My (Long and Unpopular) Opinion of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
This was, possibly, JKR's most anticipated release. With every teenage tween in the world in her grips , the additional fans brought in buy the WB's movie releases as well as a two year hiatus, fans had time to really tear apart everything she siad in and after the release of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (OOTP) and work themselves into a nice anticipation about what this story would be.
We were disappointed.
While the plotpoints were up to her usual par, the delivery of the tale was botched for several reasons, some her fault, some no longer within her control.
The First Deviation:
One of the biggest arguments in the fanfiction world is how canon to keep things. All of JKR's releases, this one excluded, have been told from the perspective, and only from the perspective of Harry Potter. For fanfiction fan's, this is a limitaton that many will not accept as it means that everything one wishes to say must be said through a 16-year old boy. For the first time in about 4000 pages, JKR deviated from that. For me, it was a sign of things to come; this is bad.
That is not to say that she has not foreyed into third-person encounters with other characters before. There are a few hundred people shaking their fists at me right now and shouting "What about the beginning of GOF (Goblet of Fire - Book 4)" To them, I say, what of it? The beginning of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire told a short tale of a man named Frank Bryce but the encounter was not a disjoined one; it was a dream that Harry had.
That said, the beginning of the chapter itself was fairly well done. Not up to par, perhaps but she was venturing out of the usual and that's usually a little dangerous for any author. I was a bit displeased with the interplay between Bellatrix and Narcissa - effective at conveying the point, perhaps, but there is so much more richness beneath these two characters that was not employed or even alluded to.
These chapters lay the groundwork for the tension point in the rest of the book; Draco, the Unbreakable Bond, and Snape's true loyalties.
Chapter Three: Mundane
Perhaps this is one of the dangers of reading quite a lot of fanfiction (by choice or by queue) but there were no surprises in this chapter for me. Shock and awe as they replace the Fudge, call Harry a tragic hero and generally blunder through saving the Wizarding World when they've no idea what they're doing. Though, I did find the newspaper clippings in Hedwigs cage interesting on several levels - first, it was a great way to get the information across in a straight-forward, page-saving fashion without coming outright and having a character say it and it was also a great set up for whichever yet unknown director is chosen to make this film.
It was interesting, to say the least, for Dumbledore himself to come and fetch Harry from Privet Drive. Generally such a strong character, Dumbledore seemed to lack something. Many have postulated that this has more to do with his illness and impending death (Yes, he dies. Yes, you know it at this page in the book. If you don't, you're an idiot.) and less to do with her seemingly incompetence. It's really quite hard to determine which is right and which is wrong. It would be easy to believe that she was foreshadowing, at this stage, were it not for all of the other flat, underdeveloped, overly simmilar, dialogue and character descriptions in this book.
We move to the dispensation of Sirius' will; not at all surprising though, I was quite disappointed in how they set it up. Where the other books would have given you a few pages between a conflict and it's reslution, this book started straight away at solving things before you really knew what was happening. Unpleasent.
Naturally, this could have been done well (the speed of the thing) if she'd only inserted a few lines to the effect but she just sort of left it hanging there, like quite so many other things.
Chapter Four: When Did That Happen
Chapter Four is the first of many rather large actions that sent readers like me (those of us who re-read OOTP before reading this) into a bit of a confused frenzy. A 16-year old boy with a pension for trouble who has so very recently (a two week time span) been locked away, sheltered and protected by so many is seldom given so much free reign over two weeks without explaination.
It should be added that, at this point, I entered a semi-lucid state known as "The Hemingway Paradox;" that one enters when trudging diligently through something one doesn't want to read for the exponential crappiness of it all. This is the point where I started missing things.
Chapter Five: The First Inklings...
It is in chapter five that the unsettingling feeling of something being up truely sets in. I'm not refering to a plot device or change here - but to the emotional ages of the characters in question.
Hermione Granger
First Kiss: 14 Viktor Krum, international quidditch player.
Favorite Hobby: Reading and Worrying
Most Visible Personality Trait: Well-thought. Hermione seldom does anything without thinking it through. Her plans do not often backfire.
Ron Weasley
First Kiss: As yet unknown
Favorite Hobby: Whinging, avoiding homework, coming up with off the wall theories, Wizards Chess, Quidditch, Exploding Snap
Most Visible Personality Trait: He's a bit of an idiot. Well, he is!
Harry Potter
First Kiss: 15. Cho Chang. She made the move, he's still as big of a prat as ever.
Favorite Hobby: Quidditch, postulating ways other people might be trying to kill him, skulking
Most Visible Personality Trait: Hero complex. Pension for whinging.
These are the characters i've grown to love and loathe and this is where it all starts to come crashing down.
Ginny Weasley
First Kiss: 13. I think. So far, shes the only socially well developed character in the bloody book.
Favorite Hobby: She enjoys Quiddich and always has a boyfriend. As an underdeveloped terciary character, thus far, we know very little about her.
Most Visible Personality Trait: She's Weasley through and through - most particularly, Bill and the Twins. She has a rather large predaliction toward jokes and trouble but with quite enough brains on her head to keep her out of the actual trouble part of things.
Chapter Five: Here it comes....
Borgin and Burkes
In Borgin and Burkes, a shop for Dark Magic in Diagon Alley, we meet Draco Malfoy (this is, of course, after they sneak off under the invisibity cloak to follow him) This scene is mediocre at best until the moment when Hermione, character bio above, gets the brilliant idea that she will simply go into the shop, pawing dark objects at random, playing the part of the giggling girl and insisting that she wishes to buy Draco a birthday present. This, of course, is her ingenious plan for finding out what Draco asked the shopkeeper to reserve for him.
Ladies and gents this wouldn't work in a Wal-Mart, this wouldn't work in a jewelery store and it certainly wouldn't work in a shop where everything purchased is of such...questionable morals. Mind also that Hermione is, clearly, not a pureblood witch. Remember that the Wizarding World is a small one and that the odds of bieng able to pick out a direct line descendent from a crowd would not be unusual.
Madame Malkins: A headache for all occasions...
Note to Self: Never, ever, ever, hit yourself on the head with a 650 page hardback.
Lucius Malfoy is a Death Eater, Murderer, was outsmarted by a batch of teenagers, caputered, a prisoner of Azkaban, etc.. These are descriptive terms I can come up with on the fly. These are terms that Harry, in previous books, has used to describe Lucius. As evidence of the rapid decline in quality control, this is the best she could do when encountering Draco and Narcissa (son and wife to Lucuis, respectively.)
"Harry looked mockingly all aroundt he shop. "Wow...look at that...he's not here now! So why not have a go? They might be ablet o find you a double cell in Azakban with your loser of a husband!" (Page 115, HBP - bold and italics mine)
There are no words. Oh, wait! Yes there are; Ow.
At this stage, we step into a lot of mediocre chapters that work simmilarly to the ones i've already pointed out and I, unlike Jo Rowling, have no desire to make you suffer through them.
One of the great things about a really bad book is that, for the most part, you know everything that is going to happen within the first two hundred pages and, were it not for the fact that i ahve a relatively vested interest in knowing the ins and outs - becuase i'm praying they'll have given her back whatever drug they've taken her off of by the time she's into the 7th book - i would have been able to put it down straight away and not worry about it.
There's a series of awkward and all too quickly delivered chapters. There's a page on which Ron and Ginny get into a shouting match in the hallway over her...uh..escapades with boys - none of which seem extreme or out of whack with a normal fifteen year old. There's a page dedicated entirely to how 'fanciable' Harry has become.
It's not bad, if the authore were a 15 year old fanfigirl and not the creator of the series. Her camp has confirmed, prior to the release of this book that JKR, from time to time, does read fanfiction. Until July 16th, I would have thought that a lie to placate people like Jay who invest thousands of dollars in running sites like HPFF. Now, I believe it fully and completely and really wish she would lay off!
All of that complaining done, however, the plotpoints in this book were still good and i'm forever grateful for the Remus/Tonks scene in the end bit. However, even those 35 lines or so could be torn apart and contested as compeletly off balance with the rest of the series.
Alas, i think she may have lost her touch.
We were disappointed.
While the plotpoints were up to her usual par, the delivery of the tale was botched for several reasons, some her fault, some no longer within her control.
The First Deviation:
One of the biggest arguments in the fanfiction world is how canon to keep things. All of JKR's releases, this one excluded, have been told from the perspective, and only from the perspective of Harry Potter. For fanfiction fan's, this is a limitaton that many will not accept as it means that everything one wishes to say must be said through a 16-year old boy. For the first time in about 4000 pages, JKR deviated from that. For me, it was a sign of things to come; this is bad.
That is not to say that she has not foreyed into third-person encounters with other characters before. There are a few hundred people shaking their fists at me right now and shouting "What about the beginning of GOF (Goblet of Fire - Book 4)" To them, I say, what of it? The beginning of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire told a short tale of a man named Frank Bryce but the encounter was not a disjoined one; it was a dream that Harry had.
That said, the beginning of the chapter itself was fairly well done. Not up to par, perhaps but she was venturing out of the usual and that's usually a little dangerous for any author. I was a bit displeased with the interplay between Bellatrix and Narcissa - effective at conveying the point, perhaps, but there is so much more richness beneath these two characters that was not employed or even alluded to.
These chapters lay the groundwork for the tension point in the rest of the book; Draco, the Unbreakable Bond, and Snape's true loyalties.
Chapter Three: Mundane
Perhaps this is one of the dangers of reading quite a lot of fanfiction (by choice or by queue) but there were no surprises in this chapter for me. Shock and awe as they replace the Fudge, call Harry a tragic hero and generally blunder through saving the Wizarding World when they've no idea what they're doing. Though, I did find the newspaper clippings in Hedwigs cage interesting on several levels - first, it was a great way to get the information across in a straight-forward, page-saving fashion without coming outright and having a character say it and it was also a great set up for whichever yet unknown director is chosen to make this film.
It was interesting, to say the least, for Dumbledore himself to come and fetch Harry from Privet Drive. Generally such a strong character, Dumbledore seemed to lack something. Many have postulated that this has more to do with his illness and impending death (Yes, he dies. Yes, you know it at this page in the book. If you don't, you're an idiot.) and less to do with her seemingly incompetence. It's really quite hard to determine which is right and which is wrong. It would be easy to believe that she was foreshadowing, at this stage, were it not for all of the other flat, underdeveloped, overly simmilar, dialogue and character descriptions in this book.
We move to the dispensation of Sirius' will; not at all surprising though, I was quite disappointed in how they set it up. Where the other books would have given you a few pages between a conflict and it's reslution, this book started straight away at solving things before you really knew what was happening. Unpleasent.
Naturally, this could have been done well (the speed of the thing) if she'd only inserted a few lines to the effect but she just sort of left it hanging there, like quite so many other things.
Chapter Four: When Did That Happen
Chapter Four is the first of many rather large actions that sent readers like me (those of us who re-read OOTP before reading this) into a bit of a confused frenzy. A 16-year old boy with a pension for trouble who has so very recently (a two week time span) been locked away, sheltered and protected by so many is seldom given so much free reign over two weeks without explaination.
It should be added that, at this point, I entered a semi-lucid state known as "The Hemingway Paradox;" that one enters when trudging diligently through something one doesn't want to read for the exponential crappiness of it all. This is the point where I started missing things.
Chapter Five: The First Inklings...
It is in chapter five that the unsettingling feeling of something being up truely sets in. I'm not refering to a plot device or change here - but to the emotional ages of the characters in question.
Hermione Granger
First Kiss: 14 Viktor Krum, international quidditch player.
Favorite Hobby: Reading and Worrying
Most Visible Personality Trait: Well-thought. Hermione seldom does anything without thinking it through. Her plans do not often backfire.
Ron Weasley
First Kiss: As yet unknown
Favorite Hobby: Whinging, avoiding homework, coming up with off the wall theories, Wizards Chess, Quidditch, Exploding Snap
Most Visible Personality Trait: He's a bit of an idiot. Well, he is!
Harry Potter
First Kiss: 15. Cho Chang. She made the move, he's still as big of a prat as ever.
Favorite Hobby: Quidditch, postulating ways other people might be trying to kill him, skulking
Most Visible Personality Trait: Hero complex. Pension for whinging.
These are the characters i've grown to love and loathe and this is where it all starts to come crashing down.
Ginny Weasley
First Kiss: 13. I think. So far, shes the only socially well developed character in the bloody book.
Favorite Hobby: She enjoys Quiddich and always has a boyfriend. As an underdeveloped terciary character, thus far, we know very little about her.
Most Visible Personality Trait: She's Weasley through and through - most particularly, Bill and the Twins. She has a rather large predaliction toward jokes and trouble but with quite enough brains on her head to keep her out of the actual trouble part of things.
Chapter Five: Here it comes....
Borgin and Burkes
In Borgin and Burkes, a shop for Dark Magic in Diagon Alley, we meet Draco Malfoy (this is, of course, after they sneak off under the invisibity cloak to follow him) This scene is mediocre at best until the moment when Hermione, character bio above, gets the brilliant idea that she will simply go into the shop, pawing dark objects at random, playing the part of the giggling girl and insisting that she wishes to buy Draco a birthday present. This, of course, is her ingenious plan for finding out what Draco asked the shopkeeper to reserve for him.
Ladies and gents this wouldn't work in a Wal-Mart, this wouldn't work in a jewelery store and it certainly wouldn't work in a shop where everything purchased is of such...questionable morals. Mind also that Hermione is, clearly, not a pureblood witch. Remember that the Wizarding World is a small one and that the odds of bieng able to pick out a direct line descendent from a crowd would not be unusual.
Madame Malkins: A headache for all occasions...
Note to Self: Never, ever, ever, hit yourself on the head with a 650 page hardback.
Lucius Malfoy is a Death Eater, Murderer, was outsmarted by a batch of teenagers, caputered, a prisoner of Azkaban, etc.. These are descriptive terms I can come up with on the fly. These are terms that Harry, in previous books, has used to describe Lucius. As evidence of the rapid decline in quality control, this is the best she could do when encountering Draco and Narcissa (son and wife to Lucuis, respectively.)
"Harry looked mockingly all aroundt he shop. "Wow...look at that...he's not here now! So why not have a go? They might be ablet o find you a double cell in Azakban with your loser of a husband!" (Page 115, HBP - bold and italics mine)
There are no words. Oh, wait! Yes there are; Ow.
At this stage, we step into a lot of mediocre chapters that work simmilarly to the ones i've already pointed out and I, unlike Jo Rowling, have no desire to make you suffer through them.
One of the great things about a really bad book is that, for the most part, you know everything that is going to happen within the first two hundred pages and, were it not for the fact that i ahve a relatively vested interest in knowing the ins and outs - becuase i'm praying they'll have given her back whatever drug they've taken her off of by the time she's into the 7th book - i would have been able to put it down straight away and not worry about it.
There's a series of awkward and all too quickly delivered chapters. There's a page on which Ron and Ginny get into a shouting match in the hallway over her...uh..escapades with boys - none of which seem extreme or out of whack with a normal fifteen year old. There's a page dedicated entirely to how 'fanciable' Harry has become.
It's not bad, if the authore were a 15 year old fanfigirl and not the creator of the series. Her camp has confirmed, prior to the release of this book that JKR, from time to time, does read fanfiction. Until July 16th, I would have thought that a lie to placate people like Jay who invest thousands of dollars in running sites like HPFF. Now, I believe it fully and completely and really wish she would lay off!
All of that complaining done, however, the plotpoints in this book were still good and i'm forever grateful for the Remus/Tonks scene in the end bit. However, even those 35 lines or so could be torn apart and contested as compeletly off balance with the rest of the series.
Alas, i think she may have lost her touch.
3 Comments:
I completely agree with your review of HBP. It was rather mediocre at times and lacked the charm of the other five books. Honestly, I could have put it down after the sixth chapter and not have been phased slightly.
At some points I felt as though I were reading fan fiction, and not even exceptional fan fiction mind you, but since JKR has delivered five great books so far, I still have high hopes for book 7.
Personally, HBP is my favorite book so far, but I like reading other people's opinions anyway. I have heard many people say "It dissapointed me" and then leave it at that, and I am very glad that you said what you didn't like about it.
I do have to admit that Dumbledore's death was predictable, practically every fan knew it was going to happen before even reading the book, but I guess it just had to happen.
I read and write lots of fanfiction, and at times I did get the feeling that I was reading fanfiction, but not a bad one. Its just that if you read enough fanfiction, everything happens and like you said, it doesn't surprise you anymore. Even though I disagree with your end opinion, it was still an excellent review, if that makes sense!
While i agree that it was not quite up to par, i still think it was a good book... just not what i had expected
It defenitely went off canon at times. I mean them thinking that TOnks was in loev with Sirius, it was like JKR had forgotten that she made them neice and uncle
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