Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince.

[Kimm]

Has anyone else read this book?

I just finnished it and I found it wounderfull. I have never read anything as good as this and cant wait to read the seventh and final book. After that I'll probably re-read the whole series...

When the book first got out I didnt realy find it very interesting, even though I had enjoyed the other books I belived that I had outgrown Harry Potter, then I saw it at my school library and though that would can I loose from reading it?

I was blown away by it. Differing completely from the other books (but somewhat following the style of the fifth book) it was filled with passion, love, tradegy, comedy, adventure and ofcourse mind baffling action. I was reading for five hours straight sometimes before putting it down and now I am quite sad to have finnished it.

Luckily I just got "The gobled of fire" (witch was my favorite up till now) and "The order of the phoenix" from the library and plan on re-reading these in english. After reading this one in english, as apose to swedish, I feel that it realy should be read the way it was originaly written.

I strongly recommend this book to... almost everyone... I realy cant help but wounder how they will ever manage to turn this book into a movie for kids? I anyway cant wait to see this on the screen, even though the movies never are as good as the books, I just must see how they manage to put this on there.

[macgyver2]

There's another thread here:

http://www.ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=53475

But as an aside, I coincidentally just got done reading it at 4:30 this morning. :) I had to wait to read it until now (painful, painful month-and-a-half of waiting) as I promised my girlfriend I wouldn't read it until she did, and she just got done a summer of intense studying for her astrophysics qualifier exams. Ah, what we do for love...

[Lord Illidan]

To tell the truth, I downloaded a pdf before it was released, though I then got the book because the pdf was full of spelling mistakes (Sirius Black - Sinus Black)

Anyway, I liked the book, but it seems that Rowling put too much into the lovey-dovey aspect of teenagers. It got kinda boring after that. Also, Dumbledore's death was pathetic, not like I imagined it to be. He could fight his way through 3-4 aurors in Goblet of Fire, but then was subdued by a mere student...ha..

However, I liked it when Rowling began to expose the dark side of Harry, by him actually casting the crucio spell on Snape (shame it never worked)...action sequences, she does them well.

[Kimm]

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Yes... the chapter where the [i]Sectumsempra spell was used was one the moments I wounderd how this would ever turn out to be a childrens movie, the image I got was horrific...

Only, perhaps we shouldnt reveal such mathers as the death of Dumbledore, that, however I cant think didnt happen for a reason... perhaps to give Harry a bigger longing to finnish Voldermort off.

And yes, also I was anoyed by the constant "snogging" performed by Ron, but I like the lovestory between Ginny and Harry though
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[Lord Illidan]

Yes... the chapter where the [i]Sectumsempra spell was used was one the moments I wounderd how this would ever turn out to be a childrens movie, the image I got was horrific...

Only, perhaps we should reveal such mathers as the death of Dumbledore, that, however I cant think didnt happen for a reason... perhaps to give Harry a bigger longing to finnish Voldermort off.

And yes, also I was anoyed by the constant "snogging" performed by Ron, but I like the lovestory between Ginny and Harry though

I loved the sectumsempra spell.. though I don't think it is too violent.. I mean look at LoTR... an example of how to be violent without showing lots of blood in a movie..

Actually I don't know how Harry is going to finish Voldermort off without Dumbledore's help..

[macgyver2]

Be careful with the spoilers! I like panickedthumb's method in the other thread (change spoiler text to white so it has to be highlighted to be read).

[Kimm]

Yes, I just used that method on my previus post.

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Well, I supose I might have missenturpreted the effect of the spell somewhat and got an image far more gruesum then the one intended. But the chapter where Malfoy breakes Harrys nose by stomping on his face didnt seem all to child-friendly eighter. Neighter does a girl flying up in the air and starting to shake uncontrolably, or Ron almost dying from drinking poisend mead. The image of Bills new face shouldnt be taken lightly eighter... only that could probably give kids nightmarets.
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[macgyver2]

Yes, I just used that method on my previus post.
Yup, I noticed. We were posting at the same time. :)

Now, my thoughts on some of the things posted here...

*** SPOILERS ***
Regarding Dumbledore's death...I don't think it was pathetic at all. First, he was still very hurt from the potion in the cave. He wasn't hurt like that in GoF or OoTP when he was in battle. Second, I think that his death was part of his plan. I think there's a lot of supporting evidence for this (too much to lay out here). On a related note I also don't buy into Snape being evil. Dumbledore is not the type of person who would beg for his life...I maintain that his repeated "Severus, please..." was instead begging Snape (er, Professor Snape ;-)) to kill him (as Dumbledore and Snape had discussed at a prior time, which we just don't see). Snape being evil is too simple.

Regarding Harry's dark side...I think what JKR is showing is Harry's lack of a dark side. He also tried an Unforgiveable Spell in OoTP against Bellatrix. It didn't work there, either, because as she said, you have to mean it. Snape was stopping Harry's curses with what seemed to be no effort at all. I think that was because Harry didn't mean them, not because Snape is so much stronger than Harry. If Harry had meant them I would have expected Snape to have a lot more trouble blocking them.

Regarding the "snogging"...it was awkward, yes. I would have preferred non-stop twists and turns, conspiracies, and action scenes. However, I think they were awkward on purpose and included on purpose. JKR isn't falling into the trap of ignoring any fundamental aspects of human nature. To leave out the relationship parts would just have seemed more fake, I think.
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[Kimm]

*** SPOILERS ***
Regarding Dumbledore's death...I don't think it was pathetic at all. First, he was still very hurt from the potion in the cave. He wasn't hurt like that in GoF or OoTP when he was in battle. Second, I think that his death was part of his plan. I think there's a lot of supporting evidence for this (too much to lay out here). On a related note I also don't buy into Snape being evil. Dumbledore is not the type of person who would beg for his life...I maintain that his repeated "Severus, please..." was instead begging Snape (er, Professor Snape ) to kill him (as Dumbledore and Snape had discussed at a prior time, which we just don't see). Snape being evil is too simple.
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*** SPOILERS ***
I completely agree, I think his death was part of a plan cleverly worked out. After all, Dumbledore did tell Harry that the reason he was the Chosen One was because Voldermort had killed his parents and given him a reason to train and fight back, thus creating his worst enemy. When he let Snape do it he gave Harry an even bigger reason to fight back, he no longer had anyone to rely on for protection, and he had lost one of hist best friends. When Dumbledore died, Harry got a realy realy big reason to fight back and kill Voldermort once and for all.

Also, Dumbledore probably knew that the potion in the cave wold weaken him severely, and this is why he drank it, he probably even know the Horcrux wasnt there, he just wanted Harry to get an even bigger "advantade" so to speak.
....

Hope you know what I mean?

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*** SPOILERS ***
This hasnt got to do with the death but with the Potions book. Did anyone else get the impression that Voldermort was the Half-blood prince? I mean, he was a great student, he was half blood, it all seemed pretty obvious, when I saw what the Sectumsempra spell did I was almost completely sure that this was was the case, that Voldermort used to have that book. It even came to mind that it might have been a Horcrux.

I was rather surpriced when I got to know that it was Snape.
*** SPOILERS ***