(no subject)

[a_t_rain]

A. E. Housman's Fragment of a Greek Tragedy makes me happy. (I especially like the line "Mud's sister, not himself, adorns my shoes," which strikes me as a particularly elegant way to say "I just stepped in some dog shit.") I'm tempted to share it with the students, but I have an awful feeling they may not recognize it's parody.

sigune asked me what I thought about Snape, a question which I am going to answer at some length, as it is more interesting than trying to wrap my head around what I think about The Merry Wives of Windsor.


First off, the man is a nasty bit of work and always has been. He gets his kicks out of bullying Neville Longbottom, and I wouldn't hesitate to call him a sadist. On the other hand, I believe him to have been totally and unwaveringly committed to the side of the Light from 1980 to 1996, and I think there is at least a 30% chance that he still is. (I can see him as playing both sides and out for himself; or as a Dark Arts addict who was the equivalent of a dry drunk for sixteen years and then fell off the wagon, hard; or as a loyal Order member who killed Dumbledore, at a moment of grave extremity, because it was the only way to cut the Order's losses and save Draco's life. But I don't believe that he has been a bad guy all along. Harry would be dead a thousand times over.)

The "dry drunk" explanation is the one that resonates most with me, and the one that I'm using as a working hypothesis while writing fic. For me, the keynote of Snape's character is that he is a man who has been doing the right thing for the wrong reason; I suspect he betrayed the Death Eaters, originally, out of bitterness, disillusionment, and a desire for vengeance. (If there was a woman in the case, I suspect it was one of the Black sisters, not Lily, and he was trying to get back at her after she married somebody else.) No matter how faithful his service or how many risks he took, this is simply not good enough in Rowling's system of morality; she has implied heavily that the difference between Dark and Light magic lies in the spell-caster's intentions and state of mind. Snape is a man who defines himself by what he hates rather than what he loves, which means he's inclined to the Dark Arts as the sparks fly upward.

I tend to write him as a Catholic by upbringing who still has a (very, very twisted) streak of religious faith, for no very good reason except that I picture him as being deeply committed to some brand of external moral code -- because his internal compass is too screwed up to be functional -- and Catholicism is one that I'm reasonably familiar with. (I also like writing Christian wizards on general principle, because it messes with the fundamentalists' AND the neo-pagans' heads. Hence nun!Rowena. But never mind about that.)

Finally, I believe (and hope) that Snape is going to have a Grand Redemptive Moment in Book Seven. There will be a crucial point when he finally gets it and acts purely out of love for someone or something. (Of course, I also believe that Peter Pettigrew -- who's perfectly capable of love, as far as we know, but lacks courage -- is going to show his Gryffindor colors in a big way, and Percy Weasley will learn humility, and we're going to find out for sure that R.A.B. WAS Regulus and he did the right thing. Some would say this is way too many redemption plots for one book. I prefer to think of it as a theme.)

Comments

[krisomniac.livejournal.com]

Very good point about Snape motivated by hate. And too many redemptive plot lines? Pish. There's so many plotlines in general need of tying up, that the redemptive ones are merely a drop in the old plotty bucket.

And as for Snape: I'm holding off judgement on him until book seven. Just on principle. But do you see the "dry dunk" explanation fitting into the theory that Dumbledore asked (legillimately -- new word) for Snape to AK him?

Oh, and in other news, I had this whole thing written up for you, but when I replied to your email, it got bounced back to me. are there certain hours you can't recieve mail?

[a-t-rain.livejournal.com]

But do you see the "dry dunk" explanation fitting into the theory that Dumbledore asked (legillimately -- new word) for Snape to AK him?

I truly have no idea what Dumbledore asked Snape (I can read it as either "Please, Severus, kill me," or "Please, Severus, do the right thing"), or whether they were employing Legilimency in the scene in question. I'm waiting for Jo to tell us.

Oh, and in other news, I had this whole thing written up for you, but when I replied to your email, it got bounced back to me. are there certain hours you can't recieve mail?

No, but my university's spam filters can be oversensitive sometimes. Try sending it again, and if it doesn't work, you can always post it here or send me an owl at FA, I guess.

[chocolatepot.livejournal.com]

das_mervin came up with a very compelling reason for Snape as Non Evil: Alan Rickman at first did not want to play Snape, because he didn't want to be the stereotyped villian all the time. Jo apparently told him more about the character (as they all know more about their characters than the fans), and he accepted.

That's very paraphrased -- it sounded a lot more sensical when she said it.

[a-t-rain.livejournal.com]

That is interesting -- although it could just mean he's going to be an unstereotypical villain, no?

[gunderpants.livejournal.com]

No, by this he means his first villain without a German accent. Which would, in essense, be the stereotypical villain.

[lareinenoire.livejournal.com]

Actually, he played the Sheriff in Robin Hood with an exceedingly Snape-ish accent. ;) Although there is much to be said for Hans Fucking Sexy Gruber.

My friends and I have a theory that if Tim Curry, Alan Rickman, and Jeremy Irons teamed up to take over the world, they'd scare everyone else into submission simply by the sheer power of their stage presence and voices.

[gunderpants.livejournal.com]

And Anthony Hopkins and Sam Neill's voice?

[chocolatepot.livejournal.com]

Well, the original thing she said was more like he didn't want to be typecast.

[gunderpants.livejournal.com]

Somehow, playing a bitchy member of the academia doesn't seem like a move away from being typecast, to me. Not unless he were to hijack Hogwarts at the same time, which I think he's already done too.

[lareinenoire.livejournal.com]

Some would say this is way too many redemption plots for one book. I prefer to think of it as a theme.

Well, love is the Big Theme™ in the Harry Potter books, and redemption/forgiveness tends to go hand-in-hand with love. So I really don't think you're terribly far off in that particular hope.

And you make a very good point about Snape being defined by his hatred. He's got a very strict sense of...I don't want to call them morals, because they aren't. He makes promises and he keeps them. I think 'honour' might be the best term. He protects Harry through all six books so far, and he serves Dumbledore--I think--until the end (I support the Legilimency theory). The problem is that, while he keeps to his code, as it were, he's certainly not happy with his choices, and he chooses to take that out on everyone else.

Okay, that was a great deal of rambling, and I'm not sure how much sense it made...

[a-t-rain.livejournal.com]

The problem is that, while he keeps to his code, as it were, he's certainly not happy with his choices, and he chooses to take that out on everyone else.

And again, I suspect that may not be good enough in Jo's moral code -- her version of Light magic seems to have a tremendous component of joy (Patroni, the Ridikkulus Charm) -- so Snape is a bit screwed, even if his outward actions are perfectly correct. No wonder the man's bitter.

I've often thought he's a sort of mirror for Peter, who seems to be just as miserable serving the wrong side as Snape is serving the right one.

[ignipes.livejournal.com]

For me, the keynote of Snape's character is that he is a man who has been doing the right thing for the wrong reason

Very good way of putting it. That, and: Snape is a man who defines himself by what he hates rather than what he loves.

I don't really think about Snape all that often, but I basically agree with you on all counts, especially on the Grand Redemptive Moment. I sort of suspect Book 7 will be all about redemption, which is kind of neat in that there are lots of different characters in quite different situations to play it out. It could be quite interesting.

[a-t-rain.livejournal.com]

I sort of suspect Book 7 will be all about redemption, which is kind of neat in that there are lots of different characters in quite different situations to play it out.

Yeah -- JKR certainly seems to have set her chesspieces up very carefully for this one. (Of course, I was wrong about practically all of my predictions for Book Six, so who knows?)

[ignipes.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I was wrong about everything, too, but we have a few years 'til we'll be wrong again.

Also, thanks for that link to the Fragment of a Greek Tragedy. I especially liked this: He splits my skull, not in a friendly way. =D

[sigune.livejournal.com]

First of all, I like your take on Snape very much - even though I find it cruel and, seeing that Snape isn't a downright psychopath like Voldemort, it makes him out as worse than said Mr Evil because he is more conscious of what he does. It certainly makes (painful) sense and it results in fascinating stories.
For myself, I like to think (this sounds very casual, but it is something that came out of my readings of canon) that Snape's nastiness is the result more of character flaws and human weaknesses than of some innate evil. I also perceive a kind of courage in his standing up for something he knows many people disapprove of: his passion for Dark Arts. My fascination with him as a character stems from an initial fascination with his appearance - fancy someone *wanting* to look like the very cliché of a Dark wizard when working on the staff of Dumbledore the Dark Wizard Slayer; even just washing his hair would make a difference in people's perception of him. His image has all the looks of a purposeful construction. But why would someone want to flaunt their bad intentions?

I am with you when it comes to Catholic!Snape (and I picked Catholicism for the same reasons as you did); but this is because I find it rhymes with his doing the right thing for the wrong reason. To me it means there is hope: Snape knows that his instincts are not to be trusted when it comes to moral decisions, so he goes looking for directions with people and instances who can give him clear-cut orders. I think that is part of the reason why he ended up with Dumbledore. He *wants* to do the right thing, even if it does not give him satisfaction. ("When we are happy we are always good, but when we are good we are not always happy," Oscar Wilde wisecracked, and dear me, isn't there truth in that... Or does that just reveal a lot about me? *grins*)

I don't know if this is an effect of my fascination with (intellectual, not sexual) Socratic relationships, but I have always perceived Dumbledore and Snape as a Master and Disciple. There is a little something extra in their relationship that isn't there between Dumbledore and the other teachers. Snape accepts remarkably much from Dumbledore, and I don't think it's just because he is the less powerful of the two. He appears to be very intent on the Headmaster's appreciation; I have come to see his thirst for knowledge and recognition as his main incentive for staying at Hogwarts all this time. It would have been perfectly reasonable for him to have left the school after Voldemort's defeat; and it's hard to imagine he stayed on because he would have missed the students.

Snape is a man who defines himself by what he hates rather than what he loves, which means he's inclined to the Dark Arts as the sparks fly upward.
I definitely agree. And I fear that you are right about JKR's appreaciation of love and courage and so on, which is different from mine and may very well prove me wrong in my hopes and interpretation.
This is what makes me uncertain about Snape in the next book: I'm sure he did not kill Dumbledore because he felt like it; but the crux of the matter is that Dumbledore is dead. (If that hasn't finally unhinged him, nothing will.) There is no-one in the Order now to whom Snape feels anything like personal loyalty. It would make sense for him to flee Britain and start a new life somewhere far away (I wish he would do that and avoid being massacred in 7) :-). If Snape stays on, it will be because of a personal hatred against Voldemort.

There will be a crucial point when he finally gets it and acts purely out of love for someone or something.
I really, really don't see that happening (please, please JKR, spare me the woman!) - unless for Dumbledore.
In my darkest hour I tremble with fear of the possibility that Pettigrew and Snape have indeed been set up as mirror images and Peter will be redeemed by virtue of having been in JKR's favoured Gryffindor whereas Snape is a big bad Slytherin and will be carted off to hell by winged demons. (Blèh.)

[sigune.livejournal.com]

*blushes*
Um - if the length of this entry offends LJ etiquette, by all means chastise me, delete it, and tell me to post it on my own journal and link. I tend to get a little carried away by this subject...

[a-t-rain.livejournal.com]

Oh no, I think it's fascinating.

My fascination with him as a character stems from an initial fascination with his appearance - fancy someone *wanting* to look like the very cliché of a Dark wizard when working on the staff of Dumbledore the Dark Wizard Slayer; even just washing his hair would make a difference in people's perception of him. His image has all the looks of a purposeful construction. But why would someone want to flaunt their bad intentions?

Oddly, I'd never really thought of him as looking like the very cliche of a Dark wizard -- more like the very cliche of a teenager self-consciously posing as an Outsider, with a "screw the cool kids, I'm going to lounge around in black and be snarky" attitude. (Which is, of course, as sensible a way to approach one's teenage years as any, but most people grow out of it by the time they hit thirty.)

In my darkest hour I tremble with fear of the possibility that Pettigrew and Snape have indeed been set up as mirror images and Peter will be redeemed by virtue of having been in JKR's favoured Gryffindor whereas Snape is a big bad Slytherin and will be carted off to hell by winged demons. (Blèh.)

I really don't think she'll go that way, not after everything she's said in the interviews about the House system and about there being a kind of redemptive pattern to Snape (OK, she didn't say that, the interviewer did, but she certainly acted as if he'd tumbled to something big).

[dolabellae.livejournal.com]

Oh yes! Hate and resentment certainly seem to be Snape's motivating factors now, and it's difficult to imagine him ever being any different. And I think you're right, in JKR's world, that might not be enough. Makes me think of the description of Petunia's taking in of Harry - grudgingly, furiously, unwillingly, bitterly
- and we see JKR's judgement of that when Dumbledore picks Harry up from their house in HBP.

(And all of Housman's classics related stuff is marvellous - it's great reading through his scholarly stuff just to see how much he can get away with in his criticisms of others. Deliciously vitriolic - v appropriate beginning for a Snape discussion...)

[lea-hazel.livejournal.com]

You make some very good points. I definitely see Snape as a profoundly unhappy man, possibly of the sort who would fight kicking and screaming against any change that might make him happy. It's a bleak thought, but it fits. The man holds grudges like there's no tomorrow.

Redemption is a good theme, and I do believe it's important to the Potterverse. You can find it in the most unexpected places -- James and Sirius both did dreadful things when they were young, and they redeemed themselves through love and self-sacrifice. JKR says that Snape has been loved, which means he does have a chance at finding the motivation to redeem himself. Unfortunately, he may have to die in the process.

Or he may live, I don't know. He may even ultimately go dark, although that would certainly be disappointing. The one thing I'm fairly certain won't happen (just watch as it goes and happens, just because I said it wouldn't) is that Snape should be good, but die withought anyone acknowledging his sacrifice. Harry may not forgive him, perhaps no one will, but they will grudgingly accept his loyalties. I'm holding out for a Fawkes moment.

I really hope Snape makes it. I was rooting for Smeagol in Lord of the Rings and was bitterly disappointed when he failed.

[hannahmarder.livejournal.com]

I'm glad you posted this, it is interesting to read your thoughts on Snape. I can never quite work out how you feel about him in your fics - I don't mean that in a bad way at all, it's just that you can often tell with Snape in a story whether the author is a Snapefan or a Snapehater. I suppose you fall somewhere in between as neither one nor the other.

You make many good points about Snape in this piece, which have already been pointed out by others so I won't reiterate. I think that Snape is motivated a lot by justice - or what he sees as justice (I may even have got this concept from one of your fics in the first place, I can't remember now...). He hated James and Sirius because, in his eyes, they didn't get the punishments they deserved for their treatment of him. There are probably good reasons for that, but not in Snape's book. I imagine young Snape as feeling that Dumbledore let him down, particularly over the prank, and he turned to his old friends, Lucius and the DEs, because he felt that they could give him the power and protection that DD 'wouldn't' (in Snape's eyes). I think Snape thinks he is justified in most, if not all, of his behaviour. He has a very strong sense of duty, even if it is misplaced. Lupin touches on it when he says about Snape making the Wolfsbane for him all year and making it perfectly.

If there was a woman in the case, I suspect it was one of the Black sisters, not Lily,
Hmmm... I am firmly convinced that Snape and Lily were friends or had some sort of friendly connection at some point. Not necessarily romantic, but definitely some connection. Why else would DD say that Snape felt remorse when he realised who the prophecy would affect? (I suppose there's an argument for James and the 'life debt') but I think it's much more likely that he and Lily were friends. The theory that he was interested in one of the Black sisters is an interesting one. I don't think Bella, and I personally don't believe Snape/Narcissa, but wouldn't it be interesting if it was Andromeda...

[a-t-rain.livejournal.com]

I can never quite work out how you feel about him in your fics - I don't mean that in a bad way at all, it's just that you can often tell with Snape in a story whether the author is a Snapefan or a Snapehater. I suppose you fall somewhere in between as neither one nor the other.

I don't know how I feel about him myself, and the more I write about him, the less I know. He's fascinating, though. A real gift of a character, as JKR said herself. He wasn't even supposed to be in Mordant (he and Linus never meet), but somehow he refused to be kept out.

[pasi.livejournal.com]

Interesting as usual, not least because your essay has collected so many fascinating comments.

And, of course, by talking about Snape, you've hit on my current HP obsession. (Shipping doesn't bother me--it just isn't in my nature to worry about who JKR will partner with whom.) With Voldemort as some sort of sociopath or force of nature, Snape is now Human Antagonist #1 to Harry Potter.

Like you, I'm up in the air about him--I don't know whether he's good or bad.

... or as a loyal Order member who killed Dumbledore, at a moment of grave extremity, because it was the only way to cut the Order's losses and save Draco's life.

I can't see him using AK in this case, whether on the spur of the moment or as a plan worked out earlier between him and Dumbledore. Would he have the sufficient malevolence, the unalloyed desire to kill? Would Dumbledore want him to rip his soul with this Unforgivable Killing Curse?

For me, the keynote of Snape's character is that he is a man who has been doing the right thing for the wrong reason; I suspect he betrayed the Death Eaters, originally, out of bitterness, disillusionment, and a desire for vengeance....No matter how faithful his service or how many risks he took, this is simply not good enough in Rowling's system of morality....

Would this be good enough for Dumbledore? If he knew these were Snape's reasons, would he have trusted Snape as much as he did, and for as long as he did?

If, for all those years, he didn't know, then Snape really is a superb Occlumens.

Snape is a man who defines himself by what he hates rather than what he loves, which means he's inclined to the Dark Arts as the sparks fly upward.

I agree 100%. Whether I thought he'd acted well or ill, I always saw him preferring to indulge the emotion of hatred.

The thing is, at one and the same time, he seems capable of the most profound Light magic. He saved Dumbledore's life after DD went after the first Horcrux. He probably saved Draco's life with the counterspell that cured Sectumsempra, with that incantation that sounded almost like a song to Harry. I don't know how others interpret it, but that's Light stuff to me.

I think and hope your Book 7 redemption predictions are all correct.

Sorry for the length--but, as I say, Snape's my obsession at the moment.

[a-t-rain.livejournal.com]

I can't see him using AK in this case, whether on the spur of the moment or as a plan worked out earlier between him and Dumbledore. Would he have the sufficient malevolence, the unalloyed desire to kill? Would Dumbledore want him to rip his soul with this Unforgivable Killing Curse?

I'm not sure AK requires malevolence, because I can't imagine fake!Moody feeling all that much malevolence toward a spider, even if he is a psychopath. Or Peter Pettigrew feeling that way about a teenaged boy he'd never seen before in his life, for that matter.

And, well, what else would he use? I can't think of any other Potterverse spells that kill swiftly and painlessly, although there are certainly other spells that cause enough physical damage that they might be fatal if not counteracted.

Would this be good enough for Dumbledore? If he knew these were Snape's reasons, would he have trusted Snape as much as he did, and for as long as he did?

No, I don't think it would be good enough for Dumbledore -- he strikes me as the sort of person who would want to believe his followers are really good people at heart.

[straussmonster.livejournal.com]

she has implied heavily that the difference between Dark and Light magic lies in the spell-caster's intentions and state of mind

Definite agreement on that. Right action for wrong reasons is not particularly approved of in the Potterverse. There's a big hint with the Unforgiveables--you have to *mean* it to Crucio someone, and that curse is like the perfect transformation of hatred/sadism into action. It's not a big leap to extrapolate those grounds into the other curses that are particularly singled out as Unforgiveable.

I think of Snape as someone who looks out for Snape as number one. He may well have been good and loyal for 16 years, but it's open whether his conversion to the white hats was not partial or motivated by self-interest (if he plays both sides, he wins). Then, given the stress and the temptation of two years of spying...Snape sees the white hats and his calculations finally tell him that Harry Potter is not going to be able to off Voldie, so he plays his hand. And the self-interested are at the bottom of the moral pantheon.

Peter's redemptive stakes went way, way up for me post-HBP, and Snape's went down. With Peter, there's the possibility of recovering the lost friendship and finally making amends; with Snape, there could be a genuinely fascinating tale of a fall from grace, as he is undone by how he holds on so tightly to his hatred and grudges, which define him.

[a-t-rain.livejournal.com]

Peter's redemptive stakes went way, way up for me post-HBP, and Snape's went down. With Peter, there's the possibility of recovering the lost friendship and finally making amends; with Snape, there could be a genuinely fascinating tale of a fall from grace, as he is undone by how he holds on so tightly to his hatred and grudges, which define him.

I'm inclined to agree -- though I really do want both of them to make good, in their different ways. Peter by double-crossing the Dark Lord at a key moment and showing his Gryffindor stripes, and Snape by doing the right thing for the right reason. (And yeah, I am hoping that he's in it for somebody other than Snape. I don't care if it's Narcissa or his mother or Draco or Dumbledore or God or whomever, I just want to see some streak of selflessness from one of the Slytherins.)