Warning: Harry Potter(book) fanboy rant ahead
So I was watching Harry Potter and The Half-Blood Prince movie on HBO while having my dinner. It was the climax scene where Harry and Dumbledore venture out to destroy one of Voldemort’s horcruxes. I knew exactly what was going to happen, having read the books many times over(obviously). I also know that the movie was going to disappoint me in a profound way, having dramatized a crucial part differently, the part which I am going to be talking about.
After Harry and Dumbledore escape from the cave with Regulus’s locket, they fly into the Astronomy tower where they’re met with Draco Malfoy. This is the part where the movie gets it wrong. According to the book, Dumbledore is supposed to have put Harry in a body bind curse, when they hear noises of death eaters approaching them. In the movie, it is being shown that Dumbledore asks Harry to just “hide” underneath the stairs/whatever. And then at the end of the scene, when Snape comes in, he just says “Shhh” to Harry. Let me explain why this is profoundly wrong. Harry is the kind of character who isn’t afraid or bogged down by wizards powerful than him. He would die rather than see people he loved get killed. According to the movie, Harry had the power to jump out and attack the Death Eaters, but he didn’t because Dumbledore asked him to. According to the book, Harry was put under a body-bind curse and became immobile. The difference between unable to protect Dumbledore vs not choosing to protect Dumbledore is a huge one and its kinda sad that the movie chooses to depict the later even though, clearly, Harry would have attacked the Death Eaters if he wasn’t under the body bind curse.
PS: The movie gets a lot of things wrong, this one affected me a lot.