On Jul 16, 2005, at 11:07 PM, Gautam Mukunda wrote:
[Ye Olde ƒpoiler-ƒpace.] . . .
1. The plot of this book was actually very sparse. In terms of the main plot - the war - what happened?
There wasn't much of a sense of a larger scale, but then, none of the HP books have *ever* been about anything but Harry, Hermione and Ron, really, set largely at Hogwarts. She couldn't open the scale of the narrative without reducing the focus, I thought.
That said, there did seem to be some glossings-over of affected students' families, but then, given how the book ended, maybe the thought was that the emotional impact of the last few chapters was more than enough.
Just as Rowling doesn't delve extensively into intimate relationships, she doesn't seem to want to describe, in rich detail, the collateral damage of the war.
Too, there's the fact that much of it is kept underground to begin with. There's a sense of suppression of sorts, but then, think back to your high school days. How much active discussion of current wars was going on in formal classroom settings?
Three chief events. Dumbledore is killed. Snape is revealed. We learn what Harry will have to do to defeat Voldemort. That's all I can think of.
Mm, development of Ron & Hermione, which didn't surprise me; and Harry and Ginny's brief tryst, which also didn't surprise me, and which I expect will be revisited…
The big shock was not Dumbledore dying, of course - it's been obvious that that had to happen at the end of Book Six since, well, Book 1, probably. What is a huge shock, of course, is that _Snape_ would be the one who murders him.
Yeah, me too -- I had the impression that at first Malfoy was told to target Harry, but when Ron drank the poisoned mead I realized Dumbledore was the target. And I kept expecting Snape to somehow figure out a way to break the oath and survive, or maybe let Dumbledore "win" in a duel, or maybe that D. had something up his sleeve, so to speak, in his slow floorward progress on the parapet.
I am quite impressed by Rowling's skill in setting this up. As in each of her other books, she plays absolutely fair with the reader. We had enough information to figure out (before Harry does) what Malfoy was doing, for example - although I doubt many people will.
Ahh, the mead's a dead give-away, isn't it? To me it was one of those clues like the "flowery" scent Harry smells near the love potion, and then a few chapters later the "flowery" scent he notices just before Ginny shows up. And as far back as book 4 (maybe even 3) or so she was clearly carrying a torch for him.
But in each book Rowling has carefully crafted a structure - we suspect Snape, we hate Snape, we discover that Snape is actually a good guy. By this book, of course, I was so used to that structure that I completely failed to suspect Snape.
I kept vacillating, FWIW. I really wanted to believe he was playing a part, I suppose. His duplicity in the end -- or was it, really, duplicity? -- did catch me off guard. I think I was hoping that Rowling was going to make a point about intentions sometimes being masked by necessities, but of course Harry was right all along.
So when Snape appeared at the last minute - I expected him to rescuce Dumbledore (somehow) or perhaps even die in glorious but futile defense of him.
Yeah! Exactly.
I certainly didn't expect the murder. Yet again, here - Rowling actually provides us with a Voldemort-approved explanation for his behavior, and we knew (from Harry's Occlumency lessons) that Snape was a half-blood - although I don't recall _anyone_ suggesting Snape as the Half-Blood Prince, and it certainly didn't occur to me while I was reading.
I only suspected it toward the end, after Harry curses Malfoy in the bathroom. It occurred to me that maybe somehow it was Snape's book after all (earlier I'd suspected it was another one of Moldyfart's oblique historical artifacts), but then of course there was the female "Prince" Hermione found out about.
There's a theme here dealing with mudbloods too. The Dark wizards all seem to be fanatically uptight about "purity" -- and yet not ONE of the major players, even Moldy himself, happen to have the "purity" of blood they so crave. They're self-loathing first, it seems, and rather than deal with it in a healthy way they decide to spread the misery around.
The focus was clearly (as it says on the dust jacket flap, of all things) on the home front. We got to see relationships further develop at Hogswarts - in a highly amusing and enjoyable fashion, of course.
To slip into discussion of the movies for a moment, I was very satisfied with the way Cuaròn dealt with this in the third film. He ushers all three of the characters into the maturity of young adulthood in a way that simply would have been impossible for Columbus. CC would have made sure there was a lot of mugging, eye-rolling and other goofy stupidity; Cuaròn, instead, simply has one brief handclasp and then a long embrace, and that simply, it's done. The tone of the relationship between Hermione and Ron has altered indelibly, subtly, and with real class.
Rowling did something similar in her books as well. For as long as the rest of the film franchise lasts I hope Cuaròn continues directing them. He's really quite good.
We get to see Harry mature a great deal. We get to see the alliances and relationships that will be crucial to the final confrontation finally fall into place. All of this is important, but no exactly eventful.
Ah, but it is. You've described a lot of character development; that's actually quite crucial to effective storytelling. It would be impossible to remain sympathetic with a character who still saw the world as an eleven-year-old might, and as Ron, Harry and Hermione gain stature they *must* become more subtle, abstract and conscious thinkers. This book felt a hell of a lot more like a novel along the lines of _Dune_ than a romp through fantasyland with blood. But then I've always really preferred character-driven storylines to pyrotechnics, since it's connecting to characters that makes a story interesting to me. As I see it this installment was pretty much exactly what the series needed.
The book is successful, I think, largely because at this point we have so much invested in the characters that I (at least) really do find myself caring about what happens to them - even their relationships, not just the war effort.
:D That's what I mean when I write things like the above.
So, what does this say for the final book? Well, I'm sure that Harry will, in fact, return to Hogwarts, despite what he says at the conclusion. I presume that McGonagall will take over permanently as Headmaster - which implies a new head for Gryffindor and (of course) Slytherin. Malfoy will not be back - and Hogwarts without Malfoy and Snape doesn't have much potential for dramatic conflict, so I'm guessing that while Harry will be there, not that much of the plot will actually take place there. I bet he does end up taking his NEWTS, though. One wonders what Rowling would do to the SATs.
Um, for a lot of the same reasons you point out above, I'm not sure there'll be a seventh year at Hogwarts for Harry. He might drop in, might get help from some of the people there, but it seems to me that the conclusion of this arc requires a much larger setting than can be provided on the more-or-less sheltered campus of a wizarding school. As you noted a lot of the war goes unregistered at Hogwarts. It would be hard to have a final battle there, let alone develop out the story further.
I get the impression that Harry will have to do something to save the Durseleys, though I have no idea what or how; and that he'll do what needs to be done with Moldyfart. Ideally what we'll end up with then is a coda that takes place a decade or so later, showing Ron and Hermione happily wed, etc., and possibly Harry and Ginny in a similar situation. (This allows Rowling to avoid all the sticky romantic developments that surely would bore many of her younger readers to intense frustration.)
Malfoy might show up as a threat, but he'll either end up being killed in the service of Moldy or he'll turn coward. His presence might factor into the Final Duel, in fact -- I could see him trying to help Moldy. Or maybe, much to his own surprise, even Harry, and getting Kadavera'd for it.
[...]
This is how you should behave. You reach out to the poor kids, the unpopular kids. That's not a common message, because most kids lit doesn't have the popular kids as the heroes.
That's an interesting way of looking at it. And there's some validity to that perspective, I think -- JKR does seem to be suggesting that being "popular" doesn't necessarily mean you have to be an ass. That as you make it up the ladder, etc., you don't have to turn into one of the bullies.
The truly enjoyable thing about this book really is, to me, what a wonderful kid Harry has turned into. The first time in the books when I was genuinely disapointed by him was when it looked like he had used the good luck potion on Ron before their Quidditch match. When it turned out that he didn't, that was also wonderful.
Yeah, that was clever. And he *has* turned out OK, at least so far, which is a good thing, I suspect. If he'd become damaged, after all, if ego or whatever had become king in his thoughts, would he really be able to take on Moldy?
That's something I've liked about the stories so far -- Harry, when he's facing something really awful, is frightened, but he presses on anyway. His youthful sense of personal immortality lets him get himself into trouble quite a lot, but at the same time he's aware, when battles really are being fought, of how dangerous the situation is, and he does what he has to regardless. He even has reactions, but they're after the fact, once the adrenalin has abated. That's also very realistic.
Briefly, Harry doesn't do battle because he *likes* it. He does it because his personal ethic requires it of him. And when he oversteps and grievously injures Malfoy, he has genuine remorse. That's a well-drawn, very deep hero.
A second message embedded in the book - and I think a more serious one - draws from the idea of the prophecy that Rowling elaborates. The key here is that Harry isn't destined to oppose Voldemort - he chooses to do so.
Yes. There's no fate, doom etc. that's sealed in any way. He's doing what's right, rather than what he's compelled to do … but of course because he knows it's right.
[...]
There is, however, equally clearly a second message in the books. This is the reality of good and evil, the unacceptability of temporizing between the two, and the necessity of fighting- literally fighting - to defend the good. There is no question about the difference between good and evil - no moral equivalence, no appeasement, no question in her heroes minds that there's no question it's better to fight - even to die fighting - than to give in. In this - its moral clarity, its determination, and its resolve, it draws on the best of what the right contributes to modern politics.
Umm, more or less; but Harry feels sympathy for Malfoy. This suggests that JKR's concepts about good and evil aren't quite so stark, that there's a line which can definitely be crossed (murder, for instance), but that it's also possible to be compelled into terrible acts out of a sense of inner worthlessness, or because of dire external threat. There seems to be a hint that, until that line has actually been crossed, she regards almost anyone as being redeemable. That's not temporizing, of course, but it's clear from the Myrtle scene that Malfoy is not to be read as being hopelessly evil -- he's a tragic character who might yet find redemption through some later selfless act.
-- Warren Ockrassa, Publisher/Editor, nightwares Books http://books.nightwares.com/ Current work in progress "The Seven-Year Mirror" http://www.nightwares.com/books/ockrassa/Flat_Out.pdf _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
