I’ve Finished Harry Potter Already, and Everyone Hates it

njbubbster02: dude. there are zombies in the new Harry potter. it’s awesome.
Tim Scheff: go to hell
njbubbster02: alright. I’ll shutup.
Tim Scheff: thats better

If you want to remain happy at me, unlike Scheffler, for not disclosing what happens, then do not read ahead.

As I have mentioned I finished The Half-Blood Prince last night. I have four qualms with the book.

1) The whole Harry-Ginny relationship. At first I was just annoyed by it. But later I just grew to accept it and even buy it. http://www.muggle.net offers a good explanation of why this relationship might occur (prior to the book’s release). “What we said before book 5: ‘Ginny is infatuated with Harry, but so far Harry hasn’t shown any signs of interest in her. Maybe Harry hasn’t really noticed her yet because she is Ron’s little sister. Ginny will mature, and maybe Harry will begin to notice her more in book 5. JKR did say that Ginny Weasley would play more of a role in book 5′.”

And their analysis is pretty much correct, in so far as the story plays out. However, its just hard for me to accept the sudden change from “Ron’s Sister” to “my girlfriend.” Even though the book doesn’t make that change sudden, it was initially hard for me to buy because I’ve become accustom to seeing Harry ignore Ginny’s advances, if you can call them that.

2) “The End of the Harry-Ginny Relationship” (or is it?). David Kippen writes a pretty nasty review of the book here. Although I didn’t agree with his clearly angry tone or many of his criticisms, he raises an interesting point at the end of the article. In fact, when I read this part of the book I even shouted–”But Love is what wins! You can’t ditch her now!” or something to that effect. I’m referring to contradiction between Dumbledore’s words about the power of love and Harry’s actions to ditch Ginny, Ron, and Hermione, his girlfriend and best friends. Kippen writes, “In the new book’s best scene, Harry’s mentor Dumbledore solemnly tells him that, ‘You are protected by your ability to love.’ In other words, the only thing that distinguishes Harry from his evil adversary is the simple capacity for human tenderness.” This seems to be an apparent contraction. Especially when you consider McGonagal’s comments about how Dumbledore “would be happy to see a little more love in world” after the discussion that Fleur would still Marry the disfigured Bill and that Lupin and Tonks would finally get together (although, its not like we really understood the nature of Tonk’s unrequited love).

He goes on to say that, “And yet for Harry, as for the new breed of movie loner-superhero, to express love is finally seen as a distraction or, worse, a weakness. When the seventh and final Potter novel finally arrives, would it be too much to hope that the hero prevails, not because he can manfully sacrifice his capacity for love, but because he can’t? “

And I full heartedly agree. Although there is one problem: giving up some one does not necessarily mean he gives up the capacity to love. He still has the ability to do so, he just chooses not to exercise it. It is a fine point, but one that makes a difference. However, I hope this distinction isn’t meaningful and that not just fraternal love is apart of the destruction of Voldemort (gasp. I can say it too… But apparently the t is supposed to be silent. That’s right, you-know-who, you’re VoldeMORT as in Mort Nathan, writer of Golden Girls, or Mort Thaw, writer for CHiPs–and that’s some pretty bad company.)

Moreover, I would feel kinda cheap if this only lasted for one book. There’s so much time devoted to the relationships of the young protagonists, that if this suddenly didn’t matter in the last book, it pretty much makes this book pointless aside from figuring out the horcuxes.

I don’t think that Rowling intends to allow Harry to give up the people he loves (and who are still alive). Ron and Hermione will not let Harry go alone, and Rowling has already scripted an event for the seventh book in which Harry cannot avoid Ginny; Bill and Fluer’s wedding. So it seems to inevitable that Harry’s relationship is not over. And I think I read a rumor somewhere that there’s supposed to be sex scene in one of the later books (and if it was in six, I didn’t catch it). Of course, it’ll be shrouded in her super aloof writing so that little kids can’t figure out what’s going on, like all things.

Moreover, as Harry “sees” the images of Dumbledore, Sirius, Harry and Lily at Dumbledore’s tomb he feels to stand tall and fight as they did, because his protection is gone. A Harry-Ginny relationship, isn’t entirely exclusive of this. In fact, it would be really reminiscent of Harry’s parents standing together against the Dark Lord.

3) Too many questions, not enough answers. This book seemed to sacrifice happenings at school and the lives of the characters for back story. At times this seems that this is all there is at the expense of the school based motif that has driven all of the stories thus far. And the back story that was provided didn’t even answer some of the questions that we were supposed to find out about. For example many fan sites have indicated that we in the remaining books Harry’s parents’ professions are supposedly to matter, as well as the fact that Harry has his mother’s eyes and that she was good at charms. As well as why the prior incantum effect from Goblet didn’t kill either Harry or You-Know-Who. None of this was discussed in this book. Meaning that we have to figure that out in the next book. We also have to figure out who R.A.B. is.

We also have to figure out exactly how many horcuxes remain. Dumbledore told Harry that he thinks that You-Know-Who only made six, because he never got to make a seventh because Harry lived. However, towards the end of book Harry is reciting six items. It seemed to me, from the note of R.A.B that Harry would only have to find two: the cup and the snake. Because the ring and the book have been destroyed for sure. That leaves the snake, the locket, the cup, and voldemort himself. I would also presume that locket is really destroyed and not just hidden elsewhere, as Harry seems to think. Toward the end of the book though, Harry adds “something of ravenclaw or griffindor in conjunction with the locket.” So which is it?

And some how we have to deal with the truth about Snape. Why the hell did Dumbledore trust him? Is he really evil?

You get my point. The book creates more questions than it answers and abandon’s the school motif that I really enjoyed. Don’t forget, much of the humor of the previous books is based off of the “in school” idea. School seems almost secondary to the plot now. So this book seems to plow along with little informational tid bits, until the last 150 pages or so, with little action or reparte. In this regard, I highly doubt that any of our protagonist will return to Hogwarts, there’s just too much stuff to deal with and too much action to happen. But this leads me to my last qualm.

4) Harry can’t beat Snape. Snape let’s us know Harry’s weakness loud and clear: he can’t keep either his mind or his mouth shut. In particular Harry’s failure to learn occulemcy has been a particular gripe of mine, no matter how mean Snape is. I guess its just my personality; I know that if I were supposed to kill the most dark wizard of all time that I would at least work to overcome my weakness, instead of worrying about a dream so clearly meant to be a trap.

Allow me to make my point more clearly. I find it hard to believe that Harry is ability wise ready to face and win a fight against the Dark Lord, even if he had all of the remaining members of the Order with him. He can’t shut his mind off, he can’t cast silent spells, and he doesn’t have the ability to use any of the unforgivable curses. So even if they managed to track down all of the horcruxes like a Legend of Zelda game, Harry does not yet posses the silver arrow/light arrow/majora’s mask necessary to take down Gannon/Voldemort. In the seventh book Harry must either get stronger or find another weakness. Jess and I think another exists based on a passage from Goblet of Fire, where Dumbledore shows a contented smile at Harry for Voldemort using his blood.

And I find it hard to believe that Harry can accomplish either even if he were to return to Hogwarts. Most of the accomplished Wizards are now dead, so who can he learn from? Besides, this seems like it would take a lot of text away from the needed story. We would have to get a new head for griffindor/transfigurations teacher (I doubt McGonagal can be both a teacher and headmistress) and a new defense against the dark arts teacher.

But I’m certain that #4 will be resolved though. Never the less, I did enjoy the book. I liked that it was shorter and more concise. JKR did have a good plan for this book, nothing really seemed super random, like parts of Order of the Phoenix. The action sequence at the end was awesome. I’m always a big fan of zombies/Nefieri (whatever). I liked the role of quidditch captain for Harry. I did enjoy the Ron/Hermione/Lavender love triangle. Plus the Half-Blood Prince stuff was interesting, although repetitive.

If you’re interested. My ranking of the entire series so far, goes like this:
1.) Goblet of Fire
2.) Socerer’s Stone
3.) Prisoner of Azkaban
4.) Order of the Phoenix
5.) Half-Blood Prince
6.) Chamber of Secrets (I’m not a huge fan of Dobby. One might use the word hate).