Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince

[Bangel]

There's a big chance it might be Tom Riddle, in fact I'm nearly 97% sure.

But there's also Dean Thomas. Remember Rowling was all, "The title had a lot to do with the second book" ?. On the Extra stuff pages it said that she took out his background that was originally to be in the CoS.

Dean's supposed to be purely mudblood, living with a mother and a stepfather. That means his mother and stepfather are both muggle. Father walked out when very young, and died because of refusing to join Death Eater ranks.

Well that just screams it out doesn't it? Obviously his father is a Wizard and is dead. So Dean Thomas would count as a halfblood wouldn't he?

...I don't know.

You know, I think you've got something there, Sakura. I'm sure Rowling wants it to be a surprise that few people can guess, and Dean Thomas would probably not be the first to come to mind. Then again, most people wouldn't think of Tom Riddle either. I'm confused...

[Sakura]

There's a big chance it might be Tom Riddle, in fact I'm nearly 97% sure.

But there's also Dean Thomas. Remember Rowling was all, "The title had a lot to do with the second book" ?. On the Extra stuff pages it said that she took out his background that was originally to be in the CoS.

Dean's supposed to be purely mudblood, living with a mother and a stepfather. That means his mother and stepfather are both muggle. Father walked out when very young, and died because of refusing to join Death Eater ranks.

Well that just screams it out doesn't it? Obviously his father is a Wizard and is dead. So Dean Thomas would count as a halfblood wouldn't he?

...I don't know.

We don't really know enough about Dean Thomas to make assumptions, but we don't know enough about him NOT to.

He has a chance to be some sort of half blooded prince, but he didn't have much of a role in CoS from what I remember. (Sorry, my mind's filled with cobwebs.) We might find out more on him, but probably not enough vital info to make him such a major character. But you never know...

Chibi, his background was originally going to be put into the CoS, but it wasn't because Rowling said it was right for the plot then.

One thing I noticed about the Book Titles, that the first three were very directly connected to the plot.

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone
Obviously, the sorcerer's stone

Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets
Yep, and that's what he "discovers"

Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
Sirius being the prisoner, they rescue him.

But..

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
The only thing significant about the Goblet of Fire was that it spit out Harry's name when it wasn't supposed to. It wasn't as major as say, The Triwizard Tournament, Voldemort's return.

Harry Potter and the Order of the Pheonix
The OoTP is an association against voldemort. But it wasn't as major as perhaps The Department Of Mysteries, or the Dark Dark Corridor, or the Prophecy.

And to the point...

Maybe the halfblood prince doesn't have everything to do with the plot. It could be fit in as something significant, but not as the most major thing.

[Ammer]

There's a big chance it might be Tom Riddle, in fact I'm nearly 97% sure.

But there's also Dean Thomas. Remember Rowling was all, "The title had a lot to do with the second book" ?. On the Extra stuff pages it said that she took out his background that was originally to be in the CoS.

Dean's supposed to be purely mudblood, living with a mother and a stepfather. That means his mother and stepfather are both muggle. Father walked out when very young, and died because of refusing to join Death Eater ranks.

Well that just screams it out doesn't it? Obviously his father is a Wizard and is dead. So Dean Thomas would count as a halfblood wouldn't he?

...I don't know.

We don't really know enough about Dean Thomas to make assumptions, but we don't know enough about him NOT to.

He has a chance to be some sort of half blooded prince, but he didn't have much of a role in CoS from what I remember. (Sorry, my mind's filled with cobwebs.) We might find out more on him, but probably not enough vital info to make him such a major character. But you never know...

Chibi, his background was originally going to be put into the CoS, but it wasn't because Rowling said it was right for the plot then.

One thing I noticed about the Book Titles, that the first three were very directly connected to the plot.

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone
Obviously, the sorcerer's stone

Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets
Yep, and that's what he "discovers"

Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
Sirius being the prisoner, they rescue him.

But..

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
The only thing significant about the Goblet of Fire was that it spit out Harry's name when it wasn't supposed to. It wasn't as major as say, The Triwizard Tournament, Voldemort's return.

Harry Potter and the Order of the Pheonix
The OoTP is an association against voldemort. But it wasn't as major as perhaps The Department Of Mysteries, or the Dark Dark Corridor, or the Prophecy.

And to the point...

Maybe the halfblood prince doesn't have everything to do with the plot. It could be fit in as something significant, but not as the most major thing.

You may have a point there. But if we look at this title as a person meaing the Half Blood Prince, it could very well have everything to do with the plot. The only other book with a person in it's name iss 'Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban' and as well know, it is all about Sirius who was the Prisoner.

[Sapphire Faerie]

After looking through the unplottables community, I found this nice theory saying Tom Riddle could be the Half Blood Prince. It actually seems rather probable.

Tom Riddle and Voldemort could be considered different beings. Tom Riddle died, and Voldemort was born. Tom Riddle's mother was a witch, and his father a muggle, making him Half Blooded. It was also the rejected title for Chamber of Secrets, where Tom Riddle is shown to be the Heir of Slytherin. JK Rowling wouldn't make it that suttle by making the title "Half Blood Heir". We're moving deeper into the series, and finding out more and more.

Tom Riddle seems very probable. And J.K. saying 'It's not Voldemort' is just to throw off people.
Also, I was thinking about it some before I fell asleep, and I had an interesting theory:
"The half-blood king is Salazar Slytherin, he was a half-blood but (like Tom) hated his muggle parent, hated the fact that he was a half-blood, and in turn, became very hypocritical and decided to hate all half-bloods/muggles. Ok. Tom is his heir, right? So Tom is the half-blood prince. And like the king, he hated his muggle parent, hated the fact that he was a half-blood, and in turn hates all half-blood/muggles."
It fits with the Chamber of Secrets thing, which is when we first heard of Salazar Slytherin and Tom Riddle, perhaps originally she was going to put in a backstory for him, and give it that title, but upon removing the backstory, changed the title.

[Xandra]

Maybe Voldemort's son...? If it's possible to have one. It makes sense, considering Voldemort considers himself somthing like the king.

Voldemort has no children.

:o What is Hermione has a secret brother and comes to Hogwarts

Hermione was going to have a younger sister, but JKR decided it'd be too late to introduce her [little sister], so Hermione's now an only child.

And she's very much a muggleborn.

but 'The Half-Blood Prince' is just a mud-blood

Um. No. Half-blood=One witch/wizard parent, one muggle parent or muggle-born parent. 'Mudblood' is a (very) rude insult in the Wizarding world.

Anyway. I'll stop being a canon nazi and just express my opinion on what we know so far.

First off.

The title.

I hate it, though it's growing on me- sort of.

Who this prince is- My guess is that it's a metaphor. Seriously, having any character be a prince, out of the blue, would make me want to throw my copy of the book in the trash, retreat into a dark cave and never touch anything HP-related ever again.

But anyway- I keep going off-topic- the 'prince'.

I'm guessing either Tom Riddle, Godric Gryffindor, Salazar Slytherin, or Mark Evans.

However, as ME was first mentioned in OotP, and JKR's told us that she gave us plenty of clues on who the prince is- in CoS- he's off that list.

That leaves us with Riddle, Gryffindor, and Slytherin, all mentioned in CoS.

Gryffindor and Slytherin have good chances of being the HBP, I'll admit. Unfortunately, having a long-dead main character is not something one should do when writing a book that has millions of dedicated fans.

But what if one of them were a ghost? Nick told Harry that one becomes a ghost if they're not ready to die.

Assuming my house's founder is like his heir, hell-bent on gaining great amounts of power, and becoming immortal... I hardly think he'd have been ready to die, assuming he died young.

Unfortunately, that's a lot of assuming, and not a lot of facts.

So let's turn to Riddle.

JKR said the HBP isn't Harry or Voldemort.

Riddle wasn't exactly Voldemort when he was sixteen and had preserved the memory of himself in his diary, was he? What did happen to the diary? Destroyed, Basilisk killed, blah blah blah, given to Dumbledore.

But what did he do with it? Who knows. Maybe I'm overanalyzing everything, but I really want to know what happened to that diary.

Oh, and the Lexicon has a page up for HBP.

[Sapphire Faerie]

Riddle wasn't exactly Voldemort when he was sixteen and had preserved the memory of himself in his diary, was he? What did happen to the diary? Destroyed, Basilisk killed, blah blah blah, given to Dumbledore.

But what did he do with it? Who knows. Maybe I'm overanalyzing everything, but I really want to know what happened to that diary.

Lucius Malfoy ended up with it, didn't he? Harry put his sock around it and took it to him, Lucius ripped the sock off and threw it, Dobby caught it, and Dobby was free. It says Lucius was holding the book, looking from it to Harry. It isn't mentioned after that. So he could have dropped it when he lunged at Harry, or when Dobby stopped him. He either left it at Hogwarts, or he took it with him. If it's at Hogwart's it's probably locked up in Dumbledore's office somewhere.

[Tharkun]

hmm... i have not read all of the books, but i don't know what to think about the title if we don't know the story line...

so is the HBP a new student? do they have to protect him from voldemort? only time will tell

I know! I know!!!
Shall I tell?

Neville Longbottom... think about it.

I'm thinking about it, and he's definitely a pure-blood. See "Mudbloods and Murmurs", the chapter in CoS after Justin and Nick are attacked, and "The Lost Prophecy".

I think it's the legacy of someone from the distant past - I mean, wizardry hasn't had royalty since at least the 1100s, where decisions were made by a wizarding council (see schoolbooks). People on my Potter LJ haunts think it's Godric Gryffindor, and I'm thinking along those lines if not necessarily that. Besides, that was going to be the title for CoS, which deals very much with the distant past. (It also was going to deal with Dean Thomas' background, but JKR said on her website that Dean Thomas as a half-blood probably wouldn't show up in further books.)

[Igg]

Tom Riddle/ Voldemort...
well, she said it isn't him, and it's too obvious, really.

[jellyoflight]

At first I thought it was Neville Longbottom. But now I'm 90% sure it's Tom Riddle.

[The Fifth Marauder]

Ah, I JUST heard about it. Durn...why did I stop checking Mugglenet daily? I'd love to join in the discussion, but g2g...grr..

[CommanderSwiss]

The fact that she said it isn't Voldmort or Harry is starting to make me wonder if was just to lead you astray and down this particular path to think of Tom Riddle as a sepparate entity, and a cadidate for being the half-blood king.

Nevile was also called a pure-blood on several occasions and If I recall correctly he called himself a pure-blood (when he was talking about how his family was worried he was a squib I think).

Slalazar Slytherin, Godric Gryfindor and Tom Riddle are the ones I'm leaning toward, but we can't realy regect Dean Thomas(as unlikey as he is).

[Jill]

What about Viktor Crum? Nobody's mentioned the odd fellow from GoF o.O;;

[Sapphire Faerie]

What about Viktor Crum? Nobody's mentioned the odd fellow from GoF o.O;;

It's highly unlikely that it would be anyone not mentioned in CoS.

I thought about Godric Gryffindor for a while, but moved on to Salazar Slytherin, which still didn't feel right.
My theory still stands. It's Tom Riddle. He's the half-blood prince. And Slytherin is the half-blood king. =D
**adds more to theory** Maybe it's more than blood that made Tom the heir. Perhaps Salazar's 'spirit' or whatever chose Tom as his heir based on his past. I just have this strong feeling that Salazar's past is similar to Riddle's past (which is described a bit in CoS, but mainly comes out in GoF).
**makes one last feeble attempt** Please let Tom Riddle be the HBP and Salazar Slytherin be the HBK **cries and looks feebly towards England** J.K. wherever you are... PLEASE?!

(I've been awake for 29 hours, please ignore any insanity in the above post)

[Twinkle]

Right it's extremely late at night and I'm dying of sleep deprivation BUT....why has no-one mentioned Hagrid yet? He's half-blood isn't he?

I also really want to find out what happened to Grawp! It's a mystery oOoOoooooo!!!

Right, I'll let you all debate on my rather silly points whilst I hit the hay for the night...I'll probably come back here tomorrow and wonder why I ever posted that theory in the first place

[The Fifth Marauder]

Ack, everyone else beat me to this...

The title.

I hate it, though it's growing on me- sort of.

Who this prince is- My guess is that it's a metaphor. Seriously, having any character be a prince, out of the blue, would make me want to throw my copy of the book in the trash, retreat into a dark cave and never touch anything HP-related ever again.

I'll be in the neighboring cave next to you. When I first read about the book title, I had a mixed reaction, I was both happy and sad. First of all, I was jumping up and down hugging people and screaming in joy. Then I sat down for a second and thought about it. What prince? Maybe it IS just a metaphor. Hopefully it is.

Now, canidates for the throne. Have we already ruled out Harry? I mean, we can't have Harry referring to himself in the third person all through book six, and maybe seven. Introducing Harry Potter, and the Half-Blood Prince, Harry Potter. 0_o

I first thought, "Mark Evans", from the beginning of OotP, but like what everyone else said, he wasn't mentioned at all in book 2, so he's out. And all the females are out of the running, too, or else the book would be the Half Blood Princess. And that just doesn't sound very good.

Dean Thomas. Dean, Dean, Deany boy. I don't think Death Eaters would have any reason to recruit a muggle man to become one of them, so it's pretty obvious that his father WAS a wizard. Like Sakura said awhile ago up there ^, or maybe on the previous page <, the backstory about Dean was supposed to be but in CoS. But on J.K.'s site (extras section), in the same place that you find his back story, you find that he wasn't even mentioned in the Philosopher's Stone. I don't think he'll become one of the main characters all of a sudden, so bye-bye, Dean.

I don't know who I think it is, yet. But I think I'm going with the majority so far -- it might just be Tom Riddle.