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Underground > Books, Criticism & Writing >

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (SPOILERS)

  
  

Page: 12(3)45

 
 
Jack Fear
11:07 / 23.07.05
... I'm aware that Jack has discuused this with far more articulate and knowledgeable people than me.

And presumably also aware that Jack was also speaking ever-so-slightly tongue-in-cheek?

It's hardly a smear that needs "refuting": it's a quick 'n'dirty, smart-assed definition of a term with which Bryan was unfamiliar. You may not subscribe to my editorial view, but Bryan is up to speed on what everybody's talking about—and, incidentally, free to make up his own mind about the topic, now that he knows what it is.

So, mission accomplished.
 
 
P. Horus Rhacoid
19:31 / 23.07.05
Read it all last night. Overall I liked it– there didn't seem to be the glaring plot holes of some previous books, and Rowling didn't resort to characters being total morons in order to advance the plot. The pacing was pretty good, and overall it moved along really well. I have a total love-hate relationship with the HP books, in that they are compulsively readable and fun, and yet they make me angry because if Rowling really knew what she was doing, they could be 10 times better.

One (minor) thing that bothered me: how did Dumbledore understand the parseltongue during the memory sequences with the Gaunt family? He clearly didn't have the ability back when the giant-but-not-so-giant-it-can't-fit-through-the-plumbing snake was offing people back in CoS. It seems like a stretch that he'd learned it in the intervening 4 years, since from everything we've seen it's an innate (possibly hereditary?) ability. Minor, but characteristic of how Rowling continues to bother me.

By the way, Ron at one point suggests that Hermione 'hook up' with someone (McWhatsis, the other Keeper, maybe?). Did Rowling actually write this, or is it an Americanization of something else? That phrase showing up in an HP book made me laugh out loud.
 
 
*
04:19 / 24.07.05
Re parseltongue stuff: Perhaps he was legilimanting it from Harry. Actually, I don't recall if there was a solid indication that he did understand the parseltongue at that time. Glancing back at the scene, there doesn't seem to be, unless there's an indication later.
 
 
Mark Parsons
07:39 / 24.07.05
Hogwarts may be out of the picture as a school, but it'll be the scene of the final battle for sure. Remember: there is/was things there that VM wanted to get his hands on.

I liked all the "hooking up" stuff: thought JKR did a very nice job with it.

Snape is not evil.

Why didn't Harry or Hermione recognize Snape's handwriting in the Potions book? They've seen it on essays and chalk boards for five years! (nitpick)
 
 
ONLY NICE THINGS
10:20 / 24.07.05
You may not subscribe to my editorial view, but Bryan is up to speed on what everybody's talking about—and, incidentally, free to make up his own mind about the topic, now that he knows what it is.

When I'm dictator, people will have to wear sackcloth for a week for statements like that.
 
 
Jack Fear
12:16 / 24.07.05
Oh, for fuck's sake...

All right, your most serene and enlightened majesty: whilst I'm pulling on my itchy itchy burlap and rolling in the ash-heaps, why don't you step up to the plate and provide our Bryan with a working definition?

In the meantime, enjoy these out-of-context bits of hilarity.
 
 
X-Himy
16:20 / 24.07.05
From my forensic science teacher's mouth:

"A person's handwriting usually changes so much every ten years or so as to be considered an entirely different type of handwriting."

Consider then that this handwriting was something like 35 years removed from what they normally see...
 
 
grant
17:37 / 24.07.05
My first thought at Dumbledore's death was that JKR's finally going to have to explain how the heck wizard pictures work. They certainly seem to be aware, they can transfer information from picture to picture... and Dumbledore's on all those trading cards, right? From the first couple of books? Or, even if those are *different* somehow... what the heck is the difference between the headmaster portraits and a horcrux anyway? I mean besides not having to actually kill someone. Unless the headmasters are all suicides (magically, at least).

I'd like it if there were some important muggles in the last book. Like, before the conflict at the end, Harry or Hermione makes a well-timed call to the police, who wind up shooting an important villain. The old-fashioned way, with bullets. Humiliate the stodgy, bigoted Death Eaters and all that. It'd be really nice if Arthur Weasley's muggle-research was played up in regards to that. I don't have any great hopes of it taking place, though.

The Oracle says: Harry's going to attempt to off Voldemort with Godric Gryffindor's sword, Snape's going to stop him at dire cost and reveal that the sword is a horcrux after all.

The Oracle says: Someone -- maybe Snape, maybe not -- is going to fill the Voldemort-shaped void in the Potterverse. Maybe a (thematic) Dumbledore-Voldemort hybrid -- but neutered in some way.

I'm very interested in the way religion was handled in Dumbledore's funeral. Barely there, and yet... a man in black with scruffy hair, speaking words. What's a wizard church like? What *is* their theology, anyway? Heh -- y'all stick to your tawdry "slash"... I want to see some Harry Potter religious-studies fanfic.

How many religious references have there been in the books thus far?

Will Bill & Fleur be churched? Or wedded outside, druid-style? (Man, how much would I love it if the bride's side all turned up skyclad.)

----------

I should also mention that this book, moreso even that the previous ones, has earned a place alongside Oliver! and Cider House Rules (and their source novels) as stories than I'll feel weird about my daughter absorbing in a couple years, since she spent her first year in an orphanage. Special, special girl, right? Weird. All these damn special orphans.
Batman, even.

----

Anybody else think the whole cave thing was a Tolkien pastiche? Loved the zombies, though.
 
 
ONLY NICE THINGS
17:42 / 24.07.05
I agree that it wasn't a "smear", Jack, although since nobody said it was I'm not sure why I need to. However, it was simply incorrect, and your response to GGM remains muddy English even were it not.

A shipper, specifically, is somebody who focuses on a particular relationship between characters in a work of fiction in the writing of their fanfiction, and by extension often one who prioritises the needs of that relationship over the needs of others, seeks textual support for that relationship and, by extension, one who devotes the lion's share of their fanfiction to exploring that relationship. Thus, if somebody writes exclusively about Harry and Draco getting together, they are a Harry/Draco shipper.

What you described might more correctly be called a "slasher".
 
 
wicker woman
18:44 / 24.07.05
Rowling does this to an extent, what with families like the Weasleys (none of whom are evil) Maybe not, but Percy certainly is a tool.

she'll probably set it up so that the Horcruxes are in bloody Hogwarts. Gotta catch 'em all, gotta catch 'em all... undoubtedly, the Weasley's will have had a Horcrux sitting in their house all along, thanks to Mr. Weasley's pack-ratting of Muggle objects. Yes, I know, Voldemort+Muggle anything=bleah, but y'know.

As much as I liked this book, what I've feared since near the end of 3/flowing into 4 seems a lot more evident, that Rowling seems to be writing to the movie in terms of length and nifty special effects sequences. The Malfoy/Harry fight alone screams it.

Speaking of, one of the biggest dissapointments came in a complete lack of any real consequence for Harry in his use of a completely unknown "hey, what does this do, let's try it out on the jerkoff Keeper who made the mistake of competing against my best buddy" spell on Malfoy. "Harry, this is a very serious offense! You have greviously injured another student by irresponsibly casting a random spell! You will... take detention once a week for a while! And be scorned (once again) by the school for all of about two pages!"

Personally, it would've been a lot more interesting if Harry had actually gotten around to using the spell on McLaggen instead of Malfoy. *spurt* "....oh."

Hopefully we'll see some explanation in the next book regarding exactly what the paintings are. Some sort of voluntary non-soul-injuring Horcrux a wizard/witch can set up pre-mortem? Are the paintings actually that person, or are they some sort of facsimile that can just reasonably approximate what that person would say?
 
 
grant
18:50 / 24.07.05
I think magic pictures really *can* steal your soul....
 
 
Jack Fear
19:09 / 24.07.05
Haus: Forgive me, but it seems you've muddied the waters further. Perhaps it's your use of Harry/Draco as an example that throws me: How would a Harry/Draco relationship story about Harry and Draco "getting together" differ from Harry/Draco slash in anything but degree of sexual explicitness?

I think the crux of the matter may be that slippery word "relationship." The word itself can have many connotations in general use, but it's been my understanding that in fan circles it refers more-or-less exclusively to romantic and/or sexual link-ups.

I first saw the term used in the early days of X-FILES fandom, when there was a bitter schism between "shippers" and "non-shippers"—i.e., between those who wanted to see Mulder & Scully gettin' it on and those who preferred the show's platonic friendship. Of course, the show's status quo—a working dynamic of intense loyalty and support—constitutes a "relationship" in itself... as does Harry and Draco's class-based mutual loathing, for that matter.

Now, I may be digging myself a deeper hole here—but as I understand it, "relationship stories" tend to rely more on established dynamics of sympathy and trust, extending them to more intimate levels, whereas slash can and will basically take any intercharacter dynamic, sympathy or antipathy, and translate it into sexual terms.

Thus Mulder/Scully (or Kirk/Spock, or Harry/Ron) would be a relationship story, while Mulder/Krycek (or Kirk/KHAAAAAAAN!, or Harry/Draco) would more properly be slash.

Yes? No?

Your obedient servant,

Ashy and Itchy
 
 
Tryphena Absent
21:24 / 24.07.05
Shipper = fan (esp a writer or reader of fan fiction) who assumes intercharacter romantic and/or sexual relationships that are not explicit in the text; these assumptions tend to be based on approximately equal parts innuendo, textual deconstruction, and wishful thinking.

A shipper is a fanfiction writer, not necessarily a slash writer who focuses primarily on a particular pairing, not always exclusively but certainly the majority of their fic will be based around that partnership. That pairing may also extend to those that are made explicit in the original text, for example Harry/Ginny or Ron/Hermione. Shipper is a term that is currently applicable to all fanfiction and all relationships within fanfiction but not all writers.
 
 
wicker woman
22:04 / 24.07.05
I think magic pictures really *can* steal your soul....

More than likely. Heh. Sorry, didn't mean to step on a point you'd already brought up; I was in a bit of a hurry, and just scanned over the last page here a little faster than I apparently should have.
 
 
ONLY NICE THINGS
23:42 / 24.07.05
I think Nina has pretty much summed it up, Jack. To recap:

Slash writer: One who writes homoerotic/homosexual fanfiction involving other people's characters.

Het (or hetfic) writer: One who writes fanfiction involving heterosexual relationships involving other people's characters.

Shipper: A writer either of slash or gen fanfiction who favours one relationship above all others and tends to write almost exclusively about that relationship.

So, the distinction is not between tendresse and filth, but rather between promiscuous and faithful writers. GGM is a shipper because she focuses on one, specific relationship in the Harry Potter universe - that of Sirius and Snape.

My confusion lay in forgetting that it was possible to have heterosexual fanfiction based in the Potterverse. So, your description of "shipper" actually described "slash/het fanfiction writer", rather than simple "slasher".
 
 
Tryphena Absent
01:04 / 25.07.05
(You do get pairings that are widely regarded as het-slash because of the tension levels inherent in the majority of stories revolving around them, which is probably where the confusion enters about the term "slash". These pairings are always improbable in the original work. Hermione/Snape for instance because it's a teacher-student relationship and almost always involves Hermione while she's still a student, and holds very little suggestion in the Harry Potter series.)
 
 
semioticrobotic
01:32 / 25.07.05
Wow; talk about getting an answer! Thanks, all!
 
 
semioticrobotic
01:38 / 25.07.05
grant: I'd like it if there were some important muggles in the last book.

I'm with you, grant, and I really think this is what's going to happen. I think we're going to see a blending of both worlds -- of magic and non-magic.

It's the "Star Wars" Chosen One case: Chosen One brings balance, eliminates a schism that has caused tension for generations. I think we'll see Harry bring muggles and witches/wizards together into one world.

Harry is going to need the whole world united in eliminating the evil of Voldemort, and characters (Mr. Weasley, the Minister of Magic) are already positioned such that they can be of service to Harry as he tries to mobilize the "other side." Harry himself has more than decent working knowledge of the muggle world.

I think it would be interesting and exciting to see the Order of the Phoenix working alongside the FBI or HMSS.
 
 
Jack Fear
01:52 / 25.07.05
Haus, Nina, GGM et al: Thank you for clearing up my mistaken assumptions. My error arose, I think, from first encountering the term used in a specialized and non-standard context. I bow to your collective wisdom & experience.

Bryan, I apologize for giving you bad information in my rush to be the first with an answer. I vow in future to leave such questions to those qualified to answer them authoritatively.
 
 
semioticrobotic
02:00 / 25.07.05
Glances at Haus

Does that mean he can remove the sackcloth?
 
 
ONLY NICE THINGS
06:57 / 25.07.05
That's a matter for the individual conscience, I think, Bryan...

No worries, Jack. Personally, I suspect that Rowling sent a coded message by making Harry's owl sound a bit like Hetfic...
 
 
grant
12:27 / 25.07.05
Sorry, didn't mean to step on a point you'd already brought up; I was in a bit of a hurry

[Hui Neng]

No point, no stepping.

[/Hui Neng]

I think the "technology" behind the pictures is one of the big unexplored things in the books. We already know they can transmit information, they have personalities, they're non-local/multi-locationed -- a bit like a magical internet, really.

I was wondering something else as I was reading the last book. Do any wizards know calculus? They seem to spend time on things like Ancient Runes and Arithmancy, but actual, like, literature and mathematics -- where are they in the curriculum? I know electronics & other tech stuff doesn't work well around Hogwarts and Hogsmeade. (Niiiice.) The basic theory behind them should still be valid, though -- if they're still in our world.

Do Potterverse muggles have Google? Does Hermione know how to use it?
 
 
ONLY NICE THINGS
12:41 / 25.07.05
Essentially, if you don't get a wizarding job, you're screwed, because Hogwarts teaches no practical skills whatever. This is presumably why the Ministry of Magic is so vast; it fulfils approximately the same role as the Saudi Arabian civil service.

If you don't get a job with the Ministry, you're basically stuffed. All those people living under bridges talking to rats? Hogwarts old boys and girls to a man.
 
 
grant
12:44 / 25.07.05
Oh, man, that makes perfect sense. "That young Weasley chap -- William. Let's send him, oh, off to Eastern Europe for a while. What can we say it's for this time?"

Two other things just occurred to me:

1. Sometimes muggles and wizards marry. Thus, half-bloods. So there's some kind of interaction.

2. Harry was christened. He had a godfather. Is there already any, uh, theo-fic out there on that?
 
 
Jack Fear
13:21 / 25.07.05
grant: Your line of inquiry is one that interests me, as well.

Rowling references only the most superficial trappings of religion, and then only in terms of their practical impact on her characters' external lives. Nobody goes to church, or even prays—although you'd think, with all the dire and life-threatening situations they face, there'd be plenty of call to do so—and Hogwarts apparently lacks either chapel or chaplain.

Religious practice, inasmuch as it exists, is less about the relationship of Man to God and more about people's relationships with one another. People marry, and celebrate the arrival of children. Harry has a godfather solely as an expression of his parents' love and respect for Sirius—the element of being entereed into a covenant has been elided. Hogwarts has a Christmas break solely so the kids can get presents and spend some time with their families (Is there an Easter break, as well? I seem to remember it from an earlier book, but I'm not sure...)—it's treated as an entirely secular holiday, in other words.

I think the Potterverse is essentially godless, retaining only vestiges of institutional religion, which have been demoted to a purely social role—the spiritual element has been entirely cut out of these people's lives.

I also think that's a pretty accurate reflection of the lives of both Rowling herself and of many, if not most, of her readers. Regrettable, but true.
 
 
grant
13:46 / 25.07.05
Well, Potter's life might be godless, but I'm not sure the Potterverse is. Thus, you know, an opening for fanfic.

Not that any stories suggest themselves to me right away....
 
 
P. Horus Rhacoid
15:04 / 25.07.05
I also think that's a pretty accurate reflection of the lives of both Rowling herself and of many, if not most, of her readers. Regrettable, but true.

Actually, Rowling's a member of Scotland's Presbyterian Church and, from what I gather, pretty devout. I read a remark of hers where she said, IIRC, that she consciously removed religion from the Potterverse because she didn't want to give away details of the plot. I may be misremembering that hilariously.


Wizarding pictures grabbed me too. Based on Harry's reaction to Sirius's death in book 5, I was pretty surprised that he didn't talk to Dumbledore's portrait when he noticed it was up on the wall, and that's a conversation I'm looking forward to in book 7. My gut feeling is that the headmaster portraits are a personality imprint with access to a collection of the person's memories (a la a Pensieve, maybe). Does anyone remember if any headmaster portraits have specifically referenced things that happened while they (as in, the person they're a portrait of) were headmaster?
 
 
Tryphena Absent
15:25 / 25.07.05
There has been some fanfiction that applied pagan festivals to the potterverse. I can't find the one I'm specifically thinking of but it includes a kind of pagan procession through Hogsmeade, a character who has a religious connection to it (a Slytherin) and another who it's being explained to.

Oh here's something similar, not the same story but...
"Like I said, Professor Dumbledore has a bee in his beard about keeping everything non-denominational. It's just one of the many things my father dislikes about him. So they have a Halloween feast instead of celebrating Samhain but older students are allowed to go to the Hogsmeade Samhain bonfire. Quite a few people still follow the old ways but most students stay at school for the feast to be with their friends."

"What about Christmas, that's hardly non-denominational."

"The school celebrations are, and it's Yule not Christmas. Just food and presents and a ball, not very religious."

This is from chapter 7 of a Harry/Draco slash story called Circles of Influence by Marysia (which is okay but a bit boring generally). I can vaguely recall a few other instances of this type of discussion being invoked in slash but beats me if I remember the names of any of the stories.
 
 
grant
16:57 / 25.07.05
That makes perfect sense -- what I'm (perversely) imagining now is a Calvinist Hufflepuff.

Can't you picture Ernie MacMillan getting engaged (far too young) to a rigidly WASPy/born-again classmate?
 
 
Quantum
17:03 / 25.07.05
On the magic portraits- it's going to take an unusually acrobatic retro-editing technique for JKR to make this one consistent. In the first book I'm sure she put it in as another nice wizardy touch, their pictures move, but now the portraits have become like the ghosts of Jedi Masters in Star Wars.

How is she going to explain the difference between the pictures of old heads (sentient, volitional, real people's echoes) the pictures that were 'fictional' (e.g. the fat lady who's the Gryffindor door, the rest that decorate Hogwurst), the frog cards and the newspaper pictures (frog cards pics only appear in one at a time, news pics move but are in every issue like wanted posters)?

I think it will be glossed over, but that'l leavea lot of disgruntled readers...
 
 
Cat Chant
17:14 / 25.07.05
Snape (who is in it suprisingly little, considering, Deva)

There is never enough Snape in the even-numbered books. True fact.
 
 
Jack Fear
17:21 / 25.07.05
Decent artcile on EW.com with speculations on the last book—including a guess as to as to the whereabouts of the horcrux that R.A.B. stole (hint: we've seen it already, but nobody knew what it was), and a possible future role for Dumbledore's brother Aberforth, who's been much-mentioned but (AFAIK) never seen.
 
 
Keith, like a scientist
21:43 / 25.07.05
jack, i forgot to mention that bit about the possible location of the Horcrux. i read that another board and thought it was a nifty idea...seems quite likely.
 
 
Yotsuba & Benjamin!
22:44 / 26.07.05
WAH!

Now I've got to read everything all over again. Nice one.
 
 
Shrug
20:05 / 27.07.05
Not that you don't all have the book at home but for clarity:

Hagrid regarding Dumbledore and Snape's argument:

"Well- I jus' heard Snape saying' Dumbledore took too much fer granted an' maybe he-Snape- didn' wan' ter do it anymore-"

"Do what?"

"I dunno Harry, it sounded like Snape was feelin' a bit overworked, th's all- anyway, Dumbledore told him flat out he'd agreed ter do it an' that was all there was to it. Pretty firm with him. An' then he said summat abou' Snape makin' investigations in his house, in Slytherin."



I'm not sure why Rowling drove home the point, other than to wrong foot us, that unlike with Sirius' death Harry did not hold up any hope of Dumbledore's magnificent return. Surely though Sirius' disappearance was awfully ambiguous as to whether he died or simply was trapped somewhere Dumbledore's was obvious; broken body and all.

And if we take into account that this may have been a planned event from the quote above I'm sure Dumbledore would not make one so flawed or fatal.
The first things we could look at would be the possibility of the use of horcruxes or a horcrux (which I think may be related to how the Headmaster's portraits work or at least similarly) via the mercy killing of Aragog?
Then there's always Polyjuice potion and an assortment of other magical tricks too. *

*Disclaimer: I'm not sure that I believe Dumbledore isn't dead and while I am firmly to blame for the above post I also strongly blame both Marvel comics or BigBrother for my suspicion filled heart and the above post.
Dumbledore has a g*m*pl*n
 
  

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