Korean Job Discussion Forums

[blunder1983]

Hi guys,

Just finished the Half Blood Prince.

I thought it was good, no Prisoner of Azkaban but much better than her last two books. I was REALLY pleased to see the "lets fly off the handle at ron and hermione for no reason" attitude Harry had in the last 2 books completely gone. I always felt she was just trying to tap in to the whole irrattional teenager thing.

Anyway scroll down for spoilers





















You've been warned....











Few things against the book:


The Half Blood Prince title was a bit naff, I mean except for the potion book and approximately two lines from Snape near the end it was irrelevant. Just as Sirius's death was the "hook" for the last book (and Cedric's for the goblet) I felt its sole purpose was to increase sales.

The twist with the Horcrux annoyed me too, but i just like closure.

The whole Snape is evil thing got a bit irritating, I know he was a double agent in the extreme but for the super all powerful knowing Dumbledore surely he would have at least haboured sufficient doubts to bring it up with the other people in the Order (it says he pleaded for his life with Snape at the end, meaning his trust wasnt absolute).

The love interests. bleh romance I find is one of JK Rowling's weakest writing areas talk about heat have people act stupidly with one another and she's done. Compare it to the ending of His Dark Materials, need I say more...

That said, I thought it was a spiffy book and I eargly await the final installment... shes renewed my faith in Harry Potter which is a good thing, after reading Artemis Fowl and HDM I found all the books after number 3 a bit stale, but this one was good. I think she should have killed someone off early who was big in the books, Lucius would have been a good candidate, motivating Draco to protect his mother ferociously.

One final point anyone else think Dumbledore's speech with Draco near the end was a rip off of star wars?

Chris

[quiksilver]

Damn you really tore through it. I saw it at the bookstore today and it looked like it was probably somewhere in the neighbourhood of 500 pages. I didn't buy it because I haven't read the first ones.

[huck]

I think this one was probably the best one so far...I'm glad she had the balls to have a major, likeable character die....I'm also happy that the whiny, belligerent Harry was gone, since I thought she did a bad job of portraying teenagers in the previous book.

All in all, it as a good story. I laughed aloud in a few places - I think Kreacher is a funny character. There were some surprises with certain characters, which is always a positive.

My only complaint is that it was about 200 pages shorter than the Order of the Phoenix...Stephen King did that with his 6th book of the Dark Tower series...made it shorter so that he could include more in the final episode - the only difference with that was that the wait for the next book was only 2-3 months, while the wait for the last Harry Potter book will be at least a couple of years.

[kprrok]

I enjoyed it, but still Azkaban is my favorite. I really didn't like the whole death scene, just didn't sit right.

But I have to say that I love the horcrux thing. A very good way to lead to how Book 7 will play out.

Damn, 2 years to wait......

KPRROK

[crazylemongirl]

I just finished reading it. Draco was interesting in this book. The way that his journey with the dark lord leaves him isolated and weak. I also missed fred and george. The book seemed a lot weaker without them and just couldn't top their grand exit from hogwarts in book 5.

Ups on ron and hermione finally getting together. The romance with harry and ginny was kind of short and bizzare. Perhap they'll get back together in book 7.

[the_beaver]

A Harry Potter book is hard to read because there are always spoilers hovering around. Rawling foreshadowed Dumbledore's demise in earlier books and when she said that a major character was going to die in this book, while I had a little doubt, I figured it would be Dumbledore.

*beep*, I hate that. Fucking spoilers, clues, and hints should be banned. The only reason I had to read the entire book yesterday is because more and more info would have popped up here and there.

Anyway, good book. Harry's character seemed a little less whiny and it was nice to see Ron finally get some action. I was surprised about Snape, despite the opening, and figured there'd be a loophole somewhere and he'd be in line with Dumbledore's opinion of him.

[ulsanchris]

Dumbledor knew that Snape had taken the unbreakable vow. That's why he tried to plead with Snape. FRom what I understand Snape didn't have much choice in the matter.


I also suspected Dumbledor to be killed in this book. this is the penultimate act so the good side had to be at it's darkest hour. Don't get much darker than dumbledor dying.
Annoyingly we now have to wait a couple or so years before the last book is for sale. I hate when a series of books go on for ever. At least this isn't as bad as the wheel of time series. I gave up after book 6 or 7 and nobody knew how many more books the guy was going to write. I wonder if he has even finished the series by now.

[ulsanchris]

I would also like to add that in the next book that Snape will try to do something to make up for the killing of dumbledor. In a critical moment he will help harry in some way.

[krats1976]

It's 5 am and I've just finished it. I agree with a lot of what's already been said, although I'll admit that I'm too much of an idealist to have expected Dumbledore to die (damn Rowling's iconoclastic tendencies!!). I'm very curious to see what role Malfoy will play in book 7... he's becoming very interesting indeed.

I'm too tired to put much more thought into it at this particular moment. Good thing it came out while I was on vacation.

[huck]

A friend suggested that the reason Dumbledore trusted Snape implicitly was because they also had an unbreakable vow.

If so, then this would explain Dumbledore's trust, and depending on what the vow was, maybe Snape has promised to protect Harry and the other students(as he did at the end of The Order of the Phoenix, when he called the Order and told them to save Harry and his friends). Or he vowed to do whatever was necessary not to show that he was betraying Voldemort. This could also be why he didn't kill Harry, and also why Dumbledore was pleading with him, since I can't imagine Dumbledore pleading for his own life.

And, finally, with Dumbledore gone, now there's "no one" who can stand up to Voldemort...except Harry.

[kprrok]

[jlb]

After complusively reading it in 1 and a half days, I was a bit dissapointed. I thought it was a bit low on action and had a bit much political/romantic stuff going on. Definitely not as good as the previous ones.

[cosmicgirlie]

[oxfordstu]

I just finished reading it. It's 3:30 am, intensives start tomorrow, and I don't care. It was fantastic. My second favorite, next to Goblet of Fire. Although I missed Fred and George in this one - they're the funniest characters by far, especially in book 5. Glad to see that Ron and Hermione got together (finally), but too bad about Harry and Ginny - hopefully they'll get together as long as Harry doesn't die.

I agree with the theory about R.A.B. - I think he or she will definitely help Harry in book 7 - perhaps a partnership of some sort. It's been awhile since I read book 5 - I had to look up some characters and events - including Godric's Hollow.

[Tiberious aka Sparkles]