More First Impressions

[fritter_my_wig]

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OK. I've been trying to catch up, but there are too many people's 
remarks I'd like to comment on or agree with, whatever, so for what 
it's worth here's my two knuts' worth. Please forgive any too obvious 
repetition.

First off, I've always hated the title Half Blood Prince, found it 
very clunky and I wasn't altogether satisfied with its explanation. I 
shouldn't have thought Snape proud enough of his half-blood status to 
use it as a title. 

I enjoyed this volume hugely until they got to the lake, then I cried 
for the rest of the book (though reading spellbound). None of the 
others has affected me like that. I predicted Sirius' death but I 
never liked him and looked on, Snape-like, in amused condescension at 
the grief outpoured in the fandom. Even though I knew Dumbledore had 
to die, that did affect me. And even, truth be told, though I've 
never particularly warmed to Harry, his final abandonment moved me.
 
Actually, I lked Harry a whole lot more this time. And by the end I 
thought, yes, finally we have an adult. Which is one reason 
Dumbledore had to go.
 
I feel quite disturbed by the book as a whole (being a Snapefan, 
perhaps naturally). I feel a bit annoyed that some of the love theme 
she was developing was a bit, well, trite, I suppose. I've always 
(pace various members of this group)found SHIPping amusing/annoying 
(ie I never read SHIPping debates, thinking them pointless and was 
just amused by the vehemence they inspired). But then, we're talking 
teenage romance, not grand adult passion, so I find it difficult to 
be gripped by it. ;-) I've always been more interested in the adults 
in the series. I was amused to note the Tonks/Remus pairing as it was 
a prominent part of only the second FF I've ever read. I did laugh at 
that as I'd been totally taken in and assumed she'd fallen for Sirius 
(though I found that rather unsatisfactory as there was nothing to 
hint at it in OoP as far as I could remember). 

LOL! I've just realised why the initials on the note were so 
familiar! It's my FIL!!!!! Well, who would have thought it! In fact, 
I agree it's Regulus. Has to be. And the implication is that Harry 
already possesses the locket.... if Mundungus hasn't stolen it, which 
I bet he has. Hermione is irritatingly slow on the uptake with that 
one. I suppose the excuse is that they think he was a stupid coward.

 
Anyway, back to the crux of the matter. Severus. ;-)
 
Hee. At last he gets into the title of a book. About time!
 
What does she want us to believe? Unfortunately, I no longer have any 
faith in her misdirection, as so often the fandom *does* get it right.
 
So. Ch 2 she tries to tell us via the Unbreakable Vow that he's 
really in with with LV
 
Harry's eavesdropping - that he's in with Draco.
 
Hagrid's - ambiguous. As overheard conversations in the forbidden 
Forest are!
 
DD's reactions to the various overhearings - designed to make us 
think he's a trusting old fool.
 
Trouble is, the Snapefan's answer to it all is so very obvious that 
if it's right it will be almost a let down. Dumbledore obviously knew 
that he must die, that he had to go to allow Harry to be a man, that 
his dying would be one more thing that would strengthen Harry's *own* 
desire to go after LV, nothing to do with the prophecy. I suspect his 
dying may also have other implications that we don't know yet. Snape 
can't help Harry, either, except by again increasing his resolve and 
giving him covert assistance via the book. Snape's interactions with 
Harry are *designed* to increase Harry's anger and resolve to revenge 
his parents. 

Dumbledore and Snape knew LV's plan; they did not want Draco to be a 
killer. The Unbreakable Vow was performed with Dumbledore's full 
knowledge and approval. Probably manipulation, because Snape wanted 
out of it, as we heard from Hagrid, though how, I don't know and DD 
would have wanted to ensure that he had no choice but to kill him at 
a time of his choosing. 
 
She hasn't explained why Dumbledore immobilised Harry. Presumably 
we're *supposed* to think it was for his own safety, whereas in 
reality it was to stop him interfering with the pre-ordained plan. 
The talking with Draco, whilst performing the hackneyed literary 
functions of letting the detective explain all and the villain gloat 
over his victory was from DD's POV, designed to give Snape time to 
get there. 'Snape, please' was an instruction, not a plea for mercy.
 
And he (Dumbledore) hasn't left Hogwarts. We're *told* that there is 
no precedent for a headmaster being buried there (makes me wonder 
about that quote re Hogwarts' graveyard) and he specifically 
instructed that he was to be buried there. That's not sentiment. I'm 
certain that his death has some other purpose, that he is still 
protecting Hogwarts. And of course, for communication of his 
intentions, the portrait is already there. I wonder if he's going to 
turn up in that locket, too. Ah. The mirror. That's going to come 
back, IIRC, and there will be a Pensieve memory somewhere to 
exonerate Snape.

If Dumbldeore *had* to die as part of his great plan, then Snape 
*had* to leave Hogwarts as he had no reasonable excuse to stay. So he 
has to appear outwardly as well as covertly to be a servant of LV. 
>From LV's POV, there is no excuse for his not 'coming out', 
particularly in the context of a battle.

And as Mike pointed out, that bit about not calling him a 
coward....Well, my little Snapefan heart glows with pride. ;-)
If he has been on DD's side in all this, the line he's been treading 
for the last three years has been perilous in the extreme. And now 
he's *had* to kill the man that some of us strongly believe is the 
nearest to a father he's ever had.

As to speculation about the intention behind the AK...well, it's 
known as the Killing Curse, not the Murdering Curse. And he may well 
have hated DD at that point for what he was making him do. andger and 
hatred seem to be two of the emotions that srpings most readily to 
him and even for the best of us it's often those we love the most who 
can inspire the most negative feelings in us.

As for his backstory, I'm annoyed with her for choosing to answer 
that fan question about Snape's bloodline. It was a clumsy piece of 
misdirection. Of course, we already had a strong clue in that Harry 
didn't see Severus on Sirius' tapestry. But how can LV accept half-
bloods? That's a terrible inconsistency to me (mind you her whole 
blood line thing is a bit of a mess - Harry's hardly a half-blood in 
the way LV is). Of course, she set that up, too, by the thing about 
there not really being any pure bloods these days.
 
And the reason Snape never go the DADA post before was that the post 
*was* jinxed and DD knew he'd be out of Hogwarts by the end of the 
year. I wonder if he knew that it was cursed before Dumbledore gave 
it to him. I hope so.
 
I liked the Room of Requirement stuff (did that remind anyone else of 
the scene in Return to Oz?). After Harry got in there, I was certain 
that we were going to find that Draco hadn't been told to kill DD, 
but to find the locket which was hidden in there. I'd place money on 
Harry finding one of the other Horcruxes in there
 
We know now what the clue in COS was, don't we! I was never happy 
with that book, the way the diary acted, exactly *what* Diary!Riddle 
was. Makes sense now.
 
I assumed that love potions were going to play a more serious role in 
the plot. Perhaps that's next time. Perhaps that has to do with 
the "Why would anyone want Snape in love with them?" answer. Snape 
doses Lily and when she finds out she turns to James? He propelled 
her into his arms?

There was an awful lot about how good Lily was at Potions, too, which 
I guess will be significant. I find it strange that Slughorn (love 
the name!) didn't recognise Severus' hand in Harry's work, that he 
kept comparing it instead to Lily's. After all, until now we've been 
led to believe that Lily's talent was Charms.

What about the spider references? What's the significance of Snape 
living at Spinner's End? And later, of course that's exactly what we 
see in Aragog's death - a spinner's end. And the spiders in the 
Weasley outhouse? Or are spiders the new socks?

Oh and one final thing. Since when have toilets become bathrooms on 
this side of the Atlantic? Especially in the archaic WW?
 
~Eloise
(Who will be first in line to learn the AK if Bk 7 proves that Snape 
*is* ESE)