Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince.
A. The big question: Why does Snape kill Dumbledore?
Did JKR really just want to dupe us into trusting him and trick all of us? Or is she just going to give us another whammy with Book 7 explaining his true loyalty?
My guess is the latter. Dumbledore likes to trust people, but he’s no fool. He’s always trusted Snape wholeheartedly for some unshakeable reason that we don’t know. (An unbreakable vow, perhaps?) When Dumbledore pleads before his death, that’s highly uncharacteristic of him to do so. It would be more plausible for him to plead, “Please kill me like we had planned before, even though I know it’s difficult for you. Get close to Voldemort and don’t let Draco go down a path from which he cannot return.” It would also explain why Snape was so angry when Harry called him a coward-it took a lot of guts for Snape to follow Dumbledore’s orders, and Harry couldn’t possibly understand the complexity of Snape’s position.
And quite frankly, none of us like to think that Dumbledore could be wrong.
B. Lots of loose bits and ends.
I feel as though this book used to be 3x as long, but when it got trimmed down, a lot of extra plot was lost and the leftovers don’t make sense. Many character and plot elements just came across as cheap/convenient. I feel disappointed because her previous books were much tidier.
1. Bill and Fleur. They serve no other purpose than to let the Burrow inhabitants bitch about something (comic relief) and to show that life and love will go on at the end of the book. Bill may possibly show up more in Book 7 with his werewolf-ish status, but I feel like it’s sort of late for him to pop up in the series.
2. Aragog. Bigass spider is dead, just so happens to have very valuable venom, Slughorn reveals important memory. I feel it was more convenient than lucky.
3. Professor Trelawney. She keeps coming to Dumbledore to bitch about the centaur, but her only purpose is to reveal a memory that makes Harry (and us) hate Snape more. I feel like her several appearances were just there so that her purpose wasn’t so obvious.
4. Cormac McLaggen. Why…? Seriously, why? Hermione used him to piss off Ron, but she could have done that with others just as well.
5. The Half-Blood Prince. Why was the potions book such a big freaking deal? Woo-hoo, Snape had a little bit of a thing for dark magic and was good at potions back in school. We knew that. Harry’s a little conflicted over the Half-Blood Prince helping him out while being dark at the same time. The only importance this Half-Blood Prince thing had was to highlight a parallel between Snape and Voldemort (half-blood, adept at magic, have books that live on the school).
6. The Tonks-Lupin romance. I felt like it came out of nowhere. Supposedly there’s a lot of fanfiction about it out there, so it may just be fanservice.
7. I’m sure there were more, but these are the ones that come to mind…
C. What I liked.
I loved learning about Voldemort’s past. He comes from a family of inbred white trash! I feel very sorry for Merope… her eyes go sideways, her father abuses her, she gets gypped out of a family heirloom, her love is unrequited, and she dies shortly after giving birth to the most evil wizard ever known. Sucks to be her!
It was a bit much Pensieve-ing for my taste, but the flashback stuff was important and interesting to read.
I also enjoyed the scene between Snape, Narcissa, and Bella. Very juicy. Usually Snape’s a man of few words, but I think that he said some very interesting stuff.
D. Other opinions.
1. I felt like this book was 1/4 Dumbledore, 1/4 Snape, 1/4 silly love drama, 1/8 Slughorn, 1/8 everything else. The silly love drama got a little long and heavy for me.
2. Aww, poor Cho Chang. She’s dropped out of existence.
3. Um, where did Hufflepuff go? There was one dickhead Hufflepuff that played a Quidditch announcer, but that’s pretty much it. Ravenclaw had more of an appearance, but not by much.
4. McGonagall'd make an awesome headmistress.
E. Theories/questions
1. My guess is that the liquid Dumbledore drank was a guilt-inducing potion. Thus the, “It’s all my fault, please don’t hurt them, hurt me, etc.” Since Voldemort has no conscience, he wouldn’t be affected by such a potion.
2. Was Dumbledore’s charred hand just from the ring? When Harry was asking about it, Dumbledore was making it out to be some bigass story. I feel like there’s more to tell.
3. What do you think of Harry as a horcrux? It’s possible that Harry’s connection with Voldemort (Parseltongue, mental images, Sorting Hat suggesting Slytherin) is because part of Voldemort’s soul is in him. Dumbledore said that a living horcrux was complicated, but not impossible. Perhaps after killing Lily and James, Voldemort was reduced to very little because of turning Harry into a horcrux. However, if Harry is a horcrux, does that mean that he doesn’t have to destroy the other six parts before killing Voldemort and the seventh can live on in himself? Or will Harry and Voldemort die together? Yet more importantly, if Harry was a horcrux, why would Voldemort want to kill him? Would it somehow make Voldemort even more powerful? The prophecy says that only one can survive, and I doubt it’ll be Voldemort. The Harry=horcrux theory isn’t a very solid one, but it’s interesting to think about.
4. Where did Fawkes go?
5. Everyone’s been saying that R.A.B. is Regulus. But if Regulus was still alive, wouldn’t Grimmauld Place be handed over to him instead of Harry? And with so few characters with the possible initials of R.A.B., don’t you think it’s something of a giveaway?
6. Book 7: It’s odd to think of a Harry Potter book without Hogwarts. My guess is that Harry’s going to go off to train with R.A.B. and will re-unite with Ron and Hermione at Hogwarts for a final showdown.
EDIT:
Thanks to darthkoshy, I've learned that Regulus doesn't need to be alive, and in fact has (probably) placed the locket in the Black residence (in OotP). And it makes sense for Harry to train with Snape... wouldn't that be a kicker and excellent for character development? Snape and Harry do have a number of similarities, such as how they feel about the Dark Arts and being half-bloods. Interesting teacher-disciple couple. Snape used to crush on Lily, which explains why he both dislikes Harry (and James more so) while feeling that he must watch over him. And Lily (love!) is most likely the reason why Snape didn't go all the way to the dark side.
Who will be the next D.A.D.A. teacher? And what will happen to Draco?