Action Figures in Literature

[Carol]

Potioncat:
> So, to summarize the part of Carol's post that I snipped, we have stock characters, and we have hero types: epic, anitheroes, Byronic/Satanic, romantic, reluctant, and tragic. We have Christ and Moses figures. 
> 
> I suspect the nature of the HP Christ figure discussion has been our own difficulty in separtating faith (whether ours or not) from literature. Can anyone think of other Christ figures in literature? Is a Christ figure or a Moses figure a part of the list, or could it be a sub-type?
> 
> The only Moses character I can think of is from a movie, and to my mind that doesn't count. I think maybe Watership Down, except I read it so long ago, I'm not sure of the plot. 
> 
> But the Bryronic/Satanic hero---there's a contrast to the Christ figure, at least in a religious sense. Tell us more about that. Had Snape's role turned out differently, would he have met this category? Although, even had Snape lived, Harry is still the hero. So I guess Snape would remain the stock character cruel school master?
> 
> I'm starting to think I should go back to school, just to get the opportunity to discuss literature again.
>
Carol responds:
I think that Snape fits the Byronic/Satanic hero mold even though he's not the hero of the series, or, at least, he resembles that type of antihero. I definitely would not characterize him as a stock character (cruel schoolmaster) even though he starts off looking like one. I think the surprise that the unsuspecting reader gets at the end of SS/PS (he's not the villain and he saved Harry's life) pulls him out of that stock character mold and leads us to suspect more of him, and, in any case, he's already individualized more than most stock characters, especially in his speech patterns. (Compare the stock characters, which are more like caricatures, in a typical Dickens novel.)

I don't read fanfic, or very little of it, but I can imagine a well-written fanfic from Snape's pov (first-person or third-person limited omniscient) in which he's presented as a Byronic/Satanic hero. the type derives from Milton's Satan (in "Paradise Lost"), whom the Romantics, particularly Lord Byron and his friend, Percy Shelley, viewed as a heroic rebel against a tyrannical God. (Blake held a similar view.) Byron also saw himself (and Shelley, who really believed in his own moral code, in contrast to Byron, who merely broke the rules he found so restrictive) as a rebel against hypocritical British society and brought something of this idealized view of himself to his heroes. (We don't have to share those views to recognize and appreciate a Byronic hero when we encounter one.)

The typical Byronic hero also has his own moral code, which is different from society's. He's an outsider or an outcast, sometimes literally an outlaw, torn by inner conflict and usually stained by murder or some other sin. He's often dark and brooding, intellectually gifted but arrogant and self-absorbed. (Snape fits the pattern pretty well, don't you think?) Examples include Byron's Cain (his version of the Cain and Abel story), both Frankenstein and his monster in Mary Shelley's "Frankenstein" (both characters have elements of Percy Shelley in them), Mr. Rochester (less flawed than most Byronic heroes but still in that mold), Sydney Carton, and Ahab in "Moby Dick" (though Ahab is also a tragic hero who brings death and destruction to everyone around him). Heathcliff and Anakin Skywalker/Darth Vader have elements of the Byronic hero (the outsider with his own moral code), but they would be extreme examples because they also qualify as villains. (Maybe Ahab does, too, depending on how you interpret him.)

Here are some links that may be helpful:

http://www.wwnorton.com/college/english/nael/romantic/topic_5/welcome.htm

http://victorian-fiction.suite101.com/article.cfm/mr_rochester_byronic_hero

http://www.umd.umich.edu/casl/hum/eng/classes/434/charweb/CHARACTE.htm

Anyone want to argue that Harry is a Byronic hero? Just kidding! But I do think that Snape, especially when we add in the Gothic elements like his sweeping cloak, black robes, and dungeon office, can be interpreted as a Byronic hero despite not being the hero of the story.

It just occurred to me that Peter Jackson wanted to make his Aragorn into something of a Byronic hero by having him cling to his status as a ranger (outsider) and reject his role as king until near the end. Just a thought. Feel free to disagree!

Carol, who realizes that most if not all of her examples also fit other categories