ella_menno | HBP thoughts

This is going to be quite disjointed; I desperately want to get online and read the reactions of others to the book, but I have to put down my initial reactions before they are influenced by all the other thoughts and theories out there.

The big thing I noticed before I opened it; it’s so small. I knew it’d be shorter than OotP, but I expected it to weigh in at more of a GoF size.

The text itself moved quickly; I’m sure I didn’t read it as thoroughly as I could have, given that I was reading it at one am. However – it had a much tighter feel to it. The two major plots seemed more intertwined than usual, and there was much less attention focused on anything that wasn’t directly related to Harry’s tasks and quests.

A decent Slytherin (Horace) – who’d have thought.

And, of course, the biggest thing. The thing I’m still stuck on, stuck with, the thing that I’m far more upset over than I should be, considering this is fiction:

Snape killed Dumbledore. Snape killed Dumbledore.

Snape Avada Kedavra'd Dumbledore.

Leading up to it, I thought I saw where jkr was going. I knew DD had to go; I knew Snape had made the Unbreakable Vow, and I thought she was going to have Snape die saving Dumbledore. It seems I was wrong, and it seems that at heart I was a closet Snape-redemptionist, without knowing about it. I really thought he was on “our” side. I thought he respected DDore. I thought…perhaps I’ve been too influenced by all the fic with good!Snape, where he mourns Ddore and reflects on him as his savior, his one chance, his father figure.

And the “half-blood prince” thing! I said earlier, half-jesting, that perhaps it was a nickname or an insult, like “Weasley is our King” but it didn’t occur to me that it could be a surname – “the half blood person, who has a magical parent with the surname of Prince.” That it was Snape…of course, with the extremely handy Potions text, I kind of had an inkling that it’d been Snape’s textbook.

How about things, plotlines I was expecting to see and didn’t? Neville’s memory. The mimbulus mimbletonia. A prolonged period of mourning for Sirius. Luna, or her snorkacks. The goblins. Ron’s brain-inflicted injury.

I don’t want to judge the book yet; it’ll take at least one more reading, and several days’ worth of reflection, before I’m able to do that.

And the "R.A.B." on the necklace Horcrux? I so want that to be Regulus Black, but it seems too easy for JKR.

I bet the shippers are going berserk – the Ron/Hermione and remus/tonks, in particular. I had a feeling that Harry would tell Ginny they had to break it off, but I expected her to fight him, to fight for him; of course, just because she’s going along with it doesn’t mean the feelings have changed on either side.

The Horcrux idea is, quite simply, genius. Quite similar to the Changeling theory in many parts, but having seven parts of his soul – and I’ll say this only here, where nobody else will see, but if Harry’s Very Important Scar is NOT one of those Horcruxes, I’ll be absolutely shocked.

I didn’t think she’d kill off Harry before this. Now I don’t see how he can live….

Now, off to read everyone else's thoughts.