this being finals weekend and all…
May. 14th, 2006 12:28 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ricardienneI am of course not actually doing anything. Why am I so lazy? WHY?
I have been poking around on HP Lexicon, however.
This essay is fascinating, although I think she draws perhaps too many conclusions (I mean, can we really say that Terry Boot must be an evangelical Christian by his name alone?) and it was written pre-HBP:
http://www.hp-lexicon.org/essays/essay-secrets-of-the-classlist.html
And this essay is seriously in denial:
http://www.hp-lexicon.org/essays/essay-dumbledore-vivens.html
I also listened to this bit of interview with JKR:
http://www.crusaders.no/%7Eafhp/interviews/connection/13.%20Snape.mp3
So… Snape falling/having fallen in love is a Very Significant Question, and has something to do with a redemptive pattern, and will all be explained in Book 7.
To which I say, therefore, Snape is not evil. Obviously.
I'm sort of worried that I want Snape to be on Harry's side in the end so much. I really will feel let down and betrayed if he turns out to be a loyal Death Eater, or, more likely, an utterly amoral Slytherin opportunist. It certainly isn't that "oh, there must be good in everyone" sentiment. Snape is a nasty, bitter, unpleasant person. I had him for a quartet coach once, actually, and it was a horrible experience. On the other hand, being a loner and hating everyone I meet I can identify with. I think it would be pushing it more than little a bit to say that I want Snape to be redeemed because that will prove that I can be redeemed too: I don't really think I'm in need of redeeming.
I suppose it's because he's a fascinating character -- the most interesting character in the whole series. He's also a tortured and angst-ridden character: I like those, too. And I'm a naive romantic this way. I don't find the Evil Side attractive because it's rebellious and edgy and alternative: in fact, Slytherin-apologists, wannabe Death Eaters, and Voldemort-adorers kind of bother me, because I am not really a moral relativist that way. There are things that are wrong, and torture, murder, and tyranny are rather high among them. I don't wear teeshirts that say "Voldemort Votes Republican" and "Bush is a Death Eater" because I like the Republicans. Evil that is glamorous and lives in a mansion and can trace its ancestry back 700 years is still evil. I must retract some of this: there is something attractive and exciting about the DEs. I suppose danger is thrilling, and absolute power, and charismatic and cruel leaders who are as likely to torture their subordinates as their "enemies" have some sort of draw. Hierarchies are exciting things. I've always been fascinated with hierarchies, and who has power over whom. I still am. For me, this is all the same pull that fascism has: so simple, so powerful. The power, I think, is the main thing. But, I believe that we can do better than that. I am a child of the Enlightenment; I can recognize that this sort of primitive power-structure and I can fight against its attraction.
I can see this in Snape, as well. He was a sort of twisted idealist, I think; when he was in school, the old, shadowy darkness must have seemed more meaningful than the bright-lit cheer of egalitarian New Hogwarts represented by Dumbledore. But if the darkness is more exciting, the light is preferable for actually living. I want Snape to realize this, or to have realized it. It's all very well for Barty Crouch to be deluded; Lucius Malfoy, in spite of his name, has a stake in the hierarchical power-driven world. But Snape… he invents his own spells; he makes potions: creates things. There is an element of knowledge to his character, and an intellectuality that means he should be able to realize how worthless the vision that Voldemort presents is.
I have been poking around on HP Lexicon, however.
This essay is fascinating, although I think she draws perhaps too many conclusions (I mean, can we really say that Terry Boot must be an evangelical Christian by his name alone?) and it was written pre-HBP:
http://www.hp-lexicon.org/essays/essay-secrets-of-the-classlist.html
And this essay is seriously in denial:
http://www.hp-lexicon.org/essays/essay-dumbledore-vivens.html
I also listened to this bit of interview with JKR:
http://www.crusaders.no/%7Eafhp/interviews/connection/13.%20Snape.mp3
So… Snape falling/having fallen in love is a Very Significant Question, and has something to do with a redemptive pattern, and will all be explained in Book 7.
To which I say, therefore, Snape is not evil. Obviously.
I'm sort of worried that I want Snape to be on Harry's side in the end so much. I really will feel let down and betrayed if he turns out to be a loyal Death Eater, or, more likely, an utterly amoral Slytherin opportunist. It certainly isn't that "oh, there must be good in everyone" sentiment. Snape is a nasty, bitter, unpleasant person. I had him for a quartet coach once, actually, and it was a horrible experience. On the other hand, being a loner and hating everyone I meet I can identify with. I think it would be pushing it more than little a bit to say that I want Snape to be redeemed because that will prove that I can be redeemed too: I don't really think I'm in need of redeeming.
I suppose it's because he's a fascinating character -- the most interesting character in the whole series. He's also a tortured and angst-ridden character: I like those, too. And I'm a naive romantic this way. I don't find the Evil Side attractive because it's rebellious and edgy and alternative: in fact, Slytherin-apologists, wannabe Death Eaters, and Voldemort-adorers kind of bother me, because I am not really a moral relativist that way. There are things that are wrong, and torture, murder, and tyranny are rather high among them. I don't wear teeshirts that say "Voldemort Votes Republican" and "Bush is a Death Eater" because I like the Republicans. Evil that is glamorous and lives in a mansion and can trace its ancestry back 700 years is still evil. I must retract some of this: there is something attractive and exciting about the DEs. I suppose danger is thrilling, and absolute power, and charismatic and cruel leaders who are as likely to torture their subordinates as their "enemies" have some sort of draw. Hierarchies are exciting things. I've always been fascinated with hierarchies, and who has power over whom. I still am. For me, this is all the same pull that fascism has: so simple, so powerful. The power, I think, is the main thing. But, I believe that we can do better than that. I am a child of the Enlightenment; I can recognize that this sort of primitive power-structure and I can fight against its attraction.
I can see this in Snape, as well. He was a sort of twisted idealist, I think; when he was in school, the old, shadowy darkness must have seemed more meaningful than the bright-lit cheer of egalitarian New Hogwarts represented by Dumbledore. But if the darkness is more exciting, the light is preferable for actually living. I want Snape to realize this, or to have realized it. It's all very well for Barty Crouch to be deluded; Lucius Malfoy, in spite of his name, has a stake in the hierarchical power-driven world. But Snape… he invents his own spells; he makes potions: creates things. There is an element of knowledge to his character, and an intellectuality that means he should be able to realize how worthless the vision that Voldemort presents is.
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no subject
Date: 2006-05-14 02:05 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-05-15 05:30 am (UTC)There's one more element, though (for me, at least)-- I want him to be redeemed precisely because he's a thoroughly nasty, unpleasant person. It feels too easy to make all the people you wouldn't want to spend even 5 minutes with be evil and all the nice people on the side of good. Snape being on the Order's side would shake it up quite nicely.
no subject
Date: 2006-05-16 01:20 am (UTC)I realize that this makes it sound like I'm arguing, "Snape is mean, and therefore he is evil," which I'm not at all. But Snape is on the fence, or was -- he is partially attracted to evil. And so for him to come out good, he would have to repudiate some of the unpleasantness. Sarcasm is one thing. Not suffering fools is one thing. But tormenting his students? That to me indicates that he is still in Voldemort's thrall, even if he doesn't think he is.