My official spoiler post

We finished reading Half-Blood Prince last night.

This is my official Harry Potter spoiler post.

If you click the cut, the OMG SECRETS of the book will be revealed.

If you bitch at me having clicked the cut, you are a retard.



OK. In no particular order:

-I do think it's realistic that at the age of sixteen, boys become men, girls become women, and serious snogging starts. That said, I think there was a bit much of it. Lavender-Ron-Hermionie, Dean-Ginny-Harry, Tonks-Sirius-Oops-I-Mean-Lupin... I'm surprised Albus and Minerva didn't get busy on the floor of his office at some point. Even Draco had a girlfriend.

-It was obvious that Dumbledore was going to die. It was foreshadowed throughout the entire book. It was also obvious that Draco was tasked to do it, and that Snape took the Unbreakable Vow to do it if Draco couldn't.

-I admit, I didn't finger Snape as being the Half-Blood Prince. I'd always thought Snape was a pureblood, so I ruled him out. I also knew that Rowling specifically disclosed that the Half-Blood Prince was neither Harry nor Voldemort, so...

-Horcruxes. OK. For starters, I'm really insulted that Rowling thinks it isn't screamingly obvious that Harry himself is the sixth Horcrux - at least, not obvious enough to make mention of it in the book. Let's look at the facts, shall we?

* Dumbledore stipulated that Harry's murder was going to be used by Voldemort to create his sixth and final Horcrux.
* Harry was altered by the attempted murder - it left a scar. The Cadaverus curse doesn't leave marks.
* Harry is a Parselmouth, a trait associated with Voldemort's maternal lineage, the descendants of Salazar Slytherin.
* Harry and Voldemort had a psychic link from the time Voldemort was reborn, for unexplained reasons, ended only when Voldemort applied Occlumency.
* The wand that chose Harry was the "brother" of Voldemort's wand, showing another link between the two.
* Horcruxes can be living beings - Voldemort's snake is one of his, according to Dumbledore, and that fact made his control and companionship with the snake that much greater. (Psychic link, anyone?)

-Harry's the sixth Horcrux, and it's bloody obvious, and it annoys me Rowling didn't allow Harry to figure that out on his own.

-I don't like that Snape went bad. Snape to me had always been the hero in black. The man who felt honor-bound to do the right thing even though he had personal hatred for those who benefitted. The man who saved Harry from Quirrel during his first Quidditch match, and who acted to stop Quirrel from taking the Philosopher's/Sorcerer's Stone. The man who took suspicion off Harry when the Chamber of Secrets was opened. The man who was abused and humiliated by James Potter, giving him a legitimate gripe. The man who earned the trust of Dumbledore.

I don't like that he was set up to be Dumbledore's folly - the misplaced belief in goodness, to be that which slays Dumbledore even as he was giving Draco the benefit of the doubt.

And I don't like that Rowling made the murder of Dumbledore so equivocal... Snape had to kill Dumbledore or he himself would die, yet when he turned on Dumbledore, the look of hatred in his face made it clear he despised the man, though some theorists will say he hated himself for what he had to do. And then, even as he fled, he protected Harry under the guise of "The Dark Lord's orders". (Which will fuel theories of this all being Dumbledore's plan and Snape still being a good guy.)

I guarantee theories circulating surrounding Snape for the next two years will include this:

Snape killed Dumbledore on Dumbledore's orders, to become that much deeper in the enemy's counsel. The blackened arm that Dumbledore suffered as a result of his destruction of the Horcrux in the ring was a mortal wound. Dumbledore was dying anyway. Dumbledore sought to make his death useful to save Draco, save Snape, and help Snape get that much closer to Voldemort to help Harry in his final confrontation, or perhaps even to find more Horcruxes. Snape is, after all, a skilled Legilimens and Occlumens, and is better than anyone at concealing his true thoughts. So Snape's still a good guy.

It's wishful thinking, though. I don't like where Rowling has written Snape, because it's inconsistent, and its only literary value is showing that even the wisest and greatest have their weaknesses.

-Draco, on the other hand, is much more interesting, with his emotional vulnerability and his inability/unwillingness to cross the line he could never uncross. I'm looking forward hopefully to his eventual salvation.

-I'm also annoyed that Dumbledore's death had to be, at least it appears, a total loss - there was no need for the Horcrux they retrieved to have been a fake. Sure it was used to introduce this mysterious "R.A.B", but RAB could have been introduced by any one of a number of other means. I understand that it makes things more exciting and dramatic to have things become darkest before the dawn, sure, but c'mon. Dumbledore's death should have been at least a sacrifice, not a total loss (though, of course, his death could be revealed to be for a greater purpose in the next book). If you're going to suck the life out of the reader with a downer, do it when there's time left in the book to recover something of value from the tragedy, to give hope. Hell, even George Lucas got that right in Empire Strikes Back. The best we got out of Rowling was Hermione and Ron pledging to stand by Harry no matter what.

-I'm also annoyed by minor details, like Umbridge being allowed within a mile of Hogwarts, even and especially for Dumbledore's funeral.

Sigh.

But, through it all, I have to admit that the book left me hungry for book 7 in a big way, so by that fact alone, HBP was overall a great success.