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The Half Blood Prince: Examining the Possibilities
by Hermione Granger
July 18, 2004
The online world of Harry Potter fandom was taken by storm a few weeks ago. At first we were all thrilled, excited, skeptical, and trying to find the meaning of "Storgé" all at the same time. But eventually our favourite author J.K. Rowling (who will henceforth be referred to as "JKR" for simplicity's sake) put us out of our obsessive misery and gave us the real title. I think I can safely say that we now all know that the "Pillar of Storgé" is not the title of the 6th book, and that the real title is "Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince". So the next questions on our minds are:
1) Who is the Half Blood Prince?
2) What exactly is the Half Blood Prince?
The second question is perhaps the least anxious question, and also a little easier to answer because it isn't as specific as who the Prince is: we already know a few half-bloods, but we know nothing of royalty in the wizarding world. The meaning of "Half Blood" is something we should probably define, here. Half Blood, in the Harry Potter series refers to someone who is half-wizard/witch/magic. Considering the prejudice against muggle-borns and half muggles, half blood wizards and witches are something already in the forefront in the novels, and indeed one of the main reasons why our stories' villain, Voldemort, is in fact a villain; it's quite reasonable to assume that is the kind of "half blood" we are dealing with. As for the "Prince" part, we can only say one definite thing: he's a male wizard. On why he is a prince I have three theories:
1) The wizard is royalty in the muggle world, but not in the magical world.
2) The wizard is royalty in the wizarding world through some form of royalty that we haven't heard of so far, but is a half blood.
3) On the prince's wizarding side of the family, he's not royalty. His other side of the family is royalty, but not human. (More on this later)
These theories bring me to question number one, and quite probably the question everybody wants answered. Who is the HBP (Half Blood Prince)? We can immediately rule out Harry, as the title has "...and the..." inserted in there. The next logical guess was of course Voldemort. He's a half blood, with a muggle father and magic mother, and as we have been told that something small in CoS (Chamber of Secrets) would play a part in book 6, we immediately thought of all we learned about Tom Riddle in that book. However, JKR specifically stated in the news section of her site that the HBP is neither Harry nor Voldemort. So who's left? As you might have noticed already, I'm terribly fond of making lists. So here is a list of known half bloods.
-Hagrid (Goblet of Fire)
-Seamus Finnigan (Philosopher's/Sorcerer's Stone)
-Remus Lupin (World Book Day Chat)
-Dean Thomas (JKR's site: Extras: Edits)
Somehow, I'm reluctant to believe either Lupin (as much as I love his character) or Seamus Finnigan is the HBP. Lupin, because we've already learned a dark secret of his and while I think he is an important character, and an important person, especially to Harry, I don't think he will play a --to use the over-used term-- "pivotal" role in the series. As for Seamus ... something about him just screams out "filler character" to me. Then we come to Dean Thomas. JKR has certainly a lot more information and background on this character than the books would leave you to believe. So he is a possibility, but we don't know enough about him to be sure. Hagrid is where theory number three comes in. What if his mother was some kind of Giant Queen? That would certainly qualify him as a half-blood prince. He would be a half blooded giant as well as wizard. The Gurg (the leader of the giants) and the possible royalty of the giants may be somewhat parallel to a country such as Britain, which has both a democratic parliament and a monarchy.
Aside from these four, there are some others that are being pondered over as being possible half blood princes.
-Severus Snape
-James Potter
-Someone yet unknown to us
The reason why I suggest James Potter is because the title doesn't necessarily refer to someone who is alive in the book. I'm not entirely clear on how JKR defines a half blood, and whether or not the son of a half blood and a muggle-born still counts as a half blood, or whether they end up being called a "quarter blood" and so on and so forth. But the book could be about Harry learning about his father. After all, Harry did inherit a small fortune, right? Although, this possibility would only make sense if the royalty was not inherited through a family line.
Some of you might be wondering "Why Snape?" Well, lately he and Mark Evans (R.I.P. Mark Evans-related theories) get thrown into just about every theory nowadays, so why not here? Despite Salazar Slytherin's preference for purebloods, we know students can still be sorted into Slytherin House if they are a half blood (we have Tom Riddle/Voldemort himself as proof of this). Some might argue that Riddle was most likely an exception to the rule because he was the heir of Slytherin, but I would like to remind those people that there are other qualities, which are valued in Slytherin, such as cunning and resourcefulness. Not to mention that the Sorting Hat once belonged to Godric Gryffindor, who did not share Slytherin's prejudice. So Snape, while he doesn't seem the princely type, could be a half blood. Most Snape fans are dying to know what the deal is with our Potions Master, and this could be it.
And finally we come to the last possibility: the Unknown Character. Yes, he might be out there somewhere, in the Potterverse and the wizarding world, ignorant of the fact that thousands of fans are desperately trying to find out who he is and eagerly awaiting a book in which they will learn about him. But as he is yet unknown (hence his name, "Unknown Character"), we know absolutely nothing about him other than that he is the Half Blood Prince.
Back to the HP-Files
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