Enemies Of The Heir...Beware

Woooohooo time for another Harry Potter Post!  I intended to have this up a couple weeks ago, but you know...life.  Anyways lets jump right into this.  This post will be me gushing...I mean rambling about Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets by J.K. Rowling.  As before I will not go into any detailed plot synopsis as that is available in a plethora of sources (my favorite being the Harry Potter Lexicon) and instead will mostly be talking about my own personal feelings on various topics.  As always SPOILERS AHEAD!

So this book is cool 'cause we get to come back to a world we already know.  We have been introduced to the wizarding world, we have all secretly watched our mailboxes for our Hogwarts letters (mine is just a wee bit late, I know it!), we all know that Slytherin is bad and Gryffindor is good (I do have a bit of a problem with this, but it gets resolved in later books) and we have all fallen in love with Hagrid.  This of course makes the fact that our poor hero stuck friendless with his horrid Muggle relatives all summer just that much more awful.  I like how much the opening of the book drives home that as bad as Harry thought he had it before, a taste of a better life makes his Muggle life that much worse.  We are all confident in our knowledge as a reader that we know whats going down 'cause hey we read the first book and now we are wizard experts...except BAM here comes Dobby to add another dimension (one that turns out to be not so pleasant in later books) to our known world. Now Dobby is special to me 'cause he is my Hubbins favorite character, so much so that he said if we ever had a kid he would call it Dobby (just one of the many reasons we are skipping the whole kid thing), anyways every time Dobby appears on page or screen it makes me think of Hubbin and smile.  This book shows us that there is a myriad of facets to the wizarding world and not all of them as magical and savory as we would like.  So this is skipping around a bit so lets move on to a more list type format and see if that works better shall we?

Random things that caught my attention in the book, movie, and the Lego game
Family-The book especially shows the different facets of family.  The lengths Ron and his brothers go through to get Harry not only speak of a deep friendship, but of a comradrie among the Weasley boys that makes them help each other without really questioning it.  Molly Weasley being angry at the boys has less to do with true anger then it does her fear that something happened to them.  The ease of which they "adopt" Harry into the family, the instant love Harry has for the Burrow (even though some people think it is shabby), and the all around live and let live attitude of the whole Weasley clan is pretty awesome and reminds me of my own family (yep I am one of those lucky people who pretty much grew up in a Weasley type house...I even think there was magic!).  Contrast this to the coldness displayed in the interactions with the Malfoy family.  Draco likes to run around pretending that his life is perfect in his rich pure-blood mansion, but the interactions we see with his father of of a fairly cold nature.  He is expected to live up to impossibly high standards and is given no leeway when he falls short.  I sometimes think Draco is probably pretty jealous of Ron Weasley because as much as he gives him a hard time, Ron is the one with the loving family, Ron is the one with the friends, and in the end Ron is one of the hero's.  Again this all comes in to play in later books.
Set-Up-This is the book, when after finishing the series and looking back starts to really set up the long term stuff.  There is of course stuff in the first book (Harry's origin's especially) that overeach the whole series, but this book is where we look back and see specifics start to emerge.  Like the diary being a
Horcrux...something that isn't even mentioned until the sixth book.  We also see the family dynamics that build through out the rest of the books.  Here is where we start to really set up the pure-bloods against the rest of the world conflicts, starting with little jabs and pokes, such as when Draco calls Hermione a mud-blood, (can I just say in the movie, the scene when Hagrid comforts Hermione when she is in tears is one of the best scenes in movie history...I just loved it!) or the more sinister outright murder of Muggle borns. We start to learn the story of Tom Riddle/Voldemort and the theme of the similarities between Harry and the Dark Lord starts to take shape.  We also hear Dumbledore drive home the fact that in the end it is the choices we make and not the circumstances we are put in that make us who we are. Polyjuice Potion makes its first appearance here and is used to great effect here and in future books. The first book did an excellent job creating this world and it's number one villain.  This book turns it into a saga of epic awesomeness.
Characters/Casting-This book introduced us to a wide range of characters outside of our three hero's.  We get to delve a little deeper into several inhabitants of the wizarding world.  Sir Nicholas de Mimsy Porpington or Nearly Headless Nick is the Gryffindor ghost and we get to see the world of ghosts through his deathday party.  In the movie and game this is left out as it really does not further the whole storyline, but it will always be one of my favorite parts in the book.  I also love how the three friends are willing to go to the party to help Nicholas feel better, even though the party itself is pretty rotten (literally!)  We are introduced to Draco's father Lucius Malfoy in this book/movie and can I just say that Jason Isaacs plays him with a cold cruel perfection!  Lucius is our link to post Voldemort Death-Eaters, he is the face of prejudice and entitlement and while he is a bit of a stereotype, he serves a purpose in the books.  We get to see more of the teachers, Madame Pompfrey (I want to be a wizard nurse so bad!) and Professor Sprout get some great page/screen time and remind us that there is more to Hogwarts then Dumbldore, Snape and
McGonagall (who form there own little trio of of mismatched "friends" through out the books).  I still am not thrilled with the casting of Percy or some of the other lesser students, but most of the casting was spot on.
Gildroy Lockheart-I know he is a character, but he gets his own section 'cause there is so much to say about this guy.  First of all I love him in the books, and the casting in the movie was perfect with Kenneth Branagh smarming it up all over the place.  This character is probably one of the most wonderful embodiment's of how people are around celebrities and how it can easily go to a persons head. His constant need to be in the spotlight, to show up everybody around him, but with no actual talent (other then memory charms) is an ailment that is very pervasive in the real world.  What I like most about this character is how other people react to him.  Hermione and Mrs. Weasley in paticular go ga-ga over him.  This is a great way to show that as smart and logical as our Hermione is, she is still a human girl and is able to be blinded by the most charming smile (five years in a row in fact :-) ).  Here eventual disillusionment of her crush is sort of sad, and yet so relateable. I am kind of sad that this was not shown in the movie (though the Lego game showed in the most hilarious way possible, hearts in the eyes and everything) because I think it is a humanizing point for Hermione and shows that you can be a smart girl, and a girly girl, and a sweet girl, and a genius all in the same package.  I also loved that the Harry and Ron in particular learned you can seriously dislike somebody for reasons other then they are evil.  Lockheart was never an "evil" character, he was never a Death-Eater, he was just really annoying, so annoying in fact that Ron and Harry were tempted to root for the dreaded Professor Snape in dueling class.
The Ending-I will say I have mixed feelings about the last couple chapters of this book.  I thought that the phoenix coming in with the hat, sword and healing tears was a little convenient, I know it was meant to show just how loyal Harry was to Dumbledore and the precepts of Gryffindor, but it felt a little deus ex machina to me.  I did however like how long it took Harry to figure out that Tom Riddle was a bad guy, it shows his tendency to want to think good of people in general. The whole Hagrid and Argog thing...eh, again seemed really convenient.  I do however love how Harry got Lucius Malfoy to free Dobby and the consequences it has in future books.  The idea that this rich, entitled, powerful man was tricked into freeing his servant, who is a great status symbol by a second year student with a sock was pretty sweet.

I loved the first book for the world building and its ability to completely immerse me in this alternate universe, I love the second book for being just as good as the first and for setting up the rest of the series. There is so much more I could talk about, but this is already a mega post and there are five more books to read!  It is now time for me to go read, watch, play and interact with the third book and I am very excited about it.  I love this chance to just go on and on and on about these books that I love.  Thanks for hanging in there and Happy Reading Everybody!
Did you like the second book as much as the first?  What are your feelings on Dobby?  Did this post make any sense?  Do I ever make any sense?