Why do people like the books better than their movies? The mind offers a lot more room for imagination when reading a book. When you watch the movie, you�re thinking �Oh, I thought it would have been different.� Plus, books give a lot more. The third of the Harry Potter �fat books� just came out, which is basically the 6th volume and the 6th year for our favorite wizard to attend Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. On the evening before the book was to be released at midnight, I was in the theater watching �War of the Worlds.� The town seemed empty when I came out of the theater except for a view people walking around dressed as characters from the book. The following day, I heard that they had a good turnout. The good turnout meaning that a lot of children were involved in random events around the town to celebrate Harry Potter.
You gotta love that so many kids are excited about this book coming out. You gotta love that huge trucks with millions of these books are being used to ship the books to stores. You gotta love that millions of children around the world are buying the books. You gotta love that their parents will be reading them, too. Amongst other grown-ups. I even enjoyed the fact that I had to drive well out of my way to a different Meijer store just because the one I usually go to were out of the books. And I still loved that I only had to pay $14.99 for it.
�Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince� starts out with the Prime Minister in a political-style beginning. Bridges were being destroyed. People were being killed in nasty ways. And the Prime Minister was being blamed for all of this. At first I thought J.K. Rowling was writing about our real world, but taking place overseas. The first chapter being �The Other Minister,� brings a little politics into the story. I disliked the beginning until, about 1 whole page into it, the picture on the wall started talking to introduce �The Other Minister,� the Minister of Magic, Cornelius Fudge. It got very entertaining, and was further proof that J.K. Rowling is seriously getting better in her story telling.
Several new characters including a new teacher (almost obviously) are introduced. I like the Gaunts, who are Tom Riddle�s relatives, Merope Gaunt (his mother), being a quiet witch who loves Tom Riddle Sr. Voldemort is half-blood, but read on...The new teacher, Horace Slughorn, teaches �Potions.� Harry is transferred into the class at the beginning of the semester. Of course, since this is all so sudden, the new professor needs to let Harry borrow a book. This book has definitely been used by someone before it got to Harry. Harry knows this because there is writing all over it. Hints, made-up spells, and techniques give Harry all that he needs to become the best in the class. Better than his friend Hermione, which makes her jealous, but this book is helping him. The book, which belonged to the Half-Blood Prince.
Horcruxes are also very important this year. Dumbledore teaches Harry extra lessons every few weeks, but these lessons aren�t teaching him school-required stuff. They go into the Pensieve and look at people�s memories to find out how Lord Voldemort came to be so powerful and what he was like as a boy. The chapters about Lord Voldemort�s past and his family were really good. J.K. Rowling sticks to her characters, writes like each character would talk, and it is very entertaining. Horcruxes are hidden valuables that Voldemort has to keep parts of his soul alive. You have to be a killer to get one, but Voldemort succeeds in that, and the Horcruxes are how he is able to live (The diary from The Chamber of Secrets was a horcrux). In fact, Harry�s mission is to find these and destroy them. Then, he�ll be able to destroy Lord Voldemort, one of the most powerful wizards, and one of the most evil. Tom Riddle, he is, who killed Harry�s parents and who gave Harry the scar on his head.
Don�t read on: Spoilers�Skip to the last paragraph--
Harry�s mother did not need to die, yet she stood between Voldemort and her baby. Why was Voldemort after Harry? Well, there is a prophecy. A prophecy saying Harry Potter will destroy Lord Voldemort. Bringing real-world themes back into the story, Voldemort brought this onto himself. If he had not tried to kill baby Harry, Harry would have his parents and have no reason to try to kill Lord Voldemort.
For some reason, I have been hearing a lot of talk on the web about Harry and who he is dating. Or would be dating. Well, there�s this potion called Felix Felices that gives you good luck throughout the day. Harry waits to use it so he can start dating who he wants to. Ron, Harry�s best friend, is given a love potion and falls madly for a random girl (who had given the potion to Harry, which was taken by Ron by mistake). Ron, however, dates Lavender Brown, although he wishes to get out of the relationship after too much making-out. Hermione dates Cormac McLaggen for one night to attend the �Slug Club,� which is a dinner party at the new professor�s office. Cormac McLaggen was really wanting to get on the Quidditch team, but Ron won the spot he wanted on the team. Harry is captain, choosing who is on the team and who isn�t. Ron and Hermione get very angry with each other in the book, and McLaggen is her date for the evening to make Ron mad, saying that McLaggen should have beat Ron. However, once they become friends again, they are back to normal, and I wouldn�t be surprised if they ever hooked up. Ron and Hermione are jealous of each other�s boyfriends and girlfriends. Also on the quidditch team is Dean Thomas, who dates Ron�s sister, Ginny. Harry gets very jealous of this. Coming back from the hospital, he walks into a quidditch party...the team had to win without him, and they did, and Harry walks right up to Ginny and kisses her. He had taken Felix Felices for luck, which might have caused Ginny and Dean to break up, allowing Harry access to his crush. He couldn�t help himself.
Harry uses the Half-Blood Princes� book in classes and it even helps him save Ron�s life, after he is poisoned. He also finds a spell that is �to be used on enemies.� Curious whether Malfoy is a death eater or not (working for Voldemort), he uses the spell on Malfoy in defense. Malfoy falls, with huge cuts all over him, gushing blood all over. Snape comes in to rescue Malfoy, and Harry is even mad at what he�s done. Snape gives Harry detention for the rest of the term. Well, in the end, it turns out that Snape invented the spell. His mother, Eileen Prince, is a witch, and she married Tobias Snape, a muggle, making Professor Severus Snape...a Half-Blood, and using his mother�s name...a Prince. And also in the end, once Harry and Dumbledore come back from trying to collect a horcrux, they are attacked by Inferi, which are basically zombies. Snape uses �Avada Kedavra� on Dumbledore, sending him off the Lightning-Struck Tower at Hogwarts, sending him...to his death. Snape runs. Dumbledore repeated to Harry again and again that he trusted Snape completely, yet in the second chapter of the book, we learn that Snape is a death eater, and he makes an unbreakable vow to watch over Malfoy and make sure he isn�t killed trying to kill Harry or Dumbledore. Snape, being an expert occlumens (not allowing others to read his mind...in effect, nobody can see through his lies), nobody really suspects Snape of being evil...except Harry. Perhaps Snape is on Harry�s side and killed Dumbledore to make the Dark Lord think he was on his side? In the second chapters, it�s all about Snape trying to convince us and Malfoy�s mother that he�s with the Dark Lord. Hmm? His last words in the book are to order the death eaters to leave Harry Potter to the Dark Lord...letting Harry live into the 7th book.
In the final chapters, Professor McGonagall takes over as the Headmistress and shows Harry a painting. Dumbledore is at rest on the wall, adding yet another picture to the many moving pictures in the office. �The White Tomb� is not only the final resting place for Dumbledore.
And after breaking up with Ginny Weasley, Harry says to Ron and Hermione that he won�t be coming back to Hogwarts even if it isn�t closed. Ron and Hermione say that wherever Harry goes, they�ll be with him.
The ending, with the headmaster dying, I just didn�t like. It was depressing. I kept waiting for Dumbledore to stand and yell out �Hah, just kidding, everyone!� But he didn�t. Harry is in hate with Snape, and can�t even speak Snape�s name, just like You-Know-Who. Dumbledore trusts Snape completely. Snape had to protect Malfoy, who was about to kill Dumbledore himself. Snape almost had to kill Dumbledore. So what lies ahead for Harry Potter? The destruction of at least four more Horcruxes. The next book surely will be quite action-packed. What will happen? When�s the next book coming out?
�The Half-Blood Prince,� on the book scale � Grade: A-. There�s a minus because of the ending. Leaving the reader�s sad, but teasing them still. Whenever I end a Harry Potter book, I am sad that it�s the end. Like with the end of the movie �The Prisoner of Azkaban,� I wanted more Hermione. I�d like to give her a love potion. She's about my age, alright? I like the new Dumbledore, but Michael Gambon seems much stricter. Richard Harris was more lovable and calm, like he�s described in the book.
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