Why The Half Blood Prince is the Best Harry Potter Book (Video Essay)

over the years I've said many times that the half-blood Prince is my favorite book in the Harry Potter series and many people have tweeted at me asked me in the comment section and DM me asking why I thought this so now in this video I'm finally gonna answer that and I'm going to explain why I feel that way though this is a book review I'm going to use clips from the film's because that will just make the video more visually pleasing and entertaining for you guys also there are obviously major spoilers for this book every other book in the series and then turn the films as well so there's your warning before we start I just wanted to say that I'm going to stop using the YouTube community tab as much as I have been and start using other platforms more so that the movie flame brand extends past just YouTube just in case the worst happened and I lost the channel or something so make sure you follow me on Twitter which is the most important because that will sort of replace the YouTube community tab I'll be posting the most updates there and that's linked down below you can also follow us on Facebook and if you want you can follow my personal Instagram as well which is full of cute dogs behind the scenes movie flames stuff and just some fun posts both of those are linked down below as well now let's get started the half-blood Prince has some of the best character development out of all seven books moving the arcs forward starting new relationships and even having characters arcs come to an end but in order to understand why this is the best book we need to look at the entire series every book has so many great character moments and development but when simplified each book belongs to a character the first book obviously belonged to Harry as it was our introduction to his character the second book belonged to Ginny starting her first year at Hogwarts writing in throwing away and stealing the diary and obviously being the one behind all of the attacks the third book belonged to the Marauders Sirius Lupin and Pettigrew taking center stage plus the constant mention of James throughout the book the fourth book belonged to Barty Crouch jr. the man behind the plan of putting Harry's name in the Goblet of Fire and pulling the strings of basically everything that happened including Voldemort returning the fifth book belonged to Neville as he came into his own with the DA his friends found out about his mother and father and in the end he came face to face with the person responsible for his parents tragedy the seventh book belongs to Dumbledore as we learn more about his past with Grindle vol his sister and his brother as well as his parents and the trio goes on a mission that he had set up but the objects given to them in as well well all of these books focus on one character the six book is able to balance the task of belonging to two different characters Draco Malfoy and of course Severus Snape where the book is named after let's start with Draco Malfoy throughout the series in the books before this one Draco was always an enemy of Harry's but he was nothing more than a schoolboy bully who bragged about his family's wealth and blood status they clearly modeled his cold and bullying nature after his father the man who according to Rowling he admired most however while Draco was always there he did not have a true Ark until this book his role model and hero had been sent to Azkaban he and his mother had fallen from grace and they were pariahs among the Death Eaters due to his father's failure and in turn fool d'amour gave Draco the dangerous mission to kill the most powerful wizard in the world Draco's existence had been sheltered and protected up until this point but now with his father gone and his mother distraught and afraid he had to assume a man's responsibilities and carry out a task that he was meant to fail and pay for with his life this book went from 50 to 100 with his character and did it in a way that flawlessly studied the complexities of how fast your life falls apart when falling from grace the moment when Draco cries in the bathroom and opens up to Moaning Myrtle a pair that Harry himself noted was most unlikely we see that the boy that we once knew the confident and petty schoolboy was no more and for the first time Rowling made us pity draco Rowling however did the complete opposite with Snape's character instead of making us pity him she made us hate him far more than he already did Rowling took a huge risk in the beginning of the book and did something that went against everything she had done in the successful series so far and that was telling the story from a different point of view than Harry's this had sort of been done before but it was under much different circumstances the first chapter of the first book did this but this was before we knew Harry and before his character was even established so here we didn't really leave Harry's point of view as we were never introduced to it and in the fourth book we have a scene at the rental mansion but this ends up connecting the Harry's subconscious as he was able to see and dream the sequence so the half-blood Prince was really the first one to come lately separate us from Harry and it broke the boundaries and gave us one of the riskiest and most shocking chapters in the whole series we see Snape greet Narcisa and Bellatrix and we see him state his faith to the dark lord information that blew my mind the first time I read this Rowling didn't have to add this chapter the book would have been fine without it but because she did it adds so much to the readers point of view because we as an audience know something that the characters do not something that up until this point had never been done in the series because we always knew what Harry knew and because we have this information we see Harry and Dumbledore arguments in a different light although Dumbledore affirms distrust and Snape throughout the novel because of the information that we have we actually support Harry suspicions that Snape is a traitor had she not added this chapter however we probably would have sided with Dumbledore at the all-knowing unstoppable wizard adding this was very risky on Rowling's part because the writing style from Harry's point of view had been so successful but because she changed it up and did it well it really makes this book stand out more than the others Snape's loyalty is questioned by someone on each side with the order how requests him and for the Death Eaters Bellatrix questions him and ultimately because of this chapter slaves moral standing is more difficult to define than any other character in the series all of this adds a twist to the mystery of this book mystery being one of the most common things in the series it's something that pops up in every book in the series and in my opinion this is one of the things that Rowling is best at writing again to understand why this book is the best in the series we need to look at the series as a whole so let's compare the thing and every single book is based around the mystery aspects in the Philosopher's Stone the mystery was who was Nicholas Flamel in the Chamber of Secrets the mystery was who opened the chamber and who was behind the attacks in the Prisoner of Azkaban it was who were the Marauders that made this map in the Goblet of Fire it was who put Harry's name in for the tournament in the order of the Phoenix it was what was behind the door and Harry's dreams in the Deathly Hallows it was what did the Deathly Hallows symbol mean and of course in the sixth book it was who is the half-blood Prince and what were drinking with Snape up to the thing that makes the mistery in this book more compelling is the fact that it was based around two established characters that have been there from the start series and have played huge roles in every single book as a result of this it makes the audience more invested in the half-blood Prince mysteries because for Snape it changes our whole outlook on his character and it makes us question everything in the five books before this and for Malfoy it changes everything for his character moving forward and makes us look back at his role in the previous books and makes us pity him the review of Snape being the half-blood Prince the thing that the entire book was named after might be one of the best reveals to any mystery in the series because it was right after Harry saw Snape killed Dumbledore took off Blanka after defending the prince all book to Hermione Ginny Ron and everyone else how are we swimming that the prince was a good person he painfully finds out that the very person he had been defending all year was the man who murdered his friend and mentor and looking even deeper this in turn makes it so both Harry and Dumbledore were essentially crossed by the same man making the mystery of the half-blood Prince and Snape's true loyalty even more pronounced and painful Draco's whole character arc ultimately comes down to his moment with Dumbledore on the Astronomy tower during the scene the mystery of what Draco is doing is finally revealed and this is in my opinion one of the best parts of the whole book because we again penny Draco and see that he's not a killer Dumbledore does everything he can to make Draco feel like a child revealing that he'd been watching him all year that he knew it was him that cursed Katie Bell and poisoned Ron while trying to kill him and Dumbledore even joked about his own murder making Draco feel small and again looking deeper the fact that Draco was pleased by Dumbledore sprays for figuring out how to get the Death Eaters into the castle reflects the extent to which he really is a child and not a true Death Eater contrasting this well Dumbledore treats Draco as a child he treats Harry the opposite way treating Harry like an adult once again I'm response to Montreal right Harry Dumbledore's relationship blossoms in this book it's one of my favorite relationships in all of the series and one of the main reasons why this book always stands out to me they were coming off of the very intense and eye-opening conversation from the last book which I actually argued was the most important conversation in the series in another video so seeing them interact here was very interesting and the whole concept of Dumbledore training Harry for his final fight against Voldemort is one of the most intriguing parts of the book because it really cements the hero and mentor true as he trains Harry they become closer and while Harry always trusted Dumbledore Dumbledore now begins to trust Harry he values Harry's opinions asking him numerous times what he thought of the theories that he had constructed and he tossed Harry with the almost impossible mission of getting a memory from a man who did everything he could to hide that memory and of course he let Harry accompany him to get a Horcrux but beyond just training and missions there are moments to dive deeper into their personal relationship Dumbledore protects Harry when fudge and later his replacement Rufus Scrimgeour want to use Harry for their own political gain and Harry ends up doing the same thing for Dumbledore when approached by Scrimgeour saying that he was Dumbledore's man through and through something that Dumbledore was so touched by that he began to cry it's moments like these moments that hold so much emotion and sentiment that makes me love this book especially because after the relationship becomes so strong it's cut short when Dumbledore is killed and as I said before this also fulfills the classic hero and mentor story arc the main point being that the teachers death forces the hero to fulfill their own destiny without them something that even more fittingly Harry realizes while he's at Dumbledore's funeral boy I've pointed out a few things that makes this book stand out because it's different at the same time it also feels recognizable and that's because Rowling actually made this book have many similarities to the very first book in the series bringing us back to the series roots for starters we begin from a muggles point of view looking in on the Wizarding World in the first book it was through the eyes of Vernon Dursley and in this book it's through the eyes of the muggle Prime Minister we also see a contrast between Harry and Draco's first meeting and Madam Malkin's the first time they met there neither of them knew who the other was and they were not yet enemies but when they meet during the half-blood Prince they've been longtime enemies and we see just how far they've come over the past five or six years the biggest and most notable parallel between the first and the sixth book however once again comes back to the character that the book is named after in both books Harry constantly questioned Snape's loyalty while all of the adults around him deny this Harry was sure that Snape was going to steal the philosopher's stone in the first book but in reality he was actually protecting Harry to save me and this time around Harry thought that Snape was responsible for Dumbledore's deaths and thought that he was working for Voldemort but once again as we find out in the next book everything he was doing was to protect Harry it's poetic really now if you've watched a lot of my videos you'll know that Voldemort is my favorite character in the series and this book is one of the main reasons why that is I've talked about his past a lot so I don't want to go into too much detail here but it was a brilliant move on Rowling sparta to build up this villainous character that we hate and then have a stive deep into his past just like with Draco we sort of pity Voldemort and when Harry shows signs of this Dumbledore asks could you be feeling sorry for Lord Voldemort as we see more and more memories we see Voldemort's progression of evil and his transformation as he makes Horcruxes and it's so fascinating the way he charms and manipulates people to get what he wants this is a far different villain origin story than most and these flashbacks or memories are in my opinion some of Rowling's best work and not saying something even though this is the second-to-last book in the series surprisingly enough this book introduces us to quite a few things some small and some very big were introduced to in FRA dead bodies reanimated by dark wizards we get some new characters like Horace Slughorn Fenrir Greyback and a few other death eaters as well and for the first time were introduced to the idea of Harry being branded as the chosen one rather than the boy who lived as the boy who lived people either pitied him or questioned why he survived but now as the chosen one his view not as a boy but as a man and as everybody's last hope and saved the biggest thing that's introduced in this book however is of course Horcruxes Rowling was originally going to reveal this plot point in the second book but she decided to hold off it's pretty huge to reveal something so instrumental to the series in the second-to-last book but yet it's brilliant if how are you known about this in the second book it would not have had the same effect because it's the thing that pushes Harry to want to finish this once and for all now I know that I said that the focus on relationships and the half-blood Prince film was awful but in the book the relationships were actually really well done in the book they complement the story well in the movie the relationships dominate the story Rowling once again intertwines two things this time two relationships just as she did with the two characters that owned this book this time I'm talking about the relationships between Lupin and Tonks and bill and Fleur ultimately these two relationships play off of each other Lupin refuses to be with Tonks because he's too old too broken and of course because he's a werewolf then during the Battle of the Astronomy tower bill was mauled by gray back and despite the fact that his face is unrecognizable and the fact that he'll have werewolf tendencies flourish still says that she loves him and wants to be with him inspiring Lupin to see his relationship with Tonks in a different light proving that even in dark times love always shines through the thing that Dumbledore always preached the line that sums us up perfectly is when McGonagall was encouraging Lupin and she said Dumbledore would have been happier than anybody to think that there was a little more love in the world I also have to discuss Harry and Ginny's relationship which is my favorite couple in the whole series there is a great metaphor about a beast inside of Harry that represents his feelings for Ginny whether it be growling with anger and jealousy or occurring with happiness the beast also represents his internal battle with how to tell Ron and how to go about this with his best friend and ultimately Harry and Ginny's kiss brings about one of my favorite moments between Harry and Ron where Ron shrugs and gives him a look that says if you must giving Harry the okay to date Ginny I feel as though this book handled romance better than any other book in the series especially the fifth book with Harry and Joe I feel that this book's relationships were just written more naturally and we're better flushed out and Harry and Joe's relationship Harry's relationship with Joe might have been developed but Bangor doesn't always mean better their relationship just didn't feel true while Harry and Jenice felt so real and so right the part that always sticks out to me is when Ginny is leaning on Harry's leg and they joke around Ginny saying that she told people Harry had a hungarian horntail tattooed on his chest we never really see raw natural moments like this with Joe and the same can be said about Hermione and Victor's relationship and the Goblet of Fire which again was not fleshed out very well at all the ending of the novel might be one of the best parts of the entire series and is in my opinion the best ending out of all of the books and the books before this we always knew what was going to happen Harry's life and the structure of the novel's had always been defined by going back to Hogwarts but now with Dumbledore gone and Harry knowing about the Horcruxes that structure is ruptured deciding to leave school forever marks a true departure from the rest of the series and because this book goes outside the norms and once again makes this book stand out more and more than the others in the series and is one of the reasons why I think this book is the best because it's so different and has a different style of writing that fits the specific narrative this writing style probably would not have worked in the other books but it's so well paired with the overall story and the half-blood Prince the ending left me wanting more than any other book in the series dead because now that they weren't going back to Hogwarts what came next was unclear there are so many things that this book does better than any other book in the series romance character development tone mysteries that mean more to the audience and it's able to balance all of this in such a perfect way half-blood Prince is and always will be my favorite Harry Potter book thank you so much for watching guys you can follow me on social media to see more of my personal life and see more of this little dude you can follow me on Twitter and Facebook for movie's flame updates and I want to give a huge shout out to all my patrons listed below if you want to be featured in the next video plus get a bunch of other awards become a patreon today again thank you so much for watching make sure you press that like button and subscribe and look out for more great videos on the way you

Channel: MovieFlame

Views: 931,278

Keywords: Movie Review, TV Show review, Harry Potter, Superhero, Marvel, DC, Star Wars, Disney, Hunger Games, Dumbledore, hermione, ron, weasley, granger, lucius, malfoy, draco, narcissa, bellatrix

Id: mkvkVBrdCxQ

Length: 17min 23sec (1043 seconds)

Published: Thu Mar 26 2020