Snape: The Real Protagonist of the HP Series
Found this article via sylvanawood's post in dh_oh_shit. It’s chock full of spoilers, so don’t read it unless you’ve finished Deathly Hallows, but it expresses eloquently and succinctly something I think a lot of us feel about Snape.
Missing from ‘Harry Potter’ - a real moral struggle
Oh, and how does Rowling feel about Snape now?
I also discovered in another post by sylvanawood in dh_oh_shit which can be found here that apparently Rowling wasn’t trying to pull the wool over our eyes in her past anti-Snape comments. In the answer to a question by a child, she said that Snape was no hero.
WTF?
I hadn’t liked Snape before Half-Blood Prince-it was that book that led me to re-evaluate him. Then, when I did my little re-tour of the books, I was struck by all the little things that had slipped past me. On first read, a reader tends to see things very much from Harry’s point of view. First time reading The Philosopher’s Stone, when Snape limps past Ron, and Ron says he hopes it hurts, I had smiled. On re-read, I knew Snape had been wounded trying to save them all and I felt disgusted-at Ron. (And my liking for Ron never recovered from that.) First time reading Prisoner of Azkaban, when Sirius bangs Snape’s lolling, bleeding head against the Shrieking Shack, I had found that funny. On re-read, I thought of how a concussed Snape could have been killed and felt outrage. First time reading the Order of the Phoenix I don’t remember noting how the Marauders had been described as predators with Snape as their prey. On re-read, I found that chilling. By the time I had finished the fifth book for the second time, I had developed a real antipathy for all the Marauders-James, Remus, and Sirius included-that never left me. I couldn’t believe that Rowling could write all this and not expect me to feel tremendous sympathy for Snape. I dismissed Rowling’s comments that Snape was a “deeply horrible man” we shouldn’t “feel sorry for” as her just trying to throw us off.
When after reading Deathly Hallows, I described what Snape had done and why to a friend who doesn’t follow HP, and quoted passages from “The Prince’s Story”, her reaction was “good man.” How can Rowling write what she did in prior books, then write the things she did in Deathly Hallows and tell us Snape isn’t a hero?:
“I am not such a coward;” “Sometimes, I think we sort too early;” “Lately, only those whom I could not save;” “Always;” Harry so admiring Snape he named a son “Albus Severus,” and then calling Snape “probably the bravest man I ever knew.”
Could the complexity and heroism she built into Snape all really have been unconscious on her part? Accidental?
::stunned::
Unless Rowling answered the child that way, because she fears that calling Snape a hero to children is to encourage them to emulate him. And Snape in his everyday existence often is petty, cruel, unfair, bullying, vindictive, suspicious, hurtful, bitter-and to children.
You can understand and appreciate the character, even see him as heroic, and yet not want him to be a role model.
Nevertheless, Rowling undercuts Harry’s growth in maturity and understanding shown in that epilogue if she brushes off Snape this way. For me, certainly, Harry’s comments in the epilogue were the most moving part of the book as I thought we had finally left behind the House stereotypes. It’s not as if Rowling left much else. No Slytherins in the DA. The Slytherin table cleared with none willing to stay to fight Voldemort. Crabbe and Goyle finding their forte is Crucio. Draco proven a sniveling coward out for himself in ways no fanon twisting imo can ever undo. Pansy drawing her wand against Harry. Lucius hardly a shining example of humanity (good hair and Jason Isaacs notwithstanding).
Slughorn fighting on the teachers’ side and Regulus’ sacrifice is hardly enough to redeem Slytherin House. So how can Harry credibly tell his son that being sorted into Slytherin does not matter if Snape is no hero?
Trek fandom has a rule I wish HP fandom would adopt. For Trek, canon is what is filmed, not interviews or novelizations or scripts or compendiums or lexicons or encyclopedias or pro authorized stories. Even the pro fiction anthology contest for Trek went by those rules. For HP, it’s the seven books that are canon-not what Rowling says. Unless she changes her mind and writes another book in that universe, canon is closed.
Snape belongs to us now.
Edit Given one article I read, what Rowling has been saying isn’t quite as bad as I had heard:
Confused by Potter?
“I don’t really see him as a hero,” Rowling said. “He’s not an unequivocally good character … He’s a complicated man.”
Rowling said Snape is bitter, spiteful and a bully, but he is also immensely brave and capable of love.
“As we know from the epilogue, Harry really sees the good in Snape ultimately … there’s redemption,” Rowling said. “I wanted there to be redemption and I wanted there to be forgiveness. And Harry forgives, even knowing that till the end Snape loathes him unjustifiably.”
I’d still take issue though, but I think it has more to do with how Rowling would define “hero” rather than how she sees Snape. I still see Snape as a hero, just a flawed one. But then in my mind that’s true of Harry James “Crucio” Potter too.
Comments are also spoiler friendly-so if you don’t want to be spoiled-don’t look.
Missing from ‘Harry Potter’ - a real moral struggle
Oh, and how does Rowling feel about Snape now?
I also discovered in another post by sylvanawood in dh_oh_shit which can be found here that apparently Rowling wasn’t trying to pull the wool over our eyes in her past anti-Snape comments. In the answer to a question by a child, she said that Snape was no hero.
WTF?
I hadn’t liked Snape before Half-Blood Prince-it was that book that led me to re-evaluate him. Then, when I did my little re-tour of the books, I was struck by all the little things that had slipped past me. On first read, a reader tends to see things very much from Harry’s point of view. First time reading The Philosopher’s Stone, when Snape limps past Ron, and Ron says he hopes it hurts, I had smiled. On re-read, I knew Snape had been wounded trying to save them all and I felt disgusted-at Ron. (And my liking for Ron never recovered from that.) First time reading Prisoner of Azkaban, when Sirius bangs Snape’s lolling, bleeding head against the Shrieking Shack, I had found that funny. On re-read, I thought of how a concussed Snape could have been killed and felt outrage. First time reading the Order of the Phoenix I don’t remember noting how the Marauders had been described as predators with Snape as their prey. On re-read, I found that chilling. By the time I had finished the fifth book for the second time, I had developed a real antipathy for all the Marauders-James, Remus, and Sirius included-that never left me. I couldn’t believe that Rowling could write all this and not expect me to feel tremendous sympathy for Snape. I dismissed Rowling’s comments that Snape was a “deeply horrible man” we shouldn’t “feel sorry for” as her just trying to throw us off.
When after reading Deathly Hallows, I described what Snape had done and why to a friend who doesn’t follow HP, and quoted passages from “The Prince’s Story”, her reaction was “good man.” How can Rowling write what she did in prior books, then write the things she did in Deathly Hallows and tell us Snape isn’t a hero?:
“I am not such a coward;” “Sometimes, I think we sort too early;” “Lately, only those whom I could not save;” “Always;” Harry so admiring Snape he named a son “Albus Severus,” and then calling Snape “probably the bravest man I ever knew.”
Could the complexity and heroism she built into Snape all really have been unconscious on her part? Accidental?
::stunned::
Unless Rowling answered the child that way, because she fears that calling Snape a hero to children is to encourage them to emulate him. And Snape in his everyday existence often is petty, cruel, unfair, bullying, vindictive, suspicious, hurtful, bitter-and to children.
You can understand and appreciate the character, even see him as heroic, and yet not want him to be a role model.
Nevertheless, Rowling undercuts Harry’s growth in maturity and understanding shown in that epilogue if she brushes off Snape this way. For me, certainly, Harry’s comments in the epilogue were the most moving part of the book as I thought we had finally left behind the House stereotypes. It’s not as if Rowling left much else. No Slytherins in the DA. The Slytherin table cleared with none willing to stay to fight Voldemort. Crabbe and Goyle finding their forte is Crucio. Draco proven a sniveling coward out for himself in ways no fanon twisting imo can ever undo. Pansy drawing her wand against Harry. Lucius hardly a shining example of humanity (good hair and Jason Isaacs notwithstanding).
Slughorn fighting on the teachers’ side and Regulus’ sacrifice is hardly enough to redeem Slytherin House. So how can Harry credibly tell his son that being sorted into Slytherin does not matter if Snape is no hero?
Trek fandom has a rule I wish HP fandom would adopt. For Trek, canon is what is filmed, not interviews or novelizations or scripts or compendiums or lexicons or encyclopedias or pro authorized stories. Even the pro fiction anthology contest for Trek went by those rules. For HP, it’s the seven books that are canon-not what Rowling says. Unless she changes her mind and writes another book in that universe, canon is closed.
Snape belongs to us now.
Edit Given one article I read, what Rowling has been saying isn’t quite as bad as I had heard:
Confused by Potter?
“I don’t really see him as a hero,” Rowling said. “He’s not an unequivocally good character … He’s a complicated man.”
Rowling said Snape is bitter, spiteful and a bully, but he is also immensely brave and capable of love.
“As we know from the epilogue, Harry really sees the good in Snape ultimately … there’s redemption,” Rowling said. “I wanted there to be redemption and I wanted there to be forgiveness. And Harry forgives, even knowing that till the end Snape loathes him unjustifiably.”
I’d still take issue though, but I think it has more to do with how Rowling would define “hero” rather than how she sees Snape. I still see Snape as a hero, just a flawed one. But then in my mind that’s true of Harry James “Crucio” Potter too.
Comments are also spoiler friendly-so if you don’t want to be spoiled-don’t look.