HBP - Chapter 9 The Half Blood Prince
Chapter 9 - The Half Blood Prince or Harry's first day of classes, year six
There's no need to call me 'sir,' Professor." Ah, probably the best line of the series - definitely the highlight of this chapter. We are greeted with the requisite trip to the Great Hall for breakfast, Ron's bad table manners and McGonagall inexplicably setting schedules ( Read more... )
There's no need to call me 'sir,' Professor." Ah, probably the best line of the series - definitely the highlight of this chapter. We are greeted with the requisite trip to the Great Hall for breakfast, Ron's bad table manners and McGonagall inexplicably setting schedules ( Read more... )
Hermione has always defied the rules to help Harry. It's nothing new in GoF, and I think her need to be useful always outweighs the need to stick to the rules, but that they both tie into her insecurity about her self-worth. She did good with the Skeeter thing, I admit, but I don't think she has consistently displayed that level of reasoning before or after than incident. I don't think analyzing Umbridge's speech is on that level, because the only required for that is to actually listen, something that all of the other characters were far too bored to do. I think she is dead wrong about Harry's "saving-people-thing" -- or, at least, that since we never learn what she meant by that, we can't know if she's right. However, she doesn't say "you have this thing where you assume that the world is out to get you and that no one can or will help you, so you feel that you are the only on who can fix things", which would have been far more accurate than "saving-people-thing", imho.
This entire mess seems to stem from JKR’s need to force these characters (which worked in previous volumes) into a prescribed plot that cannot accommodate them the way they were written.
I think the problem is just the opposite. The intelligent behavior of the so-called smart characters is not contingent on the characters, but whether the plot needs them to be smart. I don't think the plot is what makes them dumb. I think the only displays we ever see of their intelligence are the ones forced by the needs of the plot. Otherwise, JKR would rely solely on telling us that characters are smart via their "achievements." I agree, though, that because of this sort of thing Hermione hasn't developed much in the books. Except for her tendency to break rules when she feels she's justified, I'd say she's exactly the same as she was in PS/SS, actually.
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In JKR's world, the plot drives the characters instead of the characters driving the plot. I mentioned an example of this involving DD in the Chapter 3 discussion. Bear with me, I know you hate DD talk. ;) I won't go into the details in hopes that you remember, but the same plot objectives could have been achieved if JKR had sat in front of her computer and thought "What would this character do?" instead of, "How can I make sure that Dursley knows about Harry's inheritance so I can use it in the next book."
This entire book was plot driven and the characters suffer for it.
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I think that this book did suffer more than the others from being plot driven more than character. I think she edited it to death, and just tried to move things along. But, I think this has been her weakness all along, in all of the previous books.
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I agree wholeheartedly. Very little in this book rings true because both themes and characters were compromised to fit The Plot.
Nia
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