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Why Haley James from ‘One Tree Hill’ is the best

This article is written by a student writer from the Her Campus at Scranton chapter.

One Tree Hill is a popular series that first aired in September of 2003. It can fall under many genres including but not limited to romance, coming-of-age, soap opera, teen, sports, and drama. I love this TV show more than any other I have ever watched. It contains 9 seasons, all of which I have watched at least 4 times through completely. I am currently re-watching it for the 5th time!

To give a very brief overview, the show takes place in a fictional town named Tree Hill, based off of Wilmington, North Carolina. The two main characters, Nathan and Lucas Scott are half-brothers. Their father was Dan Scott. Lucas was conceived when his mother was a senior in high school, and Nathan was conceived when his mother was a freshman in college. Nathan and Lucas are in the same grade (as they were born only a few months apart) and attend the same high school.

Nathan begins off the series as a cocky, full-of-himself star of the basketball team. Lucas is also insanely talented at basketball but is humbler, and only joins the team after his uncle, Keith Scott, encourages him to do so. There is a countless amount of drama that uncoils throughout this show, and I don’t want to spoil too much of it so I will stop summarizing here.

My favorite character is Haley James. She is the youngest of a huge family with many siblings. She was raised extremely well despite being the youngest of such a large family. She is Lucas’ best friend, and their friendship is so real. They support each other, but she is not afraid to tell him when he is doing something that is not what she would approve of or do herself.

Haley is an honors student, who even works at the tutoring center at her high school to help others. Many times, she is tutoring someone, and when they finally understand, it gives her so much joy. The excitement shines on her face when she talks about the moment when she sees the light go off in their head, signifying they understand. It gives her so much joy to help others which is one of the reasons I love her.

She is also very down to earth. Her parents were not as strict with her as she is the youngest, and they had done their fair share of raising kids by the time they got to Haley. However, they lucked out on that because Haley is so responsible that she does not even need as much guidance as the ordinary high schooler. Haley is honest, devoted and puts her all into everything.

I feel that I resonate with her a lot because I try to be just like her. The more I think about it, I was introduced to this show when I was 13 years old, in 7th grade. I feel that by watching this show so early, I latched onto who Haley is, and I tried to aspire to be just like her every day without even being aware that I was doing this. Now, she does have her faults in the show (which I cannot mention because they are very specific and I don’t want to spoil it) as every human being has. But she is the most genuine character I have ever gotten the chance to watch. Though she may have made some decisions that I would not agree with, those actions do not reflect her as a person as it was a messy and complicated situation.

If you have never watched One Tree Hill, I HIGHLY recommend it as I am currently on season 6, the 5th time watching it through. There is never a dull moment, and there are so many storylines to keep you engaged! This show will forever hold a soft spot in my heart. It is available on Hulu!!! I hope you decide to watch it!

Hey I'm Claudia (my nickname is Dia :) ) and I am a Kinesiology major! One of my deepest passions is long distance running, and I recently just ran my first half marathon last March. I also love bullet journaling to manage stress & anxiety, reading, and listening to music. I am also very involved with topics of managing mental health and love reading inspirational or hopeful quotes!