Why I Love HBP Snape (and Salman Rushdie Does too!)

[harmony_bites]

I was just discussing with gioiamia, who like me recs on KIA, why I love Snape. She's involved with a LJ Community that speculates about Book 7, called hpbook7thoughts. That group isn't particularly SS/HG oriented, and Gioia actually considers Harry/Ginny her OTP. She says that everyone she knows in her corner of the fandom, Snape fan or not, believes Snape is still one

Comments

[e_danae]

I've started to be interested in Snape after reading book four. I just thought - hey, here comes a well-written character! There might be one or two web pages about him! - and fall into the deep deep Snape-verse.

After reading chapter two in HBP I just knew JKR took the Snape's side and opened a new game. Just the (important!) fact that Potter's POV was gone and there stood a Snape we hadn't seen before...
Of course the killing scene was kind of shock. Of course I started to look for an explanation: and it wasn't too difficult to find more then one ;)

I believe the problem of HBP ff has two faces.
One is, canon has narrowed. A lot. There are many facts you have to respect as an author, if you want to write a post-HPB story, Snape-centric or not. If you want to write a good and canon story, you actually have to have your Book 7 already written in your head. At least as a draft. Even if you are such a hater of novel length stories of "Harry Potter and..." as I am, you actually write your book seven (or at least part of it) every time you write a post HBP story. A bit scary.
And you still face the danger your motives and even your plot will double with some other author. Because there are not that many ways where to go now. Kind of discouraging. (If you are not that wicked to put your fic 10 after the war, heh, heh... ;)

Second, Snape has become the more complex character he has ever been before. Forget the guy who smirks, but wouldn't hurt a fly. Dumbledore is stony dead. Forget the innocent times when we could hope for the better future for the Potion Master and his bushy hairy apprentice and still be kind of canon aware. Forget the fluff. Every Hermione who wants to join Snape now has to go through the darkness and blood and sacrifice everything. Not everyone wants to write this kind of story and not everyone knows how.

When I think of it, I have probably just one favorite "real post HBP" story: duj's Dumbledore's Man.

But I have actually few beloved stories which take place during the HBP time. And from those, Books of Shadows has to me mentioned in the first place, because I'm still full of it. These seven chapter made the reading time during my vacation a real bliss and I just want to have a little more time to write you a thoughtful review or two. Because I have been bewitched...

[harmony_bites]

I suppose that is true--that canon has narrowed. But I think shippers narrow it even further by stubborning telling the same stories over and over. You know how much I love Thirty Pieces (which itself is post-HBP) and part of what I love is that it's not the five hundredth apprentice or 1,001st seventh year fic or the 2,002nd MLC. There was something Shiv once said on WIKTT about MLC fics that resonated with me. That the shame about them wasn't the stories told, but the ones that weren't. Where were the stories about Hermione with her own business, or championing elf-rights, or finding a cure for Lycanthopy?

It's true fluff is much harder, but not impossible postHBP. In fact, I could give you a post-HBP scenario, two, where Snape is not even a killer. Both staying strictly within the lines of current canon (though not with things JKR has said since she says AD is definately dead).

1) It was all a ruse. Snape didn't even cast AK on the Astronomy Tower. He said one thing but cast another spell that landed AD safely on the ground in a deep sleep. There's a Final Battle where AD is revealed still alive, fighting, and kicking, Snape's shown to be a hero and is reinstated at Hogwarts with that Medal of Merlin around his neck. A scenario similar to that is used by StormySkize in a fic and Jodel of Red Hen at one point argued along these lines.

2) See my comments above with Shiv. AD was already dying by the poison Harry fed him. Snape performed AK on an AD that was already dead. This is revealed and Snape gets off w/o even a visit to Azkaban.

These aren't frankly very plausible scenarios--but they are *possible* w/o throwing away HBP.

And Duj's is a good example of a realistic postHBP tale that argues for Snape being good. Another is SnarkyRoxy's "What I know You've Done" But both are short stories though, not the kind of meaty tale that usally locks someone into a ship.

But I have actually few beloved stories which take place during the HBP time. And from those, Books of Shadows has to me mentioned in the first place, because I'm still full of it. These seven chapter made the reading time during my vacation a real bliss and I just want to have a little more time to write you a thoughtful review or two. Because I have been bewitched...

:preens: Thanks!

Uh oh. Does this mean every time I try to get you to write more Thirty Pieces you're going to mention Book of Shadows to me?

*gulp*