Metaplanar Babel

I finished Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince yesterday. It was a very quick read for me, covering maybe 6 or 8 hours total, despite it’s 600+ pages. Overall, I’m pleased with the book. It answered a number of questions, as was promised, but it introduced more than a few new ones, so I am a bit dismayed that I will have to wait however long to read the next (and last) book in the series. I’m going to get a bit more specific about what I thought, so consider the cut below your major spoiler warning - don’t click on the rest of the post if you don’t want to read about what happens.

First off, let me get this out of the way: NOooooooOOOOOOO! *cry* I can’t believe she killed Dumbledore!

*cough* Actually, I can, given her ruthless slaying of Snuffles in Book 5. What I can’t believe is that Snape has so definitively betrayed Dumbledore’s trust. How could Dumbledore have been so wrong? I could argue that maybe Snape only took that Unbreakable Vow to keep Draco and his mother from facing the punishment that would surely be meted out by Voldemort if/when Draco failed, but at the same time, he had to know that he would be forced to kill Dumbledore to uphold that Vow. A part of me really wants to believe that the whole thing was a massive ruse to convince Voldemort that his most feared opponent was out of the picture and reinforce Snape’s loyalty, that Dumbledore will show up somewhere in Book 7, but a more realistic part acknowledges that such an occurance is fairly unlikely. I really wanted Snape to not be a villain. I wanted to believe, like Dumbledore did, that his remorse was real. I still do, in fact. I suppose we’ll have to see.

One thing that I really enjoy about all the HP books is that the characters are so real. Even the heroes have their fair share of flaws - Harry is no paragon of virtue, he’s a teenager under extreme circumstances. I would have been disappointed if he hadn’t had his moments of angst and stupidity. I suppose you could even say that Snape, a fairly villanous character, has his glimmers of goodness. Voldemort is slowly starting to come together as a character, and he mostly makes sense. He isn’t the evil villain just to be evil. He has a definite agenda and a past that suggests several reasons for that agenda. Apparently even Dumbledore isn’t immune - his trust in Severus Snape has revealed itself to be vastly misplaced (or was it?). Even Draco shows a semblance of good in his inability to kill the defenseless Dumbledore, despite the threats to himself and his family.

I am very curious to see where the story goes from here and how it ends. Will Harry actually quit Hogwarts to hunt down Voldemort? Will Ron and Hermione be able to go with him? Will Ginny force her way along too? What will happen when Harry runs into Snape again, as he almost inevitably will? Honestly, this book has got me thinking far more than any of the previous volumes - a good thing, even in a children’s book. This isn’t a universe of black and white, evil and good, attempting to impose a set of morals upon a new generation of children. The only thing I know for certain is that Harry will meet Voldemort in Book 7. But what happens then, only JKR knows.

Edit: Apparently I’m not the only one who has these kinds of thoughts.. (incidentally, I love the site design on that blog)