Harry Potter and the HBP (Spoilers)

POSTED BY: airylli
UPDATED: Friday, September 2, 2005 08:21
VIEWED: 19789
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EMMA

Monday, July 18, 2005 12:04 PM

Quote:
"Everyone" seems to assume RAB is Regalus - which surely means it isn't!

But after this book I am less convinced that I will be surprised by anything that happens. It is still fun but has become a might too predictable... (although, to be fair, I didn't guess Snape would kill Dumblydorus)

extremely dimensionally transcendental

SONG

Monday, July 18, 2005 12:12 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by Emma:
I think that the whole plot was to make everyone think he hates non-pure wizards ...

But Snape is head of Slytherin house -- I just assumed he shared that prejudice, as it is basically written into the house's charter. Come to think of it, Snape's parentage was never secret -- how did he end up head of Slytherin house, if a founding principle was the pure blood thing?

Quote:
... and was emphasising his wizarding connections (an unnecessarily big red-herring if you ask me).

I don't understand this. How did the HBP plotline serve to deceptively emphasize Snape's wizarding connections? Explain, please.

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It seems fairly obvious as well that he is so sorry for what he did because he was in love with Lily Potter and her death set him on the path to righteousness. This would also explain why he keeps protecting Harry - even at the very end. Plus, his reaction to being called a coward was so obviously anger at having to be hated by everyone and act as a double-agent but without the good guys even knowing.

Yes, I agree, very good. Poor Snape, if all of the above is true. I did wonder at his words to Harry as he kept aborting Harry's spells as he fled: "No Unforgivable curses for you, Potter." Remember, the book opens with Snape making that Unbreakable Oath to kill Dumbledore. At least Snape, and probably Dumbledore as well, knew the year would have to end with either D's death or Snape's. And remember that D tells Malfoy he knew M's mission all along, but hadn't stopped him for fear of getting him murdered by Valdemort.

Do you think the whole closing action scene was set up in advance by Dumbledore and Snape, as a way of protecting both Harry and Draco from doing anything TOO awful, just yet?

Of course, Draco is with Snape headed for Voldemort now, so that hardly supports my theory.

Quote:
JK seems to have chickened out a bit, either that or I have seen to much Angel.

Bwaaa-haa-haa ROFLOL. The latter, I think. Thanks for the laugh. Good start to my Monday!

-----
"Is it time to go to sleep again?"
"No, mei-mei. It's time to wake up."

(River and Simon, last scene in "Ariel."

EMMA

Monday, July 18, 2005 12:34 PM

Glad I amused you, I try...

Ok wizaring connections was probably not the correct phrase to use - 'wizarding prejudices' would probably have been better. I think that the HBP thing is meant to give the reader the idea that he hates 'mudbloods' as he calls them but I don't actually think he does. The only real evidence we have for this (and correct me if I am wrong) is that he uses the term 'mudblood' which in itself does not mean much. There are plenty of people who try to reclaim derogatory terms used against them in order to take power from the bigots - queer, paki, nigger have all (to some extent) been reclaimed by those whom the terms are meant to offend.

The death scene was definitely set-up, as was the Unbreakable Vow. I don't think it was meant to happen quite like that (I can't imagine DD would want Harry to see his demise) but yes, I think they planned his death so he could become more powerful (Obi-Wan style) and Snape more 'in' with the Dark Lord.

I don't think Snape and Malfoy are off to see Voldemort. I think Snape is going to try and 'rescue' Malfoy from the dark side somehow - we shall see though.

extremely dimensionally transcendental

FRAY101

Monday, July 18, 2005 12:40 PM

Whilst I think I sadly have to accept that Dumbledore is gone, found this on a forum at http://diagonally.net and thought it might spark some more controversy!

Quote:
anneinchicago wrote:
I don't believe it was Dumbledore in the cave. My reasons? There are three.

Second, Dumbledore drinks the potion. Here are the words he says: (pages 571-574-USA edition)

"I don't want... Don't make me..."

"... don't like... want to stop..."

"No." "I don't want to... Let me go...Let me go..."

"Make it stop.Make it stop."

"No, no,no,no. I can't, I can't, don't make me, I don't want to..."

"It's all my fault, all my fault. Please make it stop, I know I did wrong, oh please make it stop and I'll never, never, again..."

"Don't hurt them, don't hurt them, please, please, it's my fault, hurt me instead..."

And so on, followed by "KILL ME!"

i think snape took harry to that cave, with help from polyjuice potion that snape easily could have brewed himself

(looks quite a good forum BTW - intelligent comments/suggestions compared to some other sites.)

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EMBERS

Monday, July 18, 2005 2:41 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by Lizanne:
After reading the book I have a new favorite of the six, (used to be PoA). I love love loved it.

I also REALLY loved this book, and it improved Chamber of Secrets (now that I know there was so much foreshadowing there..).

I wanted to add a couple of things about Professor Slughorn:
Professor Slughorn is an interesting addition, I am reminded of The Prime of Miss Jean Brody, the story of a teacher who influenced her students to disaster. Most stories of influential teachers are considered to be a good thing, like Robin Williams in Dead Poets Society
or Kevin Kline in The Emperor’s Club.
Slughorn evidently makes it his life’s work to mold the minds of the young, choose students he can mentor and influence, and then bask in the reflected glory of their success.
I think he purposely had that love potion brewing because it would relax his students and make himself and his subject more appealing. I also think he purposely chose that book for Harry because nothing succeeds like success. If you want to be a student’s favorite teacher then you want to make sure that student does really well in the class.
I think he is an interesting character and a commentary on a certain teaching style that JKR hadn't presented before.... I think the reason for introducing the character is that you can see that in Slughorn's efforts to influence his students, he ended up easy prey for Tom Riddle to gain access to knowledge that would have been hidden from him as a student.
Therefore he (Slughorn) was an important character in this book.

2. I wanted to discuss ‘The Half Blood Prince’:
My theory right off the bat was that this was Prof. Snape’s old school book, he clearly excelled at potions and it would make sense that he would have found ways to improve on the text book.
I felt that it was interesting that he taught Harry more from the margins of his old textbook than he ever taught Harry in class.
(BTW did you notice that Snape was STILL trying to teach Harry at the last minute? Trying to force Harry that he needs to work on his non-verbal spells and his Occulthingy when Snape shouted:
"learn to keep your mouth shut and your mind closed, Potter!"
as Snape blocked all of Harry's attacks instead of attacking him back.

Which leads to an interesting aside. Hermione’s resentment of Harry using the suggestions in the margins of the book. Is it just because they are not straight from the text book? I could understand her feeling that Harry is stealing someone else’s work, but it isn’t like Hermione is doing any original work, she is slavishly following what is in the text book. Which is what she always does, she memorizes rather than thinks. She has never tried to use her imagination or creativity, which clearly ‘the half blood prince’ has done. Harry is benefitting from this previous student’s brilliance, which may be opportunistic but at least shows that he is willing to try new things and think outside the box. Hermione needs to open her mind and exercise her talents instead of trying to get everyone else to be the stifled slave to convention that she is.

Personally I think that text book will still have a role to play in the future....

FRAY101

Monday, July 18, 2005 2:48 PM

Just a thought (and going back to my previous comment regarding the lack of teamwork in this book), remember how Hermione used to love investigating for Harry (eg The Philosopher's Stone). Wouldn't the "normal" Hermione have been intrigued to learn who the Half-Blood Prince was? Sadly no, she was too busy spending the whole book sulking...

Dammitt, must stop thinking negative thoughts because I did actually really enjoy the book!

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CALLMESERENITY

Monday, July 18, 2005 3:07 PM

But, in fairness to Hermione, she did figure out who the HBP was. We just didn't want to accept it because Harry didn't want to accept it.

And I think that if Hermione was just a go by the book, never think outside the box kind of person, she would have been put in Ravenclaw. There's a reason she's in Gryffindor. She has her faults (one of them was that she was jealous that Harry was doing better at Potions than her) but I think it's unfair to say she didn't contribute to the plot or that she spent all her time sulking.

Do you really think she'll find long term satisfaction on a relationship with Ron? Will he ever grow up? He's the oldest of the three yet the most immature. I have a hard time accepting that he's "worthy" of Hermione, and figuring out just why Hermione likes him (though I've been rooting for them to get together for ages.)

"Somebody has to do something, and it's just incredibly pathetic that it has to be us." ~Jerry Garcia

FRAY101

Monday, July 18, 2005 3:19 PM

Hermione & Ron, hmmm...the thing that got me about the relationships in HP6 is that the participants seemed to be acting more like 13/14 year olds than 16/17 year olds. Maybe it was just the way it was written (sink plungers & the like). Personally I'm not bothered one way or another whether they get together - I hate it when they're not speaking to eachother but ultimately their friendship means more to me than whether they have a relationship (and you're so right about the difference in their mental ages!).

Of course whose to say they'll all survive long enough to have long-term relationships...

OK, I concede that Hermione did investigate the Half-Blood Prince. But to my mind this was more a point of getting rid of a rival (ie the book) than out of genuine curiosity. Having said that, to be fair, they had no reason to suspect that the book was of any great significance (other than that it could be dangerous), so there was no need to investigate it a la Tom Riddle's diary...

(have to stop now...am confusing myself!)
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CALLMESERENITY

Monday, July 18, 2005 5:48 PM

Fray-you're right. Hermione's interest in figuring out who the HBP is was purely because she was jealous. The problem is that there really wasn't this big huge mystery for the three of them to solve. But what I want to know is-why didn't Harry share what he learned with his pals? If it was working so well, you'd think Ron and everyone else would be coping the HBP's notes in their books, too?
It also makes me wonder that if Snape had been teaching the Advanced Potions, would he have told his classes about his better methods? He should seriously consider writing his own textbook (if of course, he isn't really evil-which I still doubt-and he survives Book 7!)

I also think that the book should have been a bit longer just so that all the supporting characters could have been given a bit of flesh. Neville and Luna and McGonagall and Hagrid and Grawp and Seamus and so many others were barely mentioned. JK was relying heavily, I think, on the fact that we knew them all so well already that she didn't have to do much with them. I had really hoped that Neville would become a kind of 4th member of the gang. I just love him. And I hate cliques. He certainly proved his worth and his loyalty to Harry in the last book, but Harry only seems to want to be his friend (or Luna's for that matter) when it seems convenient for him, which just isn't fair to poor Neville. So I think that if there had been a few more pages, JK could have added a few little throw away scenes. Like the 3 visiting Hagrid and Grawp, or playing wizard chess with Neville. Luna reading the Quibbler in the Three Broomsticks at a Hogsmead visit and making everyone laugh with the funny stuff she says. Seamus and Dean getting in a fight (I love those.) Harry could have paid Firenze a visit, just because I think Firenze is interesting.
And that reminds me that after Harry dismissed Kreacher to Hogwarts at the beginning, I spent the rest of the book thinking "Where's Dobby? Winky? Kreacher?" So I was relieved when they finally showed up for a teeny bit. (Well, except Winky. I'm hoping she's in ElfRehab or something.)
But now I'm nitpicking.

"Somebody has to do something, and it's just incredibly pathetic that it has to be us." ~Jerry Garcia

EMMA

Monday, July 18, 2005 6:44 PM

Serenity, you are so not nit-picking I agree with everything you have written. Eloquent and to the point, I have nothing more to add (tonight anyway... I am sure something will come to me tomorrow).

extremely dimensionally transcendental

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