Severus Snape (correction and follow-up)

[Carol]

Carol earlier:
> > > 
> > > None of us who have read the books would argue that Snape is a
complex character. <snip>
> 
> 
> Marianne:
> 
> In the books he is a complex character.  He came across as a mean
tempered bully to everybody except slythern <sp> house.
> 
> In the movies, however, he just wasn't evil, or mean tempered enough
for me.  I expected far more out of him in the movies.  But I suppose 
> it comes from reading the books and I already had an idea how he was 
> going to come off in the movies.  I was disappointed by his lack of 
> evilness.
>
Carol responds:
See my correction of this sentence. I meant that none of us would
argue that he's *not* a complex character. Of course, he is. That was
the whole point of my post. Funny, but when you proofread a post
before you hit Send, you still see what you *meant* to say. It's only
when the post appears online (or flashes in front of you after you hit
Send) that you spot those errors. Two in one post, though, must be
some kind of record. Why couldn't I just hit the wrong key?

With regard to your point, I suspect that the screenwriter wanted to
maintain the ambiguity and the only way to do so was to give him a
nasty sneer and have him clearly dislike Harry but work with
Dumbledore as his right-hand man. Is he or isn't he evil? Where do his
loyalties lie? That's the question that the filmmakers have to raise
in the minds of filmgoers. they can't make him as complex as he is in
the books, but, still, he has to be mysterious. Filmgoers know (or
should know) that he saved Harry from Quirrell in SS/PS, that he
protected HRH from the werewolf in PoA (rather than conjuring
stretchers for them and for Sirius Black, as in the book), that he
works closely with Dumbledore in GoF and OoP (though it's not clear
that he sent the Order to the MoM and gave Umbridge *fake*
Veritaserum), but at the same time, he's quite nasty to Sirius Black
without their mutual antagonism being clearly explained (does "your
father was a swine" count? I don't think it's sufficient) and tries to
get Harry and Ron expelled in CoS ("You were seen!")

Anyway, I don't know quite what you were expecting from Alan Rickman's
performance, but my only complaint (aside from being much too slow to
say "Expelliarmus" and holding his wand in the wrong hand in the
dueling scene--obviously, he's never studied fencing) is that he's at
least twenty years to old for the role.

To me, Snape comes across in the books as much more than "a
mean-tempered bully to everyone except Slytherin House." He *can* be
mean, but sometimes his point deductions or detentions are justified,
and Neville's constantly melted cauldrons, which endanger his
classmates, would try the patience of a saint. I like his poetic
speeches in the first Potions and DADA classes. I understand perfectly
why he hates James Potter and Sirius Black (and suspects Lupin of
letting Black into the castle to kill Harry). Sometimes, for example
when he says that he sees no difference in Hermiones's appearance
after Draco's Densuageo spell, he seems needlessly cruel, but he
always has the necessary antidote on hand when his students get
splashed with a potion, and those who pay attention do well in his
classses. His essays are "evil" only because Ron and Harry don't want
to study. (He's been trying to teach Harry about bezoars since the
first Potions lesson.) It's Snape who teaches Harry (and the others)
that most useful of spells, Expelliarmus. It's Snape who leads the
teachers in dealing with the incompetent fraud, Lockhart. (And,
although the film credits Madam Pomfrey and Madam Sprout with making
the Mandrake draft, it had to have been Potions Master Snape who
brewed it.) It's Snape who brews the Wolfbane Potion so that Lupin can
transform painlessly in PoA (another key point omitted by the films).
His actions are often at odds with his words--and with his obvious
dislike of the "mediocre" and "arrogant" rule breaker, Harry Potter,
who, in Snape's eyes, is exactly like his father (no saint, as Harry
learns in OoP). The relationship between Harry and Snape, always tense
and unfriendly, nevertheless becomes more complex after the Occlumency
lessons, when Harry, for the first time, feels (temporary) sympathy
for Snape. It's again turned on its head when Harry, not wanting to
acknowledge his own error or Sirius Black's recklessness in fighting
Bellatrix on the dais of the Veil in the Death Room, blames Snape for
Black's death (another point ignored by the filmmakers for
simplicity's sake).

In other words, I agree with you that Book!Snape is a complex
character, probably the most complex in the series. That was my whole
point in my previous post, and I've barely touched the surface with my
examples here, deliberately avoiding the books whose films have not
yet been shown (or are not yet produced). I was and am glad to see
that, despite the limitations of film, which has to simplify the plot
and characters to fit a one-and-a-half or two-hour screen time, Steve
V. nevertheless senses Snape's complexity.

Book!Snape would not have hit students with a notebook or knocked
their heads together. He wouldn't have to. And his relationship with
the Marauders (Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot, and Prongs) ought to have
been made clear to filmgoers who haven't read the books.But all in
all, in terms of a sarcastic, sometimes venomous, usually soft-voiced
but occasionally furious personality, a man who hates Harry but
appears to be loyal to Dumbledore, I think that Rickman has Snape down
pat. The sweeping movements of an "overgrown bat," the intonation,
above all, the facial expressions (I love the one-sided smile) convey
Snape beautifully. If he were any meaner or any more unfair than he
already is, how would viewers sense tha ambiguity in his motivation?
He would simply seem contradictory rather than mysterious.

Carol, noting that Snape has always had a huge contingent of fans, all
of whom perceive him in different ways, whether they know him from the
books, the films, or both


Carol, wishing that her "little" typos didn't result in a complete
misunderstanding of her point