Author Topic: Half-blood Prince Spoilers!  (Read 13904 times)

The Holy Saint, Grand High Poobah, Master of Monkeys, Ehlers

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Re: Half-blood Prince Spoilers!
« Reply #90 on: August 04, 2005, 01:57:14 PM »
Yes, but that's not very funny at all.

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Re: Half-blood Prince Spoilers!
« Reply #91 on: August 04, 2005, 02:25:24 PM »
It may debunk The Wizard of Oz, but it doesn't debunk Harry Potter.
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Re: Half-blood Prince Spoilers!
« Reply #92 on: August 04, 2005, 03:09:41 PM »
NOTHIN' debunks Harry Potter.

House of Mustard

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Re: Half-blood Prince Spoilers!
« Reply #93 on: August 04, 2005, 04:23:46 PM »
Harry Potter ROCKS!
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Re: Half-blood Prince Spoilers!
« Reply #94 on: August 04, 2005, 04:34:18 PM »
65!
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Chimera

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Re: Half-blood Prince Spoilers!
« Reply #95 on: August 08, 2005, 04:35:22 AM »
I like to read the books first, then listen to them on CD in my car or while I get ready in the morning. Jim Dale, who performs ALL the voices on the audio versions, is amazing--it's his voices that I hear in my head when I'm reading, not the movie voices.

Anyway, I'm picking up on all sorts of things the second time through. I just listened to the part where Harry and Dumbledore discuss Merope, Voldemort's mom, and why she died. Harry wonders about it, since she was a witch and obviously had some power since she enchanted Tom Riddle. Dumbledore tells him that he has some speculations, one of them being that because a broken heart or unrequited love can take a serious toll on your ability to do magic, Merope no longer had the power. (Sorry not to have the direct quote--too lazy to find my book and type it out.) As soon as he said that, I thought "Tonks." Since now I know that it was because of unrequited love she wasn't able to morph and all that, I picked up on this explanation from Dumbledore for both Merope and Tonks. So JK Rowling was being consistent within her magic system on that point. I love when I realize things like this!

It is always interesting the second time through to recognize little plot hints such as this--very subtle, but definitely there.
« Last Edit: August 08, 2005, 04:36:33 AM by Chimera »
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scAri

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Re: Half-blood Prince Spoilers!
« Reply #96 on: August 09, 2005, 06:37:43 PM »
No way, Chimera! Tonks was evil the whole time! Everytime she showed up in the book, I had a heart attack. The whole being-in-love-with-Lupin thing came out of nowhere.

Chimera

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Re: Half-blood Prince Spoilers!
« Reply #97 on: August 09, 2005, 07:24:04 PM »
I thought that too, until, as I said above, I reread it. Now, that little obscure comment by Dumbledore may not have been a flashing sign by any means, but that is one of the things I like about JK. She is often subtle in how things tie together--but usually if I reread a book I can see where, from a writer's perspective, she lays down the bricks that make up the whole road. This has happened to me on several occasions when I reread one of the books--where something that seems insigificant in passing becomes terribly important. Like when Harry meets Bode in the elevator on the way to his hearing in book 5, and later remembers after Bode is strangled to death by Devil's Snare, and then both details are important because it turns out Bode is an Unspeakable in the Hall of Mysteries and Voldemort was trying to make him get the prophecy. I mean, that is some major plotting. And even though I may not be able to jump to that conclusion, I recognize that she laid the tracks that lead there.

So I don't think that this came out of nowhere, not on the second reading (though I did a bit on the first).
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stacer

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Re: Half-blood Prince Spoilers!
« Reply #98 on: August 09, 2005, 08:13:51 PM »
See, I was thinking all along that Tonks was in love with someone. There were plenty of clues, not least of which was Harry and his friends wondering if she'd been in love with Sirius.
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Re: Half-blood Prince Spoilers!
« Reply #99 on: August 20, 2005, 12:10:47 AM »
Okay, I wanted to get my thoughts down, so I'm writing this as I'm finishing reading everyone else's opinions.

Harry as a horcrux makes so much sense, but I never would have thought it up on my own. The only problem I see is that if Harry is a horcrux then it had to have been unintential because he intended to kill Harry, to use Harry's murder to create his last Horcrux.

The thing I really want to know though is what was the reason behind the gleam in Dumbledore's eyes at the end of Goblet of Fire when Harry told him that Voldemort had used his blood in the spell, and was therefore no longer vulnerable to Harry's touch? And how is that all going to be affected on July 30th (or is it 31st?) when Harry comes of age?

I had actually been rooting for Harry and Ginny to get together since Chamber of Secrets, only because I identified with the social backward young Ginny (not so much with the more-action-than-you-could-shake-a-stick-at Ginny). I think the reason Harry felt he had to distance himself from  her is that

(1) He can intellectually accept the possibility of horrid things happening to Ron and Hermione, because he's not romantically involved with them. He wouldn't make stupid mistakes if they were in danger. With Ginny, the situation would probably be very different.

(2) He can conceivably distance himself from Ginny, since their close relationship is new, but not from Ron and Hermione.

But I still think that Ginny will be used against Harry. I'm interested to see if Ginny will object to being dropped in the last book, since she seemed pretty accepting of it. And it's not like Ginny will be unable to do anything useful to support Harry from the homefront.

As for the necklace horcrux being destroyed, where is the proof one way or the other? Nothing has been said that proves the horcrux was destroyed. RAB could easily have died before he figured out how to do it. I'd like it to be Regulus, but Ameilia Bones is also a good option. I don't think Rowling has come out and said whether or not we've been introduced to the character, so it could be someone completely new.

Lily/Snape theory: Snape in love with a Mudblood? I just don't see this happening.

Actually, I really don't agree that Snape is "good." Snape has never done a nice/good/benevolent thing in six books, except for the time he kept Harry from falling off his broom, in the first book, before anyone knows for sure if Voldemort is still alive. Snape committed cold-blooded murder.

Earlier in the book we're told that killing "rips the soul apart." I don't believe Dumbledore would have asked Snape to commit murder. Draco didn't have to kill Dumbledore to survive.  Other methods to save Draco could have been attempted and should have been if Snape really is "good." People who are "good" don't kill defenseless, unarmed people just to save their own life.

I think Snape was using Legilmancy to learn what Harry was going to cast before he cast it, and he wasn't trying to teach Harry anything, just make himself feel superior by putting Harry down. I don't buy that he "saved" Harry by not killing him. It makes a lot of sense to me that Voldemort wouldn't want anyone else to kill Harry. If they did, they would have succeeded where Voldemort has repeated failed, making them a terrible threat to his power. Snape was following Voldemort's orders.

I'm interested to know what other people feel is good about Snape. You see the character of a man in the way he treats others. Look at the way he treats Neville. He acts exactly as he did in High School. There has been no progression in his character since he is first introduced.

I'm not saying that Snape is neccessary going to end book 7 evil. I would like to see Harry smush him into the ground. However, if he does end up good, I think it will be a change of heart that he has in book 7. I don't think he's good now.
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Re: Half-blood Prince Spoilers!
« Reply #100 on: August 21, 2005, 12:14:02 PM »
Why not in love with a mudblood? After all, Voldemort is a mudblood.

as for Draco getting away without killing. i'm really interested to hear how you believe a 16 year old with self doubts was goign to get away from three of the most dangerous people on the planet when they're standing within arms reach.

Snape was not using legilmancy. he SPECIFICALLY stated that he would be able to block Harry's spells as long as he is saying them out loud. ie, "Stop telling everyone what you're doing so they can stop you." There is no other use put to the single new skill Rowling introduces for the students in this book: casting spells silently. And harry hasn't learned to even try it yet.

snape has spied on voldemort. So he's petty and domineering. That makes him evil? That counteracts risking his life to spy on the bad guy? sorry don't buy it. Neither do I buy, as I said before, that Dumbledore is an idiot who doesn't pay any attention whatsoever to the evidence presented to him by all his reasonable allies. The is sOMETHING about snape we don't know, and I'd bet cold cash that it's something that makes him better than you think of him.

The whole series is about avoiding judgements on first impressions. yet that is still how you're treating snape after 6 books. no, I don't think that Rowling is going that route.

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Re: Half-blood Prince Spoilers!
« Reply #101 on: August 22, 2005, 01:46:59 PM »
Quote
Why not in love with a mudblood? After all, Voldemort is a mudblood.


Umm, no he's not. His mother was a witch.

As for Snape, I disagree that there has been any hard proof that he was earnestly spying on the Dark Lord, as opposed to letting Dumbledore know of things of little importance at Voldemort's orders. And my opinion of Snape is no longer based on a first impression, there have been six books of lack of progression in his character. That being said, I reserve the right to be wrong. ;)
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Re: Half-blood Prince Spoilers!
« Reply #102 on: August 22, 2005, 02:32:24 PM »
My strongest point is *still* Dumbledore. It's too obvious that Snape's a bad guy. I CAN'T accept that Dumbledore is stupid enough to let someone so obviously evil, whom is constantly (and with good reason) spoken of poorly by others Dumbledore trusts, be so central to the order. There has to be something EXTREMELY compelling that he's done. How much do you *really* know about Snape? Very little.

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Re: Half-blood Prince Spoilers!
« Reply #103 on: August 23, 2005, 01:43:20 AM »
Quote

Harry as a horcrux makes so much sense, but I never would have thought it up on my own. The only problem I see is that if Harry is a horcrux then it had to have been unintential because he intended to kill Harry, to use Harry's murder to create his last Horcrux.

Snape was following Voldemort's orders.


I agree that making Harry a horcrux was unintentional.

However, when Snape is leaving Harry on Voldemort's orders just because only Voldemort wants to kill him? I don't buy that. Snape easily bested Harry when he came after him. What was to stop Snape from tying Harry up and using locomotor corpus on him to take him to Voldemort right then? With all the upheaval and the fact that nobody was there watching Harry's back, it would have been relatively easy.

No, I think Snape was acting on Voldemort's orders to leave Harry be because Voldemort has finally realized that Harry is a horcrux. An unintentional one, absolutely. But the signs are all there nonetheless. Since Voldemort had planned to use Harry's death to create a Horcrux (and had probably cast the spell to create it when AK backfired), it'll be interesting to see what object he was going to use to contain it and whether it's still resting in the rubble of Godric's Hollow.

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Re: Half-blood Prince Spoilers!
« Reply #104 on: August 23, 2005, 09:09:39 AM »
"Leave him to me" is the most classic, and lame, of supervillain blunders. I will be sorely disappointed if Snape is evil and left it to Voldemort without doing anything.  that would be exceedingly, well, stupid.

Even if the above situation is accurate, wouldn't it *still* make sense to bring Harry back so that Voldemort can have him guarded, rather than having him out there where he can still work against him?