The HBP is DEAD

[rebeccatrishel]

No: HPFGUIDX 107505

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "Louis Badalament" 
<lb140900 at y...> wrote:
> Rebecca,
> 
>      Interesting points... but consider Prisoner of Azkaban, the 
> only other book whose title shows a story 'centering' around one 
> specific character - as Half Blood Prince seems to.*snip*

>    Furthermore, Rebecca, I don't see 'Half Blood' as being the 
> Prince's offical title any more than Sirius' 'title' was 'The 
> Prisoner of Azkaban.'  When all is said and done, Sirius was just A 
> prisoner of Azkaban - it housed many other inmates.  And while I 
> don't know about the Prince being "more powerful than Harry, 
> Dumbledore, and the Order of Phoenix combined," but I have faith 
> that he'll add a lot to the plot; J.K. is ususally good about these 
> sorts of things.  And who's to say that anyone's going to 'seek him 
> out?'  Perhaps the Prince is a villian, and Our Heroes will struggle 
> to avoid him, or fight him, or prevent Voldemort from making use of 
> him, as happened with the Philosopher's Stone. 

Rebecca Trishel now:

Nice arguments, Louis, but my basic objection is still there. I agree 
that "half blood" probably isn't the Prince's official title, and 
that the title is like PoA, but for the HBP to be important to the 
plot--at this point in the series, anyway--he'd have to be huge.

This is the second-to-last book in the series; book 7 will be the 
climax. What does a writer do right before the action-packed third 
act? Raise the stakes, heighten the tension, start a ticking time-
bomb, and get your hero up in a tree and throw rocks at him.  It 
would be murder to the books to have them dwadling about an 
insignificant character at this point. I hate to say "at this point" 
again, but at this point it would be too late in the story to 
introduce another Sirius Black.

That leads me to say that the HBP would have to be more important or 
powerful that anything we've seen so far in the series--and that I 
can't imagine. Right now I'm HOPING that the HBP is not the 
cornerstone of the plot--sort of like the Order of the Phoenix not 
being the whole point of the book, but sort of a linking theme.

Unless Dobby is the HBP ...

Rebecca Trishel
p.s. Yeah, I saw the Heir of Gryffindor joke. I don't really think 
there IS an Heir of Gryffindor ... would they have their own secret 
chamber and large but controllable gryffin?