J.K. Rowling
SPOILER ALERT, the Prince is Snape and the Walrus was Paul.
The penultimate entry of the Harry Potter saga is one big setup.
With his father in Azkaban for munching mortality, Draco Malfoy has been entrusted with a risky mission by none other than Lord Voldemort himself. Mrs. Malfoy approaches Severus Snape with a proposition: enter into an Unbreakable Vow with her. The Unbreakable Vow is an oath between two magical beings and if one of them should happen to break that vow, they will die. Snape's promise--protect Draco by any means necessary.
Dumbledore stops by the Dursley residence to escort Harry to the Burrow. His hand looks gnarly, but no explanation is forthcoming. First, they visit former Hogwarts Potions teacher Horace Slughorn. Dumbledore desperately wants ol' Sluggy to return to school, but the walrus-shaped man has reservations. Slughorn was a Slytherin, but not the stereotypical Slytherin, oh no. As a student at Hogwarts, he befriended Muggleborns over the grumbling of his parents. As a teacher he treated all with kindness, while clearly preferring the more ambitious students. Over fifty years, he presided over the education of many witches and wizards who would come to play significant roles in Harry's own life: Molly Prewett, Arthur Weasley, Lucius Malfoy, Severus Snape, Lily Evans and…Tom Riddle. Like any good member of the cunningest house in Hogwarts, Horace knows what connections to make, and when to make them.
Life at Diagon Alley is turbulent if you're a shop owner. Stores are shuttering, paranoia reigns, and Harry has reason to believe Draco Malfoy is following in his incarcerated father's footsteps. (At least Fred and George's joke shop is booming, sometimes literally.)
Life at the Burrow is excellent if you're a hetero male. Fleur Delacour, former Triwizard Tournament participant and current fiancee of Bill Weasley, has been living there in hopes of ingratiating herself into the family. All three women under the Burrow's roof detest the luminous bride-to-be, Ginny especially showing a vicious side.
Life at Hogwarts is excellent if you're an absolute imbecile. Slughorn is taking over Potions from Snape, so what's old greasy git to do? Brand new DADA teacher, of course!
Neither Harry nor Ron anticipated they'd be in Potions for sixth year, but when they hear that Slughorn isn't such a hard-ass with the grades, they sign up. Turns out Potions class is pretty fun when the professor isn't undermining you every chance he gets. Neither boy had the proper textbook, so Sluggy let them borrow secondhand copies. Harry's is full of handwritten notes and spells left by its prior owner, "The Half-Blood Prince." Following the instructions of the so-called "Prince," Harry brews the best Draught of the Living Death of the whole class, and wins a vial of Felix Felicis, the "good luck" potion that provides the imbiber with up to a full day's worth of fortune.
The once-strained relationship between Harry and his Headmaster is a thing of the past. Dumbledore calls Harry to his office for story time. The protagonist is the ultimate antagonist: Tom Riddle. Harry learns more about the loveless life of the charismatic, unhinged orphan who believed that magical beings were entitled to immortality. (He also shares with Dumbledore his suspicions that Snape is up to no good, and not in a cool magic map way. Dumbledore assures Harry that he trusts the bitter bastard implicitly.)
While Harry's being prepped for the fight of his life, Ron is having his usual self-esteem issues. He has competition for the Keeper spot on the Quidditch squad, Slughorn clearly favors Harry and Hermione over him in Potions, and little sister Ginny is getting far more action than he ever has. When he tries to play overprotective big brother, Ginny lets slip that Krum and Hermione snogged during their brief time together in fourth year. Livid, Ron locks lips with Lavender Brown whilst in the throes of post-Quidditch bliss.
In full view of Hermione, no less. Oh Ron. She has it bad for the boy--if only he had clue one. She cheats to get him that spot on the Quidditch team (without his foreknowledge) then revenge-dates the same leaky scumbag who was competing with Ron for that very spot! That is the erratic behavior of a desperate person who has been thus far stymied in their quest to love and be loved, lick and be licked, by a very special someone.
You could say Harry's in that same boat, but storming the citadel of Ginny Weasley's womanhood must take a back seat to more urgent tasks. Dumbledore asks him to retrieve a specific memory of Slughorn's, one that exists in a Pensieve already, though he suspects it's been tampered with. Harry downs some Felix Felicis and has a heart to heart with the Slugster, who reveals his secret shame: he taught Tom Riddle about creating Horcruxes, objects in which a wizard or witch hides a piece of their soul, with the goal of attaining immortality.
Dumbledore figures that Harry's already destroyed one Horcrux--Riddle's diary. And just recently the Headmaster himself sought and destroyed a ring that Tom wore constantly at Hogwarts. Another one down.
Lavender and Ron insist on being a thing, all smoochy-feely and gross. Having a girlfriend hasn't totally changed Ron, though, he still has the sweet tooth to whom all others bow, to the point he scarfs down a bunch of chocolates gifted to Harry by a desperate student named Romilda Vane. "Desperate," since she laced them with love potion (rape drug, ahem). Harry takes Ron to see Slughorn, who provides an antidote and pours out some mead for the boys. Of course, the Weasel King is the first to throw a swallow back. Within seconds, he is on the floor, body reacting to the poison. Recalling a notation from the Half-Blood Prince's textbook, Harry races to the supply closet to grab a bezoar to shove down Ron's throat.
That's some lucky learnin'.
Ah, Harry's obsession with Draco, the misinterpretation that launched several thousand fanfics, all of them laughably written. The Marauder's Map guides Harry to Moaning Myrtle's lavatory, where Malfoy is in tears. He turns that frown into the Cruciatus upon catching sight of Potter, who again refers to the Half-Blood Prince as he busts out the Sectumsempra curse. Had he known the effects, he would have stuck with trusty ol' Expelliarmus. Draco begins bleeding heavily from his face and chest, which sets off Myrtle, whose screams alert Professor Snape. After saving Malfoy's life (and, ergo, his own) he rains down detention on Harry, who has the temerity to find that unfair punishment.
Dumbledore suspects he's figured out the location of another Horcrux, the locket of Salazar Slytherin. He and Harry travel to a nearby cave, and from there, across a lake to an island. On this island is a basin containing the locket. To access it, one must drink all the potion inside. Dumbledore does so, each swallow further draining his physical and emotional strength.
Oh shit oh shit, Dark Mark Dark Mark, up there up there, in the sky over the highest tower at Hogwarts. Dumbledore and Harry race to the top, where Draco waits with several Death Eaters. Dumbledore freezes the cloaked Harry in place and approaches Draco. He disarms his Headmaster, but cannot cast the Killing Curse. So Snape shows up and does the deed instead.
Now freed, Harry tears after Snape. Students, teachers and members of the Order of the Phoenix are battling Death Eaters in the corridors below. Harry chases down Dumbledore's killer, throwing one ineffectual case after another. For once, the Prince has failed him. With good reason--Snape is the Half-Blood Prince.
No other lives are lost in the battle, but the disturbing news keeps coming. Harry discovers that the so-called "Slytherin's locket" he and Dumbledore labored to find is a fake. The real one is in the possession of someone with the initials "R.A.B."
After the funeral, Harry breaks things off with Ginny. A deadly mission awaits--the retrieval and destruction of the remaining Horcruxes--and he won't have her placed in danger as "Girlfriend of the Boy Who Lived."
So, who else needs a drink?
Much of Half-Blood Prince is genuinely unsettling. No, Rowling isn't a stunning stylist, but she is a brilliant plotter. Everyone knows the twist by now (hell, by the end of the first day the book was released) but even those who predicted it could not have also nailed the why.
There's almost a surfeit of plots and subplots. Almost, since nearly all grip the imagination and knot around one another. If this had been turned into two movies, the complaints would have been few, muted and stupid.
Director-David Yates
Writer-Steve Kloves
The book and film are tone twins. Solemnity rules the days. Compare the train ride to Hogwarts in Sorcerer's Stone to the one in Half-Blood Prince. Anticipation has been replaced with dread. Whimsy has been replaced with anxiety.
And horniness. Lots of horniness.
The main story in the novel is Tom Riddle's curiosity leading to the creation of Horcruxes. The secondary one is the identity of the "Half-Blood Prince." The tertiary plot concerns the rampant hormones flying around Hogwarts. Steve Kloves decided to give his script that Neapolitan ice cream feel, and while I couldn't tell you which is vanilla and which is strawberry, the chocolate is blatant even with a stuffy nose.
Is that such a bad thing? When war beckons, people just wanna fuck.
There's a lot more Half-Blood Prince gets wrong than just failing at prioritization, but that's for the next segment. How'd the people who got millions of dollars to lie for two and a half hours do?
MVP-Kid Division goes to Tom Felton, who absolutely nails Draco's vulnerability and ambivalence as the little snot starts to realize his alligator mouth is overloading his canary ass.
Daniel Radcliffe regards HBP as the weakest of his performances and he's right. (Save for a rather amusing intoxication scene.) The issue isn't a reaction shot or line read that sticks out in a negative way, it's the lack of emotion. I may poke gentle fun at his outburst in Prisoner of Azkaban, but too loud is almost always better than too soft.
Rupert Grint throughout plays Ron in "bemused huffer" mode, although he may have ingested nothing stronger than pumpkin biscuits on set, for all I know. At long last Movie Ron gets his turn on the pitch as Gryffindor keeper. No "Weasley Is Our King," but the conquering hero gets a girlfriend with Lavender Brown, who'd been spending much of the film till that point giving Ron "I'm already planning our wedding in my head" looks.
Finally, Emma Watson brings it together and keeps it there. Hermione spends most of the film thumb wrestling with her burgeoning romantic feelings for Ron, and if you find her behavior exasperating, well, what do you think it's like in real life? Other than weaponizing birds, she's painfully on point. A teenage girl isn't the 24-7 model of stability to begin with, much less a teenage that's crushing on her oblivious dream guy while trying to live up to her ridiculously high academic expectations and fretting that her best friend may not live to see his eighteenth birthday.
HBP contains Michael Gambon's best go as Dumbledore. The scenes in the cave are phenomenal, and further display how out of his depth Radcliffe was. Alan Rickman and Maggie Smith continue their mini-war over who can produce the best reactions to any scenario, serious or silly. Seeing them both in the infirmary while an adolescent love triangle loses its point is worth the price of whatever takeout you're eating at the time, but it's hard to top Snape after his boots are puked on.
Jim Broadbent's Slughorn doesn't match what I saw while reading (basically, Monopoly guy, complete with monocle). Oh well. He's a very affable sort, a chap even, much more interested in engaging than gorging.
Bruno Delbonnel received an Oscar nomination for Best Cinematography. Well-deserved. The earthy sets and soupy skies match the tone to a tee. Had the script had been handled by someone as equally skilled in their craft, Half-Blood Prince might be remembered as fondly as The Two Towers. Instead it's maybe the fourth best one?
BETTER IN YOUR HEAD?
That. Ending.
In the book, Harry tells Ron and Hermione he's heading out to finish what Dumbledore started.
"We'll be here, Harry," said Ron. Then, "We're with you whatever happens."
The movie gives us Harry and Hermione, standing at a balcony, speaking on what happens next. Ron is sitting a fair distance from them for absolutely no good reason. Harry announces his intent to skip his final year of school, and promises to contact them both as soon as he is able. Hermione then says, "You need us, Harry."
Ron stands up, comes over and just..sorta stands there.
For fuck's sake. For the actual sake of fuck.
Ah, the Burning of the Burrow. That teeth-grindingly hideous sequence where Bellatrix and fellow Demise Diner Fenrir Greyback set fire to the Weasley home. What? Why? Per director David Yates, to add "an injection of jeopardy and danger." The Battle at the Astronomy Tower couldn't do that, see, since it was excised from the script to keep the battle in the forthcoming final movie from coming off stale.
Cut the crap, that scene was put in to give HBC some action. (Since bopping about like a flirtatious middle-aged diner waitress with dementia while Alan Rickman and Helen McCrory were trying to act didn't meet the quota.) A montage of students running up and down the corridors firing spells at Death Eaters to the strains of prime Wang Chung would have been less infuriating. Or a cover of "Owner of a Lonely Heart" on mandolin during the scene where Harry and Hermione mope and sulk in a sea of unrequited love.
The bad decisions just keep on rolling. The movie has Dumbledore ask Harry to stay and wait while he goes to see Draco. In the book, Dumbledore freezes Harry in place underneath his cloak. Because he realizes he'd have to; no way that "Dumbledore's man, through and through" would just stand idly by.
Haha, Ron almost died, but he's ever-ready with a one-liner!
Ron isn't the only Weasley who gets the shaft. Ginny in the books is a cool, tough young witch, full of fire and feistiness. Growing up the youngest in a house with six boys will do that for a gal. She adores Harry, but she's not going to just sit around with her heart in her shoes waiting for him to get smart. She's gonna test the waters, sample the wares, and work the wands. On screen, she's a pancake left in the sun. Her budding relationship with the Boy Who Lived could've worked with A) actual chemistry between the actors, B) better development of the Ginny character, and C) chemistry, people. Underline it, bold the letters, draw a circle around it, shine a light on it, surround it with golden stars.
Jeezcram, Dumbledoof even asks Harry straight up if he and Hermione are an item! What the hell, Kloves, save it for your FF.net account.
Clingy GF from hell is never better seen, but props to Jessie Cave for leaving an impression that made me want to leave the impression of my Converse soles on all four of her cheeks.
No Tonks and Lupin…eh. No Bill and Fleur? Fine way to assure the film would never get within fifty feet of the book. One of my absolute favorite moments (not just in Half-Blood Prince, but in the entire series) is Fleur tearing into Molly Weasley for daring to assume the French beauty will tuck tail and run because her fiance Bill Weasley has been attacked by an untransformed werewolf, leaving horrific facial damage unfixable by magic. Charlotte Bronte once wrote that "Love is not so much a matter of romance as it is a matter of anxious concern for the wellbeing of one's companion," which Fleur in that single moment demonstrates wonderfully.
The infirmary is practically a love shack in Half-Blood Prince, come to think.
Splitting the book into two movies would have minimized the sloppiness, including a quarter-assed attempt at explaining the title and the failure to film the one part of the book that was begging to be filmed, Dumbledore's funeral. But, no. No funeral. Just kids with wands. Electrifying as an Etch-A-Sketch. Play "Save A Prayer" over the scene to salvage it, maybe.
MIND THE GAP
Slughorn calling Ron "Rupert" is so classic. High-five, J.K.
Fleur Delacour is so vain, she admires her own reflection in the back of a teaspoon. Despite the fact that no one, not even a full-blooded Veela, would look good in the back of a teaspoon.
My recipe for Butterbeer: mix butterscotch and melted vanilla ice cream in a bowl. Stir. Lick bowl clean like a feral cat.
When Hermione suggests the "Half-Blood Prince" could have been a girl, Harry retorts with, "How many girls have been princes?" Dunno, but I could name a male cookie that's been a princess.
Tonks and Molly are both unfair to Lupin. He's not required to requite love; none of us are. All he's gotta do is stay hairy and die. (Or is that, stay with Harry and die?)
The Unbreakable Vow is the ultimate proof of whether or not one is a ride or die bitch, so why didn't Voldemort demand one from each of his Death Eaters?
Listen, I'm really not a hater. If Steve Kloves ever saved me from choking, I'd be incredibly grateful to him. I'd be even more grateful if he didn't write about the incident later on.
Apparition is basically driving for magic-folk. One must be a certain age before applying for a license. The unfocused are at great risk of personal injury. As much as I'd love to master the art of disappearing from one spot just to suddenly appear in another spot, my trepidation would prove insurmountable. Magical me would be renowned as the witch who walks everywhere. "The Walking Witch," they'd call me. All the other witches would envy my boots, as well as my calf muscles.
Harry kisses Ginny, Hermione smiles. Ron kisses Lavender, Hermione runs out of the room crying. So miss me with the bullshit, "Harmony" shippers.
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