Review of Harry Potter 6

A Review of
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
by J. K. Rowling

This book is quite a bit darker than the first 3, and even worse than number 5. Read it before blithely allowing your children to do so. For anyone who has become attached to the characters of the book, the ending will be highly upsetting, so prepare yourself. It didn't bother me much, but then again, I'm not easily attached to characters.
    In this book, Harry comes back to school with a lot more responsibility than before. Since the end of the last book, he has had the load of the prophecy on his mind, and has to behave accordingly. Dumbledore treats Harry far more adultly in this book, imparting as much knowledge about Voldemort as he can to Harry throughout. This is in response to his perceived mistake at the end of book 5, of keeping too much knowledge from Harry to spare his feelings. This leads to some insight into Voldemort's character (!), and a lot of tedious storytelling. There are clearly still secrets being kept, however.
    The mystery of what Malfoy is trying to do is not very difficult, (as I managed it before halfway through the book. There is one very obvious clue.). The mystery of whom the half-blood prince is should have been as easy. The meaning of the chapter title "Septum-Sempra" might change your mind if you guessed wrong, as that word's meaning along with an event that I just noticed on re-reading book 5 gives away the identity clearly. I will admit that I didn't figure it out until it was handed to me on a silver platter at the end.

I give this book a 8/10

The spoilers below really will spoil it if you haven't finished yet. Don't read on if you don't want the ending spoiled.

Major Spoilers Below

Really, don't read this if you don't mean it.
    The behavior of Dumbledore all through the book is highly suspect. I feel that it can only be explained by him either being thorougly hoodwinked by the bad guys (in which case Harry will have to be incredibly lucky in book 7 to survive), or he has plans of some sort of powerful effect that has not yet been mentioned. One thing worth pointing out is that the mention of Draco's death being faked and him hidden was apparently not in the British version, but was in the American one. This means either that it was too obvious of a clue or that it was likely to lead people astray. All I'm saying is don't yet give up hope that he'll turn up alive somewhere in book 7.
    One problem I have with this book is the serious misuse of a powerful concept. I won't say what it is, but Felix Felicitus is far too powerful an concept to only have the effect described in the book. Simply because they are illegal for most uses, it seems completely improbable that the enemy wizards encountered in later books would not use them extensively. This is an example of what I call "polluting" a fictional universe with concepts stronger than the use they're put to. This is exactly the same problem that gave Larry Niven such difficulties with his Ringworld series of books, as they involved people who were unaccountably lucky. At least Rowling had the sense to make Felix a more limited effect.
    I have a somewhat wilder theory below, that I wrote up for an outside forum:

I have a theory here about why Dumbledore allowed himself to be killed. (Snape might have lied about going along with Dumbledore's plans, in which case my theory goes out with the dishwater.) The most telling evidence for Dumbledore allowing himself to be killed, as opposed to it being an accident, is that he froze Harry there in a perfect position to watch.
Let's examine Dumbledore's goals. What's his top priority? To stop/kill Voldemort. Now, Dumbledore knows that the prophecy is in effect (as both Harry and Voldemort are following it) so the best way to get rid of Voldemort is to help Harry. Now in the beginning of book 1, Harry had two big enchantments working for him: the protection given by Lily choosing to die to protect him (As JKR says "...she could have lived and chose to die..." is why her sacrifice was so powerful). The second was the thing with an underage wizard living with his family (why he has to go back to the Dursleys all the time). Protection #1 was negated by Voldemort in book GoF when he got himself reincarnated with Harry's blood. Protection #2 will be negated the day Harry turns old enough (the coming summer).
Here comes the part where I step out on a limb: I think that Dumbledore's death was (a) to protect Harry, and (b) followed the same reasoning as Lily's death to protect Harry. I suspect that we'll find somewhere through the seventh book that the kind of protection Harry had against Voldemort in the first books is back, this time from Dumbledore. This protection would also, conveniently, come into effect a few weeks before Harry's protection due to the Dursleys was going to expire. In other words, Dumbledore had this planned earlier in the year, but he was waiting (probably for Malfoy to get his plan working, to try to save Malfoy's life) and he would have done it before the end of the school year in any case.
Now for the part I like best about this theory is this: this theory works whether Snape was siding with Dumbledore or against him. If he was siding with Dumbledore, then Snape killed Dumbledore to save himself (Snape, from the vow), and Malfoy, and to curry favor with Voldemort. If Snape was siding with Voldemort, then Snape killed Dumbledore to save himself from the vow, Malfoy from his promise to Voldemort, and to curry favor with Voldemort. Snape would want to do all three of those things either way. The part about giving Harry a new protection was probably kept secret from Snape because, as far as I can figure out, Dumbledore kept the original protections a secret between himself and Harry (he didn't want Voldemort getting warning of those protections, and Harry would seem the only person 100% trustworthy of keeping them secret).

The real weak point in this theory is that Dumble died for harry. I feel that the fact that he went out of his way to avoid defending himself (not stopping Draco earlier in the year when Harry warned him, stunning Harry at the end) point to the possibility. Clearly he died, but I can't think of anything that proves that his death was for Harry.
I'd love to hear some comments.

The Harry Potter series by J. K. Rowling

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