My thoughts on the Half Blood Prince film

[erastes]

1. Oh Dumbledore – you've been DYING to put your arm round Harry like that, haven't you? He's legal now, after all.
2. *blech* Dumbledore puts his arm around Harry, and it's SUPER SUPER SUPER Pedaeristic and creepy in slo-mo and close up on his hand. EWWW! BAD JKR for creating not one but three creepy pederasts in one book.
3. The dark mark is exactly like the Sand Mummy in the The Mummy
4. If wizards could really fly like this, the bad guys would have won years back.
5. Apparently flying wizards need no magic to enter Diagon Alley, which seems rather stupid. If they could have entered like this – there's no way that the Government would have considered it a safe place to put Harry in earlier books.
6. Fenrir is a hot hairy Sean Bean. I KNEW IT
7. Why would it be so bloody terrifying to fall in the Thames? The river police can be there in minutes -–and this is July. It's always July. OK –it's cold, but if salmon can exist, so you can you stupid muggles, suck it up. The book bridge was a high rail one wasn't it? No getting out alive there.
8. No Muggles fell in anyway. Bah.
9. Ok – Death eaters can not only fly but can fly INVISIBLY.
10. .Wizard cafes on underground stations – since when?
11. Yay! Lucius makes the newspaper!
12. Yeah, right. Way out of your league, you tosser. (Wondering: do the Americans KNOW what "tosser" means?)
13. Harry's on drugs for the pain! Hurrah – that will stop him whining about it at least. Oh no, he's testing his breath and takes mints. Oh come on, Harry, do you really think you have a chance with HER? She's got DEATH EATER CRUMPET written all over her. And what are you doing in the underground anyway?
14. And why are you not caring about Sirius. Granted you only bothered for 2 weeks in the books, but one frame wouldn't kill you.
15. Oh DEAR LORD – did no-one notice the advert behind DD's first appearance? I think I love this director. *GUFFAWS * "Magic, your man defines magic." And then BOTH of them go and look at a similar poster which says: "Tonight make a little magic with your man!!!"
16. Awww – the boyfriends reunite – it's so…. Coded!!!
17. *pauses to stop laughing *
18. "Take my arm," says DD (well he would, wouldn't he?) and Harry at least has the decency to look around at what he hoped would be his hook up. Coded.
19. Seven minutes and 24 seconds into the film and not one second of canon. I'm not complaining mind you.
20. Apparently according to DD most people vomit the first time. Well, if they were doing it with him, I'm not surprised.
21. "I assume you are wondering why I've brought you here, am I right?" AND YOU WERE WRONG OF COURSE, you hideous pompous ass.
22. "Wands on?" What the hell?
23. Ewwwwwwwwwwww – Dumbledore licks Harry's forehead and tastes it!! Could we be any more obvious? Wasn't the book enough?
24. Did Harry really say "One of my best friends is Muggle born"? probably. Luckily I can't remember, unluckily for me, I'll be forced to check now. How PC of you, Harry.
25. Hahahahah! Dumbledore comes back from the loo with a magazine! Of course he does. Knitting patterns – is no-one seeing the code here? Surely its not just me who's researched gay codes? Knitting circle? Anyone? Beuller?
26. "You are talented famous and powerful". Really? One out of three ain't bad.
27. What? No DD and Harry sitting in a closet scene? Would that have been TOO OBVIOUS??
28. When did The Hotel Inspector/The House Doctor come and do up the Weasley's house?
29. Mrs Weasley. "Harry who?" oh puhleeze. I've lost count, after about one minute of canon we are now back in la la land.
30. Skinny Snape – hurrah! I was so hoping after seeing Rickman in Sweeney Todd. And if he had a bit of help with the airbrush, that's ok too. Narcissa is good.
31. What? Fenrir is with Draco in Diagon Alley – and there's no detail as to what he says in the shop? How stupid is that?
32. What the hell has harry got in his hand on the train?
33. Ok – it's fog. Obviously that's because Harry doesn't have an invisibility cloak. Right.
34. Not a fault with the film, obviously, but why didn't Draco kill Harry on the train? Sod killing DD – and sod "he is mine" crap – a quick sharp wand to the heart…
35. Luna? Omg. With super powers – who can see under THE SUPER INVISIBILTY CLOAK.
36. At this point I'm thinking "the author doesn't care, the director is having too much fun,…"
37. Ron: He's covered with blood. Looks like his own." – Thank you CSI Weasley
38. I thought this was stupid in the book, but in the film it's even more idiotic. After young Riddle tells DD that he can "hurt people" DD says "I'm like you, Tom" and set fire to the wardrobe. Who put that man in charge of children?
39. "Did I know I'd just met the most dangerous dark wizard of all time? No." HOW THICK ARE YOU? Don't answer that.
40. "You said Slughorn would try and collect me." "I did." "Do you want me to let him?" "Yes." ER EXCUSE ME, am I the only one seeing the hideous pervy vibe here? I like slash, but I really don't like this, it's worse here than in the book!
41. Don't like to be picky (Ok that's not true) but the wind is blowing from opposite directions in thequidditch scene
42. I want that opal necklace more than ever. I so adore opals.
43. Hermoine's attack canaries! YES!
44. My love for Luna knows no bounds.
45. Why is Draco allowed to dress like Gucci Hamlet?
46. Very disappointed we didn't get to meet the vampire at Sluggy's party. Cormac being sick over Severus obviously far funnier. Not.
47. What the hell is this? Bella attacks the Weasley house? Oh ok – it has Fenrir in it. I'm not complaining.
48. The Weasley's house? WTF?
49. Yanno I had almost forgotten how vile the Trio are in this.
50. What is this piffle about Ginny and the book and the room of requirement? God this film is bloody boring. The only good bits are the bits that didn't exist in canon. AND WHERE THE HELL IS TRELAWNEY?
51. Vastly disappointed with the appearance of Felix
52. OK – Lily gave slughorn her flower. Am I the only one really revolted by this?
53. Hugely impressed with the entrance to the cave, though. Vastly less pedestrian than just scrambling over rocks. One might wonder how the kids got there, though. Oh silly me, mixing canons. Wait? There's Canon?
54. God DD is a git. I'm so glad he's dead.
55. The whole water thing is so stupid. Said it before, say it again. The Aguamenti spell can cause water to come out of the end of his wand. Why doesn't he do that. Oh yes, because he's STUPID. That's why he tries to kill the zombies. *headdesk *
56. And there it is, the most important Expelliamus in the entire series, and we all missed its significance. Heh. Probably because, like me right now, we were bored rigid. How could they let the DE's taking over the castle be DULL? What happened to the Dark Mark over the castle and Harry being heroic, the passive little git gets little enough opportunity for DOING rather than listening or observing.
57. Could we make the scene between Harry and Severus more anticlimatic?
58. Where's the battle?? Did they run out of money? WHAT THE HELL DID DRACO JUST SPEND THE ENTIRE FILM GETTING THE DEATH EATERS INTO HOGWARTS FOR, only to have them break some plates? It's the Big Fat Hogwarts Battle! Plate breaking!
59. His boyfriend's dead. Oh waily waily.
60. Oh dear. I'm sorry, but the whole "lifting of the wands thing" just made me fall off my chair laughing. It's all so very rock concert. Much cheaper to have 100 little bulbs in wands than to have a funeral, eh?
61. "which means it was all a waste, all of it," says Harry.

You never said a truer word, Mr Potter. A complete waste of 2 hours 24 mins.

No, I didn't like it. Could you tell? OK. I liked Gucci Hamlet and slim!Snape and the some of the bits the director made up. and the necklace. All opals gratefully received.

Comments

[hybridartifacts.livejournal.com]

I noticed very early into the series that there seemed to be two completely different ways of reading the books, largely based on peoples perception of human nature and the use of stereotypes in fiction.
I stick by my reading of Draco. He is a bully-but not a killer. Just as Snape was a decent bloke and not a villain (I spent years arguing this right from book 1 with people who insisted on seeing everything in a very simplistic black and white way and it was damn good to read that last book). Dumbledore is weak and panders to Harry's worst instincts a lot of the time, and Harry can be really rotten sometimes and exhibits some terrible characteristics quite in line with normal expectations of Slytherin behaviour. Nobody in the books is quite as straightforward as they seem. The characters are much, much more complex.

Feeble attempts do not make someone a killer. He had to be seen to be trying because he was afraid of the consequences if he wasn't and felt he had to live up to others expectations of him, but it was (to me at least) clear that this was a terrible burden for him that he simply couldn't manage. The book covers themes of the price of taking a life very strongly - the whole concept of Horcruxes is introduced in it and that the cost of creating them is taking a life, and that doing this splits the soul. This is set against Draco's own internal struggle - is he ultimately willing to pay the price? Can he actually do it? In the end he cannot. However much he may try, he is not a killer. Perhaps he is too weak, perhaps he actually cares - this we are not explicitly told, but he cannot do it.

The problem for author's like JKR who work against normal preconceived ideas of genre fiction is that no book is ever read as the author intends, but rather as the reader perceives it to be - that goes for both of us.

Of course, in the end that's just my opinion. You read the books your way, I read them mine.

[gehayi.livejournal.com]

Feeble attempts do not make someone a killer.

But attempts to kill DO make someone an attempted murderer. Draco formulated the intent to kill and carried it out. Twice.

That his attempts didn't result in death was not a matter of "feeble attempts" but good luck on his part. Katie Brown suffered from a curse that seems to have been similar to Crucio; fortunately for her, the Trio was passing by as Katie was attacked by the curse and Harry ran for Hagrid. It took Hagrid, Harry, Ron, Hermione and Leanne to hold Katie down and remove the necklace. Leanne could possibly have run and found Hagrid when her friend was attacked by the curse, but Hagrid and Leanne wouldn't have been enough to hold her down and take the necklace off, leading Katie to suffer unimaginable pain...and possibly death.

And Ron's case is even less ambiguous. He drank poisoned mead, which Dumbledore had given to Slughorn, and immediately started choking. Slughorn--the Potions teacher!--couldn't think of an antidote to poison. Harry, however, remembered a note scrawled in the Potions book owned by the Half-Blood Prince which said that bezoars were useful antidotes to poison. If Harry had not been there, Ron almost certainly would have died.

And if Ron had died, Draco would have been guilty of murder--at least in a Muggle court of law. The argument of the prosecutor would have been that he had the motive to kill; he had formed the intent to kill someone (he used two methods that show calculated planning, he chose and used two means that he knew to be deadly, and both attempts were severe, one of them nearly resulting in death); he made a concerted effort to kill using poison; and in fact, he did kill someone.

Everything in that example happened except for the last.

He had to be seen to be trying because he was afraid of the consequences if he wasn't and felt he had to live up to others expectations of him, but it was (to me at least) clear that this was a terrible burden for him that he simply couldn't manage.

That Draco was under considerable stress during that year, I do not deny. But duress doesn't matter in cases of attempted murder--at least, not under English law. Furthermore, it was equally clear to me that he was more afraid of what would happen to him and his parents if he failed Voldemort than he was of killing Dumbledore. After all, he tried to kill Dumbledore. Twice. That, to me, says that he was more concerned with succeeding at the task set him than he was about his soul.

Can he actually do it? In the end he cannot.

Not quite accurate. Draco talks for a long time to DD (who is horribly patronizing); Draco tries repeatedly to get DD to admit that he did a good job betraying the school and trying to kill his headmaster, but Dumbledore never agrees, and keeps trying to convince Draco that he's not a killer and that he, Dumbledore, can help him. (Personally, I wondered why he hadn't offered to help Draco ages before, if he was so sincere in his offer.) And after that, DD is equally patronizing to Fenrir and the other Death Eaters. And then we get Snape's entrance.

The door to the ramparts burst open once more and there stood Snape, his wand clutched in his hand as his black eyes swept the scene, from Dumbledore slumped against the wall, to the four Death Eaters, including the enraged werewolf, and Malfoy.

Would Draco have killed Dumbledore eventually? I don't know. He didn't seem eager to kill someone face to face, and he did seem to want Dumbledore to praise his cleverness before dying. But that wasn't his only attempt. The others were far more deadly. Preferring to kill at a distance isn't the same thing as not wanting to kill at all.

[hybridartifacts.livejournal.com]

Im not entirely convinced JKR was trying to write a text book on the application of English Law.
I think the nature of the struggle for Draco, his attempts to fulfil others expectations and his inability to follow them through conclusively in the end is far more important. He has definitely changed by the last book (I quote from the wiki article on him here since its a bit quicker than me typing so much)
"When Harry, Ron, and Hermione seek Ravenclaw's diadem in the Room of Requirement, Draco, reunited with Crabbe and Goyle, attempts to capture Harry alive. However, Crabbe defies Draco's orders and attempts to kill the trio by casting the deadly Fiendfyre; unable to control the spell, he dies in the blaze while the trio rescue Draco and Goyle. Draco, despite his often condescending and belittling attitude toward Crabbe and Goyle, grieves for his lost friend. During the Battle of Hogwarts, Draco is seen pleading with a Death Eater who seems intent on killing him, but is once again saved by Harry and Ron."

A large part of Draco's turmoil (which seems to get steadily worse as the effects of his attempts are revealed) could very well be that he is actually struggling with is conscience about it rather than just being under stress.
What is important is that in struggling with the requirement (perhaps there is a deliberate irony that he uses the room of requirement to try and fulfil others requirements of him?) made of him that he become a killer, and in choosing NOT to kill Dumbledore in the end, he has changed. Not completely, as I do not think JKR is so shallow an author to make instant fairytale personality reversals occur, but enough that he very clearly seeks to avoid the deaths of others by the last book. He has learnt something, and grown a little in consequence.

While he may have attempted to kill, he is not ultimately a killer by instinct. There are two ways you can read the word killer - as one who has killed, or as one whose nature is to kill. He is most emphatically neither in the books. Yes-he attempted murder twice, and if he had succeeded he would indeed be a killer under the first reading of the word. Personally I think that would have destroyed him - and this is the entire point of the events surrounding Draco in this book. To kill is to splinter the soul, and in doing so you die a little yourself. This was the fate Dumbledore wanted to avoid Draco falling into, which was why he arranged with Snape to protect Draco from it. In a way Dumbledore was perhaps seeking to serve Draco better as a pupil in his school than he did Tom Riddle.

I would also suggest that this strongly ties into the themes of redemption and overcoming the limitations and expectations others set for you that runs throughout the entire series. I'm inclined to believe that reading Draco so simplistically as just a failed killer implies you may be missing the point of the entire series and that the sub texts may have completely escaped you.

I could be wrong in this. It IS just my opinion, so please don't take it as any sort of personal attack (it's not meant as one).