Decided to take an indefinite hiatus from blogging.

I've given up.

I think there's one solution to the Genre Challenge: multiple entry tags, like those in the Wordpress system. The underlying problem of the Genre Challenge is really that the ID3 tag system can only accommodate one entry per field (e.g. you can only type in ONE genre) so it's hard to deal with songs which cut across genres. But if the tech forces come up with a new tag system which can do this (ID4, maybe?), classifying songs under genres would be a whole lot easier.

So for now, I'm putting the Music Organization Side Project to rest. But in true OC fashion, I'm also looking forward to a new tagging system.

A month has gone and I guess my new blog skin isn't as effective in stimulating posts as I hoped. I'm actually thinking of changing it yet again--it reminds me of those plates at cafeterias and fastfood places which have dividers to separate your main meal, side dish and dessert. Or pill boxes. The only thing that's keeping me back is my lack of inspiration for a new layout.

But I'm going to try and resuscitate this blog anyway by talking about a little side project I've taken on recently: organizing my music collection.

I've been meaning to organize my music collection for the longest time. When I started collecting mp3s, I fixed the ID3 tags properly and *sometimes* even took the time to research which song came from which album (I'm not neurotic enough to research composers/writers and producers too). That was back in the days of dial-up, so mp3s and mp3 tags were still in manageable quantities. But then I upgraded to a faster internet connection. As with most people in my situation who are under 30, that translates to a considerable, er, *expansion* in my music collection.

For an OC person such as myself, that also presents a ID3 tag problem. Too many files to tag, but too little time to do it. So I decided to limit ID3 tag edits to the following: (1) making sure that the artist name and title are in the proper title case, (2) replacing blank or dubious album names with "Unknown Album", and (3) putting "Other" as the genre of all new mp3s. These little edits at least made my mp3 collection acceptable to my OC sensibilities. I can do without complete ID3 tag entries, but I just can't stand it when the artist name and song title flashing in an audio player isn't in proper title case.

At the back of my head, though, there was always the intention to fix the ID3 tags some time in the future. As fate (or my OC-ness) would have it, that "some time in the future" turned out to be a couple of weeks ago. I finally got fed up with constantly skipping tracks because I had a certain music style I wanted to hear, but I can't be bothered to keep making playlists every single time I wanted to listen to music. So I decided to, well, face the music, roll up my sleeves, and start organizing my music collection.


PHASE 1: FILE CONVERSION

The first step in the Music Organization Side Project (hereafter referred to as MOSP) was to convert all files to the mp3 format. Since I only use mp3 and wma files anyway, that means converting wma files to the mp3 format. This was easy to do because I found this program last year called Power MP3 WMA Converter, which was the best program I found for the job after trying a handful of similar programs. I actually have only a few wma files now (just the seldom played and/or newly acquired ones) because I converted most of them last year. And thanks to a hack I discovered (last year too), it was just a matter of converting all the wma files into mp3s in one go. (You can only convert one file at a time in the free trial version.)

In case you're wondering, I did this because I planned to look for a tagger program, and the tags for the different formats are sometimes treated by programs differently.

(By the way, if you're scrimping with storage capacity in your mp3 player, the Converter is especially worth a try because with the program you can reduce the bit rate of an mp3 file, which results in smaller file sizes.)


PHASE 2: THE SEARCH FOR THE PERFECT TAGGER PROGRAM

When I was first building my mp3 library, I used Windows Media Player to manage the tags. I soon discovered that this wasn't a good idea: for some reason, editing the tags via WMP doesn't always result in actual edited ID3 tags, so when I played the file with another audio player (portable or otherwise), the ID3 tags were still a mess, as if I didn't edit them at all. I then started to use Windows Explorer to edit the tags---a very tedious technique if you've tried it yourself. Basically, it means selecting the file in Windows Explorer, clicking "Properties", and clicking the tab for "Summary"...and only then do you get to the actual tags themselves. It gets the job done, and it's not a big deal if it's just one file, but it's a totally different thing if you're editing the tags of 50 mp3s.

I thought that there must be an easier way to do things and that I'm not the only OC person in the world who can get anal about organizing an mp3 collection. And I'm sure that at least a handful of these similar-minded OC people should be technologically literate enough to come up with programs for the job. I googled around for a bit and found a couple of programs that seemed up to the task. Tried some, found some to be too cluttered for my taste and others to be temporally (like 15-day trials only) or functionally limited, and discovered a few which were good but required purchase.

Finally, I lucked out and found Mp3Tag. This program was exactly what I was looking for, and more: it has an Excel-type interface similar to WMP's, so the transition was a breeze. This means that you can deal with several files at once, unlike some other tagger programs where you can only deal with one file at a time. There are even features where you can convert filenames automatically based on ID3 tags, as in ARTIST - TITLE.mp3 or ARTIST - ALBUM - TITLE.mp3...whatever floats your boat. Creating tags based on filenames is possible too. You can even format selected files using a batch of actions (e.g. change filename, erase "Year", change "Genre" to read "Other") all in one go. The program is just great. It also turns out that I didn't need to convert my wma files to mp3s after all: this tagger program can handle wma files too. It's much better than the programs that only offer limited trial versions and/or required purchase, and Mp3Tag is just free to download.

I know I could've used iTunes, but I was worried it has that same delayed-editing effect WMP has. And I thought of iTunes after I discovered Mp3Tag. :D Anyway, comparing tagging functions, Mp3Tag definitely trumps iTunes.

So now all my mp3s with unknown albums are marked as having an "Unknown Album"; all the "Year" entries have been deleted (it was all or nothing for me: either all mp3s had entries for years, or none of them did); all "Comments" have likewise been erased; and all entries for "Genre" have been temporarily marked as "Other". That leaves me organizing the mp3s into genres, which is...


PHASE 3: THE GENRE CHALLENGE

Now this is the hard part. I consider myself to be fairly knowledgeable about music, but it turns out that this knowledge, along with an eclectic taste in music and an unrelenting OC-ness, can be the worst things to have when organizing an mp3 collection.

Take The Beatles, for example. To which genre do they belong? They changed so much through the years, it's hard to tell. Songs like "I Wanna Hold Your Hand" just doesn't belong in the same category as "Strawberry Fields Forever" or "Revolution 1" or "A Day in the Life". So they're sort of pop, but not quite; sort of rock, though not exactly; sometimes mainstream, sometimes experimental. One solution would be to classify different songs in different genres, but I don't want to use genres that are too specific; that would defeat the whole point of the exercise of creating and using genres as insta-playlists.

Some artists also seem easy to categorize, but later on present challenges. Like, Nina Simone, Antonio Carlos Jobim, Miles Davis, and similar artists would of course belong to the genre of "Jazz," and Beethoven, Chopin, and Bach clearly belong to "Classical". But Norah Jones and Michael Buble can also be classified as "Jazz", and the London Symphony Orchestra's covers of popular songs can also be classified as "Classical". And I can't bring myself to put Norah Jones and Michael Buble beside Simone, Jobim and Davis, and there's just something wrong with putting orchestral covers of popular songs along with Beethoven, Chopin and Bach.

Then there are artists which are hard to categorize even if you know they belong in just one genre. Like Belle and Sebastian: I know they're indie, but are they indie rock, indie pop, or indie alternative? (Some will dispute that "indie alternative" even exists.) Or how about Sting? Rock, pop or what? If rock, what kind; if pop, what kind? And of course, there's the question of "rock" itself: these days, what can we still consider as "rock", and what can we consider as something else (like "pop")?

So I googled around and tried to find guides on classifying music into genres. I found guides, all right, but nothing I could readily use. For example, there's the Wikipedia take on genres, but the stuff they describe are either too broad or too specific. I also tried MSN Music, Yahoo! Music, iTunes, Napster, GarageBand, and other sites I found through Google, but they were all either too broad, too specific, too limited, or too unwieldy.

(Interestingly, my Google search also led me to people like this group who basically say, "Fuck genres; good music is good music." I'd agree to a point, but I'm still working on the MOSP Phase 3 anyway for insta-playlist purposes.)

The closest to a solution that I've found is AMG's allmusic. I think it has the widest musical scope of the catalogs I tried, and they cover the relatively obscure, the insufferably mainstream, and all the in-betweens. Finding acts like Frank Sinatra and Rufus Wainwright is to be expected, but surprise, surprise, allmusic also has stuff on artists like Nico and--get this--Jasmine Trias.

Allmusic has tons of handy links too, so coupled with Firefox's drag-to-tab feature, that means never having to click "back" ever, and not having to deal with navigation menus as much. Nice features like sound excerpts, mini-bios (ala VH1.com bios), and links to iTunes included. Another definite plus is the fact that the site contributors are real music aficionados, so they know their stuff and can tell the difference between, say, acid jazz, trip-hop and ambient.

Still, allmusic isn't a perfect solution to the Genre Challenge. Their music classification system consists of two tiers (the main genre and the style/s), with the second tier being occasionally too specific for my needs, so it's not a seamless fit between my collection and their database. Aside from this, their catalog also classifies acts like The Backstreet Boys and Britney Spears as "rock" (albeit under styles/sub-categories like "teen pop" and "dance"). Come on, BSB and Britney as "rock"??? To be fair, they're not alone in this: Wikipedia, for example, claims that "rock, in its broadest sense, can refer to almost all popular music recorded since the early 1950s." That said, it's my mp3 collection, and in my book, pop is pop, and rock is rock.

So it's taking me a long time to finish Phase 3, and consequently, the MOSP as a whole. Admittedly, I've been working on the MOSP just intermittently for the past few weeks, but every time I do sit down and try to work it out, it doesn't look like I'll be finished in an hour-long session, since the MOSP often entails creating genre tag categories, merging existing ones, redoing old ones...you get the idea. I'm hoping against hope that I'll finish soon; this "side project" is starting to become a demi-project, a.k.a. a time-consuming thing that isn't really productive.

Right now, I'm tempted to throw the whole thing out the window and just go back to skipping tracks. It's tiring to be OC.

(This post is a bit long, but it's worth a read. Really. :D)

I caught Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire last Thursday. Love, love, LOVE the latest HP installment. It's definitely several degrees better than Sorcerer's Stone and Chamber of Secrets. I'm still deciding though whether GoF is better than Prisoner of Azkaban: PoA was such a step up from the first two movies that it's not easy to tell right away. I still like Cuaron's flair (one review I read said that Newell still wasn't able to reach the "lyrical heights" that Cuaron did in PoA), but GoF was so dark and entertaining in all the right places, it's hard not to like Newell's movie as well. But that's not to say that GOF was perfect; it could have been improved in many places. Nevertheless, the overall product was still enjoyable. Not great enough to be a substitute for the book version, but enjoyable nonetheless.

(I just found out now that Cuaron was approached to direct GoF, but he declined because filming for GoF was supposed to begin even while PoA wasn't finished yet---post-production, I assume. It would've been great if he had directed GoF, but I'm not complaining; Newell did a good job with GoF. Cuaron supposedly helped with one thing, though: the studio execs wanted to split GoF into two movies, but Newell was convinced by Cuaron to cut enough scenes from the book to squeeze it into two and a half hours.)

Hogwarts: One of the things I liked in GoF was the new take on the Hogwarts castle, which is much better than in the previous films---it felt more like a castle and less like a movie set. For example, the Great Hall was a little cramped, which is more realistic since the Hall probably wasn't designed to have four long tables seating about 280 people anyway. Better classrooms too. Pretty good choices with the castle exterior, grounds and lake as well: it was more believable that Hogwarts was sheltered from the Muggle world (although I did wonder where Hogsmeade was), and the lake looked like a genuine Scottish loch (EDIT: it actually wasn't; the sweeping shots of the lake were real, but the lake is in Surrey, England, not Scotland). And you had to appreciate nice little details like wood panels on stone walls, built-in tables in the library book stacks, realistic medieval era touches like stained glass windows, and cool metal and glass trinkets everywhere.

Mad-Eye Moody: I wasn't too happy when I found out that the moviemakers decided to make Mad-Eye Moody's, erm, "mad eye" as an eye patch gadget rather than as something Mad-Eye could pop in and out of his eye socket without any straps. It would've been really cool if they had stuck to that idea. But I have to admit: Brandon Gleeson's take on Mad-Eye Moody wasn't too shabby. Okay, so he was good. I'm withholding a raving review of his portrayal anyway because I thought he could've/should've been nastier, as in the Draco-as-ferret scene (e.g. slamming the ferret down on the ground and wingardium-leviosa-ing it only to be slammed down again, instead of just floating it up and down).

And even if the slamming down part wasn't done because Mike Newell/the CGI guys chose not to do the scene that way, couldn't Mad-Eye Moody cackle in evil glee or at least look like he wanted to do so?

Voldemort: On the other hand, Ralph Fiennes did a good job with Lord Voldemort, and I liked how the filmmakers paid attention to his skin (pale and slimy-looking, with a green-gray tinge), his hair (non-existent), his nose (reduced to snake-like slits), and his nails (disgusting). Nice touch with the slimy cocoon thing as well.

But I thought they should've given Fiennes/Voldemort more screen time; the scene at the cemetery just felt rushed. After all, the only thing scarier and nastier than evil personified is deliberate evil personified, unbelievably cool and confident to the point of hubris, and totally unfazed by the humiliation of the last 13 years (being defeated by a baby, being reduced to Vapormort for a decade, slumming it like a parasite at the back of Quirrell's head, and having to settle for an ugly infantile body completely dependent on snake milk and Wormtail's assistance). As it was, Voldemort was a little high-pitched at first and moved a little too quickly, like he was aware of Newell's reminder that his scene was only X minutes long, or like he was a bit fazed or at least a little embarrassed about what he had gone through. Overall, Fiennes did make a good Voldemort, but he really could've been more effective if he adopted a deeper and more pompous tone from the beginning and moved more deliberately.

Priori Incantatem: Another thing I thought was a bit rushed was the Priori Incantatem scene. The way that JKR wrote the scene made it seem like the wands were connected for quite a while, and Harry really had to fight to hold on to his wand. Also, I thought that the echoes of Voldemort's victim appeared more slowly, and because the wand connection was longer, they had the chance to cheer Harry on. I also expected the "golden dome" resulting from the wand connection to be, well, more dome-like. And I was hoping that there would've been a little more attention to detail, like focusing on the "beads" in the wand connection a bit more and showing more of Harry's strain and Voldemort's surprise at what was happening (JKR described these really well).

Instead, what you had was a bundt-cake-shaped field instead of a dome, a relatively brief wand connection, and Voldy's victims only having time to tell Harry to bring Cedric's body back and to make a run for the Tri-Wizard Cup. In short, an exciting encounter instead of a mind-blowing, jaw-dropping, clutching-the-edge-of-your-seat climax. Don't get me wrong---the scene was still good---but it could've been better executed if given a little more time.

Dumbledore: Some people who have seen the movie didn't like Michael Gambon's take on Dumbledore in GoF, but I actually liked it. The first three movies (and perhaps even the first three books, so it wasn't all Chris Columbus'/Alfonso Cuaron's fault) made it seem like Dumbledore was a kind grandfather-like figure, quite unlike "the only wizard that You-Know-Who feared." The GoF Dumbledore was more a force to be reckoned with: nice on a regular day, but not someone you can or would like to push around. This Dumbledore looks like someone who can still take on the Dark Lord; the earlier ones seem like they should be napping, just like other old people do.

Other characters: And of course, Daniel Radcliffe, Rupert Grint, and Emma Watson are getting better at acting, which is very welcome. The performance of the Hogwarts students still needs some work, but at least it's getting there.

On a related topic, I liked the casting of Viktor Krum (he's really Bulgarian, by the way), Rita Skeeter, Voldemort, and Mad-Eye Moody (although I imagined him to have longer and whiter hair and a more scarred face). And I still like Dumbledore, McGonagall, and Snape. I thought Cedric would be more golden-boy-like, Fleur to be more veela-ish, and Barty Crouch to be drier and more uptight, but they were still okay in the movie.

Other comments: GoF felt shorter than the SS and CoS movies despite it being more than two hours long. The simple reason for this is that GoF is just excellently done. Observations about the characters' adolescent experiences aside (e.g. the oft-repeated remark in many GoF reviews that Harry found asking Cho out to be almost as daunting as facing Voldemort), there were some well-placed moments in the film to make it move along well, like Fred (or was it George?) asking Angelina out, McGonagall's dancing lessons and Ron's sample dance (not in the book, but nice touch anyway), and Harry in the prefects' bathroom with Moaning Myrtle.

And you just have to love how the first task was played out.

As expected of any HP fan, I was disappointed that some details were omitted, e.g. the subplot about gianthood c/o Hagrid's background and Madame Maxime's reaction to it; Rita Skeeter as an unregistered bug animagus; Barty Crouch Jr's story (Winky, breaking out of Azkaban); Hermione's campaign for better treatment of elves; Harry and Hermione's visit to Hogsmeade to see Sirius; the first task clue of being all about "facing the unknown" and Harry's supposed gentlemanly behavior of letting Cedric in on the secret leak; the excitement of the Quidditch World Cup.

And then there were parts which were modified, like Madame Maxime being just tall instead of tall and heavy-set; Harry getting gillyweed from Neville instead of Dobby (and Dobby getting it from Snape's private stores); McGonagall being wary of Harry joining the tournament and Snape being more permissive on the issue (instead of the other way around); Beauxbatons being an all-girl school (it was coed in the book); and Harry getting high marks for the second task even without the intercession of the chief of the merpeople. Also, didn't JKR describe Floo network communication as having the person's whole head in the fireplace, instead of being an artful arrangement of red-hot coal?

Another modified part was the third task, a.k.a. the maze. Although the maze was challenging and creepy, how exactly was the task supposed to test their skills in magic? Certainly, Mad-Eye/Barty Jr did meddle in the maze, but as the third task was set up, the only things you needed to have in order to get through the maze was (1) the ability to outrun hurricanes, (2) the ability to suppress attacks of claustrophobia, (3) the ability to defend yourself if one of your co-competitors tried to do something bad to you, and (4) the ability to find the cup before anyone else did. (The Reducto spell on the aggressive vines doesn't count because that was Mad-Eye's doing.) At least JKR's version of the maze included things like battling bogarts and the Sphinx. Still, I have to admit that Newell's take on the third task was still okay and worked for the movie, i.e. the third task being a test of character rather than just magical skill. But it really could've been better.

Lastly, sometimes you get the impression that the filmmakers didn't read the whole HP series. They probably read Goblet of Fire, of course. But if they had read Order of the Phoenix and the first three books (Half-Blood Prince was only released this July, so they were probably wrapping up filming by that time already), they'd realize how it seemingly unimportant details and subplots will become really important later on, and consequently, how it's not a good idea to cut details and scenes left and right.

The verdict: Okay, so maybe I'm nitpicking details here. I do understand that there are constraints to filmmaking (like time) which make it difficult, if not impossible, to include and stay true to every single detail. But it's regrettable anyway to leave these things out, considering the role they will and can play in the succeeding HP installments. For example, how would the upcoming HP movies account for Fred and George being able to set up a business, if the GOF movie didn't show how Harry gave his tournament winnings to the twins? Or how about the stigma against the giants, and the race between the Order of the Phoenix and the Death Eaters to win their allegiance? How about Rita Skeeter being blackmailed to help Harry and Co. in OotP, on pain of being exposed as an unregistered animagus? And how would the OotP movie explain why the Order of the Phoenix had to work underground, if the GOF movie didn't show the disagreement between Dumbledore and Fudge about Voldemort returning to power? The list goes on.

Also, if they were willing to exceed the average length of a movie nowadays (1.5 to 2 hours) by making GOF two and a half hours long, couldn't the filmmakers push for three hours instead? Peter Jackson did it with the Lord of the Rings series, and nobody complained about the length because the movie was well done and the length was necessary to cover important parts of Tolkien's classic. With three hours, they could've included scenes from the Quidditch World Cup, possibly handled the subplots about Rita Skeeter's secret, Hagrid's giant-ness, and the like, and perhaps afforded a better execution of the scene at the cemetery.

But again, don't get me wrong: that doesn't mean I didn't enjoy the movie, because I did. A lot, actually. And I can't wait to watch it again. I really hope the next three movies will live up to the bar set by Goblet of Fire.

After two weeks of reading *more serious* works, I decided to do some light reading and revisit the quintessential light reading material, the Harry Potter series. I thought that I might find some stuff in the earlier books which seemed innocuous during the last time I read them (which is actually years back), but are now significant/interesting in light of the revelations and events of the later books.

I started with Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, and some parts of the book were definitely more interesting now. This is quite a long post, but I hope people read on anyway. :)


An Invisible Dumbledore?

"But I expect you've realized by now what [the mirror] does?"

"It---well---it shows me my family---"

"And it showed your friend Ron himself as head boy."

"How did you know---?"

"I don't need a cloak to become invisible," said Dumbledore gently. (SS, 213)

This made me wonder if Dumbledore ever exercised this ability of cloak-less invisibility in the six books, or even in the years before Harry entered Hogwarts. For example, could it be that Dumbledore trusted Snape so much because he witnessed Snape doing something undeniably good/anti-Voldemort without Snape knowing that Dumbledore was there to see it (thus leading Dumbledore to believe that Snape was sincere)?

The revelation about this ability becomes even more interesting if you buy the whole "Dumbledore is not dead" theory. If Dumbledore did fake his death with Snape's cooperation, then it would not be hard for him to pull off the stunt (in the medium-term, at least) because he could make himself invisible and fool everyone into thinking that it was really him in the white tomb. He could also continue working unseen for the anti-Voldemort cause, and do a Gandalf-esque reappearance at some point in the final book. (If you buy the theory, anyway.)


Snape the mind-reader

Harry didn't know whether he was imagining it or not, but he seemed to keep running into Snape wherever he went... Potions lessons were turning into a sort of weekly torture, Snape was so horrible to Harry. Could Snape possibly know they'd found out about the Sorcerer's Stone? Harry didn't see how he could---yet he sometimes had the horrible feeling that Snape could read minds. (SS, 221)

I didn't reread SS after reading OotP, so it was interesting to find out that this suspicion of Harry was actually true and confirmed four books later.

What's more interesting though is Snape's selective use of Legilimency. Snape seemed to read Harry's mind, but why didn't he read Quirrell's? If he did, he would've found out about Voldemort, and he would've done something about it, whether as a true member of the Order of the Phoenix (he would've told Dumbledore) or as a loyal follower of Voldemort (he would've helped Quirrell get the Sorcerer's Stone). But he did neither, so it appears that he did not perform Legilimency on Quirrell at all---which is peculiar, because he was supposedly suspicious of Quirrell all along.

Another interesting Snape anecdote: Towards the end of SS, Harry was talking to Dumbledore in the hospital wing. At one point, Harry said,

"And there's something else..."

"Fire away."

"Quirrell said Snape---"

"PROFESSOR Snape, Harry." (SS, 299)

Why was Dumbledore so keen to remind Harry to call Snape "Professor," and okay with Harry calling Quirrell as simply "Quirrell"? This isn't the only time that Harry was reminded of calling Snape by his title. Why the *special treatment* for Snape?


Quirrell and the curse of the DADA post

In HBP, Dumbledore recounted Voldemort's last visit to Hogwarts before the events in Godric's Hollow. Voldemort wanted the Defense against the Dark Arts teaching post, but Dumbledore didn't give it to him. Since Dumbledore refused the post to Voldy, Hogwarts has been unable to keep a DADA teacher for longer than a year.

Certainly, we only saw Quirrell, Lockhart, Lupin, Mad-Eye Moody, Umbridge, and Snape (as DADA teacher) for a year. But Hagrid's conversation with Harry when they saw Quirrell at the Leaky Cauldron is interesting:

"Is he always that nervous?"

"Oh yeah. Poor bloke. Brilliant mind. He was fine while he was studyin' outta books but then he took a year off ter get some first-hand experience... They say he met vampires in the Black Forest, and there was a nasty bit o' trouble with a hag---never been the same since. Scared of the students, scared of his own subject..." (SS, 71)

So Quirrell had some teaching experience already by the time Harry entered Hogwarts, and because Hagrid didn't say that Quirrell was teaching another subject before teaching DADA during Harry's first year, it's safe to assume that Quirrell was the DADA teacher at least the year before Harry entered Hogwarts. (He could've taken the "year off" at least two years before Harry entered Hogwarts, as implied by Hagrid's and Percy's familiarity with him). If that's the case, Quirrell would've been on his second continuous year in the DADA post at the very least. Did Quirrell defy the DADA curse, or did JKR just forget about Quirrell's past?


A half-life, a cursed life

"Harry Potter, do you know what unicorn blood is used for?"

"No," said Harry, startled by the odd question. "We've only used the horn and tail hair in Potions."

"That is because it is a monstrous thing to slay a unicorn," said Firenze. "Only one who has nothing to lose, and everything to gain, would commit such a crime. The blood of a unicorn will keep you alive, even if you are an inch from death, but at a terrible price. You have slain something pure and defenseless to save yourself, and you will have but a half-life, a cursed life, from the moment the blood touches your lips." (SS, 258)

I've always wondered what the practical implications of consuming unicorn blood actually were. Like, what did Firenze mean by "a half-life, a cursed life"? In a world where curses and countercurses aren't uncommon, it's not easy to tell.

But let's assume for now that we do know what "half-life/cursed life" actually meant. Was it really necessary for Voldemort to use unicorn blood? In HBP we learned that Voldy created horcruxes as a sort of backup life plan, so he wasn't *mortal* anymore, in the normal sense of the word. So did he really need the unicorn blood to keep himself alive?

(On a related issue, how exactly does the horcrux-as-backup-life-plan work? Of the seven horcruxes, the *primary* soul piece was the Voldemort at the back of Quirrell's head in SS and in the cemetery in GoF. We know that horcruxes can be destroyed; surely even the *primary* soul piece/horcrux can be destroyed as well? But what would happen if the *primary* soul piece was destroyed, while the other horcruxes were still active? How would, say, the Hufflepuff cup help Voldemort revive/regenerate/resurrect/whatever, if Voldemort was actually killed before Harry & Co. found and destroyed the other horcruxes? Or in CoS, if Tom Riddle was able to corporealize while the semi-vapor Voldemort was still at large, would there be two Voldemorts walking around, or would the two soul pieces somehow merge? So many questions.)

Back to the unicorn blood incident: Some might say that Voldemort may not need the unicorn blood to keep himself alive, but he used it still to get back his strength. This is certainly possible. But consider this---

"But who'd be that desperate?" [Harry] wondered aloud. "If you're going to be cursed forever, death's better, isn't it?"

"It is," Firenze agreed, "unless all you need is to stay alive long enough to drink something else--something that will bring you back to full strength and power---something that will mean you can never die..." (SS, 258-59)

If the horcruxes guaranteed that Voldemort won't die like other wizards do, he won't need to "stay alive long enough," because he already will. Firenze's statement implies that the unicorn blood drinker needs to find another way to strengthen himself.

Additionally, remember that the Voldemort residing at the back of Quirrell's head only had one-seventh of Voldy's soul. So if consuming unicorn blood leads to a half-life/cursed life, did Voldemort's act lead to the further mutilation of his soul (well, at least the one-seventh that was directly involved)? Some might rationalize that the unicorn blood incident is just a drop in the bucket compared to the other things that Voldemort has done (such as the murders to create the horcruxes), but Firenze's description makes it seem like consuming unicorn blood is a such a grave evil that only the most depraved would do.

However, the unicorn blood incident hasn't been mentioned since then, so it's possible that this has become inconsequential already.


Dumbledore sending Harry to his doom

Well, it can be interpreted like that.

After serving detention in the Forbidden Forest, Harry discovered his Invisibility Cloak back at his dormitory with a note saying, "Just in case." (He had left the cloak accidentally at the tallest tower.) Dumbledore was the one who gave the cloak to Harry, and presumably, the one who returned it to him as well after the episode in Forbidden Forest. From this, it would seem that Dumbledore was giving Harry opportunities to flout school rules and get himself into dangerous situations. Shocking...

...or not. Assuming that JKR already thought of the prophecy when writing SS, Dumbledore may have given/returned the cloak to Harry because he knew that it was probably only a matter of time before a Harry-Voldemort showdown would happen; that he should give Harry as many tools as prudently possible; and that the earlier the showdown happens, the better (Harry may not be as experienced yet, but Voldemort was much, much weaker at this point). Note that Dumbledore knew Voldemort was around somewhere; otherwise, why did he ask Hagrid to move the Sorcerer's Stone from Gringotts?

I wonder though whether Dumbledore really had no clue that Quirrell's head was host to Voldemort. Wouldn't a powerful wizard like Dumbledore detect something like that within a ten-meter radius at least?

I also wonder how exactly Dumbledore knew that Voldemort would be after the Sorcerer's Stone at that point in time. JKR didn't explained this one. I don't think Dumbledore found out by reading Quirrell's mind; if he did, wouldn't he have discovered Quirrell's thoughts about Voldemort?

Dumbledore's conversation with Harry about the Sorcerer's Stone towards the end of the book was also interesting:

"...As for the Stone, it had been destroyed."

"Destroyed?" said Harry blankly. "But your friend---Nicolas Flamel---"

"Oh, you know about Nicolas?" said Dumbeldore, sounding quite delighted. "You DID do the thing properly, didn't you?" (SS, 297)

It seems that Dumbledore was counting on Harry's curiosity to lead him to the Sorcerer's Stone. Why? If he wanted Harry to know about it, couldn't he have spared Harry all the effort of sneaking around and risking house points, detention and even expulsion? And of course, the dangers of subjecting an untrained young wizard to the perils posed by adult trained wizards (some of whom are dark wizards at that). Harry may be the Chosen One, but he was still reeling from the shock of discovering his wizard-ness and the world of magic at this point. Dumbledore can be really sadistic sometimes.


Benefiting from some TLC

Again, this concerns the conversation between Harry and Dumbledore at the hospital wing near the end of the book:

"Your mother died to save you. If there is one thing Voldemort cannot understand, it is love. He didn't realize that love as powerful as your mother's for you leaves its own mark. Not a scar, no visible sign... to have been loved so deeply, even though the person who loved us is gone, will give us some protection forever. It is in your very skin. Quirrell, full of hatred, greed, and ambition, sharing his soul with Voldemort, could not touch you for this reason. It was agony to touch a person marked by something so good." (SS, 299)

Now place this statement in the context of Dumbledore's other statement in OotP:

"Do you see, Harry? Do you see the flaw in my brilliant plan now? I had fallen into the trap I had foreseen, that I had told myself I could avoid, that I must avoid."

"I don't---"

"I cared about you too much," said Dumbledore simply. "I cared more for your happiness than your knowing the truth, more for your peace of mind than my plan, more for your life than the lives that might be lost if the plan failed. In other words, I acted exactly as Voldemort expects we fools who love to act."

If Dumbledore is indeed dead, and considering that he "cared about Harry too much," is it possible that he also gave Harry a kind of protection similar to the one Lily gave, something which will help Harry in his crusade against Voldemort?

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Congratulations to you for reaching the end of this long post. :D

(Shameless HP-mania, I know.)

I was one of the few people in the metropolis eagerly anticipating this year's Cinemanila, an annual film festival which features a competition that local (usually indie) filmmakers join, and which runs several art and foreign films in certain cinemas in Metro Manila.

I admit that I'm not one of those uber-film buffs who can tell which celluloid technique was used in what movie or give the filmography of Fellini or Kubrick in a heartbeat. But I enjoy watching art films, don't mind reading subtitles, and can stand a movie that can go five minutes without dialogue or fifteen minutes without a punchline. In short, I'm a neophyte film buff.

The thing is that being a film buff (neophyte or bona fide) isn't easy in a place like Manila. Few cinemas are willing to take the commercial risk of running a movie that can't fill half the theater--I remember how 2046 was pulled out early because the theaters where it was shown were practically empty. Most video stores rarely sell or rent out art/foreign films, and only the more popular art/foreign films are lucky enough to get shelf space (try finding A Clockwork Orange or The Exterminating Angel in ACA or Astrovision, for example). So, really, there aren't many choices if you like films that aren't/won't be commercial successes: either you (a) frequent places like the UP Film Center or Mowellfund; (b) shell out a good amount of cash and order the films from Amazon; (c) borrow constantly from the video collections of your university; (d) make trips to Metrowalk and cross your fingers for a good find; or (e) anticipate film festivals or *cultural* events sponsored by embassies or foundations.

I haven't had too many chances to use options (a), (b), (c) and (d) lately, so I was really hoping to get a dose of obscure-film bliss from this year's Cinemanila and see the Decalogue series (or Dekalog in Polish, by Krzysztof Kieslowski), The King (James Marsh), Clean (Olivier Assayas), and A Bittersweet Life (Kim Jee-won), among others.

Unfortunately, the organizers aren't making life easy for people like me who actually want to see these movies. For starters, the schedule can't be found anywhere. Cinemanila's website isn't updated; they barely ran a promo campaign beforehand; and even the cinemas where the movies were shown (more on this later) only had ONE medium-sized poster---and that was directly outside the theater, not even in the ticket booth, alongside the escalators, or in the mall lobby.

It was only by sheer luck that I got the schedule for Dekalog through email just in time, and so I went, armed with the schedule for the movie and willing to brave a less-than-stellar theater environment...only to find out as I was lining up that the schedule was changed: the times were moved about an hour later than what was posted. (FFS.) But I was there already anyway, so I waited.

At least Krzysztof Kieslowski compensated for all the hassle. Dekalog is a series of ten 55-minute episodes, each loosely based on one of the Ten Commandments. Luckily, I went to the cinema at the time when Dekalog 1 and 2 and Dekalog 3 and 4 were shown consecutively, so I decided to stay on and watch all four.

From a third-party perspective, that translates to me sitting in a theater on a Sunday afternoon with only seven other people in a five-hundred-seater cinema--and two of the seven were SM cinema employees. (FFS, take two.) How sad is that? Thank God I dragged my sister along; otherwise, there would be only five paying customers.

But Dekalog was quite good. The short description I gave above might make the not-so-theologically-inclined gag prematurely, but I assure you, it's bereft of tired Christian moralizing. Dekalog 1 and 2 were good. Dekalog 4 was just twisted.

I planned to watch Dekalog 7 and 8 and Dekalog 9 and 10 on another day (following the schedule), but unfortunately, it was 2046 all over again: Dekalog was pulled out, and the SM cinema management replaced it with The Year of the Yao instead. (FFS, take three.) Apparently, even fewer people saw Dekalog in the days after I saw it, if that was possible.

But it's not surprising actually. It's marketing and product placement gone wrong--there weren't any promotional posters anywhere, the schedules were barely publicized, and you just don't run a movie like that in a place frequented by people who, in all probability, won't appreciate it. (As I was standing in line for tickets, there was this guy who said, "Pare, ano ba yang Dekalog na yan? Tagalog action ba yan?" FFS, take four). I honestly think that there would be more people who would've gone to see the movie if it was run in, say, Greenbelt or Shangri-La, and if people had known the schedules much earlier.

On the night I was planning to see Dekalog 7, 8, 9 and 10, I got an email again, this time saying that the screenings for Dekalog have been rescheduled for this weekend and moved to another SM cinema. Fabulous timing.

But despite saying "FFS" several times, I know I'll probably try and go anyway.

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For those who are interested, the Cinemanila organizers have scheduled the Dekalog screenings to run from August 12 (Friday) to 14 (Sunday) at SM Megamall.

Cinemanila's Belgian Film Week will be running at SM Megamall as well, from August 17 to 23. Featured films are: My Life in Pink; Toto the Hero; Li (Between the Devil and Deep Blue Sea); Gilles' Wife; The Sacrament; Meisje (The Girl); The Promise; Pauline and Paulette; Steve + Sky; Calvaire (The Ordeal); and The Kiss.

I stumbled on this website called Dumbledore is not dead that claims, well, that Dumbledore isn't dead. Some of its supporting arguments echoed my own skepticism (e.g. it's not really like Dumbledore to plead for his life, so what was he actually pleading for?), but I'm not sure whether I buy the whole thing. Gandalf, anyone?

I came up with some questions during my HP6 hangover, and I'm hoping to put them to rest (well, at least for the next 700-odd days left until the release of HP7) by the act of blog-publishing:

1) My R.A.B. theory: I still stand by my theory, but I have to wonder how Regulus Black was able to get past all the obstacles Voldemort laid out to protect the Horcrux. There are two possibilities to this--

(a) R.A.B. was aided by knowledge he got from Voldemort. But I doubt this is the case: it's unlike Voldemort to trust anyone with that kind of sensitive information, even his closest henchmen, and it's also unlike Voldemort to leave some sort of a record or list of instructions that can be chanced upon by other people. It's also unlikely for Regulus to get the info through Legilimens, since Voldemort is apparently too powerful for that.

(b) R.A.B. was unaided by knowledge from Voldemort. I think this is more likely, but it assumes any (or some) of the following: that he was a powerful/gifted wizard himself, that he had some help (esp. with the potion-drinking bit), and/or that he had the same (or similar) information that Dumbledore and Harry did to enable him to find the Horcrux. But this possibility still leaves a lot of questions unanswered, like how the hell he knew about the blood payment, the boat, etc.

On another aspect of the theory, I've thought of another possible way by which Harry can find/get the Horcrux locket which was found in 12 Grimmauld Place: Mundungus may have swiped it along with other items from the Black home.

I'm not sure though whether R.A.B. was able to destroy the Horcrux; for all we know, the locket may still have Voldemort's partial soul intact.

(2) Why did Dumbledore REALLY trust Snape? I doubt that it was simply the show of remorse he had after the death of Lily and James/the Harry-Voldemort encounter. Dumbledore isn't stupid: he may have tried to find the best in people, but he saw Tom Riddle for who he really was (or for what he could turn out to be), such that he wasn't fooled by Tom Riddle's excellent performance at Hogwarts. So I think there must be some other reason (like an event or something) which Dumbledore knew firsthand to convince him that Snape, despite his past and despite his continued loathing for the Potters, really had reformed.

(3) If Dumbledore really is dead, can his portrait still help Harry? From the books, we know that the portraits can interact and still appear to have their memories. Does this mean that Dumbledore can continue to *educate* Harry to equip him with the necessary tools to fight Voldemort? And what exactly are the limits of being a portrait? Do the portraits have all the facilities of a human being, save for the bodily/physical dimension?

More importantly, how exactly are the portraits created? From OotP we know that it's possible for a person to have more than one portrait and to move between those portraits (in fact, to move to any portrait, for that matter, like what the Fat Lady did in PoA). Pushing the limits of absurdity, for example, can Harry take along a portrait of Dumbledore so that he'll have access to Dumbledore's sage wisdom in his quest to track down the Horcruxes (like a wizard version of 3G video conferencing)?

(4) What about Remus' werewolf tendencies? This is somewhat mababaw compared to the other questions, but who'll make his Wolfsbane Potion now? I expect that it'll be more important for him to keep his werewolf tendencies under control now that he's with Tonks, but with Snape gone and given the complexity of the Wolfsbane potion, it might be hard to find someone to make it for him. (By the way, I read somewhere that Remus will supposedly play a larger role in Book 7.)

(5) What will become of the Malfoys? Lucius is in Azkaban after flubbing his mission at the Ministry, and it seems that Draco didn't do as he was expected to do (for the objective of killing Dumbledore, it was actually Snape who accomplished the task--assuming you don't buy the "Dumbledore isn't dead" theory). Add that to the fact that Draco hesitated in killing Dumbledore, almost failed, and buckled under pressure (with the crying and all). Narcissa, on the other hand, went against Voldemort's explicit orders not to speak of the plan to anyone. All in all, it seems like our little Death Eater family may not that well-regarded by Lord Voldemort at the moment. How will Voldemort deal with them?

On another note, while Lucius and Narcissa may be lost causes, I think there's *hope* for Draco. His hesitation (and his crying scene/s in the bathroom) indicate that he's not as cold-blooded as the other Death Eaters. I was also thinking about his motivation for doing Voldemort's bidding; apparently, he did it because if he didn't obey, Voldemort will kill his entire family. I know this is trite, but doesn't that mean that his motivation is actually love, rather than evil/greed/malice/etc.? If so, then there may be positive implications to his actions if, as Dumbledore says, love is an ancient form of magic often commonly underestimated but nevertheless powerful.

(6) How can a Horcrux be destroyed? Dumbledore didn't get a chance to show Harry how to do this. Harry's destruction of the Horcrux diary was actually unintended (in the sense that he didn't know he was destroying a Horcrux), and he did so with help from the basilisk's lethal poison. What will Harry do then to destroy the Horcrux cup/locket/etc?

(7) How is Azkaban being guarded if the dementors have defected to Voldemort's camp? For instance, what's holding a wizard with knowledge of the Dark Arts (like Lucius Malfoy) from going back to Britain to join his Death Eater pals?

(8) Will Harry still use the Half-Blood Prince's Advanced Potions book? So he loathes Snape more than ever. But he can't deny that the book showed him a lot (e.g. *powerful* spells like Sectumsempra) and can potentially show him more.

(9) What about Fawkes? Does Fawkes belong to Dumbledore personally, or does he (or is Fawkes a she?) belong to the Office of the Headmaster, in which case he'll now belong to McGonagall? If Fawkes did belong to Dumbledore personally, does Fawkes now roam free, or does he choose another master, or did Dumbledore specify in his will who'll inherit Fawkes? For the last two possibilities, can Harry end up owning Fawkes in HP7?

On a related issue, how exactly did Fawkes become Dumbledore's to begin with? If Fawkes was always attached to Hogwarts, and if he's immortal, can it be that Fawkes was there at Hogwarts even during the days of Godric, Salazar, Rowena and Helga?

(10) What will happen to the pensieve? Like the question about Fawkes, there's the issue of whether the pensieve belonged to Dumbledore personally (in which case it'll be part of his estate, and it will be disposed of accordingly) or whether it belongs to the Office of the Headmaster (in which case the pensieve will now belong to McGonagall).

(11) What will happen to Hogwarts? Will Hogwarts close? If it does, what will happen to the legion of house-elves? To the castle? With McGonagall as the new Headmistress, who will now be the Head of Gryffindor?

(12) What will Harry do with 12 Grimmauld Place? He's not inclined to live there, with all the gloom, doom, and reminders of Sirius. Will he sell it, donate it, live in it, or what?

(13) What about Peter Pettigrew? We're still waiting for that showdown foretold in GoF about Peter being compelled to do something important for Harry.

(14) The Story of the Houses: Up until this point, the plot has mostly dealt with Slytherin. There was a small reference to Hufflepuff (a sidenote: is Zacharias Smith related to Hepzibah Smith? If so, does this mean that Zacharias Smith is also a descendant of Helga Hufflepuff?), but barely anything about Gryffindor and Ravenclaw. I'm reluctant to buy into the whole showdown-between-the Heirs-of-Gryffindor-and-Slytherin thing, but I think that we'll find out more about the Hogwarts founders, especially Gryffindor. Some points to consider:

(a) Godric's Hollow: Too much of a coincidence between the name of the village (yes, it's supposedly a village) and the name of Gryffindor. J.K. herself confirmed that the name was intended. So I think it's possible that there's a link between the Gryffindor story and Harry's ancestry (esp. James' line).

(b) Godric's sword: How exactly did Dumbledore get Godric Gryffindor's sword? If the relics of Slytherin and Hufflepuff were passed down to their respective descendants, is it also possible that Dumbledore acquired Godric's sword in the same way (either as Dumbledore the descendant of Gryffindor or as Dumbledore acquiring it from someone else unrelated to him who's the descendant of Gryffindor)?

(c) The Headmaster's Office: For some reason, the Headmaster's office seems to have a Gryffindor feeling, what with the sword, eagle entrance (griffins are part-eagles), etc. Was it always like this, even during the time of non-Gryffindor headmasters like Phineas, or is the Gryffindor touch just Dumbledore's?

(d) Dumbledore's hair: In HBP we learn that the younger Dumbledore's hair color was auburn. Is this a hint/does the hair color actually mean anything? Consider that red in general is associated with Gryffindor.

It's especially hard to guess what the possible Ravenclaw-relic-turned-Horcrux is if we know little about Ravenclaw's story.

(15) Possible hiding spots for the other Horcruxes: Considering the location of the ring and the locket, Voldemort's criteria for selecting a hiding spot seems to be whether the hiding spot is significant in his life story: the ring was in the Gaunt house, and the locket was one of the places where he first discovered/demonstrated his magical abilities. Based on this, I'm thinking that the other Horcruxes (or at least some of them) may be hidden in the following:

- House quarters of Slytherin in Hogwarts
- Borgin and Burkes in Knockturn Alley
- The Riddle Manor in Little Hangleton
- Godric's Hollow (this may not be significant in his life story in the way that the others were, but I'm thinking that he could've found a Gryffindor relic here that Dumbledore didn't know about)
- The orphanage (though I won't put much store on this one, since he didn't really like it there and since the cave already represents a childhood thing, making the orphanage redundant if it were to serve the same purpose)
- With one of the Death Eaters (even though Lucius didn't know the diary was a Horcrux, Voldemort DID entrust him with it, so it's possible that Voldemort used the same strategy for one of the other Horcruxes too)

Here's to two year's of waiting. :)

I started reading Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince later than most Harry Potter fans, but now that I have, I came up with this theory about R.A.B. and the mystery of the locket. It's quite long because I tried to include as many pieces of evidence as I can remember at the moment. I hope people read on anyway despite the length. :)

I read spoilers before reading the book, but I have not read any post-HBP theories yet so I didn't get these ideas from any other source/s.

(Here you go, Cams!)


MY MAIN POINTS

(A) R.A.B. is Regulus Black, Sirius' brother.

(B) The *real* horcrux locket can be found in Sirius' house, a.k.a. 12 Grimmauld Place.


SUPPORTING EVIDENCE

Name: Of all the characters in the wizarding world, I could only think of two surnames starting with the letter "B" that are of note: Black (as in Sirius' house) and Bones (as in Susan or Amelia). I ruled out the Bones clan because (1) I got the impression that they're staunchly anti-Voldemort, so it would be very hard for someone from their house to get close enough to Voldemort to learn about the Horcrux secret, and (2) R.A.B. referred to Voldemort as "The Dark Lord," and as far as I can tell, only Death Eaters call him that, and it is unlikely (but of course, not impossible) for someone from the Bones family to be part of Voldemort's circle.

So in general, the Black family, with its history of pure-blood elitism and affinity with Voldemort, is a more likely origin for R.A.B.

Regulus Black: We know from Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix that Sirius had a brother named Regulus who joined the Death Eaters (see OotP, pp. 111-12). His death makes him even a more likely candidate for being R.A.B.:

"Was he killed by an Auror?" Harry asked tentatively.

"Oh no," said Sirius. "No, he was murdered by Voldemort. Or on Voldemort's orders, more likely, I doubt Regulus was ever important enough to be killed by Voldemort in person. From what I found out after he died, he got in so far, then panicked about what he was being asked to do and tried to back out. Well, you just don't hand in your resignation to Voldemort. It's a lifetime of service or death."

Clearly, Regulus had differences with Voldemort, but not before he became privy to some of Voldemort's secrets. It's even possible that Voldemort killed him because he suspected Regulus of sabotaging his horcrux plan (though I'm not too sure about this--R.A.B.'s letter made it seem like Voldemort had no idea about the tampering of the locket).

The House of Black: Another possible reason why R.A.B. is probably Regulus is the Black family tree. I've posted below the family tree of the House of Black, taken from the Harry Potter Lexicon, as based on descriptions from the book/s: (Click the image below to enlarge)


From here, you can see that Regulus is the only Black family member whose name starts with the letter R. Also, we have yet to find out what Sirius and Regulus' mother's name is; it's possible that their mother's maiden name starts with an A (hence, the "A" in R.A.B.). Alternatively, the "A" can also be Regulus' middle name (as in "James" in "Harry James Potter").

Timeline: From OotP, we also know that Regulus died "some fifteen years previously" from the time that the events in OotP take place (OotP, p. 112). This is roughly in the same time frame (+/- a few years) as (1) the height of Voldemort's power (so Voldemort was powerful enough to kill him because of their differences), and (2) Voldemort learning about the prophecy (so Voldemort was worried enough about the threats to his power to address any problem in a prompt fashion).

Regulus probably died before the massacre with Peter Pettigrew because the massacre happened after the Voldemort-Harry encounter, and Regulus was supposedly killed (or at least was ordered to be killed) by Voldemort himself. This means that Sirius was *free* (i.e. not yet in Azkaban) for a time after Regulus' death, and as his brother, Sirius was probably given the task of taking care of his brother's effects (more on this later).

The locket: From HBP, we know that the locket is heavy; made of gold; previously owned by Slytherin; one of Marvolo's treasured family heirlooms; and has an ornate, serpentine "S."

Now compare this with the locket found by Harry, Hermione and the Weasley children in 12 Grimmauld Place (the Black home) when they were cleaning the house in Order of the Phoenix:

Harry tried his best not to think about the hearing while he emptied the glass-fronted cabinets that afternoon. Fortunately for him, it was a job that required a lot of concentration, as many of the objects in there seemed very reluctant to leave their dusty shelves. Sirius sustained a bad bite from a silver snuffbox; within seconds his bitten hand had developed an unpleasant crusty covering like a tough brown glove.

...

They found an unpleasant-looking silver instrument, something like a many-legged pair of tweezers, which scuttled up Harry's arm like a spider when he picked it up, and attempted to puncture his skin. Sirius seized it and smashed it with a heavy book entitled Nature's Nobility: A Wizarding Genealogy. There was a musical box that emitted a faintly sinister, tinkling tune when wound, and they all found themselves becoming curiously weak and sleepy, until Ginny had the sense to slam the lid shut; a heavy locket that none of them could open; a number of ancient seals; and, in a dusty box, an Order of Merlin, First Class, that had been awarded to Sirius's grandfather for 'services to the Ministry'. (italics mine)

My guess is that the "heavy locket" is actually the *real* horcrux. There are two possible ways to explain why it's there:

(1) Regulus himself placed it there. He may have placed some charm on it to make it hard to open. He may have also chosen to keep it at 12 Grimmauld Place because he knew that Sirius was not allied with Voldemort and the Death Eaters, and would therefore not do him/them any favors such as handing over an object located in the Black home.

(2) Regulus may have kept it somewhere, and it was discovered sometime after his death. For example, Sirius may have gotten possession of it upon taking care of Regulus' affairs/effects after his death. Sirius or Kreacher may have just placed it along with other "family heirlooms," thinking that it was just another piece of Black memorabilia.

12 Grimmauld Place: So where is the locket now? I think it's still in 12 Grimmauld Place. Kreacher supposedly saved a few Black antiques from Sirius' house purge and kept it in his cupboard, so the locket may very well be one of the "small objects" that glinted in the corner of the cupboard when Harry, Ron and Hermione peered into Kreacher's quarters.

Psychologizing J.K. Rowling: I really think it's too late in the HP series to bring in a new character; doing that would be a pseudo-deus ex machina (in the sense of being out of the blue, not in the sense of being an sudden resolution) and kill the entire franchise. Okay, so maybe that's an overstatement. :D Seriously, though, I think it's more likely that J.K. would use a character that was mentioned in passing in the first six books as R.A.B.

Additionally, the seemingly-unimportant-character-becomes-key-to-the-story strategy seems to be J.K.'s style. Consider Barty Crouch in Goblet of Fire, for example.

I also think that the subplot of the House of Black can and will still be explored further. 12 Grimmauld Place is significant for being the former headquarters of the Order of the Phoenix and for having Kreacher's fate tied to it, but the house (in both the literal and figurative sense) can still be important in other ways. Of course there's Narcissa and Bellatrix, but notice that Book 6 didn't delve too much into Harry's inheritance from Sirius. Why then would it be important that Harry ended up inheriting 12 Grimmauld Place?

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I still need to go through HBP again (I was actually skimming more than anything), so I may still add/subtract evidence from this theory. And yes, I'm a real HP fanatic.

Comments welcome. :)

Reopening this blog for the nth time. Don't ask me why. The short explanation is that I'm killing time until I have to go to my graduation.