HBP thoughts three months later.

[amanuensis1]

What will my reaction be to Half-Blood Prince after the last book?

I still feel like the series peaked at OotP for me. Every volume has felt better than the last except for this last one--I'm still wigged that anyone, Rowling included, believes that Snape's motives are ambiguous, justifying leaving Harry in suspense at the conclusion of this book. I found Harry and Dumbledore's pensieve jaunts puzzlingly expository, and was waiting--am still waiting--to find out what was going on during those. Tom Riddle's history could have been related in two pages; what the heck happened in those pensieve jaunts that made them so crucial? I want there to have been more motivation on Dumbledore's part than exposition, or the idea that Harry had to see those moments for himself to gain understanding of Voldemort and of himself. It's not enough.

I loved the main plot of the book, the main plot being the Half-Blood Prince. Did I know who it was? Hell, no. The concept that "Prince" was a last name never crossed my mind--even when Hermione brought it up I couldn't see how that fit in. I didn't get it until I saw the chapter title "Flight of the Prince."

But I still believed that Slughorn gave him that book deliberately. Bah.

Will the last book draw it all back together for me? Will those unanswered questions finally fall into place? Or will I be happier admitting that HBP was the weak moment in the series for me and let it be?

Comments

[kagyakusha.livejournal.com]

I loved HBP -- granted, it's a conditional love based on how book 7 turns out but I did love it. I felt like she gave me a lot of things I had been hoping for -- I knew that Snape was the HBP the SECOND Harry saw the inscription in the book (actually, I stopped reading the book and turned to my friend who was also reading that page and said "are you thinking, what I'm thinking?" and we both said "SNAPE IS THE HBP" at the same time.) So the whole way through, every time Harry read the book, or followed instructions from it, I felt love for Snape.

Do I have criticisms -- of course. The book made me hate Hermione even more than OoTP had (and really that was TOUGH!), Ginny irritated the hell out of me -- OoTP had started to make me like her, and then HBP made me want to slug her. But overall, I felt like HBP was the only thing that could make me keep reading HP after OoTP CRUSHED MY SPIRIT.

[amanuensis1.livejournal.com]

Heh, we had the same Ginny reactions! I was okay with her in OotP but I still couldn't believe she was destined to be paired with Harry because she'd had next to no interaction with him. Those are in the rules for a beloved protagonist--you can't pair him with someone not equally beloved by the readers, or there'll be mutinies.