HBP thoughts

[emony]

So. Like I say, I didn't see that coming. No irony, I really didn't. I totally bought into five years worth of "he's not evil", and then he went all ambiguous, and now I'm not sure. If he's really evil, I worry for Draco, who'll be back into the Pit of Doom with no protection at all. He was just, *just* on the edge of being saved. If Snape isn't really evil, as many have theorised, then hopefully he'll find a way to be okay.

What? I have my priorities, you have yours, k?

I loved that whole Draco storyline. I totally thought something else was going on, which I think I was meant to think, but no one else has said a word about suspecting it, so I'm not going to mention what it was because I don't want to look stupid. (And I mean it, so don't ask). I loved that she's finally given him a bit of depth. Snape too - he's got those surface layers of mean, then some "helping the Order", and then underneath we find some more mean. But is there more good underneath that again? Who knows. It makes sense, really, if you look at Snape and Tom Riddle in parallel. Both had very disappointing (to put it mildly) fathers, both had mothers who (as they see it) failed them, both have issues with being a half-blood, clinging desperately to their magical side and trying to ignore or crush their muggle side. And it's almost understandable. I'm not saying Tom going around killing bunny rabbits is good, because it clearly isn't, but it is clearly a sign that he's very disturbed and needs help. Also, as we saw from his uncle and father, the genes there were already a bit naff on account of all that inbreeding. Poor kid didn't really have much of a chance.

And though Snape's quite different in some ways, he's still got that whole traumatic childhood thing going on, a lot of resentment, some of it transfered. Maybe that's why he's still so angry with James and Sirius, so many years later - he can't manage to be angry with his own parents, so he's moved on to an associated but easier target, firstly through hating James and Sirius, and then on to an even easier target - 11 year old Harry.

But enough with that. The basic point in all that guff is that I really liked the stuff with Draco and the stuff with Snape, and I look forward to rereading asap to get it all again with more depth.

Harry was very much more likeable in this one. Thankfully only one episode of OMGWTFBBQPOLARBEARETCETCETC Harry. I suppose he was just less angry in HBP than in OOTP, but that can really only be a good thing if it means less caps lock. I love that he was right about what was going on, but not right enough to do anything to stop it. I expect Ron and Hermione feel quite a bit of guilt that they didn't help him out more with finding out what Draco was up to - if they had worked it out earlier, Dumbledore would still be alive, after all.

Harry seemed to have really learnt his lesson from OOTP - as soon as he sniffed even a hint of intrigue, he ran straight to an adult he felt he could trust - Mr Weasley or Dumbledore. It's something that's always been present in Harry, an utter inability to believe in adults and their ability to be trusted and to help him. Competely understandable when you look at his background. It's the sort of thing I imagine you'd expect with any abused child. But finally, in this one, he seems to have realised that sometimes you just have to put your faith in the adults and trust that they'll help you. He and Dumbedore have a much more honest relationship, on both sides, and although it ultimately leads to Dumbedore's death, Harry is much better prepared for what he's going to have to do in book 7.

As a few people have said, everyone seemed a lot more mature in this book, which is as it should be. They're going to be facing the biggest battle of their lives in not very much time, they have to be mature or they'll die. They might still die, obviously, but.. well, you know.

The Horcruxes thing is very interesting. A few people have already theorised that Harry is the sixth Horcrux. That makes total sense to me. I like it. We all seem to be agreed that RAB is Regulus, and there's also a whisper that one "object" has been seen in each book, so they're all things we've already encountered. It's all a bit too much meta for me - thinking that much makes my brain hurt - but it's a very interesting theory.

I loved the first few chapters too - Narcissa and Bellatrix, and the PM and Fudge. Fabulous. I'll have to reread, now that I know what's going on, but personally I don't think Narcissa is evil. She's just a mother, doing whatever she can to protect her child. Who wouldn't? Bella seems a lot less insane than previously too, which is for the best. I like the idea of her teaching Draco Occlumency. Family togetherness and all that *g* It's also nice to have Narcissa confirmed as a). not a terribly nice person, and b). entirely in the loop with the whole Death Eaters, evil plan, Dark Lord thing. She's not a pretty doll, trapped behind a glass window by her poopyhead husband. She's as tied in to it as he is. Also, she loves her husband, and she loves her son. It's nice to see that there is actually love in a family other than the Weasleys.

And now for some less high-brow sort of things. The luuurve. There was a lot of it around, wasn't there. It felt to me like JKR wanted to get it all out of the way before the final book, which is going to be All About The Action. No room for romance, but we need to see why these people care about each other, we need to feel the pain with them, so she sets up all these romances now, like flat-packing a wardrobe so you can carry it along with you and put it up later when you need it.

Clear up one thing for me - are Ron and Hermione together now, or not? I got a bit confused, I confess, at the end. I get that Harry and Ginny were together, that Ron broke up with Lav-Lav, and that he and Hermione were speaking again. But were they actually out-and-out going out? Hmm. Need to reread, I think, if I missed something as obvious as that.

I spent most of the Ron/Hermione scenes going "for Christ's sake, stop being so f***ing stupid! Don't you know there's a war on!" I get that we were meant to be building up dramatic tension or whatever, but why couldn't Harry have just gone, "look Hermione, Ron's pissed off because he thinks you snogged Krum, and he doesn't want you to snog Krum because he fancies Krum you himself. Why don't you go and ask him out?" That would've saved us about 100 pages worth of "omg teh trauma!" Not that I didn't enjoy the amusing thought of Won-Won and Lav-Lav, but it was at times frustrating, and at times annoying. Personally, being an Hr/R shipper, I think that they can only wind each other up that much because they love each other enough to know exactly what buttons to press, and because they care about each other so much that it matters more when it's each other than when it's anyone else. But fcol, they needed to stop faffing about and get on with it! Which .. I think they now have. So. Good.

Harry/Ginny.. well, it wasn't exactly unexpected, was it. Except in the sense that it was. I knew, the moment I cracked open OOTP and was confronted by sassy-and-confident!Ginny that JKR was changing her to make her in to someone who Harry could, potentially, love. Silent-timid!Ginny would've been utterly useless to him. So that aspect of it wasn't a shock. The surprise was just the "Harry looked at Ginny snogging Dean and thought, 'gee whiz, I wish that was me! cor blimey gov'nor, I fancy Ginny?!?" I mean, come off it. He'd just spent *all summer* with the girl, and he didn't notice? After that it was just a bit, "blah blah Voldemort, blah blah Dumbledore, blah blah Malfoy .. oh yeah, shit, uh, he fancied Ginny too, couldn't keep his mind off her, yeah, yeah .. anyway, back to the important stuff now, Dumbledore blah blah.." It seemed very much like the editor had handed it back with "crowbar some more H/G stuff in there now and then, he spends more time thinking about Malfoy than Ginny, and that doesn't make sense if he loves Ginny." So I didn't like that much.

The Harry/Ginny itself. Well. If I was a H/G shipper (which, duh, I am not), I'd be kind of pissed off, but kind of pleased. They got their tru luv 4 eva, but then they got summarily dismissed. "So that's it then," says Ginny. "Yeah," says Harry. "Gotta go see a guy about saving the world and stuff." "Okay," says Ginny. "It was nice while it lasted, but I'll get over you. Bye." I rather expected them to at least make plans to get back together after the war, but no. If you loved someone, really loved them, wouldn't you at least say, "we can't be together now, it's not safe, but one day.." Even if you didn't think there'd be a one day, wouldn't you at least *say* it? Hm.

I don't get this thing of "Ginny iz teh h0r omg!" either. She went out with *two* boys in *two* years. If that makes her a slut, we're all doomed. Perhaps wizarding society is different and you're meant to marry the first boy who pulls your pigtails, but come on.

Remus/Tonks. Well. Well. *frown* I want to say that I believe the whole "it doesn't mean there wasn't Sirius/Remus too, Sirius has been dead a year", but if that's the case, and Tonks and Remus didn't get anything together until after Sirius' died, that means that Tonks waited all of about a week before leaping on her dearly departed cousin's grieving boyfriend. And as much as I don't like this new, feeble, pathetic Tonks whose entirely life is miserable and ruined and such because the bloke she loves won't hold her hand in public, I don't believe that even she would be so insenstive, selfish and callous as to do something like that. And since we clearly saw that Tonks was already in a very sorry state when Harry turned up at Mrs Weasleys, a couple of weeks into the holidays, things were already in a bad way between her and Remus. Either they were together in OOTP and then she wanted more than a casual shag and he was all "wtf? No .. uh.. I'm .. old! And a werewolf! No." Snd she locked herself in the loo and cried for an hour, or as things started to look bleak at the end of OOTP, with Sirius' death and the coming war, she made her move and he said the above and she did the above.

The only conceivable way it could've worked, I guess, is if Tonks went after Remus once Sirius was dead, not realising that they'd been together. Remus spent a year going "no no no no no no no", which, for some unaccountable reason, led her to rend her hair and sob in a fashion that made me initially think her entire family must have been brutally murdered. He then mulled it over for a year, found a bit of peace on the Sirius front, and finally gave in and said, "oh, go on then". It's not a very flattering portrait of Tonks, but then nothing could be in the face of such feeble conduct.

I didn't like that. Not at all. It felt very much like JKR had gone, "shit.. need another red herring ... hmm ... ooh, I know, Tonks! Make it look like she might be up to something, it turns out that .. uh .. she's .. in love with Sirius! No, wait, he's her cousin. Eew. Okay... Remus, she can be in love with Remus. Yeah. That pairs him up too. Excellent." And then threw in a few lines to attempt to fox us with Tonks wandering about being pale and tragic. Did anyone, anyone at any time suspect that Tonks was up to anything? I certainly didn't.

Oh, also? I didn't believe that Dumbledore was really dead until we saw the body. *sniffs*

So. That's how I feel about it all. I expect there'll be more thoughts, over time, but for now, that's what I've got.

Discuss. *g*

Comments

[-dothefandango.livejournal.com]

With you on the body thing.

I thought it might be like in Charlie's Angels and that the curse just missed him and then he flipped backwords and hung onto the side of the tower and pretended to be dead.

After I've had a day to rant and rave, it wasn't as bad as I initially thought. But it's still my least favorite. At least in the end Dean isn't going out with Ginny anymore, so him and Seamus can finally get together.

Oh and. I totally thought Draco was supposed to kill Harry, so. Whoops! But I suspect that's because I've been brainwashed by all the D/H fic and that would've lended itself better to a slash-tastic plot.

[niennah.livejournal.com]

I suspect the sixth one is Harry too. Hmm. I wonder. Though how you would accidentally put some of your soul into a 1-year-old and then not realise it is a bit of a puzzle. It would explain the link between Harry and Voldemort, though, with the wand and the mindreading and everything.

Harry/Ginny I could take only because I didn't think it'd last, and yay.

Snape. I can't wait to see what happens next to Snape and Draco.

Tonks/Remus makes me cry, even with all the 'oh-s/r-could-still-have-been'. Ugh.

Also, having read the book, I am left with less and less certainty that Sirius will ever come back. At the end of the last book I thought, for sure he'll come back, but now... I don't know. Two pointless deaths? They can't both come back. Unless it's like at the end of Star Wars, with their happy ghosts grinning on as Harry saves the world. To which, no thanks.

I liked this book a lot, though. Yes. Loved all the Voldemort. Especially when he was half snakelike. That whole meeting was cool.

[emony.livejournal.com]

I think Voldemort must know what he's done, hence his ordering the Death Eaters not to kill Harry, but not telling them why. Also if he didn't know, he would've made another, seventh (in his view sixth) Horcrux, to make up the magic 7, and that would just complicate things.

As long as he doesn't spend all of book 7 moping over his tragically thwarted love for Ginny, I can live with it.

Ditto on the Snape and Draco, and the Tonks/Remus fronts. Ditto.

Why did you think Sirius would come back? I thought JKR had said, categorically, that he's gone. Although my conspiracy-loving brain has some crazy ideas about Regulus and Sirius and swapping lives. But that's just crazy talk. I don't think anyone's going to be coming back. Once they're gone, they're gone. I think it'd negate the entire impact of the war if the dead could just reappear, and I think JKR thinks it too.

I liked it too :) Voldemort - it was so interesting to see back into his past, how he was shaped into who he became. I guess it does mean no prequels though *g*

[niennah.livejournal.com]

Good point. I always just assumed that he didn't want anyone else to kill Harry because he wanted to do it himself, but you're right, of course he must know (if it is the case). Which all adds up to an incredible finale.

Re Sirius: Well, I didn't know she'd stated that categorically. I'm very fringe in the HP fandom. I had a feeling that Sirius's life was wasted, that we never saw a body, and that his death was supernatural rather than natural (falling behind a curtain into whispering voices is hardly the last word in finality), and that he may return in some form. I didn't think he'd come back grinning and saying hey, I'm back, let's hang out, but one way or another. Now, as I say, I don't think so. Which breaks my little heart all over again.

Look, don't laugh at me for saying this, but who is Regulus? I recognise the name but the character escapes me completely.

Voldemort is my favourite character. I love the way she has really given him scope and background now. And the way she emphasises how handsome he is. Handsome killers who use their cold charm are fascinating. I cannot wait to see him in the movie. They better not make him look like a monster. I really, really want to see him in the shell of a man.

[emony.livejournal.com]

That's true, yeah. I sort of expect, at some point, that Sirius will come back in some way. There was that mirror thing he gave Harry, I thought that was meant to be in there somehow. But maybe not. Like you say, there's an "all bets are off" sort of feel to it, now Dumbledore's gone and people really are dying.

Heh, Regulus is Sirius' younger brother. The Death Eater. Killed by some other, low-ranking Death Eater when the whole "lets kill some Muggles!" didn't turn out to be as much fun as he thought it would be and he tried to get out.

Voldemort is certainly a lot more interesting now. He's not just a two-dimensional psycho, he's got background and build up and it all makes sense. I love that.

[bethos.livejournal.com]

Was the thing you suspected that Draco had gone and gotten himself turned into a werewolf? I thought that at some point, don't really remember why. Maybe because he knew Fenrir Grayback, kept disappearing, wouldn't tell his friends what was going on, and looked haggard and pale when we saw him ...

Going back up to the post now to read the rest of it. ;-)

[emony.livejournal.com]

*cough* It could've been. ;)

[bethos.livejournal.com]

There's another option - that Tonks, Remus and Sirius were in a threesome relationship and that Tonks felt really guilty about wanting to continue with Remus after it was over.

Reaching? Me?

Noo ...

I just really want an explanation for Tonks's behavior other than OMG THE LOVE MAKES HER WEAK.

[emony.livejournal.com]

Yeah, but, see above re: Tonks and Sirius being related. Not usually something I especially object to, but for some reason, it just doesn't work for me when it's Sirius and Tonks, even though, canonically, it'd probably be entirely acceptable in their society, given all that inbreeding that the pureblood families do anyway. Hmm. Weird.

And yeah, ditto, totally, on wanting a better explanation for Tonks' behaviour. "It's teh lurve" just didn't work, imo. I mean, maybe she was trying to make a point, that love can make us weak just as it can make us strong, but.. I don't know. It didn't work. Tonks needs to get herself a spine inplant, stat.

[nausica2.livejournal.com]

I think it was not only because of the "lovesickness". It was everything. They're living in the gloomiest world possible. The kids are sort of shielded in the school, but the adults... the adults are all in the middle of it, especially Order members.

And Remus was given an assingment that was very dangerous and probably emotionally straining, poor guy.

So, Tonks is already in tension, and well, Sirius died, and now Remus... It's a dangerous world to live in, it's a world where it's easy to fall in despair or go the Barty Crouch way, as the Ministry is doing.

I think JK wants to tell us that the road is facing danger, being as brave as you can and letting people love you and be friends with you. This is what Tonks wants Remus to do, and probably DD's death *sobs* is a turning point for him. Now they're ready to face it. Even if they die, even if one of them die.

It's the same thing he tells us through Bill and Fleur, I think. And I think this is what's going to be Harry's salvation in the end. He already bears the mark of his mother's love.

I'm quite sure people are going to say it's sappy, and shippy and blah, but I like it. And maybe I'm sappy myself, but I wish it was like that in RL.

Errr, got carried away. Sorry. *blushes*