BOOK DISCUSSION: Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince

[cmere]

“Why are you worrying about YOU-KNOW-WHO, when you should be worrying about YOU-NO-POO? The constipation sensation that's gripping the nation!”Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince was published in 2005. Clocking in at slightly shorter than its predecessor, the book nevertheless contained a wealth of new information for fans. Book Six included new

Comments

[cmere]

Any favorite quotes from the book?

[author_by_night]

Someone please correct me because I don't remember it verbatim, and am at work so don't have HBP on me - but Dumbledore telling Harry something like, "I am not worried (afraid?), Harry. I am with you." Oh.

[portkey]

You had it right, and yes I posted the same quote independently before seeing this comment thread. My single favourite quote in the entire series. For such a simple statement, it has astonishing amounts of poignancy and underscores so much character development for both of them.

[blahblahcakes64]

Ugh, are you me? That quote always gets me.

[portkey]

This book contains my single favourite quote of the entire series. From Dumbledore, naturally.

"I am not worried, Harry. I am with you."

[portkey]

(let's pretend I had already posted this before responding to the comment above saying I'd posted it before I saw that comment)

(having a billion tabs open at once is confusing sometimes okay)

[author_by_night]

It's all good. :)

[portkey]

A theory:

I should probably check this again, but my recollection of the Horcrux mission is that it basically comes out of the blue for Harry. Dumbledore just suddenly announces they're going.

Which conveniently enough, happens on the same night that Draco succeeds in his mission.

I generally balk at some of the other theories about how much of a hand Albus had in assisting Harry (and others) getting into danger, but in this case I feel that it makes sense that he'd realize that he has very limited time to take Harry on this mission and fully equip him with the experience he will need moving forward in the Horcrux hunt. He knows he has to die, he knows that will require the Death Eaters breaching Hogwarts - so in this one instance, I feel like he has to make the decision to leave the castle somewhat unprotected for a more important cause.

Thoughts?

[author_by_night]

Interesting... I can actually see that; it sounds like Dumbledore's brand of reasoning.

[author_by_night]

In HBP, we find out the DADA professor situation was, indeed, a curse. Was this a surprise to you? I know I'd thought it was just a silly but convenient thing JKR had written in the books... it made a lot more sense that it was a curse, although then you have to wonder about some of Dumbledore's decisions. Might have made a bit more sense had Dumbledore not known for sure, or had the curse been set a bit closer to when Harry started school... still found it interesting, though!

[luna_altyerre]

At the first read through - it actually made me stop and pick up the first book again. Sure enough Quirrell was said to have taught at Hogwarts before, I thought this ment as DADA professor but put it in the same basket as the ever changing number of students and moved on. JK later said he was a Muggle Studies professor previously so the curse bares out.

It confused me that Dumbledore didn't try to break the curse in some manner (that we see) - moving the classroom/office, renaming the subject, breaking it into multiple subjects (for example, one for dark curses, one for dark creatures), employing a cursebreaker, or even just getting rid of it entirely. Surely removing it would be better than potentially endangering school children and whichever hapless sod gets stuck teaching it? It makes a great plot device for JK but doesn't really work in universe.

[aome]

The whole idea of the curse seems odd. Like - if it's really been the case that nobody had held the DADA job for more than a year since then, that's a LONG time, and a LOT of DADA teachers. Like - wouldn't all the Weasleys have known about it by then? Ron's brothers told him stuff - he knew who Nearly Headless Nick was, after all. Why wouldn't they all have known about this? In fact, it's entirely possible that the Weasley parents - and certainly MWPP - would have encountered the curse during their own schooling. For something that long-standing, you would think EVERYONE would know about it. Hermione certainly would have discovered it during her extensive reading. Instead, it's treated as something fairly recent and coincidental, right up until the moment Dumbledore explains the situation to Harry in HBP.

A bad book

[madderbrad]

HBP is a bad book, reeking of mistakes and authorial self-gratification with little to no editorial supervision