One Week of HP

[rfunk]

Last Friday night I was number 30 in line to get the new Harry Potter book at Borders.... but because I was just standing in for a friend who'd had to leave, I didn't get my own copy until the next day at the grocery store. Over the past week nontacitare and I have been leapfrogging through the book, with her usually stopping exactly a chapter ahead of me -- without knowing where I'd stopped. (I often just remember the chapter or page number rather than marking the page.) However, she had started out with a list of spoilers, and first skimmed the book verifying them all, while I struggled all week to avoid any hint of spoilers.

I finally finished the book tonight. Some of my thoughts along the way....

I didn't get a chance to re-read the previous books before starting this one, so it was a good thing there was lots of review built into the narrative. Going into it I saw two mysteries -- who is the Half-Blood Prince, and what major character dies. I had no prediction on the first question, but I figured Dumbledore would be the most likely death this time.

Chapter one was the best first chapter of any of the HP books.

Chapter two introduced a third mystery -- which side is Snape really on. This of course appears to be resolved at the end, but there's more than enough room for doubt and misdirection.

Actually chapter two also introduced another mystery -- what was Malfoy's task, or (since we can guess the nature of it) who was he tasked to kill. But that seemed a minor detail compared to the question of who would actually die.

When the gang got together at the Weasleys', I started to think Ron might be the big death, since that would have such a huge impact on Harry.

By the end of Harry's first pensieve session with Dumbledore, I thought it was obvious that Voldemort was the Half-Blood Prince. Now it's obvious that that's what JKR wanted us to think. Ah well.

A lot of the book seemed to be mostly just checking off things to hint at or foreshadow, which contributed to a feeling that this was more like a puzzle than a novel.

When Ron and Hermione all but confessed their mutual attraction, then proceeded to stop speaking to each other (because of Ron being an idiot), Hermione became the leading candidate for the big death. Imagine Ron's horror if he were to realize right before or after her death that he'd been wrong to shut her out.... and with Ginny and Luna around, the balance wouldn't get totally out of whack. (Then nontacitare happened to mention, in a conversation about something sirvinegar wrote, that Hermione and Snape getting together isn't totally out of the realm of possibility. Which meant that those two characters survive the book.)

But when Dumbledore reminded Harry that his power over Voldemort was his capacity to love, Ginny became a major candidate as well.

Then I made the mistake of re-reading the table of contents (which I'd barely glanced at when I started), and noticed the penultimate chapter title "The Phoenix Lament", which pretty much sealed it that Dumbledore wouldn't survive past that chapter.

I was still surprised when the Half-Blood Prince revealed himself, though I should have realized that Hermione is always right in some way.

Which brings us back to the question of Snape's loyalty. It seems to me that one rule of thumb in these books is that if Harry asserts something and others believe him, it might not be true, but if Harry asserts something and nobody believes him, then it's probably true. Throughout this book, Harry asserted that Snape was on the other side, and nobody believed him. And sure enough, Snape was Dumbledore's killer at the end.

Yet after that, everyone finally believes Harry that Snape is on the side of the Death Eaters, so according to my rule of thumb, he must not be. braider's and nontacitare's theories make a lot of sense -- it's quite possible (even likely, from a perspective outside the story) that Snape made the best choice he could under the circumstances, and that he will turn out in the end to be a good guy, even a hero.

Meanwhile, the romantic part of me was disappointed to see Ginny cast off so easily yet Ron and Hermione accepted into Harry's quest.

Oh yeah, about R.A.B.... I figure it's gotta be a member of the Black family, most likely Sirius's younger brother Regulus. (And I'm amazed at the amount of info and fanfic there is about him online.)


I hope to write soon about some other books I've been reading lately.

Comments

[braider.livejournal.com]

I still have to wonder how the hell RAB managed to uncover the the locket, or how he knew to bring fresh potion with which to re-cover it....

In what way is it at all likely that Hermione and Snape would get together? Yeah, he's got a brain, but ew....

As to the theory that Harry may be a horcrux - because it's almost certain Voldemort would have been planning to make one with Harry's death, two things occur to me:

1) What object had he *intended* to use as the horcrux, and where is it now?

2) While there's a fair chance Harry would have to die, I think that whole "Harry's power to love" thing may make the difference. For example, Lord Voldemort would die if Tom Riddle came back. Alternately, the remaining humanity, the small bits of goodness, of Tom Riddle may live on in Harry (giving him a magical advantage that he hasn't studied to earn...)

[rfunk.livejournal.com]

Supposedly Regulus had been a Death Eater, so maybe he learned some of Voldemort's tricks that way.

I don't think it's likely that Hermione and Snape would get together, but I suppose the facts that (a) they are both alive, and (b) Snape might be good after all, make it a possibility, though remote. I think Hermione should stay with Ron though.

Determining what the intended horcrux was might require knowing how the horcrux spell is done, but I suspect there's a clue in book 1 chapter 1.

The sorting hat was considering putting Harry in Slytherin way back when.... could be an indicator of some Voldemort in him. We already know the scar gave them some sort of connection; maybe the soul piece thing is the reason.

On the other hand, "neither can live while the other survives" would seem to counter the idea of Harry the horcrux -- if Harry's a horcrux, Voldemort cannot die while Harry survives.

[braider.livejournal.com]

Notice that she doesn't use the word "live" twice. Harry survived; some of Voldemort's vital essence is trapped inside Harry, so Voldemort can't truly live again until that essence is released. That's why Voldemort needs Harry to be killed in a sacrificial kind of way.

[nontacitare.livejournal.com]

In what way is it at all likely that Hermione and Snape would get together? Yeah, he's got a brain, but ew....

I'm with you on that. What surprised me, though, was that Hermione/Snape fans would have given up after this book. They're both alive, she's now legally of age, and they're both out of the school setting. Other than that, they don't have much going for them.

Hermione/?

[rfunk.livejournal.com]

Of course, by the same logic, I suppose the Harry/Hermione fans still have a bit of hope, misguided as they are. :-)

Re: Hermione/?

[nontacitare.livejournal.com]

Well, yes. There's a chance for anyone who's still alive.

[stega.livejournal.com]

Regulus probably had Kreacher along with him. He may very well have died from the effort, as Lupin mentions in the early chapters of this book that he only lived a few days after leaving the dark side. Never-the-less, the locket made it to the Black house, as it was amoung the items cleaned out from the cabinet in the fifth book--and there's a good change Mundungus (sp?) snuck off with it and has sold it to someone. That's at least what I think after re-reading the early chapters of this one.

[rfunk.livejournal.com]

Makes sense. I didn't pick up on the mention of Regulus in this book, much less a locket in book 5.

I'm starting to think that the way to read these books is to read all the previous ones right before reading a new one, then again right after reading the new one.

[stega.livejournal.com]

That's my usual procedure. :)

Brain candy though it is.

[rfunk.livejournal.com]

You obviously read much faster than I do.
But then, I think most people who like to read read faster than I do.