BOOK DISCUSSION: Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince

[cmere]

“Why are you worrying about YOU-KNOW-WHO, when you should be worrying about YOU-NO-POO? The constipation sensation that's gripping the nation!”Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince was published in 2005. Clocking in at slightly shorter than its predecessor, the book nevertheless contained a wealth of new information for fans. Book Six included new

Comments

[cmere]

Teenage romance and drama played a large part of Book Six. Did you love it? Hate it? Somewhere in between? (a separate thread for favorite shippy moments of all characters is below to discuss other ships)

[philstar22]

Hate it. And I would have hated it regardless of what the relationships were. There should have been way less romance and drama and way more war and tension and darkness IMHO. Hogwarts may be removed from all of that but I still would have expected the Trio at least to be focused on it. Harry barely seemed to care and considering he now knows he alone has to face Voldemort, he seemed remarkably apathetic and focused on other things.

Also, Sirius' death did not seem to be effecting Harry at all. HBP!Harry seemed almost cold. I much preferred Capslock!Harry because that seemed a normal reaction to what he went through.

[portkey]

Regarding Harry seemingly getting over Sirius's death 'too easily', I have to say right here that to me, as someone who was in a very deep pit of depression - partially because of horrific personal tragedy - while the series was going on that I started to claw my way out of (with the help of the books and the fandom), it actually rang rather true to me. Harry, as unhappy as he had been, must have had a LOT of time to think during his enforced isolation at the Dursleys', and with everything that he had going on in his life he had to come to the decision to simply put things behind him. It's actually been a couple months since we last saw him, so it may seem a bit more of an "instant" change than it really is since it happened off-screen

[philstar22]

I think it would have rang true to me if he had been pretending and burying his feelings. Because that is exactly what I did with my trauma. But to me the book did not read like that at all. To me it read like we were supposed to believe Harry was just genuinely over everything. And I don't think that one summer would have been enough time to actually get over it. Burry it and put it aside to do what he had to, yes (although considering that Harry didn't even seem really focused on the war and Voldemort in book 6 it didn't seem like he even much cared about that either), but not to genuinely be over it. Which is what it seemed like we were supposed to believe about Harry, at least to me.

[portkey]

I guess I'm a little forgiving just because realistically, the need to drive the plot forward meant that there could only be so much dwelling on it. I do disagree that there are no hints about it, but I do think it's understandable that Harry's, well, distracted. There's a lot going on in his life, things that are both life-and-death but also more mundane.

And I guess just in general, the books just really wouldn't work if Harry wasn't pretty resilient? I mean, you could argue that his childhood should have made him angry and antisocial from the start. (And again, I would argue that if you read between the lines there are hints of the more mundane trauma of his childhood affecting him as well.)

I dunno, I guess I could just be reading too much into things or filling in the blanks of some of the things I wish were different or improved in the books, but I think that with Harry's background it's easy to believe that he could be putting on a facade.

[madderbrad]

There should have been way less romance and drama and way more war and tension and darkness IMHO.

Yes.

At that point Rowling didn't have a clue how she was going to end the series and have Harry prevail, so she just parked him at Hogwarts and wrote bad fluff to fill the book and get everyone to the only really important scene in the whole novel - Dumbledore's death.

[author_by_night]

I have mixed feelings. On one hand, it could be a little contrived; on the other hand, after OoTP it was nice to have the characters dwelling over normal teenage things, and with what would come in DH we needed it.

[drinkingcocoa]

Loved it. Hilarious. And then overlaid atop the ghosts of the ruined relationship between Snape and Lily that haunted everything about this volume. The movie remarkably captured every meaningful thing about this in the magnificent sweep that panned from Ron making out with Lavender to Draco being completely alone, fighting his descent into evil that separated him from healthy relationships the way it happened to Snape.

[celestlyn]

I disagree about leaving out the romance. It isn't really that I wanted to see more of it, but regardless of the intensity of the coming war, they had no idea when it was going to happen...just that it was coming. Romance and teen hormones are a huge part of life for most kids over 14-15. It would be silly to eliminate it. A lot of writers would like to see no pairings at all in the series and that is just not how life works for most kids. Teen angst is a real thing and shouldn't be ignored.

[moreteadk]

I agree with this. If there hadn't been any at all people would likely have complained about that as well, because it would have seemed unrealistic for people that age to not have crushes and relationships which were considered long if they lasted more than three months. It's part of growing up, and most teenage romantic relationships are hugely different from grown up relationships. I was really surprised after reading the book to discover how many people on my flist had found it ridiculous.

[madderbrad]

Hated it.

Rowling seemed incapable of portraying 'love' and teenage attraction via any agency other than primitive jealousy, which is (a) horrible to read and (b) a horrible example to her child readership.

Harry's lust for Ginny was born from his jealous rage over seeing her kiss Dean. The puerile R/Hr nonsense was driven by, and consisted almost solely of, jealousy and games of spiteful jealousy. Ginny would spend her every second scene in DH being jealous of anything female around Harry.

It's a horrible way to portray teenage attraction but seems to be the only way Rowling can manage/display it. The 'romance' filled up roughly half the book and was a major reason for why HBP was so bad.

[zorb]

Wasn't a fan. It made me like every character involved less than I did before. :-/

[patoo_tee]

Hated it! Give me darkness anyday!

[kate34books]

Somewhere in between

I hated the way Harry/Ginny was played out. the ridiculous 'chest monster' was gross and superficial and my liking of Ginny Weasley decreased considerably after her treatment of Ron (she was right in calling Ron out but she took it too far and was basically the reason for the whole lav-lav fiasco; for which she never apologized to Hermione, her so called friend, for causing her to go through such heartache)

also, while I understand feeling jealous of Fleur and feeling miffed that Bill was marrying her, the whole 'phelgm' thing behind Fleur's back and trying to get Bill to go for Tonks instead was petty.

was miffed that Ron & Hermione had to go through a jealous- love triangle drama to stall them getting together.

Did genuinely liked Remus/Tonks,which I thought was dealt believably considering it played out mostly in the background

[ladysugarquill]

LOVED IT. MY SHIPPY HEART.