Snape: The Real Protagonist of the HP Series

[harmony_bites]

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?

Comments

[lipasnape]

I agree with everything you wrote here and in comments. I agree with your choice of issues to address. Lots of irritating irrelevant comments all over the place.

I liked Red Hen's idea that JKR was behind the photographed book, the idea that she was so wide a person to indulge in a huge practical joke appealed to me so much that I was gravely disappointed when it turned out to be Red Hen's enthusiasm, and not JKR's. So, I don't care AT ALL what she says in her interviews. She missed a chance to be interesting as a person.

You found excellent quotations to show that she did, indeed, create Snape that fanfiction authors can develop rather fairly, but she did not give him credit enough. Not only by giving him too little space, but also by making him too straight and narrow. DH Canon Snape is not someone I would wish to emulate, let alone children. If his unrealized love for Lily is one and only content of his soul, and that is the reason why Albus trusted him, then I am cheated for answers to many secrets hinted at in previous books.

I liked the book a lot. Most of it was very interesting, but some of it was papery and rushed. I wouldn't have minded waiting another year for a better and longer DH. For example, I would like to know how come not only Voldemort, but Snape also can fly. I would like to get to know Viktor. And the relationship between Lupin and Tonks beyond the fanon-Snape-like self-flagellaton.

It was funny how many solutions in DH were already found in various fanfic stories. Sphynx-like questions instead of password for the Ravenclaw tower, for example.

I didn't cry when Snape died (if Lily is all he cares for, he does not need to live any longer, and if he is more than that, than he is not really dead and fandom seems to agree on that issue ;-))). But I did cry for Regulus/Kreacher and for Dobby.

I read the article that you gave the link to. I don't think that Snape changes, either. Not canon Snape. His Patronus proves it. I don't think that there is no moral to the story. Deathly Hallows took care of that. Harry chose to discard Power and Resurrection and to keep Privacy. I believe that he would have kept the Sword only a year earlier, as well as the Stone. So he did change and grow, after all.

[harmony_bites]

I don't think I've ever cried at any of Rowling's books. I have cried at some Harry Potter fanfics though. Both in terms of characterization and style, there are several writers in the fandom I find more powerful than JKR.

Does that mean I think what she wrote is "bad fanfic?" No. I can think of a bare handful of fanficwriters that match Rowling in terms of intricacy of plot over hundreds of thousands of words and only one I can think of that might very well match Rowling in world-building someday. After all, my f-list is made up of a community of people who read and write fanfic based on Rowling's world. Who are a bit *cough* obsessed. Seems to me she didn't do so shabby.

And we shouldn't expect her to write the book we wanted. So, fair enough. In her eyes Snape is still a horrible man with nothing admirable about him. That's her opinion and she's entitled to it.

But it's still not canon despite her authorship. Canon is what is *in* the book we play with between the lines. If I wanted to follow canon rather than use it I'd be writing Ron/Hermione.

And I do not think Rowling's interpretation of Snape rings any truer than her romance between Ron and Hermione. And if that's so we have all we need.

We never, ever get Snape's POV remember, or get inside his feelings or his head. And I think there's enough in his words and actions, Patronus or not patronus, to call him a hero. He did tell Phileas not to call Hermione a "mudblood" he did protect a lot more than Harry at that school.

And if it was all for Lily's child, rather than getting rid of Voldemort, than why would he ever agree with Dumbledore's plan?

I do agree that Harry did change and grow though. But the sad part of that is one of the ways we see him grow is in his comments to his son about Snape and Slytherins in the end. Rowling's remarks only undercut that, especially since she didn't allow any kind of heroic interpretation of Draco's actions.

So in the end, we're left with children having their fates and natures settled at eleven.