Harry Potter and the Half – Blood Prince by J. K. Rowling

This post contains major spoilers. 

Harry Potter and the Half – Blood Prince by J. K. Rowling is the sixth book in the series. I found this to be one of the most entertaining entries of the bunch. Rowling also throws in some particularly interesting elements into the mix here. 

Harry and his friends are back for their sixth year at the magical school of Hogwarts. In this installment, war has broken out between the law-abiding wizarding community and the evil Lord Voldemort and his allies. People are dying.  Voldemort has also hatched a plot to kill Hogwarts headmaster and great wizard Dumbledore. 

Harry also comes into position of an old textbook that someone owned years earlier. The person called himself the half-blood prince and had written all kinds of helpful spells and tips in the book. Harry uses this information to excel in his classes and conjure up some unique spells. Harry’s friend Hermione suspects that the Half Blood Prince might have been evil and that Harry is looking for trouble by using the book. 

The climax of the story arrives when Voldemort’s allies, known as the Death Eaters, invade Hogwarts in an attempt to kill Dumbledore, and an all-out magical battle erupts.

There is a something of a pattern contained within these books. The first two -thirds or so involve Harry’s day to day activities over the summer and then at Hogwarts. Rumors and hints that the evil Lord Voldemort is engaging in nefarious activities abound. The last third of the books usually advance the plot and develop the characters and sometimes reveal some neat surprises. This book more or less follows that pattern but throws in some distinctive touches early on. In what I found to be some of Rowling’s best writing, Voldemort’s origins and his young life are illuminated. Dumbledore has a magical memory device called a pensieve, on which he can replay people’s memories. The great wizard has been digging into Voldemort’s origins and past. He uses his pensieve to show Harry Voldemort’s story through other people’s memories. We see how Voldemort’s parents met when his mother bewitched his father with a love potion. When his mother died, Voldemort, originally named Tom Riddle, was abandoned and left in an orphanage. A few years later, a young Dumbledore, who had discovered that Riddle had magical powers, brought the young Riddle to Hogwarts. Riddle is depicted as a cold, narcissistic and cruel boy who develops a cult-like following. Passages in which Harry views his various life stages are chilling. At one point, Harry watches a young Dumbledore come for Tom top take him to Hogwarts, 

It was a small bare room with nothing in it except an old wardrobe and an iron bedstead. A boy was sitting on top of the gray blankets, his legs stretched out in front of him, holding a book. 

… He was his handsome father in miniature, tall for eleven years old, dark-haired, and pale. His eyes narrowed slightly as he took in Dumbledore’s eccentric appearance. There was a moment’s silence....

“I am Professor Dumbledore.” 

“‘Professor’?” repeated Riddle. He looked wary. “Is that like ‘doctor’? What are you here for? Did she get you in to have a look at me?” 

He was pointing at the door through which Mrs. Cole had just left.

“No, no,” said Dumbledore, smiling.

“I don’t believe you,” said Riddle. “She wants me looked at, doesn’t she? Tell the truth!” 

He spoke the last three words with a ringing force that was almost shocking. It was a command, and it sounded as though he had given it many times before. His eyes had widened and he was glaring at Dumbledore, who made no response except to continue smiling pleasantly. After a few seconds Riddle stopped glaring, though he looked, if anything, warier still. 

“Who are you?” 

“I have told you. My name is Professor Dumbledore and I work at a school called Hogwarts. I have come to offer you a place at my school — your new school, if you would like to come.” 

Riddle’s reaction to this was most surprising. He leapt from the bed and backed away from Dumbledore, looking furious. 

“You can’t kid me! The asylum, that’s where you’re from, isn’t it? ‘Professor,’ yes, of course — well, I’m not going, see? That old cat’s the one who should be in the asylum. I never did anything to little Amy Benson or Dennis Bishop, and you can ask them, they’ll tell you!” 

“I am not from the asylum,” said Dumbledore patiently. “I am a teacher and, if you will sit down calmly, I shall tell you about Hogwarts. Of course, if you would rather not come to the school, nobody will force you —” 

“I’d like to see them try,” sneered Riddle. 

“Hogwarts,” Dumbledore went on, as though he had not heard Riddle’s last words, “is a school for people with special abilities —” 

“I’m not mad!”

“I know that you are not mad. Hogwarts is not a school for mad people. It is a school of magic.” 

There was silence. Riddle had frozen, his face expressionless, but his eyes were flickering back and forth between each of Dumbledore’s, as though trying to catch one of them lying. 

“Magic?” he repeated in a whisper. “That’s right,” said Dumbledore. “It’s... it’s magic, what I can do?” “What is it that you can do?” 

“All sorts,” breathed Riddle. A flush of excitement was rising up his neck into his hollow cheeks; he looked fevered. “I can make filings move without touching them. I can make animals do what I want them to do, without training them. I can make bad things happen to people who annoy me. I can make them hurt if I want to.” 

His legs were trembling. He stumbled forward and sat down on the bed again, staring at his hands, his head bowed as though in prayer. 

“I knew I was different,” he whispered to his own quivering fingers. “I knew I was special. Always, I knew there was something.” 

“Well, you were quite right,” said Dumbledore, who was no longer smiling, but watching Riddle intently. “You are a wizard.” 

Riddle lifted his head. His face was transfigured: There was a wild happiness upon it, yet for some reason it did not make him better looking; on the contrary, his finely carved features seemed somehow rougher, his expression almost bestial. 

“Are you a wizard too?” “Yes, I am.” 

“Prove it,” said Riddle at once, in the same commanding tone he had used when he had said, “Tell the truth.” 

Dumbledore raised his eyebrows. “If, as I take it, you are accepting your place at Hogwarts —” 

“Of course I am!” 

“Then you will address me as ‘Professor’ or ‘sir.’“ 

Riddle’s expression hardened for the most fleeting moment before he said, in an unrecognizably polite voice, “I’m sorry, sir. I meant — please, Professor, could you show me —?” 

I find the above to be well written. Many aspects of Riddle’s character are illustrated here. Riddle is a psychopath. Rowling depicts a young man who is inwardly seething with malice. There is a reference to the fact that Riddle has hurt people before, how he is angry at those around him, how he craves more power, and how he is able to change his behavior in an attempt to fool those around him. 

Within the story Rowling has begun to weave in the contrast and compare theme between Voldemort and Harry. There are many similarities, both are orphans, both are special children surrounded by people who have trouble understanding them etc. The two are connected psychiclly. However, unlike some other fantasy series however, Harry is not tempted by the dark side. He does at times show imperfections as he becomes understandable angry at people who try to torment him or who he thinks are manipulating him. It is not in his nature to succumb to malice.  

Several people have pointed online that Riddle was conceived via an act of deception as his mother used a love potion on his father. Thus, he was the product of “fake love.” This idea rings true to me. It seems to ease very well into the personality that Riddle and Harry each developed. 

The book also ends strongly. The magical battle within Hogwarts is very well written. Furthermore, Dumbledore has been killed in the battle and as the result of events in other books, many of Harry’s other strong adult protectors are dead. Harry’s realization that he must now take on Voldemort’s without them is powerful and effective. 

And Harry saw very clearly as he sat there under the hot sun how people who cared about him had stood in front of him one by one, his mother, his father, his godfather, and finally Dumbledore, all determined to protect him; but now that was over. He could not let anybody else stand between him and Voldemort; he must abandon forever the illusion he ought to have lost at the age of one: that the shelter of a parent’s arms meant that nothing could hurt him. There was no waking from his nightmare, no comforting whisper in the dark that he was safe really, that it was all in his imagination; the last and greatest of his protectors had died and he was more alone than he had ever been before. 

I find that the above is another well written passage. In light of everything that has happened in the series before, it is dramatic,  stark and effective. The books have obviously turned more serious. It seems to me that Rowling has managed the transition in a believable and effective way. 

I liked this book a lot. Because of the above strengths, it may be my second favorite book after the first in the series. It is an enjoyable read, it is full of cleverness and engrossing developments.  The characters, while not all that complex, continue to be fun to read about. There were some serious and interesting aspects woven into it all. I have one more book to go in the series. 

The Goodness Paradox by Richard Wrangham

The Goodness Paradox by Richard Wrangham was published this year. In it, the author explores the evolutionary origins of violence, cooperation and altruism in humans. Wrangham is a renowned primatologist and has written several books on human and animal behavior. As someone who is interested in big picture questions about humanity, I found this book to be enlightening and fascinating. 

Wrangham identifies two types of aggression that manifest themselves in both humans and other animals. Aggression and violence can be classified as proactive or reactive. Reactive aggression is unplanned. Proactive aggression is planned. The author goes on to explain that there is considerable evidence that these two different types are triggered by different processes and parts of the brain.  Humans and other animals practice both types of behavior. 

In people, reactive violence leads to the majority of individual murders and assaults. In some primate species, such as chimpanzees, it leads to near constant violence where alpha males prey upon other members of their groups and females are exposed to beatings on a near constant basis. What humans would call rape also occurs among chimpanzees and some other species due to reactive violence. 

In humans, proactive violence manifests itself in everything from state-controlled police activities to preplanned wars. Proactive violence and the threat of it are not always a bad thing. When manifested by moderate and just systems, it prevents society from descending into chaos and even worse violence. In primates, wolves and other animals, it manifests itself in conflicts between groups and packs. Chimpanzees actually engage in small scale warfare between groups. 

However, it turns out that compared to primates and other types of animals that hunt in groups, humans show a lot less reactive aggression and a lot more proactive aggression. The author writes,

overall tendencies are clear: compared with other primates , we practice exceptionally low levels of violence in our day-to-day lives , yet we achieve exceptionally high rates of death from violence in our wars . That discrepancy is the goodness paradox.

Wrangham spends a lot of time looking at the behavior of humans, various ape species, wolves and other animals to illustrate the differences in behavior. He even looks at Neanderthals ad other extinct species and examines available evidence. The book also covers the behavior of domesticated species, such as cats and dogs, to show how humans have bred reactive aggression  out of them in a process that is called domestication. 

Of particular interest are bonobos.  These primates look similar to chimpanzees, but they are a lot less violent. In fact, they are some of the least violent primates. Observation of them shows that coalitions of female bonobos police their social groups and quell the violence of very aggressive males. Furthermore, violent, antisocial males are ostracized to some extent, making it difficult for them to mate and pass on their genes and violent behavioral tendencies.

In regard to humans, the book looks at hunter-gatherer societies and agricultural societies as well as modern society. In all of these societies, Wrangham finds similar patterns regarding the two types of violence. Humans are relatively low, as compared with other social animals, on the scale of reactive aggression and very high on the scale of proactive aggression. The difference has had an enormous effect on human history and culture. 

The author then looks at the various theories as to why humans are not so reactively aggressive and very proactively aggressive. The mechanism that occurs with bonobos does not seem to apply to human societies. He explains the theories in very understandable ways. Some theorists believe that human behavior is simply attributable to higher intelligence. The author believes that something else has happened, however. 

Wrangham is an advocate of something called the execution hypothesis. That is, the extremely dominant and violent alpha-male type rarely becomes the leader of human communities, regardless of whether the community consists of hunters and gatherers, agrarian farmers or more modern societies. It turns out that, in the remote, perhaps pre-human past, this type of super-bully would try to dominate the community, as they successfully do among chimpanzees.  In human society, a coalition of other males would often end up killing the super aggressive males when they began to become too powerful. Furthermore, this tendency to eliminate such violent narcissists has led the human species to be less reactively aggressive, more altruistic and eventually enabled us to develop a system of ethics. Wrangham calls this self-domestication.

On the flip side, this tendency to execute these super bullies has led humans to evolve to be more proactively aggressive. In order to eliminate the alpha males, the tendency to plan aggression and work together is enhanced. 

The author writes, 

A coalition of militant egalitarians was in a position to cut them [the super violent individuals]down. Selection would accordingly have favored those whose spontaneous generosity and noncombativeness protected them from such a risk by minimizing their selfish urges and increasing their tendency to help others

There is a downside to all of this. What Wrangham calls coalitionary proactive aggression led to the rule of groups of men who were egalitarian but tended towards proactive aggression. While they imposed certain benefits on society, they also imposed their own tyranny upon women, anti-conformists, etc. If accurate, the impact of all of this reverberates through present times. 

Near the book’s conclusion, Wrangham tries to look to the future. He argues that despite our genes, humanity has been getting less violent over time as culture changes and is optimistic that this will continue. He discusses both the promise and pitfalls that the future holds. I should also note that the author makes it a point that he is against the death penalty, even though he believes that it played a key part in human evolution. 

Wrangham has convinced me that there are indeed big biological differences between reactive and proactive aggression. Furthermore, most primates show a lot more reactive aggression than humans. Proactive aggression is much more common in humans than in any other species. In addition, I agree that violence, as well as altruistic and cooperative tendencies, are to a great extent the products of evolution. I am not so sure about the execution hypothesis. The killing of super aggressive individuals in the past may have had an impact upon human evolution, but I suspect that many other factors played a part in formulating human nature. Perhaps the super aggressive males were also shunned and had a harder time surviving and reproducing. The idea that coalitions of individuals helped to tamp down the super aggressive bullies may very well be true. I am not sure that execution was the primary driver of this, however. 

Either way, this is a fascinating book. Even if one does not agree with Wrangham’s theories, the observations of animal behavior contained within these pages are interesting and valuable. I think that even if one does not follow all of Wrangham’s conclusions to their endpoint, the book is still full of important observations about aggression and violence. I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in evolutionary science, human nature, culture and history.