R.S. Lindsay
2005-08-08 20:15:21 UTC
And one more reason why the "Harry Potter" series has "jumped the
shark" is:
THE "HALF-BLOOD PRINCE"
In the days leading up to the release of Book Six in the series, I
began to notice the "Harry Potter" advertising billboards, appearing in
bookstores, malls, and supermarkets. They all asked the question, "Who
is the Half-Blood Prince?"
I was anticipating another great "Hogwarts" mystery of the kind we saw
in earlier books. I thought that the Half-Blood Prince might turn out
to be, I dunno, maybe Godric Gryffindor. I thought perhaps that Harry
would finally discover in Book Six that he was related to the Hogwarts
founder, and that Godric Gryffindor was in fact a half-wizard,
half-Muggle son of King Arthur.
And then I read the book.
Do I have this right? Please, J.K. Rowling, you've GOT to be kidding!
Let me get this straight! The big mystery of Book Six in this series
is, "WHO IS THE VANDAL WHO HAS BEEN WRITING IN HARRY'S ADVANCED POTIONS
TEXTBOOK?!!"
Ay, Caramba!
I'm sorry, but when you compare it to the "great Hogwarts mysteries" of
previous books in this series, the "Half-Blood Prince" mystery is
REALLY SCRAPING THE BOTTOM OF THE BARRELL!
What happened to the excellent mysteries that made the previous books
in this series so involving, so engaging, so readable? Mysteries like
"What is the Sorcerer's/Philosopher's Stone, and who is trying to steal
it from Hogwarts?" Or "Who opened the Chamber of Secrets, and what is
the mysterious monster that is petrifying the Hogwarts students?" Or
"Who is Lord Voldemort's agent at Hogwarts, and why did he put Harry
Potter's name in the Goblet of Fire for the Triwizard Tournament?"
Basically, if I understand Book Six correctly, the "Half-Blood Prince,"
whoever he is, is nothing more than a textbook vandal, both literally
and figuratively. At MY high school, the teachers were extra-sensitive
about students writing in their textbooks like this. They would have
smacked the "Half-Blood Prince" upside the head with his old textbook,
and THEN fined him 50 bucks for the cost of a new one!
As you get into the core of Book Six, the "Who is the Half-Blood
Prince?" mystery becomes NO mystery! As soon as Harry read the "Just
use a bezoar" message in his Advanced Potions textbook, I knew the
"Half-Blood Prince" was Professor Snape.
I knew this because 1. J.K. Rowling had already said that the
"Half-Blood Prince" was neither Harry nor Voldemort and 2. Because
Snape was the only person in the books who had mentioned a bezoar prior
to Book Six.
And when J.K. Rowling revealed WHY Snape was the "Half-Blood Prince,"
my eyes were rolling in my head! Okay, so let's see if I've got this
right. Snape's mother was a witch named Eileen Prince, and she married
a Muggle named Tobias Snape. Severus hated his Muggle father, so in his
own mind, he called himself "the Half-Blood Prince."
Boy, Severus Snape is lucky that his father didn't marry a witch with a
name like Madeline Dork or Amanda Twitt.
I'm sorry, but the "Half-Blood Prince" nickname for Snape sounds like
something that J.K. Rowling made up out of desperation when she reached
the final draft of Book Six and realized she still didn't have a title
for the book. I suppose she had already rejected a whole list of other
potential titles such as, "HARRY POTTER AND THE POTIONS TEXTBOOK
VANDAL."
Or "HARRY POTTER AND THE MYSTERY OF WHAT DRACO MALFOY WAS UP TO."
Or "HARRY POTTER AND THE YEAR IN WHICH A LOT OF GENERAL WEIRD MAGICAL
THINGS HAPPENED AT HOGWARTS."
Or "HARRY POTTER AND THE YEAR AT HOGWARTS WHEN EVERYBODY FINALLY WOKE
UP AND SMELLED THE COFFEE AND BEGAN SNOGGING EACH OTHER LIKE THEY
SHOULD HAVE STARTED DOING BACK IN 'GOBLET OF FIRE.'"
I picture J.K. Rowling sitting at her writing desk, endlessly poring
over a long list of silly nicknames that the young Severus Snape could
have given to himself, thus providing her with a title for Book Six.
"Let's see -- 'Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Pig?' -- No, that's
wrong. -- How about, 'Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Porcupine?' --
No, that won't work. Why would Snape call himself a porcupine? -- Hmm.
'Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince?' - Yeah, that'll work!"
Which brings me to another gripe that I have concerning the "Half-Blood
Prince." In Book Six, Severus Snape finally achieves his dream of
getting the DADA job. And here we have another example of J.K. Rowling
building up an idea over the course of several books -- and then
dropping that idea with no explanation.
In HBP, we learn the reasons why Dumbledore has kept Snape out of the
DADA job until now. Dumbledore was afraid that Snape would be tempted
to revert to his Dark Arts ways. What we do NOT learn is why Snape
wanted the job in the first place!
For the past five books, we have known that Snape wanted the DADA, but
the reasons have remained a mystery. Why would Snape want a job which
has a repuatation for being cursed? No DADA teacher has lasted more
than a year in the job, and EVERY DADA teacher has suffered some kind
of horrible accident before their year of teaching was finished!
(Just a thought: Maybe Snape wants the DADA job because it pays better
than any other teaching job at Hogwarts! I would imagine that the
Hogwarts Board of Governors has to offer an astronomical salary -- not
to mention a very heavy medical and life insurance package -- just to
get anyone interested in the DADA teaching job!)
But unfortunately, J.K. Rowling never bothers to explain why Snape
wants the DADA job. Maybe she thinks that explaining his motives will
take away from Snape's mystique. He's a complicated man, and no one
understands him but his woman.
But the worst part is, after five books of buildup, J.K. Rowling
finally gives Snape the DADA job -- AND THEN SHE TELLS US ALMOST
NOTHING ABOUT WHAT SNAPE TEACHES IN THE CLASS, OR HOW GOOD A DADA
TEACHER HE IS!
What kind of DADA teacher is Snape? Okay, we all know that he probably
isn't better than Remus Lupin or Mad-Eye Moody. But how does he rate
against Professor Quirrell? Or Dolores Umbridge? Or Gilderoy Lockhart?
J.K. Rowling decides not to tell us. Most of Harry's DADA classes in
HBP take place offstage. Is Harry really so advanced in DADA that he
could learn NOTHING from Snape? I sincerely doubt it!
In HBP, Harry finally learns something about the art of Potions from
Professor Snape, even if he learns those lessons indirectly by reading
the scrawled notes in Snape's old Advanced Potions textbook. So if
Harry could learn something about Potions from Snape, surely Snape
would have something more to teach him in DADA, no matter how unwilling
Harry might be to learn it.
But J.K. Rowling gives us next to nothing about the lessons that Snape
teaches in his DADA. Oh, sure. Early in the school year, Snape gives a
lesson about how to cast a jinx, or defend yourself from one, without
speaking. But that doesn't really seem like an actual DADA skill to me.
To cast a spell without speaking seems more like a general magical
skill that got lumped into the DADA class because it didn't fit into
the curriculum anywhere else.
The only other indication that we get about what Snape teaches in his
DADA classes comes late in the book, when J.K. Rowling mentions that
Harry is about to turn in an essay to Snape, in which he "disagreed
with Snape about the correct way to handle a Dementor attack."
Uhh, hold the phone, Central! There's ANOTHER way to handle a Dementor
attack BESIDES using the Patronus Charm?! If so, TELL US WHAT IT IS!
If I were a wizard, I would want to know what the OTHER way is, so that
if by some chance the Patronus Charm failed, I could try the other
method!
(I wonder what Snape's "other method" for driving away the Dementors
would be? Maybe showing them slides from his vacation to Akron, Ohio?)
But, no! With Snape's tenure as DADA teacher, J.K. Rowling once more
chooses to drop an important theme that she has been building up for a
long time! Again, I might have expected this of a lesser writer, one
who hasn't displayed the creativity that J.K. Rowling has demonstrated
in her earlier books.
So there it is, friends. Those are the seven reasons why the "Harry
Potter" series has "jumped the shark."
If it were just one or two minor flaws in Book Five or Six of this
series, I wouldn't have bothered making these posts. But there has been
a WHOLE SERIES OF FLAWS in the last two books. And those flaws have led
the "Harry Potter" series to be FAR LESS THAN IT COULD HAVE BEEN, FAR
LESS THAN IT PROMISED TO BE IN EARLIER BOOKS.
And what really bothers me is that, now that Books Five and Six have
been published and released, those flaws are so glaringly SET IN STONE!
No matter what happens in Book Seven, this series will always seem
incomplete somehow. It will always seem as if there are unwritten
chapters that SHOULD HAVE BEEN in Books Five and Six -- but now, they
never will be.
And I find that extremely sad, given the promise that this series --
and this author -- held in the first four books.
shark" is:
THE "HALF-BLOOD PRINCE"
In the days leading up to the release of Book Six in the series, I
began to notice the "Harry Potter" advertising billboards, appearing in
bookstores, malls, and supermarkets. They all asked the question, "Who
is the Half-Blood Prince?"
I was anticipating another great "Hogwarts" mystery of the kind we saw
in earlier books. I thought that the Half-Blood Prince might turn out
to be, I dunno, maybe Godric Gryffindor. I thought perhaps that Harry
would finally discover in Book Six that he was related to the Hogwarts
founder, and that Godric Gryffindor was in fact a half-wizard,
half-Muggle son of King Arthur.
And then I read the book.
Do I have this right? Please, J.K. Rowling, you've GOT to be kidding!
Let me get this straight! The big mystery of Book Six in this series
is, "WHO IS THE VANDAL WHO HAS BEEN WRITING IN HARRY'S ADVANCED POTIONS
TEXTBOOK?!!"
Ay, Caramba!
I'm sorry, but when you compare it to the "great Hogwarts mysteries" of
previous books in this series, the "Half-Blood Prince" mystery is
REALLY SCRAPING THE BOTTOM OF THE BARRELL!
What happened to the excellent mysteries that made the previous books
in this series so involving, so engaging, so readable? Mysteries like
"What is the Sorcerer's/Philosopher's Stone, and who is trying to steal
it from Hogwarts?" Or "Who opened the Chamber of Secrets, and what is
the mysterious monster that is petrifying the Hogwarts students?" Or
"Who is Lord Voldemort's agent at Hogwarts, and why did he put Harry
Potter's name in the Goblet of Fire for the Triwizard Tournament?"
Basically, if I understand Book Six correctly, the "Half-Blood Prince,"
whoever he is, is nothing more than a textbook vandal, both literally
and figuratively. At MY high school, the teachers were extra-sensitive
about students writing in their textbooks like this. They would have
smacked the "Half-Blood Prince" upside the head with his old textbook,
and THEN fined him 50 bucks for the cost of a new one!
As you get into the core of Book Six, the "Who is the Half-Blood
Prince?" mystery becomes NO mystery! As soon as Harry read the "Just
use a bezoar" message in his Advanced Potions textbook, I knew the
"Half-Blood Prince" was Professor Snape.
I knew this because 1. J.K. Rowling had already said that the
"Half-Blood Prince" was neither Harry nor Voldemort and 2. Because
Snape was the only person in the books who had mentioned a bezoar prior
to Book Six.
And when J.K. Rowling revealed WHY Snape was the "Half-Blood Prince,"
my eyes were rolling in my head! Okay, so let's see if I've got this
right. Snape's mother was a witch named Eileen Prince, and she married
a Muggle named Tobias Snape. Severus hated his Muggle father, so in his
own mind, he called himself "the Half-Blood Prince."
Boy, Severus Snape is lucky that his father didn't marry a witch with a
name like Madeline Dork or Amanda Twitt.
I'm sorry, but the "Half-Blood Prince" nickname for Snape sounds like
something that J.K. Rowling made up out of desperation when she reached
the final draft of Book Six and realized she still didn't have a title
for the book. I suppose she had already rejected a whole list of other
potential titles such as, "HARRY POTTER AND THE POTIONS TEXTBOOK
VANDAL."
Or "HARRY POTTER AND THE MYSTERY OF WHAT DRACO MALFOY WAS UP TO."
Or "HARRY POTTER AND THE YEAR IN WHICH A LOT OF GENERAL WEIRD MAGICAL
THINGS HAPPENED AT HOGWARTS."
Or "HARRY POTTER AND THE YEAR AT HOGWARTS WHEN EVERYBODY FINALLY WOKE
UP AND SMELLED THE COFFEE AND BEGAN SNOGGING EACH OTHER LIKE THEY
SHOULD HAVE STARTED DOING BACK IN 'GOBLET OF FIRE.'"
I picture J.K. Rowling sitting at her writing desk, endlessly poring
over a long list of silly nicknames that the young Severus Snape could
have given to himself, thus providing her with a title for Book Six.
"Let's see -- 'Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Pig?' -- No, that's
wrong. -- How about, 'Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Porcupine?' --
No, that won't work. Why would Snape call himself a porcupine? -- Hmm.
'Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince?' - Yeah, that'll work!"
Which brings me to another gripe that I have concerning the "Half-Blood
Prince." In Book Six, Severus Snape finally achieves his dream of
getting the DADA job. And here we have another example of J.K. Rowling
building up an idea over the course of several books -- and then
dropping that idea with no explanation.
In HBP, we learn the reasons why Dumbledore has kept Snape out of the
DADA job until now. Dumbledore was afraid that Snape would be tempted
to revert to his Dark Arts ways. What we do NOT learn is why Snape
wanted the job in the first place!
For the past five books, we have known that Snape wanted the DADA, but
the reasons have remained a mystery. Why would Snape want a job which
has a repuatation for being cursed? No DADA teacher has lasted more
than a year in the job, and EVERY DADA teacher has suffered some kind
of horrible accident before their year of teaching was finished!
(Just a thought: Maybe Snape wants the DADA job because it pays better
than any other teaching job at Hogwarts! I would imagine that the
Hogwarts Board of Governors has to offer an astronomical salary -- not
to mention a very heavy medical and life insurance package -- just to
get anyone interested in the DADA teaching job!)
But unfortunately, J.K. Rowling never bothers to explain why Snape
wants the DADA job. Maybe she thinks that explaining his motives will
take away from Snape's mystique. He's a complicated man, and no one
understands him but his woman.
But the worst part is, after five books of buildup, J.K. Rowling
finally gives Snape the DADA job -- AND THEN SHE TELLS US ALMOST
NOTHING ABOUT WHAT SNAPE TEACHES IN THE CLASS, OR HOW GOOD A DADA
TEACHER HE IS!
What kind of DADA teacher is Snape? Okay, we all know that he probably
isn't better than Remus Lupin or Mad-Eye Moody. But how does he rate
against Professor Quirrell? Or Dolores Umbridge? Or Gilderoy Lockhart?
J.K. Rowling decides not to tell us. Most of Harry's DADA classes in
HBP take place offstage. Is Harry really so advanced in DADA that he
could learn NOTHING from Snape? I sincerely doubt it!
In HBP, Harry finally learns something about the art of Potions from
Professor Snape, even if he learns those lessons indirectly by reading
the scrawled notes in Snape's old Advanced Potions textbook. So if
Harry could learn something about Potions from Snape, surely Snape
would have something more to teach him in DADA, no matter how unwilling
Harry might be to learn it.
But J.K. Rowling gives us next to nothing about the lessons that Snape
teaches in his DADA. Oh, sure. Early in the school year, Snape gives a
lesson about how to cast a jinx, or defend yourself from one, without
speaking. But that doesn't really seem like an actual DADA skill to me.
To cast a spell without speaking seems more like a general magical
skill that got lumped into the DADA class because it didn't fit into
the curriculum anywhere else.
The only other indication that we get about what Snape teaches in his
DADA classes comes late in the book, when J.K. Rowling mentions that
Harry is about to turn in an essay to Snape, in which he "disagreed
with Snape about the correct way to handle a Dementor attack."
Uhh, hold the phone, Central! There's ANOTHER way to handle a Dementor
attack BESIDES using the Patronus Charm?! If so, TELL US WHAT IT IS!
If I were a wizard, I would want to know what the OTHER way is, so that
if by some chance the Patronus Charm failed, I could try the other
method!
(I wonder what Snape's "other method" for driving away the Dementors
would be? Maybe showing them slides from his vacation to Akron, Ohio?)
But, no! With Snape's tenure as DADA teacher, J.K. Rowling once more
chooses to drop an important theme that she has been building up for a
long time! Again, I might have expected this of a lesser writer, one
who hasn't displayed the creativity that J.K. Rowling has demonstrated
in her earlier books.
So there it is, friends. Those are the seven reasons why the "Harry
Potter" series has "jumped the shark."
If it were just one or two minor flaws in Book Five or Six of this
series, I wouldn't have bothered making these posts. But there has been
a WHOLE SERIES OF FLAWS in the last two books. And those flaws have led
the "Harry Potter" series to be FAR LESS THAN IT COULD HAVE BEEN, FAR
LESS THAN IT PROMISED TO BE IN EARLIER BOOKS.
And what really bothers me is that, now that Books Five and Six have
been published and released, those flaws are so glaringly SET IN STONE!
No matter what happens in Book Seven, this series will always seem
incomplete somehow. It will always seem as if there are unwritten
chapters that SHOULD HAVE BEEN in Books Five and Six -- but now, they
never will be.
And I find that extremely sad, given the promise that this series --
and this author -- held in the first four books.