author_by_night (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
author_by_night) wrote2018-07-16 07:41 am
author_by_night) wrote2018-07-16 07:41 am
Entry tags:
Throwback Monday: Half-Blood Prince
I just realized the sixth Harry Potter book was released today. (Partly because that's how nerdy I am, partly because July 16th happened to be a Red Letter day for so many of my fandom friends that I remember it.) So I thought it would be fun to read my entry from 7/16/2005. *Reads* Oh wow, a lot of rambleage about my fic. Okay, I'll just list out here what I said, but leave out the fic rambling. SPOILERS FOR HALF-BLOOD PRINCE, obviously. As well as Deathly Hallows. Spoilers for anything Harry Potter, really.
(My "current" comments are in parentheses.)
Perks:
1. The four ships, because they were cute. And H/G... whether or not it sunk, it was cute while it lasted. The only thing that bugged me was how Ron and Hermione used other people to make one another jealous.
Also, I kind of like Fleur now.
(Yeah, I honestly assumed Harry and Ginny were over, or at least very likely. Not really sure why I did.)
2. The scene with Bellatrix and Narcissa. (I think I meant in the beginning.)
3. Draco being a DE, and yet... he didn't go full-scale either. Rather, I see him as a kid who has been brought up wrongly.
(Now I see Draco as a child of extremists who was over in his head. I think I did at the time as well, I just didn't... articulate it very well.)
4. Dumbledore's comments about Dudley being mistreated needed to be said.
5. The fact that there's a reason the DADA post only lasts a year.
(I don't know now. I think it's a bit silly that the curse had been intact since the 1960s. If Voldie set it towards the end of the first war, that would make a little more sense. People really didn't figure out that the post was cursed in a time frame of 30 years? It was probably one of those things JK Rowling never meant for anyone to think too much about.)
Peeves:
1. The lack of flow. One thing happened after another. (Yeah, having re-read it, I can see that.)
2. Ron and Hermione. (I was glad they became canon, but hated how they were written. I should note that I assumed they were officially canon as of HBP - there's a scene towards the end where they were on the grass in one another's arms after the funeral, which I took to mean it was official. I was so confused in DH when they weren't together.)
3. The brief way Sirius's innocence was mentioned.
(So let me give a bit of context. I was in the Marauder fandom, and in the Marauder fandom, each Marauder was worthy of bells and whistles. I probably anticipated an 100-page treatise on Sirius's innocence, what he meant to every person who ever knew him, some backstory, some more backstory, and a drawing of him wearing a leather jacket at the end of it. What we got is actually far more realistic, although I do see where my 2005 self was coming from in that we probably could've had a little more exposition on that front. Something in between a long treatise or epic poem in his honor and a throwaway mention. However, I also remember thinking Sirius wasn't really mentioned at all, when actually, he's constantly brought up throughout the book. Again, there just wasn't any Marauder worship involved.)
Things I'm iffy about:
1. Snape being a DE after all. It would've been nice if Dumbledore had been right. (...oh, you sweet summer child. Especially as most fans DID work out the truth. Even people I knew who'd never read a fanfic in their life and only read each book once were like "yeah, Snape and Dumbledore had a deal.")
2. Tonks's cheering up after getting with Remus. I hope Tonks's mopeyness was also because Sirius had just died, and not because she'd been dumped. (This is probably headcanon, but I've kinda reconciled since that it was a bit of both. Getting dumped right after losing your cousin and another Order member has to be shattering. Also, it wasn't like Remus just dumped Tonks, he dumped her to run after Greyback, and it was because he thought she didn't deserve him. Those are pretty loaded things to put on an ex-girlfriend, on top of everything else.)
3. The lack of... plot. I'm just going to assume HBP was a backdrop.
(I now think that while it was definitely a setup to DH, it did have plot. It just had plot in a different way. I think the romance/Quidditch drama was our last taste of "old school" Harry Potter before we got what we got in HBP, because JKR knew she was about to change the status quo, and I think we needed all of that Voldie backstory, which was actually pretty interesting.)
--
Have my opinions changed? Besides what I said above, not really. I don't think it was a bad book, but it was definitely a transition between OoTP and DH. I do think some things could have been written differently, but I also think there's fandom opinion mixed in there.
The following year, apparently, I made a poll about HBP. Again, huge spoilers.
So, Harry Potter people, what were your reactions when you read the book? Do you remember? Do you still stand by any of them, or do you differ a lot? (ETA: Even if you didn't read the book when it was first released.)
(My "current" comments are in parentheses.)
Perks:
1. The four ships, because they were cute. And H/G... whether or not it sunk, it was cute while it lasted. The only thing that bugged me was how Ron and Hermione used other people to make one another jealous.
Also, I kind of like Fleur now.
(Yeah, I honestly assumed Harry and Ginny were over, or at least very likely. Not really sure why I did.)
2. The scene with Bellatrix and Narcissa. (I think I meant in the beginning.)
3. Draco being a DE, and yet... he didn't go full-scale either. Rather, I see him as a kid who has been brought up wrongly.
(Now I see Draco as a child of extremists who was over in his head. I think I did at the time as well, I just didn't... articulate it very well.)
4. Dumbledore's comments about Dudley being mistreated needed to be said.
5. The fact that there's a reason the DADA post only lasts a year.
(I don't know now. I think it's a bit silly that the curse had been intact since the 1960s. If Voldie set it towards the end of the first war, that would make a little more sense. People really didn't figure out that the post was cursed in a time frame of 30 years? It was probably one of those things JK Rowling never meant for anyone to think too much about.)
Peeves:
1. The lack of flow. One thing happened after another. (Yeah, having re-read it, I can see that.)
2. Ron and Hermione. (I was glad they became canon, but hated how they were written. I should note that I assumed they were officially canon as of HBP - there's a scene towards the end where they were on the grass in one another's arms after the funeral, which I took to mean it was official. I was so confused in DH when they weren't together.)
3. The brief way Sirius's innocence was mentioned.
(So let me give a bit of context. I was in the Marauder fandom, and in the Marauder fandom, each Marauder was worthy of bells and whistles. I probably anticipated an 100-page treatise on Sirius's innocence, what he meant to every person who ever knew him, some backstory, some more backstory, and a drawing of him wearing a leather jacket at the end of it. What we got is actually far more realistic, although I do see where my 2005 self was coming from in that we probably could've had a little more exposition on that front. Something in between a long treatise or epic poem in his honor and a throwaway mention. However, I also remember thinking Sirius wasn't really mentioned at all, when actually, he's constantly brought up throughout the book. Again, there just wasn't any Marauder worship involved.)
Things I'm iffy about:
1. Snape being a DE after all. It would've been nice if Dumbledore had been right. (...oh, you sweet summer child. Especially as most fans DID work out the truth. Even people I knew who'd never read a fanfic in their life and only read each book once were like "yeah, Snape and Dumbledore had a deal.")
2. Tonks's cheering up after getting with Remus. I hope Tonks's mopeyness was also because Sirius had just died, and not because she'd been dumped. (This is probably headcanon, but I've kinda reconciled since that it was a bit of both. Getting dumped right after losing your cousin and another Order member has to be shattering. Also, it wasn't like Remus just dumped Tonks, he dumped her to run after Greyback, and it was because he thought she didn't deserve him. Those are pretty loaded things to put on an ex-girlfriend, on top of everything else.)
3. The lack of... plot. I'm just going to assume HBP was a backdrop.
(I now think that while it was definitely a setup to DH, it did have plot. It just had plot in a different way. I think the romance/Quidditch drama was our last taste of "old school" Harry Potter before we got what we got in HBP, because JKR knew she was about to change the status quo, and I think we needed all of that Voldie backstory, which was actually pretty interesting.)
--
Have my opinions changed? Besides what I said above, not really. I don't think it was a bad book, but it was definitely a transition between OoTP and DH. I do think some things could have been written differently, but I also think there's fandom opinion mixed in there.
The following year, apparently, I made a poll about HBP. Again, huge spoilers.
So, Harry Potter people, what were your reactions when you read the book? Do you remember? Do you still stand by any of them, or do you differ a lot? (ETA: Even if you didn't read the book when it was first released.)