong time is what led to Fred’s doom. But you can bet that all of that buoyant energy went straight into George, who kept the twins’ joke shop business going strong and even married Fred’s former Yule Ball date, Angelina. He even named his son after his late brother. Fred’s strength of character was too powerful to ever fade away. And although George was surely broken by his twin’s death, his magnetic influence will have been part of his life forever – and likely, something that George carried with him. Now he was the man in charge in Fred’s honour.

So yes, Fred surely was the funnier sibling – but neither would’ve been quite as funny without the other.