"Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince"

So, as it stands right now, I have a problem with my program at work, and I have been thinking about it for about three hours, and I am SICK OF IT, so I have judiciously decided to ignore it for a while while I blog. Aren't you lucky?

So, here's what got me wanting to blog:
"Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince"

Yup. You guessed it. That is the name of the sixth book in the series with a release date as yet unknown. It came straight from the almighty creator, by which I mean jkrowling.com. =)

So, now we must discuss! I mean, you can't just FIND OUT a tidbit like this and leave it be! Not when you are as obsessed as I am! So, I present to you: my ramblings on the new title and what I think it means.

OK, to start with, the delightful J.K. writes on her site that she considered "Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince" for the title of Chamber of Secrets, but discarded it after the first draft, deciding that some of the tidbits that led to the title were better left to the sixth book. THE SIXTH! So, she REALLY didn't want us to know what was going on way back then, although she does say that Chamber of Secrets has a lot of important bits that won't come to light until the sixth book.

Then, she also revealed that the Half Blood Prince referred to in the title is neither Harry nor Voldemort. SO... The question becomes, who is he???

WELL. First I thought of Nevile. I quite like Nevile, and have ever since the first book, but especially much now that, in the fifth book, we discover that he could very easily have been "the boy who lived" if Voldemort had chosen differently. He grew such a spine in the fifth book! I was proud of him! My personal theory is that now that his wand -- which was his father's wand -- has been broken, he might be a lot better at magic. I also think he's going to play a big part in the last two books. But then I remembered that he's a pure blood. Strike Nevile from the list.

So then I started rotating through the other characters: not Ron, not Draco, probably not any of the other boys... We don't know much about Harry's dad's family, but I think that's a bit far fetched. I landed on Dumbledore, and quite liked that for a while, but then I came up with an EVEN BETTER IDEA.

What if the half blood referred to doesn't have to do with MAGIC, but with SPECIES? HAGRID!

What if Hagrid is the Half Blood Prince? Hmm... Prince of the Giants? It could work! And what has me even more convinced is that Hagrid -- or his history at least -- played a big roll in Chamber of Secrets! I'm thinking that Hagrid and Grawp find out that Hagrid is Prince of the Giants and his persuading them to be on the side of the wizards is the turning point in a HUGE battle between The Order and the Death Eaters.

(This is FUN! It feels like I'm talking in code...)

Now, just for the sake of playing the devil's advocate here, what other half bloods do we know about? The centaurs were talked about as being half bloods in the fifth book, and Lupin (because he's a werewolf). Maybe it's Firenze? I'd have an easier time seeing him as a prince than Lupin. But would the centaurs chuck out their prince? Hmm... Not sure.

Well, suffice to say, I am EXCITED about this and the fifth book cannot arrive quickly enough for me! I say J.K. should be working AROUND THE CLOCK to turn this puppy out, don't you? (If only so I would shut up and get back to work, I'm sure...)

=)