Three Harry Potter threads, I know, but I don't want to spoil anyone. Besides, if Iavas' brother can have a swooning thread, then I can have a HBP thread . I probably read the book too fast and didn't absorb enough, but here goes:
MAJOR, MASSIVE SPOILERS FROM HERE ON IN
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HBP SPOILER-FILLED REVIEW
So, straight into it. Let’s start with the most major and massive spoiler.
GoF will always be remembered as the book that Lord V comes back in, and I’d say that HBP will similarly be remembered as the book in which Dumbledore dies.
We were all expecting it, and I was willing to bet that the old wizard would not see the series out since the MoM in OotP. The problem is that it he was just so much a part of Harry Potter that it’s hard to imagine the books without him. He was always there at the start and end of term feasts. He always gave us the important messages and told us the important history. He was the first wizard who we met as a fully-fledged character, and he was always the one who held the fort and plugged the gaps. He’s been removed before, but the fatc that he’s out there somewhere has kept an air of normality about the place. Now, he’s gone forever.
I think the most horrifying thing about his death was its manner. He was betrayed by the man whom he covered for and trusted for some seventeen years. He did not fall in battle like Sirius – he was unarmed. He wasn’t laughing like Sirius – he was trying to save a boy’s soul. He didn’t die out on a mission – he fell in his own school. It just wasn’t right.
The other thing is that he just didn’t seem to tell Harry enough. He told him how he could destroy Lord V, which is enough for the plot, but only just. There seemed so much more that he needed to learn (like Dumbledore’s cool tricks in the DoM duel for a start…). And Harry really needs to get over trying to crucio fleeing enemies…
Then, there’s the simple grief and sadness surrounding the death of such a likeable character. I really became a Dumbledore fan in Book 5, when I first understood how he could inspire such powerful loyalty. He became even more prominent in this book. The line where he tells Harry that he isn’t afraid because he’s with him is probably the most moving line in any HP book. Sadly, it is also very much a passing-the-baton moment.
Also, this means that, for the first time in any of the Books, Lord V has succeeded completely in his plot. He has killed Albus Dumbledore. He is now the most powerful wizard alive. Hogwarts is no longer a refuge. HBP ends with the forces of evil triumphant. Not even the horcrux was held. Not even PoA has such a bleak finale.
Finally, there is the terrible grief of all the other characters. Harry mourned Sirius alone. The whole world mourns Dumbledore. Hagrid’s bereavement is almost unbearable. Speaking of Hagrid, I’m worried about him – it seems that all of Harry’s guardians are going down fairly fast.
And all this leads us back to the character that Redhen styled as ‘the man on the tightrope’.
Well, I can see the Snape fan club crashing down. I really don’t expect anyone to forgive him for the betrayal and murder of Dumbledore. In retrospect, he was probably the coward referred to by Lord V in GoF. I didn’t expect him to fly his true colours soon, but I think that we can all agree that he is now a black hat and that he was all along. His fate will not be pleasant.
Just as Dumbeldore is laid in his tomb, so too are most of the ships. Harry/Luna and Harry/Hermione have both done passable imitations of the Titanic. As for Ron/Hermione, they seem all set to go, even though it wasn’t in this Book. It makes sense, though – Harry will need to become more alienated before the end.
It was interesting to see a Victor Krum analogue pop up on Ron’s side (even though I would hardly compare the brief R/L affair with K/H in terms of subtlety at least). I honestly didn’t expect this, and I’m inclined to blame the disaster on Ron and Ginny. Such a shame – we could have seen R/H tango about six months earlier and I could have got more points on the Wagner challenge over on TORC.
And speaking of such, ‘chocolate’ has been vindicated and sails proudly on the high seas. I was definitely more in the H/G camp than the H/L, and I was thinking that the two would start would drift together before the end. I didn’t think they’d go for it in this book, though - after H/C simmered for two years and R/H for God knows how long I didn’t expect it to strike out of the blue in a single book. Still, JudyA’s hats are all safe (JudyA on TORC promised to eat her hat if Harry and Luna got together in any romantic way).
Luna and Neville didn’t play much of a role this time – Dean Thomas was more important. Pettigrew is still hiding, making only a cameo appearance. Lord V is invisible, but IMHO that only increases his menace - it avoids stormtrooper syndrome for a start.
The second war is definitely shaping up to be more terrible than the first. For a start, it didn’t seem like the dementors swapped sides last time, and last time the good guys had Dumbledore. Inferi seem like pretty nasty pieces of work, and Fenris Greyback makes Bellatrix Lestrage look positively stable. And then there’s the giants…
JKR certainly hasn’t softened the war for us. Security everywhere, and the muggle killings and murders are well underway. HBP retains OotP’s darkess, but gives us a nice plot with a sting (who would have imagined that Malfoy’s assignment was to kill Dumbledore? And who would have thought anything of vanishing cabinet?). I don’t think that it has a plot as neat or as rewarding as GoF’s, but it is an improvement over OotP. It seems to lack some of OotP’s character development, though – I think I definitely appreciate that book more in retrospect.
One area in which HBP succeeds is that it creates real tension – the final battle scenes are definitely some of JKR’s most intense writing. More people should have died, perhaps, but it is a long shot from flying keys and giant chessboards. The whole book is tense. I expected the second war to be kind of cool, but it’s actually as ghastly as real war. At day’s end, I definitely understand old Crouch a bit better. I wouldn’t be inclined to show too much mercy to Death Eaters at the moment. And I’m sure there’s more to lion-man-not-McClaggan than we’ve seen.
Anyway, on to serious business. What does this mean for Book 7? It’s hard to believe that the next Harry Potter book will be the last, but there we go. I’m glad to see that we’ve been vindicated with regards to how Lord V has kept himself alive, and I think that Book 7 has the potential to be quite exciting with the (presumably) the location and destruction of all the horcruxes. A real mystery/thriller.
The flashbacks were interesting, and I think that the fan community will have a lot of fun trying to work out where Lord V has hidden all seven bits of his soul (seven if JKR doesn’t sting us in the tail, that is). That then leaves the question of how Harry will finally kill Lord V. The fan community has purpose. Hogwarts also needs two new teachers. And what will be Malfoy’s fate? And Lord V’s next move? And how will Horace Slughorn end up pulling his (considerable) weight?
There’s much more, of course, but that’ll be enough for now.
We’ve got two years, anyway .