Warning SPOILERS follow hugely…

Alright, well I seem to have gotten around to this first, so without attempting to be overly pessimistic, I am dissapointed in this book for a number of reasons.

Most importantly, I believe although everyone loves the plot and focuses upon the plot of these novels, for the first time on a large scale we have lost all of the slight character development these books had. Every character that we have formed bonds with has now been stripped of those familiar habits. Dumbledore is blatantly wrong. Harry is constantly correct (after being horribly wrong on nearly every assumption he made in Order of the Phoenix). Hermione’s intelligence is nearly ignored and not at all used for anything constructive (except a few after the fact: “i knew he wasn’t a Prince”, etc.). And most consuming, Snape, who we are told to trust, told has changed, and we even see being protective – if still a jerk – is resolutely (saving large plot twists of unbelievable proportions) evil.

From the beginning these novels have not been focused on character growth, they have been event focused and plot driven, but here we lose all sense of personality. These characters are no longer people, they are just tools to accomplish a job. Even JKR has said, she is following the plan she drew up at the beginning. But the characters that have been spun are not the concepts that she once had, they are nearly living, breathing, captivating humans who are now being thrown around like dolls.

If you are going to convince us Snape is good, Dumbledore is trustworthy, and Harry is a teenager – then make us believe it! What 16 year old is on the mark so many times that he manages to outsmart everyone around him? And as a book that is meant to answer questions, I think it needs to get a better grasp on it’s own environment. How many Aurors are there? Why can’t they stop the Death-Eaters? Are there more good guys or bad guys? What about all the other wizards in the world – we heard once about a French school like Hogwarts, do they care about Voldemort?

And Horcruxes? Why do we need to unnecessarily complicate what has up to this point been such a fluid narrative sense. The books have all been very non-quest based. It was surviving that was important, it was normal, average life. Taking classes and making relationships and figuring out what was going on in the world. Now we have a to-do list that is your classic hero-quest. Not to mention a book 6 that is really quite incomplete. We are left around with the ending stating “exams are postponed”. Till when? Hogwarts might not even re-open, and they are just randomly postponing exams? Of course all the professors seem to be entirely confused now with their headmaster being killed. None of them even though Snape could be evil, even knowing his history. The only person in the world who seems to have thought it was possible was a sixteen year old boy. That makes sense.

But in this world it does make sense. The story is not about Harry’s life. It is about the plot and solely Harry’s battle with Voldemort. Unimportant daily events that once made interesting side stories have been stripped from the most recent addition to the Potter cycle. No longer is the DA important, because Harry has decided such, and thus all the other student blindly accept that they are no longer needed. Neville disappears almost entirely. Really classes disappear as well, save Potions, but only because of his textbook. The story is no longer about Hogwarts, the story is no longer about Harry’s friends, it has dissolved into a war (although even the assassinations and the muggle world is only briefly highlighted), and that is what saddens me about the HBP, all of the connections that the series worked so hard to achieve over five novels are forgotten. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince is just that, a story chasing a few main characters in the days before the world ends.