Thursday, January 31, 2019
Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince
My favorite character in Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince was Professor Albus Dumbledore. I always am a fan of mentor characters that seem omniscient in the main character's situation/task at hand. Dumbledore never wavered in strength or position, and acted as a great mentor for Harry. He did a great job for Harry by teaching him the methods of how to hunt down horcruxes. Instead of just telling him how to do so, Dumbledore gave more practical instructions by letting Harry discover information on his own with the information given to him. From a teaching standpoint, this is an effective way of trying to teach something. From a critical standpoint, it was a good idea for all of this information about Voldemort's past to be unfolded and for the audience to find out the information at the same rate as Harry so that one big blob of potentially non-captivating exposition to come out of someone's explanatory mouth all at once. Dumbledore was definitely not a dynamic character. Instead, he served as a device/drive for the development of other characters. By mentoring Harry, Harry became more mature, a more skilled wizard, and better at finding horcruxes. By being the target of Draco Malfoy, Malfoy was pushed to the point of near mental breakdown because he wasn't able to kill Dumbledore, and he was also pushed even further to the dark side because of this. By convincing Horace Slughorn back to the school, Slughorn becomes more loyal to the cause of defeating Voldemort since it gives Harry the opportunity to convince Slughorn to do so when he gives Harry the memory of Slughorn and Tom Riddle. Also, in Slughorn's eyes, this action redeems him of when he gave that advice to Tom Riddle. One of my favorite interactions between Dumbledore and others is when he and Harry went to the cave to hunt down the locket of Slytherin. It was so cool when he deduced what was needed to pass all of the different traps that were laid to stop intruders, and the audience gets glimmers of how Dumbledore's past will be explored in the next book when he drinks the potion that allows for Harry to retrieve the locket.
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Dumbledore is indeed a great and impactful character in this book and throughout the series. I agree with you about his ways of teaching and guiding, this form of teaching seems to work very well, especially for Harry. His sheer power combined with your other reasons makes me realize that he is actually a very important character (obviously), almost as important as Harry. Honestly he might even be more because he, like you said, taught Harry a lot and helped him through his journeys.
ReplyDeleteI agree with you, with Dumbledore definitely being one of the most important characters within this book I definitely agree with your perspective on his teaching style. Although it can be annoying to the characters in the moment to have such vague hints it was ultimately the right move by dumbledore making it easier to admire his role within the book.
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