History Headscratchers / HarryPotterAndTheHalfBloodPrince

** Woah, woah, woah. I am into ForWantOfANail as any other troper. But some of the theories are just all in all pulled from sleeve. Not that I'm not enjoying a good WhatIf , but what indicated that Harry would want to KILL someone (DE notwithstanding), Scrimgeour doing anything to improve the situation is pure speculation (PS). Why would Harry not find out he's a horcrux? If LV died before all his horcruxes were destroyed, DEs might have simply told they were ONCE AGAIN under the influence of Imperius. "A lot fewer of Voldemort's supporters would be around and a lot more good guys would be there" - PS. "Teddy would probably not become an orphan, Fred and Colin Creevey would probably still be alive." - PS. I don't think that Draco, Snape and DD's different deaths would make the outcome of Battle of Hogwarts that much different. What were the characters doing during the battle? Draco cowered before LV, trembled with fear and at the end fled with his family. Snape was killed by LV. DD had already been dead. The only reason to speculate that some of the characters might be alive would probably be Moody alive as well... and that's a really long stretch.

** From what we saw, if Harry had not been there, then Dumbledore would have been unable to finish the potion, and unable to escape. But as he would also have been unable to get to the water on his own, it means that morst likely, he would have lied there until Voldemort would have taken a stroll around the cave. Hence perhaps, why Voldemort did not feel the need to equip an alarm, any fool trying to steal an horcruxe would have failed and then lied there indefinitely until Voldemort decided to come. Another possiility is that Voldemort implemented alarms designed to ring IF AND ONLY IF something went wrong in his defenses. But technically, both Harry and Dumbledore followed the expected process quite rigorously. They went through the entrance, used the blood to open the door, etc, and as such, the defense system did not register that this was not voldemort. Dumbledore mentionned that indeed, at least until they reached the island, the entire defense system was unable to pick up that they were not Voldemort. It's possible that if another wizard had tried to explode his way down the cave, swim through the lake instead of using the boat, he would have been alerted. Voldemort thinking that absolutely nobody would be able to imagine he had horcruxes might be pushing it. But Voldemort imagining that nobody would be resourceful enough to not only know that he had an horcruxe, but also track it down, and then identify the correct process to go through the defense might be easier to swallow.

** Harry is the worst person to give this information too. Even assuming that he would not let his emotions get the better of him and spill it out in CAPSLOCK at a point, Harry is the only one out of every mentionned characters whose mind is directly linked to Voldemort. He had never gotten the hang of occlumency and so would not be able to prevent Voldemort from getting this info out of his mind. While it is true that it is implied that only Snape had the mad skills to protect his mind from the dark lord, at least other people are protected by the simple fact that they are usually very far away from Voldemort, while the link ensures that Harry is always vulnerable to mind intrusions regardless of the distance involved.

** Harry is the worst person to give this information too. Even aassuming that he would not let his emotions get the better of him and spill it out in CAPSLOCK at a point, Harry is the only one out of every mentionned characters whose mind is directly linked to Voldemort. He had never gotten the hang of occlumency and so would not be able to prevent Voldemort from getting this info out of his mind. While it is true that it is implied that only Snape had the mad skills to protect his mind from the dark lord, at least other people are protected by the simple fact that they are usually very far away from Voldemort, while the link ensures that Harry is always vulnerable to mind intrusions regardless of the distance involved.

** Phoenixes are not an panacea. Their tears have great healing powers, but they are never stated to be an antidote to every poisons on the face of the earth. This potion looks like an invention of the greatest dark lord ever seen in the HP universe, it would make sense that even phoenix tears would not work. Also remember that Dumbledore drank the potion because he had deduced that was how the defense system worked. But he did not know exactly what was the effects of the potion. We know for example that polyjuice has either adverse or no effects when not used by a human. From what Dumbledore knew, it was possible that the potion might be even more effective, or even lethal to anyone not human. What if the potion was set up to straight up kill anyone not human? or turn it into an inferi automatically? possibilities are endless. We know that house elves can drink it. Dumbledore and Harry don't. Also, the way Dumby speaks at the end makes me think that he thought he could handle it on his own, and might have underestimated Voldemort a bit, Harry was just insurance just in case. So he took a calculated risk using all the informatio he had, not necessarily unreasonable to me. Also, Dumbledore using the boat makes it ambiguous to inferis if it's voldemort (and thus not someone to attack) or not. A phoenix flying over the lake probably would have gotten the inferis to run berserk.
** OK, you just won life, that is a brilliant solution. Dumbledore is an idiot for not thinking of that.

* Why does Merope Gaunt give her son the middle name “Marvolo” after her father—the father who abused and tortured her for eighteen years, called her a “Squib” regularly, had no problem dragging her by the throat, hunted down the man she loved, terrorized her to the point she couldn’t even do simple spells such as Reparo, and she abandoned without a second thought the moment he was carted off to prison?

* What would a love potion do if you brew it, gave it to yourself and drank it? Would you narcissistically fall in love with yourself and... [[ADateWithRosiePalms play with yourself]] all day/until the love potion stops affecting you? More on this topic - could you actually use spells on yourself? Say you wanted to commit suicide, would you be able to AK yourself? What about Crucio? Let's go with movie implication that cruciatus is something of overpowered electric taser... If you crucioed yourself, would you be permanently stuck in the pain, until you were dead (akin to being unable to let go of grabbed electric wire)? Could you Iperiused yourself or would that even work? As someone needs to make someone do something when under imperius, would that make you an idle zombie, because you would be waiting for an order, while at the same time, you would need to be the one making the order? Paradoxically stuck forever in "awaiting orders mode"?

* During Dumbledore's visit to the Dursley residence, he makes a comment about "the appalling damage you have inflicted upon the unfortunate boy (Dudley) sitting between you". What's he mean by this? Is it a comment on the kid's weight, or something beyond that? And how would it be worse than the treatment of Harry? Bearing in mind, it's only luck that poor Harry isn't left as an emotional wreck from his Aunt and Uncle's (and also Dudley's) abuse.
** Not just overfeeding him, but also spoiling him and encouraging his bullying. Dudley's abuse toward Harry was treated as acceptable by them, and they also enrolled him in a school where the students are given clubbed sticks to whack each other with. In fact, a few times they ''asked'' Dudley to hit Harry with it. So half the reason why Dudley became just a jerk was because of them, but thankfully he began to grow mature enough on his own.

** Oh, FFS! 1: [[WeAllLiveInAmerica The books are set in the UK]], [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_control#United_Kingdom where most people go their entire lives without seeing a gun.]] Yes, people in the countryside have guns for pest and predator control, but this was a ''town'' that was attacked, not a village or a farmhouse. 2: It's a series of children's books, not ''The Adventures of Young Literature/JackRyan''; the characters aren't going to go around shooting everything. 3: One of the big points of the stories is that killing damages the soul, so it would be bad writing to suddenly have the {{Designated Victim}}s pull out guns and start killing the Mooks. 4: The books are set in the UK, [[DepartmentOfRedundancyDepartment where most people go their entire lives without seeing a gun.]] And yes, I realise that point 4 is the same as point 1, [[Series/RedDwarf but it's such a big point that people keep ignoring, I thought I'd better mention it twice]].