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Monday, November 9, 2009

Chamber of Secrets Chapters 16 - 18

Well Gryffindorks, these are the final chapters of the book. The book finally reaches its climax. I have to tell ya, I was surprised by the endings of all the books. Rowling is so good at putting in good plot twists at the end, yet, if you look back, the evidence is all there. She doesn't just pull it out of her rear. It's all believable.

Voldemort's Arrogance

Riddle is Voldemort?!? It gave me chills when I read that for the first time when Riddle rearranged the letters of his name. Creepy. One thing that is noteworthy is that we see that even when he was sixteen, Voldemort was extremely arrogant. The adult Voldemort underestimated the power of love and sacrifice. In this book, he underestimated Harry's abilities. We'll discover that throughout the series Voldemort continually underestimates the traits he values least.


Expelliarmus

Harry and Ron get the best of Lockhart before entering the chamber (Not hard to do). To do this, Harry uses the expelliarmus spell. This is one of the first offensive spells Harry learns and as we'll see, it becomes his trademark move. This is the first instance when it really comes in handy.


Man Behind the Mask

When Lucius meets with Dumbledore at the end of this book, at one point the author says that Lucius' expression was "masklike." I don't think Rowling used that adjective lightly. I think she knew that it carried with it huge significance as we'll later find out.



A Typo?!?

Yes, a typo. In the last couple of pages of the book, there's a preview of the next book, Prisoner of Azkaban. In the description, it says that Harry runs away after blowing up his nasty Aunt Petunia. See anything wrong with that? I do! We know he blows up his Aunt Marge, not Petunia. I'm surprised the editors let that one slide.
To Sum Up...

This book was actually my least favorite of all the books, but that's like chosing a least favorite Christmas present, or if you're Sam Orme, your least favorite They Might be Giants album. This book pretty much gets left in the dust in the big scheme of things until the sixth book when a ton of stuff from this book becomes relevant again. I love the sixth book because of all those "ah hah!" moments when we can remember something that was referenced in the second book. I hope you've all enjoyed reading. Tell your friends about the blog and let's get this party a little bigger. Stay tuned for Prisoner of Azkaban next. I've already started reading.

P.S.

On more than one occasion, when writing the title of my post, I've accidentally written "Chamber of Secrest." I'm not sure what Ryan Seacrest has hiding in his chamber, but I'm pretty sure I don't want to find out.