Harry Potter and the HBP (SPOILERS!!!)

Having spent most of a week pondering the HBP, I am going to state my thoughts on the book.

First, I think the book was poorly paced. It was as though JKR was biding her time to wrap up some loose ends and set the finale in place. Here’s where it gets interesting, evidently she hasn’t crafted the 7th book yet, which means that unless she has some sort of set up in place, the ending of the story is still up in the air.

Harry Potter nearly kills Draco, and gets detention. Damn, if all punishments were that simple. Can anyone explain to me how he manages to not get kicked out of hogwarts for that? That was a serious flaw in the book. 2nd what the heck was the whole Harry and Ginny, "it’s too dangerous for you to be with me" stuff? Other than an attempt to pull at the heart strings and make you go, "aww unrequited love" what purpose does it serve? Personally, I think people are generally safer around Harry than not. At least harry has people watching over him.

Snape pwn3z Harry. Snape also kept Harry alive. Keep in mind, It would have been simple to put Harry down, and then just take him to Voldemort. Harry was alone and utterly outclassed by Snape (Did anyone expect snape to be that powerful? I was a bit suprised, but it made me wonder how much of a red herring was there). If Voldemort really wants harry all to himself, Then he is making one of the major cliche bad guy mistakes. Personally I think Snape is a better mage than Voldemort at this point, But Snape is not a social person, and is solitary by nature.

I am also frustrated by JKR including the cut scene of Snape and the sisters. It struck me as a fairly cheap manipulation of the reader. In addition to cut scenes being a new item in the series. Even if Snape turns out to be an unmitigated bad guy, I think it was unfair to include extra information like that, and not include a conversation between snape and dumbledore.  

Dumbledore knew what was going on. And honestly, he would have been willing to sacrifice himself to try to save Draco. Was snape angry and disgusted with himself when he killed Dumbledore? why would he be disgusted with Dumbledore pleading, if he really hated Dumbledore and was a bad guy? He should have been gloating, or even better, he should have been emotionless. just doing his job. not angry and disgusted.

Draco does not make a good redemption story, He’s a prissy arrogant elitist who wouldn’t know what pain is if it smacked him on the head. Snape has been through hell, His entire existance at hogwarts was dealing with arrogant asses like Harrys Father, Sirius, Lupin and crew. He’s spent all 6 books saving Harry’s ass, when at any point, he simply could have done *nothing* at a critical point and Harry would have *failed*. If he wanted to further revenge himself against what happened to him. Having Harry end up dead would have been simple.

Snape should be a complex character. turning it into a ‘good guys do good things’ and ‘bad guys are always bad’ style morality play would not sit well with me.

WTF is RAB?

Eh, Doesn’t matter I suppose, eventually book 7 will come out. Maybe then we will get some answers.