Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (spoilers)

Cafe Society
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Regulus immediately popped to mind when I read the initials and I hope it was and that Harry makes a point to tell that screeching harpy at Number 12 that both of her sons choose to oppose Snake Face in the end.

I enjoyed it for the most part but several things just didn’t sit easily with me at all:

I don’t care for the Harry/Ginny relationship, though it’s loads better than Harry/Cho. I can’t stand Cho. I don’t have a problem with Remus/Tonks at all. Good for Remus! The man deserves something good in his life. But all the pairings just seemed so … expected. Too much fan fiction, I guess.

Hermonie was really starting to irritate me.

After the way Harry just fell apart at the end of OOtP, his swift acceptance and recovery just a couple of weeks later just didn’t seem realistic. I suppose that having lived with the Dursley’s all his life he’s used to disappointment and loss.

Draco Malfoy will never be a sympathetic character to me, no matter what anyone has hanging over his head. He’s a bully and a coward. I think he should be transfigured back into a ferret and turned loose in the Forbidden Forest.

Not enough Neville. I think he should have a bigger role in the end because he could have been the Chosen One. I still hope he gets to kick Bella’s butt in Book 7.

I called Dumbledore as biting it. I think he had to in order for Harry to really get serious about what he has to do so I wasn’t surprised he died, only by whose hand.

I agree with previous posters about Snape. I believe AD was pleading with Severus to kill him because of the damage he had done to himself with the potion and his previous injury. I can’t believe Albus Dumbldore would have been so thoroughly taken in by such a huge deception for so long, even if JKR has said several times that Snape is not a nice man. Despite what Harry said he knows, that was not an iron clad reason for Albus to trust him as much as he did. There is more to Severus Snape’s history than we know. Whether he will be on the side of Light or Dark in the end I have no idea, but I don’t see him living through Book 7.

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I’m in the same boat as most of you (sad about Dumbledore, confused about the pleading, etc.).

A couple of things keep nagging me though…

  1. Dumbledore’s familiar is a phoenix. Does that mean something? Will he somehow be reborn or is that just wishful thinking?

  2. Dumbledore says something to Draco about protecting him by making Voldomort think he’s dead. Given what happened, is that idea significant?

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It’s a sneaker.

Here’s a site that translates HP British slang:
http://www.angelfire.com/mi3/cookarama/britwords.html

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While I haven’t read any of the books, I’ve gotten the main plot points from my sister who is an avid reader of the series, and I saw the Dumbledore death coming from a mile away. It’s the classic hero story arc. The wise mentor has to die before the protagonist can truly step up into the role of hero. I was surprised to learn who did the killing though.

There hasn’t been too much talk of Draco, which I find to be a shame. From the bits of movie I’ve seen he appears to be quite an uppity little bitch, but I always thought it would have been really cool to make him an extremely ambitious (and powerful) rival to Harry. Then somewhere around book 6 or the beginning of 7 he breaks ties with the school and strives to be the next great evil wizard.

Granted, he would never replace Voldemort as the main villain, but he could have made quite a badass antagonist towards the end of Harry’s journey, forcing the two of them into a life and death struggle.

Meh, that’s just the direction I would have taken it.

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I think it was to protect him - no way would Harry have stayed silent during all that.

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Definitely to protect him, as he was invisible.

My guess is that Fletcher has the Black Family horcrux (he had a silver goblet belonging to the family). However, that would preclude the “belonging to Ravenclaw or Gryffindor” part. Of course, they could’ve been wrong about that too.

I’d known for a long time that Dumbledore had to die, as in every book except the last one, someone (usually Hermione) says “as long as Dumbledore is here, Harry can’t be touched” and how everyone is safe while Dumbledore is around. Harry never could’ve come to his full power and confidence without D. being gone.

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[QUOTE=Soapbox Monkey]

There hasn’t been too much talk of Draco, which I find to be a shame. From the bits of movie I’ve seen he appears to be quite an uppity little bitch, but I always thought it would have been really cool to make him an extremely ambitious (and powerful) rival to Harry. Then somewhere around book 6 or the beginning of 7 he breaks ties with the school and strives to be the next great evil wizard.
QUOTE]

I quite liked seing Draco like this: he’s a smug, swaggering little bully but ultimately he’s not evil. He spent the book terrified of actually killing Dumbledore, but too afraid of the consequences to fail. I don’t expect him to abandon the Death Eaters, but I expect him to be killed off fairly soon.

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To my own surprise, a lot of my predictions turned out to be accurate, although usually with some minor, unforseen wrinkle. Didn’t stop the book from being a damn good read, but it did make those particular plot points somewhat anticlimactic.

Things I predicted:
-Dumbledore’s death. As Soapbox Monkey notes, it’s the classic “hero’s journey.” Harry’s invincible Obi-Wan was doomed to die sooner or later, if only to make way for Harry to actually vanquish Voldemort. I did NOT expect his killer to be Snape, however.
-Ron and Hermione. They technically don’t go out this book, but it’s pretty obvious by the end that they’re going to eventually. Each is aware of the other’s interest, and the walls of jealousy and misunderstanding that damaged the relationship halfway through the book are now gone.
-Fleur really loves Bill, and not just for his looks! This one actually bugged me, because it’s pretty obvious that the ONLY reason Bill was injured is so that Fleur doesn’t seem like such an shallow bint. Considering that Rowling went to such lengths to make Fleur an interesting character in “Goblet of Fire,” I didn’t think she would just suddenly turn her into a French valley girl.
-Harry and Ginny. I was actually hoping for Harry to go out with Luna, as I feel like the two characters have more in common, and had more interesting conversations in a single book than Harry and Ginny had in five (not to mention the big-ass red herring that was the last Luna segment in OotP), but the Harry/Ginny relationship has been hinted consistently at since Book 2, and I was unsurprised to see it happen.
-Ron and Hermoine decide to go seek the Horcruxes with Harry. Saw this one coming from a mile away- there was no way that Rowling was going to break up the trio. The moment Harry decides to go it alone, I knew there was going to be a “Legolas and Gimli at the Paths of the Dead” moment.

I was surprised to see Snape and Draco end up with the Death Eaters (yeah, I agree that the Evilness Quotient of both characters is still questionable). I had Snape pegged as a loyal member of the Order, and was thinking of the Unbreakable Vow as proof of the lengths he’d go to to serve Dumbledore. Hell, I expected that Snape would be dead as well by the end of the book, after all the fuss made about how breaking an Unbreakable Vow = death.

I agree with manx that Malfoy’s never really been Evil with a capital E. He’s an asshole, certainly, an ambitious jerk who embodies the more venal aspects of the Slytherins, but I wasn’t surprised to see him falter when faced with actual murder. Besides, HP fans have been screaming for him to go good ever since his first appearance. :wink: However, I think it would’ve been VERY silly to have him to a straight 180, fighting by Harry’s side and suddenly becoming a hero. He’s just not that kind of person, even if he isn’t Dark Lord material. Rowling’s solution is a very good one- show that Malfoy’s having second thoughts about his task, but leave him thoroughly enmeshed in the clutches of the Death Eaters. If he really wants to change sides, he’ll have to either work from within or flee; both options would force him to maintain that moral ambiguity that makes his character interesting to begin with.

Didn’t predict Tonks and Lupin, although it seems pretty obvious in retrospect. One nitpick: I don’t get why mentioning Sirius would make Tonks cry if this was the case, though. As someone (I think it was Ron) points out, Tonks didn’t actually know Sirius that well, and it seems kind of strange that she’d be so thoroughly broken up about his death, moreso than anyone else in the Order, including Sirius’s best surviving friend.

Agreed that the Horcruxes are the most video gamey plot device Rowling’s ever come up with. She’s good enough, though, that I’ll give her the benefit of the doubt- I don’t think she actually came up with Horcruxes just to sell games.

More Neville!

More Luna! Not nearly enough Luna!

Speaking of whom, I’m curious about what’s going on there. Rowling stated on her site that Neville and Luna will not become a couple, but the bit near the end with Luna helping Neville at the funeral makes me wonder if she changed her mind.

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I want to know what happened to Dumbledore’s hand!

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The ring was cursed.

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I knew Snape was gonna turn out to be a fucking asshole.

Thanks alot, Snivellus! Man, I can’t wait to see what kind of karma comes down the pipe for him.

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Amended: we already knew he was a fucking asshole, but after all the reassurances from Dumbledore I wouldn’t have guessed this. On the one hand, there’s that Vow, on the other, I just don’t see any good reason for Snape not to be a current Death Eater. I mean, Jo can do whatever she wants next book, but that’s just the way it seems to me. Stupid Snivellus, man! And I almost felt sorry for him after finding out about his past via the Occlumency lessons.

I hope Grawp rends him limb from limb. :mad:

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I don’t think Snape is evil. I think he did what he did on Dumbledore’s instructions- right up to killing him.

What I can’t wrap my head around is that, apparently, Dumbledore willingly sacrificed his own life to save… Draco Malfoy.

This sets him up in such a Christ-figure space that I’m wondering if she will go the rest of the way and resurrect him in book 7.

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I think there is another reason Dumbledore begged Snape to kill him: to prevent Malfoy from doing something so irredemable at such a young age.

I go along with everyone who said we don’t know what Snape’s real reason for abandoning Voldemort.

I also think the battle between Harry and Snape is significant for Snape being a teacher to the end. He could have immobilized Harry easily, but he just keeps blocking him and telling him to learn how to close his mind. I think that was sincere advice.

What was the white fire when Dumbledore’s tomb appeared, and did Harry really see a phoenix in the fire? I think he did and I have no idea what the means.

I noticed that Dumbledore’s portrait has appeared in the Headmaster’s office. Will it be as animated as the others? How does that whole portrait thing work, anyway? Clearly the people in the portraits maintain their personalities.

Who is the Prime Minister’s political opponent (mentioned briefly at the beginning of the book)? I’m guessing someone with ties to the Dark Lord.

And Dolores Umbridge appears at Dumbledore’s funeral…now THAT really pissed me off! (cough cough)

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If Harry really (a) quits school or (b) can’t attend school because it’s closed, is there any reason that JKR will restrict herself to the passage of just one more year in book 7? She has certainly set this up to where she has a lot more options open… Book 7 could take Harry well into adulthood.

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Oh, I didn’t mean that it was a device Jo devised specifically to find its way into the inevitable video game. Only that it surely would, and that I’ve played a few dozen other games of the same model at least as far back as Atari’s Haunted House and Nintendo’s Legend of Zelda.

Another spoiler (or lack thereof): I thought we’d get more Wormtail this book. He got a cameo in the second chapter, and otherwise nothing. Weren’t we supposed to get more of his life-debt to Harry in this book as well as seven?

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Speculations about what will be revealed about Lily in Book 7:

All right, these are my ideas so far, and what potential problems there are with them.

-Lily was adopted-she’s actually a pureblood, or at least from a mixed wizarding family. The problems with this are obvious-how would the enchantment on Harry work with Petunia, if she’s not blood related?

-Lily was pregnant when she was killed. This would be interesting and much more tragic, but it really wouldn’t affect the story overall.

-Lily and Snape are cousins, via Snape’s muggle father, Tobias Snape. This one I think could actually work.

BTW, anyone remember what Tonks’s previous Patronus was?

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That’d be kind of hard, seeing as he was Sirius’s great-great grandfather. (Yes, I KONW he could have been unmarried, but this is a children’s series, and he does have the last name Black).

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I’ve got to say. . .I read the first two books and saw the first movie. When I saw this thread, I figured I was so behind that it wouldn’t matter if I read this thread or not, I would forget it all by the time I get there.

Better than that: I can’t understand 90% of anything you’re even saying. Horcrux. Tonks. Nagini. Wormtail. Luna. R.A.B.

Oh well. As I’ve always sasid regarding these books: Kids reading = good.

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One will first be found in book 3.
One in book 4.
Two in book 5.
Two in book 6.

I feel like it’d be an unneccessary spoiler to say which is where. But you can probably guess the ones that are from this book alone by the threads so far.