NFL
By: Rick O’Donnell
Of course, by now, it seems a bit silly to throw one of the most popular book series in history into a book club. One thing is for certain. However old the book is, and no matter how popular the series is, if it deserves it, it’ll be in the Book Club reviews. I might be a bit behind on the times, but I just finished Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. Easily, it was my personal favorite of the series so far.
The official sixth book in the series, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, deals with the fallout from Order of the Phoenix. Having seen the movies, I found some of the bigger reveals lost on me while reading this. It was the stuff that was left out that made this book so much more fascinating. The movies themselves focused on minor plot points from the book, such as the relationships among Harry, Ron, and Hermione. That’s not terrible considering they’ve been teasing these stories for so long, and it’s Hollywood. So, they’re always going to focus on them. Still, it seems like they cut The Half-Blood Prince story down significantly.
Tom Riddle/ Lord Voldemort’s backstory was the biggest difference between the movie and the books. It shouldn’t matter in the overall story, but it does. The shift in tone and themes from the book is a night-and-day difference. The movies definitely play to the younger audience. As an adult, I found that a bit of it was lost on me when I watched them.
Yet, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince was a dramatic shift in the narrative surrounding Voldemort. The book has a much more adult tone in its backstory. That is what hooked me. I understand these are children’s books, but as the kids grew, so have the books. The House of Gaunt is one of the biggest parts of the story not in the movies, and that’s a shame. A young Tom Riddle and his backstory, painted with the troubled past of any serial killer played out on television or in movies, probably isn’t getting the PG rating the studio had pushed for.
How Riddle tortures and torments his peers, and what he did in search of creating Horcruxes, is much better understanding from a book perspective. It feels like Voldemort’s plan is clearer on the page than on the screen. I know, I know. I sound like a book purist or one of those people who say “the books are always better,” but if you’ve only seen the movies, as I had, give the audiobook a listen or pick up a copy from the local bookstore; it changes so much.
Another major change I think the movies also make is the narrative in the book. I’m talking about the beginning, where Dumbledore convinces Horace Slughorn to return to Hogwarts. In the movie, it’s just a casual passing. In the book, he leaves Harry alone with Slughorn as a way to convince him to come back. At face value, it’s a small change that shouldn’t matter, but it does. Without getting too into the book and spoiling things, Harry is to carry out a task later in the story that is initially set up in this scene. A vital tidbit that wasn’t a part of the movie.
It’s these little moments that ought to see more of the story told, with the television show starting at the end of the year. So much of the online community complains about why these fan favorites need remakes. There’s your answer. The shift in tone and pivotal moments left out of the movies change how we see the characters. The Harry Potter series doesn’t need to be as adult as HBO staples such as Game of Thrones, but hopefully, as the seasons go on, we see a shift from a PG story to a more PG-13 one. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince has more adult emotions that never got to see the light of day. That’s why the book is cemented into our TeamNBS Book Club.
