[SPOILER ALERT]
I am not going to get deep into the story of "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince" except to point out some political through lines that I noticed.
Below the fold...
Update [2005-7-18 12:57:49 by dantes]:
There are some spoilers in this thread, but all major ones have been marked as such. It is possible to contribute to the thread without having read the book, but why would you be wanting to post a comment instead of read the thing?
Update [2005-7-19 10:40:36 by dantes]: There is an increasing amount of SPOILERS and theories being posted, so I suggest you don't read these until you've read the book.
From the very first page, it was pretty evident where J.K. Rowlings politics lie.
From the point of view of the Prime Minister of Great Britain, she refers to "...the President of a far off country" as a "wretched man...". The war against Voldemort is likened symbolically to the war on terror, with terrorist attacks such as collapsing bridges and rampaging giants killing anything in their path.
The Minister of Magic on the other hand, who has been ignoring threats for the entire series, has been canned and replaced by a scarred, leonine Auror (hunter of Dark Wizards).
Throughout the course of the book, the new Minister of Magic notably does only two things.
- Wrongly imprison 3 people for being "dark wizards". Even though they know the people are innocent, the Ministry wants to look tough on the War against Voldemort.
- Tries to get Harry Potter to provide good P.R. and photo ops by pretending that he, as a celebrity nemesis of Voldemorts, is cooperating fully and agreeing fully with the Ministries actions.
I'm glad to say that Harry does no such thing, and dishes out some great lines that I wish somebody could say to Dubya.
Anyway, I really liked the book, and reccomend it to everybody.