Regarding Severus Snape

[eldritchhobbit]

Rather than repeat what others are saying, I simply want to take a moment and applaud some of the fine new analyses appearing about the Severus Snape scenario in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. To these I can only add my agreement.

"Theories (and Spoilers)" by garlandgraves

"The Martyrdom Has Begun - did we not see this coming?" by logospilgrim

"Dumbledore's Man" by emily_anne

The Case Against Evil by sunnysky

"HBP Initial Reactions" by penfold_x

"More HBP Thoughts" by katiescarlet

Of course there are many more out there, but I believe these are some of the earliest and best.


And now, shamelessly stolen from logospilgrim, rather appropriate quotes for the day:

My enemies say of me in malice,
"When will he die and his name perish?"
And when one comes to see me, he utters empty words,
while his heart gathers iniquity;
when he goes out, he tells it abroad.
All who hate me whisper together about me;
they imagine the worst of me.
Psalm 41:5-7

Do not condemn. Not even if your very eyes are seeing something, for they may be deceived.
St. John Climacus

"It has happened that men have sinned greatly in the open, but done good deeds in secret, so that those who would disparage them have been fooled, with smoke instead of sunlight in their eyes."
St. John Climacus

Comments

[alicambs.livejournal.com]

Umm, but it seems that her hero, Harry, is jumped on at every corner when he makes mistakes, and being a child, he's made a number.

I don't think Snape has made much effort to help Harry, nor can Snape expect Harry to take a blind bit of notice of anything that he says, so why bother. He's been such a bastard that Harry dismisses everything he tells him, plus were he really concerned about him he would have made some effort to help Harry with Occulmency rather than belittle and berate him at every turn. I also think that discovering that it was Snape who told Voldemort of the prophecy and was therefore responsible for his parents deaths, totally cooked his goose with Harry. Harry is never going to believe that someone who evidently hated his father, and himself, as much as Snape so obviously does can feel the slightest bit of remorse for his actions.

I'm already writing my rebuttal to the 'St Snape' posts I've read, and having fun. *g*

[eldritchhobbit.livejournal.com]

Aw! :) I don't agree with you about Harry being jumped on when he makes a mistake - it seems to me that Dumbledore, Lupin, and many others have warned him repeatedly about his tendency to jump to conclusions and read things only through the coloring of his misconceptions, giving him lots of chances to rethink his perspective (as Dumbledore and Lupin, and Arthur Weasley, and Hermione, and Ron all did this time about various things). I'm also not sure how being a child comes into this, as this is a coming of age story about a young man less than a year from his majority, who must learn the hard lessons -- literally, the disillusionment, to use the spell as a metaphor -- before he is, truly, an adult capable of defeating evil on his own. In fact, one of the things I like is that Rowling doesn't pull punches in his coming-of-age story. But we may be talking past each other. I don't see myself in the "St. Snape" category; I'm just happy to see complex, multi-dimensional characters who challenge the simplistic white hat/black hat sense of storytelling. And I'm also happy to see an author deal with the inherent limits of the point of view she's chosen, so we must engage our own analytical tools to see what Harry might be looking past: or, to put it another way, to agree with Dumbledore that we might just understand more than Harry does at times. Clever author!

[eldritchhobbit.livejournal.com]

Re: the "St. Snape" thing, one of the reasons I like Rowling's perspective is that there are no saints. Even Dumbledore is flawed. Snape is an intriguing character because he is not what he appears -- at least, if we trust Dumbledore's judgment based on information he knew and we don't, that is the case -- but even the "good guys" (Lupin, Black, Moody, etc.) have real failings. And she does not shelter her characters from learning this, just as she doesn't shelter them from learning that sometimes things just aren't fair. Yet she challenges them fight the good fight anyway, despite these facts (and, often, each other).

[eldritchhobbit.livejournal.com]

This essay - here - goes a long way toward explaining why I am in fact fascinated by the Snape character, FYI.

[(Anonymous)]

Well, now I've finally finished the book, I'm reading thru all this. Really good postings. I agree with you on the joy of JKR's dimensional characters. I love them in that they are more "real" than many, especially those found in "children's" lit. Good and evil are not black and white in the real world. Yes, Snape is mean and ugly, but we are shown WHY. No, not an excuse, but a reason. I don't believe he is evil - mean, of course, but not evil. As you say, he has saved students many times. One of the most touching/telling scenes, which I recall whenever thinking on Snape, is how quickly and utterly he places himself before the kids as Lupin changes into the werewolf in POA. Yes, Harry was mistreated as a child as well, and did not end up like Snape, but all people are not of the same stuff made. This be a life lesson I've harped to my own child for 14 years, and thanks to Rowling, have been able to discuss again.

[lizzieausten.livejournal.com]

Sorry, didn't mean to post as "anonymous" previously :-)