A welcome break with Potter tradition.
Feb. 12th, 2006 01:08 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
franceslievens"It is time I told you everything," says professor Dumbledore to his protégé Harry Potter near the end of the fifth instalment of J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter series. Harry then learns about the prophecy that concerns him and his sworn adversary Lord Voldemort, He Who Must Not Be Named. The prophecy is very clear: neither can live when the other survives. Or in more comprehensible language: Harry must do Lord Voldemort in or be killed himself. That's where we're heading at the start of the sixth book, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, but we know it isn't the outcome of this book, because a seventh one to conclude the series has been planned from the very beginning.
Faithful to the style figure she's used in the previous books Rowling does not start with Harry at the Dursley's, but we focus on someone else. Two women appear out of nowhere at the edge of a village. Faithful readers will immediately know these two are witches that apparated to the spot, and the even more faithful reader will immediately know who these witches are: Bellatrix Lestrange, follower of Lord Voldemort and murderer of Harry's godfather Sirius Black, and her sister Narcissa. Immediately we are sucked into the action as they hurry towards the house of one Severus Snape, who we believe to be a member of the Order of the Phoenix. This secret group of wizards and witches fights the Dark Lord and has Snape spying on him.
The reader is thrown into the heat of things. There's a war going on and we get an insight in the bad guy's plans. It'll be the only direct insight we get and it'll leave the reader with lots of questions she'll have to answer together with Harry Potter. When the hero of the story comes into view, asleep in his room at the Dursley's house, waiting for Dumbledore to arrive, Rowling won't let him out of her sight and we only know what he knows.
It's a style figure J.K. Rowling has been using for six books now, and it works. The focus on Harry and the things that happen to him drag you along through the story and you need to know what happens next. Every chapter solves a question, but raises another. So you must read on to find out what the solution will be to that new problem.
So did every book in itself solve a bigger problem as well, but raised new questions about Harry, Voldemort and the connection between the two. Books one through five were standalones, following similar storylines. We have summer, we have the train journey up to Hogwarts in which Malfoy teases Harry and at the end we have the train journey back in which Harry takes revenge on Malfoy. In between there's one big problem that needs solving: protection of the sorcerer's stone, make sure the Chamber of Secret's is closed again, find and recapture the prisoner of Azkaban...
Not so in book six. More than its predecessors Half-Blood Prince is about what comes next. At last Harry knows what he's up against and what he must do to kill Voldemort. The problem of the Half-Blood Prince, so tentatively held before us as all-important gets sidetracked, doesn't raise any big complications and gets solved somewhere in one line at the bottom of a page. You might miss it when you're completely absorbed in the action. But when you don't miss it, you'll be struck by the sheer genius of Rowling at this point, because it was so obvious. She'd laid all the pieces right there in front of the reader, but you couldn't put two and two together. You still needed a confession.
Rowling's writing seems to improve over the course of the series. In book four (The Goblet of Fire) the continuity was more than once jarred, where in Half-Blood Prince everything fits and gets its place. The writer breaks with her storyline as well. We don't get the big send-off at the train journey. Malfoy is absent for most of the story, even, although we know from the very first chapter he's planning something big. Instead, for the first time in the series, we get a glimpse at what'll happen in the next book. Book six doesn't have a standalone storyline, because it is the first part of a two-parter: Harry Potter against Lord Voldemort. Our hero is standing at the border of Mordor and has to undertake the rest of the journey on his own. It's an old and approved theme, but that doesn't mean we won't cheer Harry on, cry with him when he's alone or feel the same hatred towards those that killed his family and loved ones.
Rowling is at her best in achieving this. Her main characters are people of flesh and blood. All throughout the books we get to know their character and we understand why Harry hides things from others, because that's the boy he is. We also see them evolve. Hermione isn't the little miss know-it-all she was in the first book, but she still has it somewhere and her preferred line is, as always, "I told you so." Roll on book seven. We're bracing ourselves for the worst.
Faithful to the style figure she's used in the previous books Rowling does not start with Harry at the Dursley's, but we focus on someone else. Two women appear out of nowhere at the edge of a village. Faithful readers will immediately know these two are witches that apparated to the spot, and the even more faithful reader will immediately know who these witches are: Bellatrix Lestrange, follower of Lord Voldemort and murderer of Harry's godfather Sirius Black, and her sister Narcissa. Immediately we are sucked into the action as they hurry towards the house of one Severus Snape, who we believe to be a member of the Order of the Phoenix. This secret group of wizards and witches fights the Dark Lord and has Snape spying on him.
The reader is thrown into the heat of things. There's a war going on and we get an insight in the bad guy's plans. It'll be the only direct insight we get and it'll leave the reader with lots of questions she'll have to answer together with Harry Potter. When the hero of the story comes into view, asleep in his room at the Dursley's house, waiting for Dumbledore to arrive, Rowling won't let him out of her sight and we only know what he knows.
It's a style figure J.K. Rowling has been using for six books now, and it works. The focus on Harry and the things that happen to him drag you along through the story and you need to know what happens next. Every chapter solves a question, but raises another. So you must read on to find out what the solution will be to that new problem.
So did every book in itself solve a bigger problem as well, but raised new questions about Harry, Voldemort and the connection between the two. Books one through five were standalones, following similar storylines. We have summer, we have the train journey up to Hogwarts in which Malfoy teases Harry and at the end we have the train journey back in which Harry takes revenge on Malfoy. In between there's one big problem that needs solving: protection of the sorcerer's stone, make sure the Chamber of Secret's is closed again, find and recapture the prisoner of Azkaban...
Not so in book six. More than its predecessors Half-Blood Prince is about what comes next. At last Harry knows what he's up against and what he must do to kill Voldemort. The problem of the Half-Blood Prince, so tentatively held before us as all-important gets sidetracked, doesn't raise any big complications and gets solved somewhere in one line at the bottom of a page. You might miss it when you're completely absorbed in the action. But when you don't miss it, you'll be struck by the sheer genius of Rowling at this point, because it was so obvious. She'd laid all the pieces right there in front of the reader, but you couldn't put two and two together. You still needed a confession.
Rowling's writing seems to improve over the course of the series. In book four (The Goblet of Fire) the continuity was more than once jarred, where in Half-Blood Prince everything fits and gets its place. The writer breaks with her storyline as well. We don't get the big send-off at the train journey. Malfoy is absent for most of the story, even, although we know from the very first chapter he's planning something big. Instead, for the first time in the series, we get a glimpse at what'll happen in the next book. Book six doesn't have a standalone storyline, because it is the first part of a two-parter: Harry Potter against Lord Voldemort. Our hero is standing at the border of Mordor and has to undertake the rest of the journey on his own. It's an old and approved theme, but that doesn't mean we won't cheer Harry on, cry with him when he's alone or feel the same hatred towards those that killed his family and loved ones.
Rowling is at her best in achieving this. Her main characters are people of flesh and blood. All throughout the books we get to know their character and we understand why Harry hides things from others, because that's the boy he is. We also see them evolve. Hermione isn't the little miss know-it-all she was in the first book, but she still has it somewhere and her preferred line is, as always, "I told you so." Roll on book seven. We're bracing ourselves for the worst.
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no subject
Date: 2006-02-11 04:32 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-02-11 04:40 pm (UTC)I must confess I'm so sucked into Harry POV that I didn't realise Snape could possibly still be on the good side. And I'm a louse clue searcher. I'm glad others do that for me. :-)
no subject
Date: 2006-02-11 05:34 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-02-12 02:08 am (UTC)Another comment: It's interesting to see how - parallel to Harry growing up - the outside world, both the greater magical and muggle communities, become more and more important. That's what growing up means - you make more and more connections and the world around you expands and shapes you. Loved the scenes with the Muggle Prime Minister - quite a bleak outlook on politics, but very fitting.
no subject
Date: 2006-02-12 03:08 am (UTC)Now I come to think of it, what might come up is that Snape has always been a double agent for the OP. As one of the best occlumences arround he was ordered to go over to Voldemort's side by Dumbledore in the first place. In that case it does fit that being sorry for Harry's parents' deaths is all Dumbledore needs to trust Snape again, because causing those deaths by giving Voldemort the information on the prophecy is the only thing he actually did wrong in this scenario...
The story of growing up is what I love in HP as well. I also love how JK gives her main characters distinct characters and whatever they do they're always in character. The smaller characters act a bit as cardboard figures sometimes, but that's okay. They're just there to add a bit of comical relief. I do like how you feel she has fleshed out minor characters much more than the books reveal: Luna Lovegood, Draco Malfoy... It's so well written: their character gets depth in just a couple of scenes and a couple of gestures.
no subject
Date: 2006-02-12 03:52 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-02-12 03:59 am (UTC)Like you say: They have to accept and respect each other.