Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince

Firstly, I was already warned before I began reading of the two grand spoilers in this book. Who the half-blood prince was and who dies. With that in mind without giving away plot- it was quite lame how the half-blood prince is named so, and whom he is. Its for no exotic reason, I'll leave it at that.

The big idea behind Half Blood is to build character, the readers have finally seen all the new people they can possibly be introduced to. The end is at hand and there must be depth to the characters for the finale to be meaningful and exciting. It is hard to feel emotion for characters that have few defining characteristics that readers can identify with. There are still many loose ends to tie up before this series is done, and I don't envy J.K.'s monumental task in this.

I enjoyed Harry growing past the whiney stage that he so greatly indulged in the Order of the Phoenix. It was really annoying, and I enjoyed Phoenix a lot less as a result. Ron Weasley's sudden promiscuity was startling, and Hermione's obviously jealous reactions and rebellion were extreme. It was good to see Ron break out of the I'm-not-sure-if-girlfriends-are-cool stage. He made up for lost time to say the least.

My greatest surprise was the fleshing out of Draco Malfoy's character. Most of the series he has been the blind antagonist to Harry without much provocation. His primary drive seem to be rivalry and jealousy, so it was refreshing to see him given depth and story. Draco has been a player in the books since Socerer's Stone, and it should be safe to assume he has a big role ahead in the the last book. I certainly don't envy J.K.'s task in the next two years.

Tom Riddle/Voldemort was the main focus for Harry as always, but not his present- his past. Harry and Dumbledore together piece together the mysetery of the most nefarious wizard in the century. I'm hoping to see that he is no longer a flat dimensionless character that he has been for the first four books. Pheonix gave hints of there being more than blind hatered to motivate Tom down his path to darkness.

A story in which the reader is asked to have a dislike for someone by deed only is easily a short story. Giving depth to the antagonist is a brave step into epic for a writer. Sorcerer's Stone Voldemort was barely in at all, mostly mentioned in whisper and at the end is possessing a teacher. Chamber of Secrets had slightly more presence, but it was still a fairly glossed over charcater despite the dread and hype. Evil, but evil for the sake of being evil- mostly a face and name tenuously connected to the unfolding events. Azkaban had hardly anything to do with Voldemort at all, it mostly focused on the Dementors and Sirius. The Goblet is my favorite, but yet again- Voldemort isn't personally connected to the chaos and loosely at that through agents. It isn't until the end when he is reborn in the full flesh that Voldemort finally begins to have a physical presence in the series. Conseqentially, hs also begins to be fleshed out with motive, weaknesses, and measures of personality beyond destruction. Give a character history and it puts strength into the story. Good thing too since the end is nearly at hand for the Harry Potter books.

I was a little dissapointed after all the development that was put into Neville (spoiler link and bio) Pheonix that he hardly has any presence in Half Blood at all. I was happy to see J.K. address the odd prophecy that links Harry and Neville by freak chance of birth. I also fully expected Fleur and Ms. Weasly to have an all-out cat fight without coming to terms about Bill. Nor for Fleur to be so loyal to Bill despite the sickening lovey-dovey between them. I make mention of this, because Fleur appears to be very shallow, but when Bill's face is ruined she stands stalwart at his side. Thus she and Ms. Weasley reconcile. Surprising.

I was also pleased that the death of the influential Sirius was not put down lightly by Harry. Practically the only family he had, and became yet another of Voldemort's victims. I was greatly surprised by the Remus/Tonks thing, it caught me by surprise. I had no idea the J.K. would be so brave to take Harry, Ron, and Hermione off Hogwarts for the next book. I fully expected for the school to be the sight of the final apocalypse so to speak. She has put so much effort into making the castle a character itself in the books since the beginning, so much focus that I never thought she would lead us away from in the last book. That Hermione would jump with Ron and Harry to not go back to school next year so they could hunt down the last Horcruxes was the bigger shock for me.

All in all, there is always something occuring that readers can identify with, some character that they feel more strongly about. And J.K. provides all the 'feel good' candy in Half Blood, but I can only guess at the conclusion coming our way at the last year of Hogwarts.