Back to the Well / Will Harry Ever Learn?

[prep0strus]

No: HPFGUIDX 134871

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "Todd C. Truffin"
<tctruffin at y...> wrote:
 So, HP gets hold 
> of an old tattered book that starts giving him information that no 
> one else has.  The information begins innocently enough and 
> progresses to darker and darker material.  When HP reveals the book 
> to his pals, Ginny rather wisely asks "Did I hear you right? You've 
> been taking orders from something someone wrote in a book, Harry?" 
> (182, UK childrens).  And HP continues using the book and defending 
> its author?  
> 

I think Harry definately IS sometimes headstrong and oblivious... but
I think he also makes a good point that this is a different situation.
 He was definatley a bit to cavalier about the spells he found
contained in the book, but it doesn't fit into Mrs. Weasley's 'Don't
trust anything if you can't see its brain' rule.  This book wasn't
magic in itself - it had notes from a former student.  Notes that even
now would probably be pretty useful for the learning of potions.  And
I kind've understand Harry's reluctance to listen to the others.  They
were all much more reluctant in this book to listen to him.  In the
past Hermione was more likely to pick up on subtle clues about Draco,
and Ron would want to blame him for anything... Harry was a little
more on his own, and probably less likely to listen to his friends
when they weren't really listening to him.

It's true that JKR could've maybe chosen a different way to show us
who the Half-Blood Prince was - having two books in the series center
around... books... is a little redundant.  But the situations were
different in a lot of ways.


What I'm really curious about is why Harry is able to do spells
correctly on the first try, without even having a clue how to do them,
and yet has to practice hundreds of times to learn spells for his
classes.  I always figured it was because it's more than simply saying
the words - you had to get your mind in the right frame of mind for
each spell, and if you're not, it doesn't work, or doesn't work all
the way.  But here we see Harry doing spells with no practice, just by
speaking the words.  He should be able to pass charms without even
going to class.

~Prep0strus