Comments on: harry potter and the half-blood prince is a poor movie http://www.jon22.net/harry-potter-and-the-half-blood-prince-is-a-poor-movie/ The Website of Jonathan Dobres Tue, 27 Sep 2011 03:58:50 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 By: sociallytangent http://www.jon22.net/harry-potter-and-the-half-blood-prince-is-a-poor-movie/comment-page-1/#comment-5657 sociallytangent Fri, 11 Sep 2009 23:38:24 +0000 http://www.jon22.net/?p=890#comment-5657 While I agree that the movie was awful, I disagree on some of your points. Specifically, I think that Harry's use of the Potions textbook is not outright cheating, but rather--at the most--in a morally gray area. Then again, as a technical writer, I am apt to fault the author if a book needs notations to convey all of the information it is supposed to. :P Also, I believe Harry was simply not legally permitted to Apparate solo until his birthday in Book 7. Finally, you might consider the effects that a decent teacher (e.g., one that spends more time on instruction than insults) and complete information can have on one's learning environment before chalking it all up to cheating. Second, though, I think that Rowling did intend to have Harry grow throughout the book, and he did. There's something to be said for having a character not succeed at everything he does (why hullo thar, Gary Stu) and the failures in HBP seemed much more like learning experiences. In particular, I think the beginning and ending scenes are there more to illustrate a growing sense of helplessness rather than show examples of how immature or failure-prone Harry can be. But, yes, the movie still sucked. While I agree that the movie was awful, I disagree on some of your points. Specifically, I think that Harry’s use of the Potions textbook is not outright cheating, but rather–at the most–in a morally gray area. Then again, as a technical writer, I am apt to fault the author if a book needs notations to convey all of the information it is supposed to. :P Also, I believe Harry was simply not legally permitted to Apparate solo until his birthday in Book 7. Finally, you might consider the effects that a decent teacher (e.g., one that spends more time on instruction than insults) and complete information can have on one’s learning environment before chalking it all up to cheating.

Second, though, I think that Rowling did intend to have Harry grow throughout the book, and he did. There’s something to be said for having a character not succeed at everything he does (why hullo thar, Gary Stu) and the failures in HBP seemed much more like learning experiences. In particular, I think the beginning and ending scenes are there more to illustrate a growing sense of helplessness rather than show examples of how immature or failure-prone Harry can be.

But, yes, the movie still sucked.

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