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First, my first (and unedited) reactions to form and structure.
This is hands down the best HP book yet, which is a great relief because the previous volume was just so bad. Everything I violently disliked about OotP has been corrected this time around. The writing is tight. The extraneous has been pared back - we're no longer treated to stultifyingly boring and pointless descriptions of quaint and charming: magical creatures (screwts, threstrals, stick bugs), locations (teachers' offices, the Ministry, the Burrow), Quidditch games, ceremonies (the Sorting, the opening feast, Christmas), magic (the portraits, overlong spell descriptions, the ghosts) and classes (Care of Magical Creatures, Divination). Appearances by the 'quaint and charming' and frequently annoying teachers - Peeves, Trelawney, Fudge, etc. have been pared back ala Jar Jar Binks - they're still there because they can't just disappear, but they aren't wasting page space. Even the long pointless interludes with main characters like Hagrid have been eliminated in favor of shorter, tighter passages which serve to advance the plot. It makes for a better, tighter, gripping book, and I am quite thrilled with this development. In short, the book references events without describing them in pointless detail; the readers are left to fill in the blanks, which makes for a much smoother read altogether. JKR's writing has matured considerably; there's a huge stylistic jump between HBP and everything that came before.
She's certainly learned how to write gripping suspense, and more importantly still, how to work it into the narrative. I was inwardly groaning when Dumbledore's predictable Chapter Of Exposition rolled around like clockwork, but this time JKR handled the dialogue, emotions, and reactions in an economical and believable fashion, which made the exposition compelling instead of the forced march it's always been up until this point.
Speaking of believable dialogue, emotions, and the like, I CANNOT OVEREMPHASIZE HOW DEEPLY GLAD I AM THAT ANGST CAPTAIN!HARRY HAS CHILLED OUT!!! in favor of displaying calmer, more nuanced reactions to events in the plot.
I pegged Dumbledore for death this time as I'd pegged Sirius last time around. It's easy with JKR - all one needs do is evaluate whose death will most serve as a motivating factor for Harry at this point in the narrative. What surprised me (especially when compared to Sirius' death), is how moving that death was. Dumbledore had annoyed me up to this point - he was too much of a plot device; all-knowing but never quite in the right place until Harry needed a deus ex, the 'quaint and charming' silly old man when the plot called for it but incredibly sharp despite all appearances, always on top, and above all, invulnerable. I immediately liked him more this time around (and still would have even if he hadn't died) because he was much more fleshed out. (Although it appears that JKR does tend to flesh secondary characters out before she kills them in order to maximise on the sympathy.) But there was sympathy, because Dumbledore was real this time: his humor was bitter and biting instead of contrived, his flaws natural as opposed to only there to advance the plot, and by the time they were on the island I was rooting for him almost as hard as I do for Snape.
And ah, Snape. What a wonderful bind she's put him in. I've no doubt he's still on the side of the Light (more on this below), but I now fear that he's going to have to die in order to prove this to Harry. Certainly, the linear morality of JKR's books suggests this - he'll redeem himself, but he'll still have to die to atone for Dumbledore's death.
I'd gone through the book assuming that Snape and Dumbledore were polyjuiced into one another when the Unbreakable Vow was made, thus resulting in Dumbledore's withered arm as he tried to resist the curse, and that that was how Dumbledore would die. Wrong on that count, but I'd totally pegged Snape as the Half-Blood Prince of the potions book, but had assumed that one of the gang (Hermione was my candidate), would recognise the writing as matching that on a grades DADA scroll.
It's scary how much parts of this book resemble a four year old WIP I'd started before book 5 came out, in which I had Malfoy chickening out on the DEs when asked to kill someone, and various main characters (Snape, Harry, and Black, to be exact), turned into partial werewolves by a semi-werewolf's bite. I was glad to see my suspicion that JKR's assertions that Draco would never be fleshed out more fully were a smokescreen instead of the truth. Draco certainly wasn't developed in the fully 3D manner a lot of his fans were hoping for, but we've certainly learned something vital about his character - that his bullying covers the fact that he's scared. And that's the only thing he can be - for all his inherited wealth and status, he's still a kid who must now do things that no longer seem quite as fun or simple when he actually does have the wand to someone else's throat. So JKR has created what I've long thought some of her characters lacked - dimension. And she'd doing it with economy.
Now on to Snape. And more importantly, why Snape is still good. No, really, READ THIS, because it all comes down to this -
Although there's some ambiguity in the phrasing of 'leave him,' Snape certainly had every opportunity to take Harry with him right into Voldemort's home base; canon gives us any number of spells Snape could have used to immobilise and transport Harry. But he doesn't do it. He doesn't even steal or break Harry's wand, and it's right there, just a simple Accio! away, and Snape must know as well as anyone that that wand is the twin to Voldemort's. Snape's doing what Bellatrix accused him of in the second chapter - just enough to maintain plausable deniability, but no more.
Furthermore, as I've remarked above the CAPSLOCK OF RAGE are thankfully absent in this book. Which makes Snape's isolate use of them that much more noticeable:
We're supposed to sit up and take extra-special notice here, and with good reason. These are the three most significant sentences in the book, because of what they tell us, and because of what we know book seven must necessary be about - that it will be the quest to avenge Dumbledore's death and destroy Voldemort. So lets analyse this paragraph. First, we see THE CAPSLOCK OF RAGE - it's obvious that Snape is incensed - more than he was at Harry's use of his old text, more than he was at Harry's earlier taunts. Snape is no coward. He's killed Dumbledore - the only man who truly knows whether he's still an agent of the Light or not - with his own hands. That's it. Snape is cut off. If anyone from the Ministry or Hogwarts gets to him, he's a dead man, and he knows it. He's essentially sacrificed his own life, IOU, for a great cause, and no one but him knows it. And even if he does survive and his name is cleared, do you think the wizarding world will forgive the former Death Eater who killed its greatest and most beloved wizard, even if he had no choice? Snape's life is effectively over, even if he does survive book 7.
Thus, it really stings him that Harry, the boy he's martyred himself to save, is now telling him to undo his own actions.
And finally, Snape's reaction - 'demented, inhuman, as though he was in as much pain as the yelping, howling dog stuck in the burning house. Guys, this is so obvious it isn't even metaphor: Snape is a cornered animal. Snape is stuck in a burning house. There's no way out for him any longer.
Snape heard the prophesy. He knows how it's got to end, which is why he's going to such lengths to protect Harry, because Harry's the only one who can do it, and even if Snape doesn't give a rat's ass about Harry himself, we've seen ample proof that Snape is desperate to be free of Voldemort's power.
More on this later, I'm sure. But for the moment, これで以上です。
This is hands down the best HP book yet, which is a great relief because the previous volume was just so bad. Everything I violently disliked about OotP has been corrected this time around. The writing is tight. The extraneous has been pared back - we're no longer treated to stultifyingly boring and pointless descriptions of quaint and charming: magical creatures (screwts, threstrals, stick bugs), locations (teachers' offices, the Ministry, the Burrow), Quidditch games, ceremonies (the Sorting, the opening feast, Christmas), magic (the portraits, overlong spell descriptions, the ghosts) and classes (Care of Magical Creatures, Divination). Appearances by the 'quaint and charming' and frequently annoying teachers - Peeves, Trelawney, Fudge, etc. have been pared back ala Jar Jar Binks - they're still there because they can't just disappear, but they aren't wasting page space. Even the long pointless interludes with main characters like Hagrid have been eliminated in favor of shorter, tighter passages which serve to advance the plot. It makes for a better, tighter, gripping book, and I am quite thrilled with this development. In short, the book references events without describing them in pointless detail; the readers are left to fill in the blanks, which makes for a much smoother read altogether. JKR's writing has matured considerably; there's a huge stylistic jump between HBP and everything that came before.
She's certainly learned how to write gripping suspense, and more importantly still, how to work it into the narrative. I was inwardly groaning when Dumbledore's predictable Chapter Of Exposition rolled around like clockwork, but this time JKR handled the dialogue, emotions, and reactions in an economical and believable fashion, which made the exposition compelling instead of the forced march it's always been up until this point.
Speaking of believable dialogue, emotions, and the like, I CANNOT OVEREMPHASIZE HOW DEEPLY GLAD I AM THAT ANGST CAPTAIN!HARRY HAS CHILLED OUT!!! in favor of displaying calmer, more nuanced reactions to events in the plot.
I pegged Dumbledore for death this time as I'd pegged Sirius last time around. It's easy with JKR - all one needs do is evaluate whose death will most serve as a motivating factor for Harry at this point in the narrative. What surprised me (especially when compared to Sirius' death), is how moving that death was. Dumbledore had annoyed me up to this point - he was too much of a plot device; all-knowing but never quite in the right place until Harry needed a deus ex, the 'quaint and charming' silly old man when the plot called for it but incredibly sharp despite all appearances, always on top, and above all, invulnerable. I immediately liked him more this time around (and still would have even if he hadn't died) because he was much more fleshed out. (Although it appears that JKR does tend to flesh secondary characters out before she kills them in order to maximise on the sympathy.) But there was sympathy, because Dumbledore was real this time: his humor was bitter and biting instead of contrived, his flaws natural as opposed to only there to advance the plot, and by the time they were on the island I was rooting for him almost as hard as I do for Snape.
And ah, Snape. What a wonderful bind she's put him in. I've no doubt he's still on the side of the Light (more on this below), but I now fear that he's going to have to die in order to prove this to Harry. Certainly, the linear morality of JKR's books suggests this - he'll redeem himself, but he'll still have to die to atone for Dumbledore's death.
I'd gone through the book assuming that Snape and Dumbledore were polyjuiced into one another when the Unbreakable Vow was made, thus resulting in Dumbledore's withered arm as he tried to resist the curse, and that that was how Dumbledore would die. Wrong on that count, but I'd totally pegged Snape as the Half-Blood Prince of the potions book, but had assumed that one of the gang (Hermione was my candidate), would recognise the writing as matching that on a grades DADA scroll.
It's scary how much parts of this book resemble a four year old WIP I'd started before book 5 came out, in which I had Malfoy chickening out on the DEs when asked to kill someone, and various main characters (Snape, Harry, and Black, to be exact), turned into partial werewolves by a semi-werewolf's bite. I was glad to see my suspicion that JKR's assertions that Draco would never be fleshed out more fully were a smokescreen instead of the truth. Draco certainly wasn't developed in the fully 3D manner a lot of his fans were hoping for, but we've certainly learned something vital about his character - that his bullying covers the fact that he's scared. And that's the only thing he can be - for all his inherited wealth and status, he's still a kid who must now do things that no longer seem quite as fun or simple when he actually does have the wand to someone else's throat. So JKR has created what I've long thought some of her characters lacked - dimension. And she'd doing it with economy.
Now on to Snape. And more importantly, why Snape is still good. No, really, READ THIS, because it all comes down to this -
'No!' roared Snape's voice and the pain stopped as suddenly as it had started; Harry lay curled on the dark grass, clutching his wand and panting; somewhere above him Snape was shouting, 'Have you forgotten our orders? Potter belongs to the Dark Lord - we are to leave him! Go! Go!'
Although there's some ambiguity in the phrasing of 'leave him,' Snape certainly had every opportunity to take Harry with him right into Voldemort's home base; canon gives us any number of spells Snape could have used to immobilise and transport Harry. But he doesn't do it. He doesn't even steal or break Harry's wand, and it's right there, just a simple Accio! away, and Snape must know as well as anyone that that wand is the twin to Voldemort's. Snape's doing what Bellatrix accused him of in the second chapter - just enough to maintain plausable deniability, but no more.
Furthermore, as I've remarked above the CAPSLOCK OF RAGE are thankfully absent in this book. Which makes Snape's isolate use of them that much more noticeable:
'Kill me, then,' panted Harry, who felt no fear at all, but only rage and contempt. 'Kill me like you killed him, you coward-'
'DON'T-' screamed Snape, and his face was suddenly demented, inhuman, as though he was in as much pain as the yelping, howling dog stuck in the burning house behind them, '-CALL ME COWARD!'
We're supposed to sit up and take extra-special notice here, and with good reason. These are the three most significant sentences in the book, because of what they tell us, and because of what we know book seven must necessary be about - that it will be the quest to avenge Dumbledore's death and destroy Voldemort. So lets analyse this paragraph. First, we see THE CAPSLOCK OF RAGE - it's obvious that Snape is incensed - more than he was at Harry's use of his old text, more than he was at Harry's earlier taunts. Snape is no coward. He's killed Dumbledore - the only man who truly knows whether he's still an agent of the Light or not - with his own hands. That's it. Snape is cut off. If anyone from the Ministry or Hogwarts gets to him, he's a dead man, and he knows it. He's essentially sacrificed his own life, IOU, for a great cause, and no one but him knows it. And even if he does survive and his name is cleared, do you think the wizarding world will forgive the former Death Eater who killed its greatest and most beloved wizard, even if he had no choice? Snape's life is effectively over, even if he does survive book 7.
Thus, it really stings him that Harry, the boy he's martyred himself to save, is now telling him to undo his own actions.
And finally, Snape's reaction - 'demented, inhuman, as though he was in as much pain as the yelping, howling dog stuck in the burning house. Guys, this is so obvious it isn't even metaphor: Snape is a cornered animal. Snape is stuck in a burning house. There's no way out for him any longer.
Snape heard the prophesy. He knows how it's got to end, which is why he's going to such lengths to protect Harry, because Harry's the only one who can do it, and even if Snape doesn't give a rat's ass about Harry himself, we've seen ample proof that Snape is desperate to be free of Voldemort's power.
More on this later, I'm sure. But for the moment, これで以上です。
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Anyway, I'm really intrigued to see what JKR will do with Snape in book 7, because I honestly don't think she'll let him survive, having killed Dumbledore. On the other hand, if Snape dies or Harry kills him and then learns the truth, it's going to take a lot of narrative for Harry to properly deal with the aftermath, and as the climax of the whole series is Voldy's death, I really can't see jkr taking the time to fully develop Harry's response, which would leave me feeling cheated.
We shall see.
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And feel free to discuss any time you want. I am a huge Snape Flagwaver myself. XD
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must remind myself it's only a bookam interested to see when his death will occur. It's something which will need a lot of narrative for Harry to properly deal with, but then again, I can't see the final book dealing with the aftermath of Voldy's death, either, as that's the climax of the whole series.From:
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I did notice that Hagrid did rescue his dog. Will Snape somehow be redeemed in book 7? I hope that Snape has gone the Undercover Spy route and has been positioned to perhaps kill Voldemort should Harry fail.
I wonder if anyone will figure out that Dumbledore was going to die anyway?
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I know, and I do see (minimal) canon evidence which allows me to hope there's a sliver of a chance for Snape, given jkr's penchant for tying offhand remarks back into later volumes. The problem is that I can see Snape's loyalty to Harry being proven as he lies dying, which is no real consolation to a flagwaver like me.
I think we're definitely going to learn that Dd's time was up - Harry's bound to find a bottled Pensieve memory or two in book seven, and gods help me I've already got two viciously-fanged plot bunnies concerning it.
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Hmm, yeah, there's been a lot of debate on how she's going to fit the Horcrux quest all in that one book. ^^;;; We're expecting it to be rather a bit of a monster if she does manage; I really hope it isn't smaller than this one--conciseness is good, but rounded-out plot is better. X3;;;
Indeed...
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I've heard rumors of rumors that she's talking about extending the books past seven, which I really hope happens, because there is just too much to wrap up, even in one monster book, especially if they keep the same font size;) I certainly wouldn't mind more
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*blinks* That'd be awesome, I think, but those types of wild-like rumors rarely prove true. *shakes head* And what with the way she's done things so far, I wouldn't be surprised if she comes up with some giant plot twist that fits the thing neatly in a single volume. o.o; I wouldn't mind more either, but it also gives favorite characters more time to die. D:
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