angelophile | Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince

Another Harry Potter book down and, although I found it an inoffensive read, once again I'm left to wonder why this series of novels got kids and adults salivating so badly. While there's stuff to enjoy here, it's undoubtedly the weakest of the series and frankly the series as a whole seems to have serious flaws, particularly with pacing and plotting, and this book's no exception to the pattern - three quarters filler with only the last quarter that seems to tie into the over-arching plot, stuffed with rushed action and extended exposition.

And the main problem I have with J.K. Rowling is the way she constantly builds things up over the course of a novel and then immediately deflates them. It's happened a lot over the last couple of novels. For example, in the Order of the Phoenix, the whole weighty novel builds around Voldemort trying to get his hands on a prophesy about him and Harry. The whole novel. And when it's destroyed, it's suddenly revealed that Dumbledore knew what was in it all the time. Not only that, but in this novel it's revealed Voldemort does too, since Snape overheard and told him. And then there's the fact that when Harry reveals the prophesy to his friends there's literally the line from Hermione saying "Yes, we thought it would be something like that." Well, if everyone bloody knew or guessed, why was it a big chuffing deal?

Similarly in this novel, there's the whole deal of Slughorn's missing memory. This is built up as being of utmost importance. Dumbledore insists that Harry discover what was in it, proclaiming it to be the most important mission Harry can have. When he discovers about the Horcruxes and reveals it to Dumbledore instead of the grand revelation, the rug's immediately pulled out from under the plot. "Oh yeah," says Dumbledore. "Multiple Horcruxes? I knew that already. Figured it out from that diary. Oh, and I've spent the last few months hunting them down and already found two, so, y'know, bit of a waste of your time, really."

It's frustrating because it basically negates vast swathes of the last couple of novels. The prophesy's not really important since Dumbledore and Voldemort already knew all about it. The two thirds of the novel that Harry spends trying to get the missing memory from Slughorn seems like a waste of bloody time. It's these plotting issues that really kill it for me. There's plenty of good in the books, but again, a hell of a lot of filler and then what plot there is is negated by pointless reasons for keeping Harry in the dark and sending him to discover what most of the characters already knew or had figured out. And the whole "mystery" of the identity of the Half Blood Prince, which is barely even a plot point, despite being the title.

That said, there's some good here - the Draco plotline's solid, there's plenty of dark and thrilling moments, the climax exciting, Slughorn's intriguing, the early chapters are atmospheric - but then it all seems to dwindle away. In a situation where Voldemort is murdering people daily, the danger is raised considerably, the bulk of the novel being about who wins which quidditch matches, who's dating who and other rather trite distraction is genuinely bewildering. Possibly not as bewildering as where the hell the sudden romances between Hermione and Ron and Harry and Ginny (who hitherto had the character development of a cardboard cutout) came from, but bewildering nevertheless.

I can sympathise with JK Rowling though. What she delivered in this novel was basically the same sort of stuff as previously. But expectations for the series seemed to be through the roof - far more than anyone can deliver or, in my opinion, than the series has ever delivered. There's some entertaining bits for sure, but the expectation that things would be kicked up a gear with the penultimate novel certainly aren't met. It doesn't work as a stand alone novel, like the early books did, and aside from the last fifth of the novel, it doesn't add anything much to the over-arching plot either.

And bad show for having all of my personal ship Luna and Neville's kick-assery happening off camera. Again. Would it have killed to have them appear properly as characters and not just mentioned in passing? I love those crazy kids and would certainly have enjoyed a page or two devoted to their battles alongside the Order of the Phoenix over another page of Won Wons.