Book Review of “Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince” — (16/52)
The sixth portion of the Harry Potter series serves as the penultimate piece of Harry’s fight against Voldemort
In an interview with the UK version of Amazon during the release of the third Harry Potter book, author J.K. Rowling was asked how old she was when she commenced writing.
“I wrote my first finished story when I was about 6. It was about a rabbit called Rabbit. Very imaginative. I’ve been writing ever since.” — J.K. Rowling
Well, the Harry Potter series are about a boy called Harry, so I guess old habits prove hard to eradicate. However, not a single soul who has read the Harry Potter books can avidly say that the book are not “very imaginative.” What started as a simple foray into a curious artistic expression like writing at the age of six had fully manifested itself as mastery when Rowling completed book six in the Harry Potter series.
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince is, in many ways, the “final” book before the final book. Just like book five, which featured the death of Harry’s Godfather, Sirius Black, book six deals Harry with yet another devastating blow in the end with the death of his beloved headmaster and mentor, Albus Dumbledore. Dumbledore’s death marks the finality of Harry’s Hogwarts education (since Harry chose to spend his Seventh year “on the run” chasing down Horcruxes). Dumbledore’s death also symbolizes a finality in terms of a “go to” person for Harry. There are no more safety nets. Sure, Lupin, Mr. and Mrs. Weasley, Tonks, and Moody remain, but they cannot possibly replace Albus Dumbledore.
The sixth book also finalizes the fact that Ron and Hermione will stick with Harry till the very end. That friendship, which started when Ron and Harry unwittingly saved Hermione from a large troll in the first book, has only become stronger through the subsequent five years. Of course, at times, their relationships do become strained as the usual teenage angst, emotions, and ego get in the way of common sense, but those pitfalls only help them to become even closer than previously possible.
As I have done in the previous five Harry Potter book reviews, I shall break the sixth book down into three components: the funny moments, the subtle nuances, and the insightful ideas.
The Funny Moments
At the start of this sixth book, Harry is anxiously awaiting the arrival of headmaster Albus Dumbledore to Privet Drive, where Harry routinely returns each summer to stay with his horrible aunt and uncle. Of course, not wanting to get his hopes up that Dumbledore would actually come and whisk him away from the Dursleys after only a few weeks, Harry chose to not inform his aunt and uncle about the imminent visit from the headmaster.
True to his word, Dumbledore arrives at his promised time and Harry’s unsuspecting, angry Uncle Vernon goes to open the door. Upon entry into the Dursley home, Dumbledore seeks out Harry. This, as expected, does not sit well with Vernon Dursley.
“Ah, good evening Harry,” said Dumbledore, looking up at him through his half-moon glasses with a most satisfied expression. “Excellent, excellent.”
These words seemed to rouse Uncle Vernon. It was clear that as far as he was concerned, any man who could look at Harry and say “excellent” was a man with whom he could never see eye to eye.
“I don’t mean to be rude — “ he began, in a tone that threatened rudeness in every syllable.
“ — yet, sadly, accidental rudeness occurs alarmingly often,” Dumbledore finished the sentence gravely. “Best to say nothing at all, my dear man.”
— Page 46
Another comical instance occurs midway through the book when Harry suddenly receives the idea of having the house-elves Dobby and Kreacher (who Harry now owns) tail Draco Malfoy. Harry has long suspected throughout the sixth book that Malfoy is up to no good; however, his efforts to find some semblance of proof for his conjecture have come up empty. Therefore, Harry requests Dobby and commands Kreacher to tail Malfoy in the hopes that the elves will be able to report back what exactly what Malfoy is doing.
Kreacher, who begrudgingly calls Harry “master,” agrees to Harry’s commands, but it’s merely because he has no other alternative. Dobby, on the other hand, is positively brimming with excitement at Harry’s request.
“Yes, Harry Potter!” said Dobby at once, his great eyes shining with excitement. “And if Dobby does it wrong, Dobby will throw himself off the topmost tower, Harry Potter!”
“There won’t be any need for that,” said Harry hastily.
— Pages 421–422
Oh, Dobby…you and your outlandish self-punishments.
The Subtle Nuances
This sixth book was sinewy and subtle in many ways. Specifically, Harry and Dumbledore both spend much of the year diving through various memories in the Penseive in the hopes of understanding Voldemort’s mysterious life story. In that journey, the subtle nuance that I picked up on related to Professor Horace Slughorn’s “edited” memory in which Tom Riddle (Voldemort’s actual name is “Tom Riddle”) asks Slughorn about Horcruxes (an excruciatingly and exceedingly evil way to become immortal via the splitting of one’s soul).
What confused me was why Dumbledore made Harry retrieve the actual, non-edited memory from Slughorn in the first place. Surely, a wizard with Dumbledore’s brilliant brains and insights of magic would be able to figure out what Horcruxes were? If Professor Slughorn, while an accomplished wizard himself, but definitely not more accomplished than Dumbledore, can figure out what Horcruxes were (since we know he was able to explain about them to Riddle all those years ago), how can Dumbledore not know?
Stymied by this sudden confusion (and an apparent plot hole of sorts), I decided to ask my friend, Teerth, who has also read all of the books many times over, for his thoughts on the matter:
“…I think that was Dumbledore being able to understand people, and knowing that he didn’t want Harry to think Slughorn was to blame for Voldemort’s Horocruxes, and Slughorn needed closure to cope with the guilt he felt for telling Tom Riddle about Horcruxes, that’s my guess as to why he wanted Harry to seek the truth for himself.”
While I appreciated Teerth’s insights, I still felt there was something more that both of us were missing. There had to be a reason why Dumbledore felt Harry absolutely needed to retrieve that memory from Slughorn. In fact, Dumbledore knew about Horcruxes (or, at the very least, had an astute guess about them) ever since the second book when Harry presented him with Tom Riddle’s diary. So, it was most assuredly not as if Dumbledore had no idea what Horcruxes were and simply needed Slughorn’s help in explaining them.
Then it hit me.
Dumbledore, for all of his brilliance, would have no way of knowing how many Horcruxes Voldemort would have created. For anyone trying to kill Voldemort, they would need to know the specific number. Did he create three, ten, a hundred Horcruxes? It was only until each of the Horcruxes had been destroyed that Voldemort would truly be able to die. Dumbledore knew that to be the case. However, he still didn’t know the amount of Horcruxes Voldemort created in his greedy quest for immortality.
Slughorn’s memory provided that exact answer: Seven Horcruxes.
You heard [Voldemort], Harry: ‘Wouldn’t it be better, make you stronger, to have your soul in more pieces…isn’t seven the most powerfully magical number….’ Isn’t seven the most powerfully magical number. Yes, I think the idea of a seven-part soul would greatly appeal to Lord Voldemort.”
— Pages 502–503
Armed with this knowledge, Rowling has outlined the main purpose of the final and last book of the Harry Potter series: With two Horcruxes already destroyed (the ring and the diary), Harry must find the four remaining Horcruxes, destroy them, and kill off the seventh, Voldemort. Knowing there were seven Horcruxes (and no more and no less) makes all the difference in Harry’s journey in the Deathly Hallows (book seven).
The Insightful Ideas
Dumbledore, once again, features prominently in the sixth book when it comes to passing on his sage wisdom. In one of Dumbledore’s memories that he allows Harry to witness, Tom Riddle has returned to Hogwarts to request Dumbledore to give him the Defense Against the Dark Arts teaching post, a proposition which Dumbledore abjectly rejects. Their conversation soon turns to the one concept that far surpasses magic: love.
“The old argument,” [Riddle] said softly. “But nothing I have seen in the world has supported your famous pronouncements that love is more powerful than my kind of [dark] magic, Dumbledore.”
“Perhaps you have been looking in the wrong places,” suggested Dumbledore.
— Page 444
Voldemort, who has no friends and lives a life without love, would have no inkling as to the immensely powerful properties of love that even magic cannot hope to attain. That also makes for two things that Dumbledore holds in higher regards than magic: love and music.
The next snippet of Dumbledore’s wisdom surrounds tyrants.
“If he had not forced your mother to die for you, would he have given you a magical protection he could not penetrate? Of course not, Harry! Don’t you see? Voldemort himself created his worst enemy, just as tyrants everywhere do! Have you any idea how much tyrants fear the people they oppress? All of them realize that, one day, amongst their many victims, there is sure to be one who rises against them and strikes back! Voldemort is no different! Always he was on the lookout for the one who would challenge him.”
— Page 510
Of course, that seems logical. However, for some reason, I had never thought to consider how this applies historically. The South African Apartheid proponents were all scared about how a thin, thoughtful man named Nelson Mandela would usurp them all, which is why they imprisoned him for twenty-seven years. The Nazis and Hitler, for all their grandeur and self-righteousness, were always fearful of the Jews that escaped or the Germans that would expose their horrible activities to the world. This is also why communist countries like North Korea and China tend to block off all illicit activities and communication between their own people. These tyrannical powers don’t fear other countries as much as they fear those they rule.
Thankfully, for Harry Potter, Voldemort is no different.
Sources
Rowling, J. K. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. New York, NY: Arthur A. Levine, 2005. Print.
Notes
This is the SIXTEENTH post (out of 52 in total eventually) that is a part of my 2015 Book Reading Challenge.
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