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HBP Spoiler Zone
So I'm finished.
Harry
Had some interesting character evolution in this one. I appreciated seeing him coming out of the dark time with a more capable approach to the world around him. Unlike so many people on my flist I'm not going to describe how I have nightmares and wake in a cold sweat at the thought of Harry being an angry emo teenager, but I'm glad to see that he grew from it in the direction that Rowling was clearly bringing him in: a more mature, involved persona. Harry the happy eleven-year-old wouldn't have made a very good protagonist, since he never seemed to care about the things people OBVIOUSLY weren't telling him; he quickly put those things out of his mind and went back to being, well, a kid. OotP!Harry finally got frustrated that no one would answer his questions and tried to keep him wrapped up in blankets. I think I would've been pissed too. But HBP!Harry is a big improvement on the early innocent years and, of course, also from the angry emo teenagerness.
Harry and Ginny
Okay, at first I half-suspected this was fake -- ie, something Malfoy was doing, or something, to try and sabotage him -- because it came out of nowhere. I don't have too much of a problem with it, really, and at the end I respected the way it "ended". They were cute together. I do have a problem with Ginny, who seems more and more like a Sue every time I hear about her (she's excellent at sports, a powerful witch, a mischief-maker but a saint when adults are looking, Hermione's best friend and Harry's love interest, so popular with both girls and *eyebrow wiggle* boys...) but I liked the last moments, at the funeral, when she told us about Hermione's advice, and the way she took Harry's need to "end" it. It wasn't "ZOMG WE WILL STAY 2GETHA 4EVA ILL GO W/YOU!!1" but a quietly accepting recognition that, really, it's okay to end this way -- for now. And maybe later...
Harry: when he has a sexuality at all, he is straight as an arrow. A lot of people have mentioned to me (including a diehard Sirius/Harry shipper which is... UGH. SO WRONG.) as a valid point of argument that he calls Sirius or Lockhart or whoever "handsome" a lot more than he describes any given female as being pretty, but... well, he's the narrator. The narrator is (and, I hope, most human beings are!) allowed to describe people of the same-sex as handsome or pretty without being interested in them: he describes Sirius as handsome but never attractive or sexy or gorgeous or hot even though he totally is because not only do fangirls say it but Rowling has confirmed it; it's just something he observes, whereas with girls, often the descriptors of attractiveness ARE accompanied by physical recognition of it, a twist in his stomach or the coiling beast of Dean/Ginny or whatever impulses seized him when veela were around. I think the girl I met today in one of the apartments I saw was pretty and would describe her so in my account of the apartment if I bothered to write one, but that doesn't make me a raging lesbian. XD Not directed at![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
caffeineaddict, just inspired by her.
Ginny: She attracts a decent number of black guys. Both Dean and Blaise (who shocks the fandom by being both male and BLACK) wanted in her pants. Kinda.
Bill and Fleur
...they seem really sweet after all that happened.
Remus and Tonks
This is probably just my biases talking, but I don't buy it at all. When she all but threw herself at him at a highly inappropriate moment, "Dumbledore is dead and Bill is lying here with his face chewed off but I TOLD YOU WOMEN WILL FUCK WEREWOLVES SO LET'S DO IT!" -- Remus just didn't seem very interested. He was avoiding her gaze and trying to tell her that she deserved better but... I don't know. It didn't sound like he was being modest so much as attempting to deflect her nicely. "I keep telling you, I'm old. You deserve someone younger. And not a werewolf." I'll have to read it again to see if he's had any hints; I know she's been hinting all over the place, but I suspect it's one-sided and he just really doesn't want to turn her down and upset her even more.
If Remus did fall for somebody in a believable way, I like to think I would be all for it, even given my Sirius/Remus bias. If he and NARCISSA started up something in the wake of, say, Draco and Narcissa on the run from Voldemort, that would be interesting. But... meh. I'm just seeing Tonks as being less than sincere. There weren't any hints of it in OotP, so it has to have been post-Sirius-death. Stress, the lure of hurt/comfort, may just be coloring it that way. The maybe holding hands bit doesn't convince me.
Ron and Hermione
It's about fricking time, although I admit that a lot of the sniping and/or random pairings were pretty amusing. I give this extra bonus points because I don't like Harry/Hermione-shippers. Since this is otherwise self-evident and perfectly natural, that is all.
Dumbledore
HOLY CRAP, I was surprised. I mean, I knew Dumbledore would have to die pretty soon, but, holy crap. I was absolutely not expecting him to go quite like that. It was really shocking to see Snape... murder him like that, and the fall, and the broken, and the YEP, DEFINITELY DEAD. I mean, he's Dumbledore. It seemed like when he went out it would be with something grand, heroic, savioresque, "YOU SHALL NOT PASS"... but like Sirius, it was just a human death, potentially at the hands of someone in whom his greatest trust was misplaced. (Although unlike Sirius, he is quite definitely dead.)
Slughorn
Okay. Slughorn? Awesome. I just had to say it. I loved him for being the shrewd but fallible gossip-mongery spider he was. And I have been waiting SIX BOOKS for a Slytherin with some redeeming features, who wasn't just Evil. And Slughorn was a good guy in spite of himself, and fun, if conniving and certainly selfish. I enjoyed him as a character.
Snape
The Half-Blood Prince. I should've guessed it would be him because of the obvious flair for potions, but I didn't think of him; I don't think I ever realized he wasn't pureblooded, or at least full-blooded wizard. I enjoy the many levels of pun in calling himself "the Half-blood Prince", and also the HUGE DORKINESS of scribbling it in his textbooks.
caffeineaddict: "lol all those n00bs can go die cuz i'm teh half blood prince lol"
caffeineaddict: "i'll show j00, james, oh yes i will lol!"
kay_willow: "They beat me up at school but IN MY HEAD I'm the HALF-BLOOD PRINCE RAWR."
caffeineaddict: "they beat me up WITH MY OWN SPELLS"
caffeineaddict: ...snape was so lame XD
kay_willow: XD XD That was pretty funny.
caffeineaddict: i bet he drew comic-book like figuers of him being all half-blood princely on the corners of his papers.
Dumbledore and Snape
First, let me say that I would not be surprised if Snape really IS loyal to Voldemort, but I don't think so. I think that he was making the only choice he could make.
Snape made an Unbreakable Vow that he would help Draco kill Dumbledore and failing to do that would've meant his death. On the other hand, if he'd been willing to pay that price, there was still no chance for Dumbledore. He betrays his true allegiances, dies on the spot pointlessly, a Death Eater kills Dumbledore anyway (and Snape if the Vow takes its time to kill you), and Draco is still in their hands. And never mind that Dumbledore was weakened and probably already dying without an antidote from Snape delivered fifteen minutes beforehand... Killing Dumbledore wasn't really murdering, almost more like a mercy killing. Better to do it himself than to turn the still salvageable Draco irrevocably onto the path of homicide.
R.A.B.
...zomg I totally spoiled myself for who this is and it seems so obvious in retrospect. Rowling, you are a clever, clever fiend.
Harry
Had some interesting character evolution in this one. I appreciated seeing him coming out of the dark time with a more capable approach to the world around him. Unlike so many people on my flist I'm not going to describe how I have nightmares and wake in a cold sweat at the thought of Harry being an angry emo teenager, but I'm glad to see that he grew from it in the direction that Rowling was clearly bringing him in: a more mature, involved persona. Harry the happy eleven-year-old wouldn't have made a very good protagonist, since he never seemed to care about the things people OBVIOUSLY weren't telling him; he quickly put those things out of his mind and went back to being, well, a kid. OotP!Harry finally got frustrated that no one would answer his questions and tried to keep him wrapped up in blankets. I think I would've been pissed too. But HBP!Harry is a big improvement on the early innocent years and, of course, also from the angry emo teenagerness.
Harry and Ginny
Okay, at first I half-suspected this was fake -- ie, something Malfoy was doing, or something, to try and sabotage him -- because it came out of nowhere. I don't have too much of a problem with it, really, and at the end I respected the way it "ended". They were cute together. I do have a problem with Ginny, who seems more and more like a Sue every time I hear about her (she's excellent at sports, a powerful witch, a mischief-maker but a saint when adults are looking, Hermione's best friend and Harry's love interest, so popular with both girls and *eyebrow wiggle* boys...) but I liked the last moments, at the funeral, when she told us about Hermione's advice, and the way she took Harry's need to "end" it. It wasn't "ZOMG WE WILL STAY 2GETHA 4EVA ILL GO W/YOU!!1" but a quietly accepting recognition that, really, it's okay to end this way -- for now. And maybe later...
Harry: when he has a sexuality at all, he is straight as an arrow. A lot of people have mentioned to me (including a diehard Sirius/Harry shipper which is... UGH. SO WRONG.) as a valid point of argument that he calls Sirius or Lockhart or whoever "handsome" a lot more than he describes any given female as being pretty, but... well, he's the narrator. The narrator is (and, I hope, most human beings are!) allowed to describe people of the same-sex as handsome or pretty without being interested in them: he describes Sirius as handsome but never attractive or sexy or gorgeous or hot even though he totally is because not only do fangirls say it but Rowling has confirmed it; it's just something he observes, whereas with girls, often the descriptors of attractiveness ARE accompanied by physical recognition of it, a twist in his stomach or the coiling beast of Dean/Ginny or whatever impulses seized him when veela were around. I think the girl I met today in one of the apartments I saw was pretty and would describe her so in my account of the apartment if I bothered to write one, but that doesn't make me a raging lesbian. XD Not directed at
caffeineaddict, just inspired by her.Ginny: She attracts a decent number of black guys. Both Dean and Blaise (who shocks the fandom by being both male and BLACK) wanted in her pants. Kinda.
Bill and Fleur
...they seem really sweet after all that happened.
Remus and Tonks
This is probably just my biases talking, but I don't buy it at all. When she all but threw herself at him at a highly inappropriate moment, "Dumbledore is dead and Bill is lying here with his face chewed off but I TOLD YOU WOMEN WILL FUCK WEREWOLVES SO LET'S DO IT!" -- Remus just didn't seem very interested. He was avoiding her gaze and trying to tell her that she deserved better but... I don't know. It didn't sound like he was being modest so much as attempting to deflect her nicely. "I keep telling you, I'm old. You deserve someone younger. And not a werewolf." I'll have to read it again to see if he's had any hints; I know she's been hinting all over the place, but I suspect it's one-sided and he just really doesn't want to turn her down and upset her even more.
If Remus did fall for somebody in a believable way, I like to think I would be all for it, even given my Sirius/Remus bias. If he and NARCISSA started up something in the wake of, say, Draco and Narcissa on the run from Voldemort, that would be interesting. But... meh. I'm just seeing Tonks as being less than sincere. There weren't any hints of it in OotP, so it has to have been post-Sirius-death. Stress, the lure of hurt/comfort, may just be coloring it that way. The maybe holding hands bit doesn't convince me.
Ron and Hermione
It's about fricking time, although I admit that a lot of the sniping and/or random pairings were pretty amusing. I give this extra bonus points because I don't like Harry/Hermione-shippers. Since this is otherwise self-evident and perfectly natural, that is all.
Dumbledore
HOLY CRAP, I was surprised. I mean, I knew Dumbledore would have to die pretty soon, but, holy crap. I was absolutely not expecting him to go quite like that. It was really shocking to see Snape... murder him like that, and the fall, and the broken, and the YEP, DEFINITELY DEAD. I mean, he's Dumbledore. It seemed like when he went out it would be with something grand, heroic, savioresque, "YOU SHALL NOT PASS"... but like Sirius, it was just a human death, potentially at the hands of someone in whom his greatest trust was misplaced. (Although unlike Sirius, he is quite definitely dead.)
Slughorn
Okay. Slughorn? Awesome. I just had to say it. I loved him for being the shrewd but fallible gossip-mongery spider he was. And I have been waiting SIX BOOKS for a Slytherin with some redeeming features, who wasn't just Evil. And Slughorn was a good guy in spite of himself, and fun, if conniving and certainly selfish. I enjoyed him as a character.
Snape
The Half-Blood Prince. I should've guessed it would be him because of the obvious flair for potions, but I didn't think of him; I don't think I ever realized he wasn't pureblooded, or at least full-blooded wizard. I enjoy the many levels of pun in calling himself "the Half-blood Prince", and also the HUGE DORKINESS of scribbling it in his textbooks.
caffeineaddict: "lol all those n00bs can go die cuz i'm teh half blood prince lol"caffeineaddict: "i'll show j00, james, oh yes i will lol!"kay_willow: "They beat me up at school but IN MY HEAD I'm the HALF-BLOOD PRINCE RAWR."caffeineaddict: "they beat me up WITH MY OWN SPELLS"caffeineaddict: ...snape was so lame XDkay_willow: XD XD That was pretty funny.caffeineaddict: i bet he drew comic-book like figuers of him being all half-blood princely on the corners of his papers.Dumbledore and Snape
First, let me say that I would not be surprised if Snape really IS loyal to Voldemort, but I don't think so. I think that he was making the only choice he could make.
Snape made an Unbreakable Vow that he would help Draco kill Dumbledore and failing to do that would've meant his death. On the other hand, if he'd been willing to pay that price, there was still no chance for Dumbledore. He betrays his true allegiances, dies on the spot pointlessly, a Death Eater kills Dumbledore anyway (and Snape if the Vow takes its time to kill you), and Draco is still in their hands. And never mind that Dumbledore was weakened and probably already dying without an antidote from Snape delivered fifteen minutes beforehand... Killing Dumbledore wasn't really murdering, almost more like a mercy killing. Better to do it himself than to turn the still salvageable Draco irrevocably onto the path of homicide.
R.A.B.
...zomg I totally spoiled myself for who this is and it seems so obvious in retrospect. Rowling, you are a clever, clever fiend.
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Yeah, I was impressed by how much he'd grown too. Especially the way he was constantly coping with Sirius's death, not forgetting but not getting bogged down in misery either.
Harry and Ginny
I always thought this might have been pretty cute, if somewhat blatantly predictable. But the way Rowling handled it . . . I was getting vaguely creepy McTeague vibes, quite honestly. But I agree it ended well.
Re: Ginny's Sue-ness, good, it's not just me ahaha.
And dude, Harry IS straight. Straight straight straight what the hell are fangirls thinking straight.
Bill and Fleur
I really needed someone to have a backbone and a brain at this point, and whoa! Fleur! Good for her. She was pretty much the only one who managed to surprise me.
Remus and Tonks
Saw this coming ever since Snape mentioned that her Patronus had changed (because, really, Sirius was just TOO BLAZINGLY OBVIOUS), but it still irritated me. I was thinking it would be pretty cool of Rowling if the reasons for Tonks' depression were 1) her cousin just died, and 2) Remus's reaction made it pretty clear just where his affections lie. I'd love to believe that his stereotypical wangsty shtick about "I'm too flawed--you deserve better" is just a gentle way of turning her down, but . . . I'm just not sure Rowling is that subtle a writer.
At any rate, Tonks's timing WAS horrendously inappropriate. Actually, I think she handled herself in an extremely immature way throughout the book, especially when compared to HARRY, who is still more or less a kid.
Ron and Hermione
Yeah, they were pretty much destined, I think, and I expect their relationship will be like a little island of relative sanity compared to all the Apocalyptic, world-endy-ness we'll be getting in the seventh book. It was sortay clumsily handled in this one though, don't you think? Of course, the teen-aged romance drama annoyed me in general. Not its fault, necessarily, just not something I felt like reading.
Dumbledore
I kind of figured it'd end like this, actually. Too often the other characters held him aloft like some kind of god, and we know that Rowling's all into the fragility of life and how sudden and pointless death can sometimes be. Way I see it, she wanted Dumbledore to be HUMAN in the end, a contrast to Voldemort, who's sacrificed his humanity for power.
Slughorn
Agreed on all points. :] Hope he stays on as Potions Master for seven.
Snape
I loved Snape this time around. It's like all the work Rowling did in the first five books is finally yielding a crop. I'm sure that Snape is 100% Dumbledore's man (actually, the Order annoyed the piss out of me by not even considering the possibility, but I guess there's the shock and the fact that Harry's account was slanted by emotion). Reasons: 1) Dumbledore was not the kind of man to plead for HIS life, no matter what the circumstances; 2) as you say, it was essentially a mercy killing at that point, and any other move on Snape's part would have been pointless and even damaging to the Order; 3) preserving Draco's innocence a la Road to Perdition, obviously; and 4) Snape's unwillingness to harm Harry in any way until Harry called him a coward.
The fact that being called a coward enraged him is very telling, I think. Here he is, risking his own life by spying of VOLDEMORT HIMSELF, having just killed the last man on Earth who trusted him (because Voldemort certainly doesn't, and neither do any of the Death Eaters or the Order) under highly suspicious circumstances, and is even now trying to protect two innocents (Harry and Draco), mainly from themselves. And he has NO ONE to turn to, NO ONE to confide in, now that Dumbledore is gone. Coward? Not so much.
R.A.B.
Didn't actually spoil myself on this bit yet, but I can only think of one character we know of with R and B for initials. And he is dead, so . . .
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Ron/Hermione: I certainly found it less than mature, but I didn't find it actively annoying. That's what kids are like, really. It's high school. It's not pretty and you don't have to like it, I know I wasn't at the edge of my seat wondering what Days Of Our Wizarding Lives antics were going to occur next... But I don't know if the actual events were heavy-handed so much as the teenagers indulging through it. :P
Snape: Spoken like a true Snape fan? But actually, I'm really pissed off at the people who are annoyed at the Order for coming to the only conclusion they possibly could have.
Snape may have his shinies in prose, and I appreciate his unrelentingly snarky bastardness, but if you met him in real life, you probably would be hard-pressed to take Lupin's stance and avoid disliking him actively. Can you blame them for not being inclined to soul-search Snape's every movement when the obvious answer doesn't seem that OOC?
And they don't KNOW the full extent of what happened. They don't know the full extent of Dumbledore's condition. All they know is what Harry told them: I was on top of the tower. I SAW IT. Dumbledore was hurt and needed Snape's assistance enough to beg and Snape KILLED HIM. All of which is true. But Harry didn't tell anyone how Dumbledore got hurt -- what happened to them -- the condition he's in -- because Dumbledore wanted it a secret, and why bother defying him for a man who seemed, clearly enough, to be guilty of the crime he was being accused of?
And don't tell me you're angry at HARRY for not giving Snape a fair trial. XD Too many fans think that they, as an objective outside observer, have the right to get angry at characters for not behaving the way they, with their superior knowledge and neutral perspective, would have.
Tangentially though, you're right -- I like it when Snape does something heroic, almost OOC, even though he gets little enough credit for it. Like in PoA when he DID save the lives of the trio, or here, where he WAS doing something he hated doing because it was Necessary, but it was interpreted as cowardice. On those rare occasions when he has pure intentions he always seems to wind up villified anyway. XD
Page 116 of the paperback edition of OotP for the reason why I think R.A.B is him indeed. ^_^
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Looking back, it wasn't really Harry or the Order that I was pissed at--more Rowling for constantly hitting us over the head with "Hey! They don't trust Snape! They HATE him! Harry hates him more than VOLDEMORT! No, really! EVERYONE HATES HIM AND THINKS HE'S A TRAITOR!!!" I mean, you really can't expect the Order to sit down and try to see things from a different, ridiculously unorthodox angle in the immediate wake of Dumbledore's death, but.
I guess part of the problem is . . . I'm not so much a Rowling fanboy? I think, deep down, I don't even really enjoy the series anymore. But I know I'm going to end up reading them eventually and since I hate being spoiled, I feel pressured to get through them as quickly as possible (it's handy that I'm a freakishly fast reader . . . well, in English, anyway). Add that to the fact that I really don't like having to do something I don't WANT to do at any given moment, and you get an idea of my mindset at the time.
Also, it's been ridiculously hot here for the past month, so maybe I'm just in a foul, snarky mood all around? :D;;;
Meh
Harry
He's gotten really annoying for me. He's an obsessive, blindly courageous snoop and I really wouldn't be too surprised if he ended up turning 'to the dark side' (reason for Star Wars reference will be mentioned later)
Harry and Ginny
Really wasn't believing this at first, seemed more like 'he's playing with the game I wasn't using but now I want to play with it' (need shorter sentence for that) And is it just me or did Ginny turn from cute little sister to slut in between the two books. Getting on with her life is one thing, snogging every guy within a 5 mile radius is another. She did come off as very Mary-Sueish (Lisa S. "J.K Rowling! What's going to happen with Harry Potter?" JKR "He's going to grow up and marry you. Is that what you want to hear?" Lisa S. *swoon* "Yes") BTW that break up line with Ginny was totally from Spiderman 2.
Remus and Tonks
If Ginny is the Mary-Sue for girls around the world, than Tonks is Rowling's own personal avatar. Hooking up with Remus?! Totally blindsided me. I thought Tonks was going to end up being under the imperious or something.
Dumbledore
I WIN!!!! I knew he was going to die, but did he have to do it in such an Obi-Kenobi fashion? And what was with the spirits appearing to Harry at the funeral? Symbolic, sure, but did she have to rip off of something so blatently Star Wars?
Horcrux
Whee! It's a quest. Find the remaining 3 horcurxes and destroy them before Voldemort takes over the world. Anyone else get the feeling that Harry was accidentally made into a Horcrux and that he's going to have to kill himself in the end in order to kill Voldemort? I'm thinking that that might be one of the reasons that the dark Lord doesn't want anyone else to kill the boy, he needs to remove the part of his soul he left behind.
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har har har!
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The second thing I thought was ZOMG HAAAA. XD
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