This entry is about Harry Potter. Again.

I know, it's a little strange placed. But I haven't seen Serenity  , so I'll have to talk about something else. I've been rereading the Harry Potter, and I've gotten back around to Book Six. So now I'll pick up the discussion that everyone left off several months ago. Since I've been meaning to, really, but just dropped the ball. Butterfingers!


[Begin Spoiler for And The Half Blood Prince — Highlight to view]

The first thing I want to discuss is what pisses me off. The fact that Ron and Hermione refuse to believe Harry about Malfoy pisses me off. I may (or may not) have mentioned in the past that this is a convention I typically hate: when a character is blanketly not believed, even by those closest to him, even when he's typically a rational person. It happens a lot in horror movies. And it sucks. Similarly, it really bothers me when characters have their sanity questioned or discredited. It bugs me out. I guess it's because, in fiction anyway, it seems so easy to have all your rights and abilities instantly stripped away by the mere suspicion of mental instability. And there's nothing you can do about it!

That's not really the point, though. But I am vastly disappointed that neither of Harry's best friends thought for a minute that he might be right. And it's not like it was that far-fetched a suggestion! I did not understand why they were so against the idea. The basis for their denial seems to be "Malfoy is too young to be a Death Eater." Which, frankly, is the stupidest thing I've ever heard. I suppose it could be understandable if they were thinking of the Order of the Phoenix, which seems to have an age restriction, or at least a general understanding of "too young to risk your life fighting evil." However, the flaw there is that the Order of the Phoenix cares about its members and doesn't really want to put children in danger. I doubt Voldemort gives a similar shit, really. I think it's very strange that they would think the Most Evil Wizard Ever would have any kind of scruples, especially when he's trying to build his dark army. And, unlike the Dumbledore trusting Snape thing, I really don't think Ron and Hermione have any better reasons that they're not divulging. And it's not like they haven't latched on to Harry's less founded theories, either. And it's not like either of them want to believe the best of Malfoy. And they don't think Malfoy's too incompetent, either, so I really don't know what's up with it. It's extremely annoying and rather detracts from my enjoyment of the book. It's about the only thing, but it's a pretty big thing.

Now, onto thing Number Two. That thing being: Harry is still a Horcrux. Yeah, he is. But the important thing is that I think I've come up with a way it's likely to turn out.

Pat made an entry way back describing why he doesn't like the idea of Harry being a Horcrux. Which was fair. But one of the things he brought up was the suggestion that if Harry is a Horcrux, he needs to be destroyed in order for Voldemort to be destroyed. And that's something I've wanted to address since. Because: no he doesn't. In the book we learn that a Horcrux can, indeed, be un-Horcrucified. Of course, I don't know exactly how that works, but it seems to involve fire and danger. So, it's probably not a walk through the park, but it's doable. And if Harry is a Horcrux (which he totally is) then I'm sure there's a way to undo that while causing him no lasting harm.

Then I was thinking about the prophecy, and how this relates to it. I guess prophecies are meant to sound lacey and, well, arty-farty, but I've always thought the wording "neither can live while the other survives" was a little weird. Of course, I'm a language enthusiast and a drama geek, so I might be reading too much into it, but I think there's a definite difference in meaning between the word "lives" and the word "survives." Why couldn't it be "neither can live while the other also lives"? That would have been more straightforward. I think because it was ambiguous as to the state of the survival of the participants. Surely, Voldemort can't live pleasantly if Harry's still alive, because he'd always be up to mischief and foiling his evil schemes. But why does Harry have to knock off Voldemort? Perhaps the prophecy means that Harry has to get rid of the last vestige of Voldemort - the part that's inside himself - so that he can get to living life like a real boy.

The benefit of this interpretation is that Harry would not actually have to kill Voldemort. He would merely need to stop the last part of Voldemort surviving  . See, the big reveal at the end of OotP was that Harry was going to have to kill Voldemort. Or, you know, die by his hand. And I found this to be pretty anti-climactic, because, well, isn't that what we all expected? I mean, we've all read stories before, so we're not new at this. I was confused as to what the big deal was, and I was a bit chagrined when the author pointed it out to me: Murder is bad. Oh yeah. Whoops. Killing people, it seems, is something you want to avoid doing if at all possible. In fact, killing people rips your soul in half  . Ouch! This is probably something that you want to avoid happening to the hero of your story. However, the prophecy says that Harry has to kill Voldemort. Or does it? And thus my point.

So, Harry's a Horcrux, but that's actually probably a good thing. Huh.

Ron and Hermione need to be kicked in the nuts for that other crap, though. I'm serious.

[End Spoiler]

Also, I watched some television shows yesterday, and they were pretty good.