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

[darth_kittius]

canon is what is filmed, not interviews or novelizations or scripts or compendiums or lexicons or encyclopedias or pro authorized stories.

That's the rule I'm planning on going by.

I also am highly annoyed by her continuing comments about Snape and how horrible he was. She seems to have more respect for Voldemort than she does for Snape. And I find that reprehensible. And I'm not even going to start on her ideas for Hermione and McGonagall that have come out in these interviews. ugh!

[harmony_bites]

She seems to have more respect for Voldemort than she does for Snape. And I find that reprehensible.

She had supposedly said in the past that Snape was "worse than Voldemort" particularly because Snape had experienced love. I think what she meant is that Voldemort is a true sociopath/psychopath without a conscience. He was warped from birth and never had a prayer of making moral choices. But Snape is different, is capable of growth and conscience and change and so is more culpable for his choices, as opposed to worse in his actions.

Hermione to me is a disappointment too in many ways and worthy of an essay all her own. In canon Snape's worse act, other than a cruel, sharp tongue he's willing to use against children is to give away the prophecy to Voldemort. And he didn't know the implications at the time. Yes, he kills Dumbledore, but at the man's own orders. Yes, he joins the DE's, and we can assume he did terrible things, but we're never shown that. And Snape paid and paid and paid

[darth_kittius]

*agrees*

And those names! :(

And Harry in using those unforgivables. Those were the only parts of the books where I verbally exclaimed anything while reading... and everytime I was like "nnnnoooooo."

[harmony_bites]

Although in a way I jumped the gun. I just saw an exact quote of what JKR said now on Snape in an article:

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 say Snape is a flawed hero--dark, but still a hero, but I can't otherwise argue with that. And someone corrected a misconception of mine--Hugo is Rose's younger brother, so whenever Hermione got married, at least she was no teen mom, so it's not as bad as I thought.

But yeah, the Unforgivables... After all the fuss made, and Snape himself saying to Harry "no unforgivables like you" Harry casts Imperio and

[silburygirl]

Could it all really have been unconscious? Accidental?

After reading the epilogue, I'll believe anything. Anyone who compares autumn to a crisp golden apple does not deserve my faith in his/her writerly abilities.

Snape belongs to us now.

I tend to agree. I'm not fond of the idea of her making an encyclopedia. I don't like perfect closure in anything, not to mention that I really think that I'll have given her enough money by that point (especially if my inner neurotic insists I re-buy the first three books so they match the rest of my copies) and I'm more than happy to use the Lexicon for all my Potterverse needs. I'll take a search engine over an index any day.

[harmony_bites]

She's free to make it. And we should use what we want of it--and feel free to disregard the rest.

This is yet another reason I'm none too happy of the way so much of HP fandom is filtered through things like moderated archives trying to say what is canon and what is IC or OOC. We're not canon by definition. We're fanfic. We're based on Rowling's world, not continuing it.

[bambu345]

I'm as hard-line about what constitutes canon as you are. I don't care what Rowling says about Snape or whether she intended Mrs. Black's name to be Walburga. The Snape I know and like lives on the pages of seven books, not in the author's interviews. The Regina Alexandra Black I like lives in my own imagination, and isn't Walburga Black as JKR had intended at some point and which didn't ever make it into a book.

It's like Hermione's sister. JKR wanted to give her one, but never got around to it ... thus, she doesn't exist!

As for the rest, I was shocked senseless when I heard what she's said on the Today Show. Snape's not a hero becuase he's not very nice! What?

I could go on, but you and I already agree on all the salient points!

[harmony_bites]

Snape's not a hero becuase he's not very nice! What?I don't want to minimize the worth of kindness or the harm of cruelty because God knows even within this fandom I see too little of the first and too much of the second

[bambu345]

::nods::

I have a lot more problems, ethically speaking, with things Hermione and Dumbledore did in the course of the books than Snape.

Or Harry, who uses the Cruciatus Curse (more than once) and the Imperius Curse, but never that last one ... never that. In almost every book Harry is allowed to break the law because his reasons for doing so were for good. How is what Snape does any different? It isn't. At least Hermione's motives were in alignment with Harry's, but Dumbledore is the least culpable of them all as far as I'm concerned.

Frankly, as far as my being an SS/HG shipper, this book has been extremely useful. Snape is ultimately a good guy and that's exactly what we've all believed for a very long time. It's nice not to have that belief shattered.

[harmony_bites]

Did Harry use Crucio more than once? I just remember the one time with Carrow. That really disturbed me because by my book, there are times it is morally right to kill (such as in defense of self or others) or to compel others (ditto) but I can see absolutely no moral defense for torture--and that's what the Cruciatus curse is--it comes from the same root word as "excruciating" and "crucifiction."

How can Rowling make this big deal about the Killing Curse, that it splits your soul, call "Imperio" and "Crucio" "Unforgivables" along with the above, and yet Harry uses two out of the three w/o consequences or qualm (and love your icon commentary on that).

This whole thing really has made me think about the authority of authorship versus readership. I think in the end, it's as if with any story told, even non-fiction. JKR may be the authority on the facts, but any reader still has to interpret her characters based on their own beliefs about psychology and philosophy

[harmony_bites]

There's also the professionally published Wild Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys which is also based on a book by a Bronte - Jane Eyre - giving Rochester's POV--or look at Holmes as used by Laurie King's Mary Russell books or all the recent books based on Pride and Prejudice. So yes, I suspect that someday there might be that professionally published book from Snape's POV about his moral journey. But given the duration of copyright as life of the author plus 70 years, I doubt any of us will live to read it

[wade_scott]

In a society increasingly steeped in moral relativism, it's not the Harrys of the world who will make a difference. It's the Snapes. It's those who need redemption, then choose it. It's those willing to press on and fail and then to press on again - especially when there are no clear answers.Which is what my review of DH (when I get around to writing it) was going to center around. The theme, if unintentional, is that we're all going to muck up royally in life. It's the choices we make in regards to that muck up that make us heros or villians. Remus Lupin being willing to run out on his pregnant wife? Bad form. His realizing his mistake (hey, we all need a clue-by-four upside the head sometimes), returning home, and continuing the good fight? A hero's choice. Albus Dumbledore and his issues with fame and Grindelwald and the death of his sister? He deserved the broken nose Aberforth gave him. We can only figure he got the message and spent the rest of his life trying to set his mistakes right--even if he did succumb to his

[harmony_bites]

Not simply remorse, but amends. I don't get the feeling Draco really enjoyed what he did in Malfoy Manor--but he didn't resist any did he? And when he's finally a free agent, he's going back with Crabbe and Goyle on Voldemort's behalf.

Snape could have felt sorry, could have felt remorse, and done nothing. Both in the books and real life, plenty of people look the other way. Other than Regulus, how many of Voldie's DEs ever turned from their path?

And that "lately only those I couldn't save" implies this is about more than just Lily. As does his protection of Hogwarts students and staff, even his misfired curse and even his going along with AD's plans in the end.

In the end he did more, and gave up more, and lost more than any other character in the book.

Yeah, Snape's a hero. To me more even than Harry. A deeply flawed one? Hell yes. But that just makes him all the more interesting.

But that Harry could realize it--and JKR write him doing so, then say what she said about Snape. That for me is the stunner.