Our Man Snape (was Re: Secrets (Long))

[Peg Kerr]

No: HPFGUIDX 1120



Vicki Merriman wrote:..

--- In HPforGrownups at egroups.com, Peg Kerr <pkerr06 at a...> wrote:

> > Another long-winded essay-post.
> > Dumbledore also keeps Snape's secret, and Lupin's secret.
> (Incidentally, > the fact that  Dumbledore respects the integrity of
> Snape's secret, > whatever it is, is one of the most effective
> arguments to me that Snape > is Our Man Snape, truly allied with the
> powers of light,  as surly as he > is.)
>
> I agree that he is "allied with the powers of light" but do not agree
> that that necessarily makes him "Our Man Snape."   What Snape does
> goes way beyond surliness.  I'm not sure when you starting reading
> posts so I'll try to summarize shortly.

Oh, I agree absolutely.  In fact, just this week, I wrote almost exactly the
same thing to another person on another board who said in passing that Snape
was an "excellent" teacher.  As a former teacher myself, I brindled at
that.  He's a horrible teacher--knows his stuff but is brutal to the
students--and he's a rotten skunk, and I really wish he'd do something about
his halitosis.

The point I was making, and I'll try to explain it again (briefly; I gotta
get to work) is that as a writer I am really intrigued by what Rowling is
doing here: I can't think of another fictional character who occupies this
same fictional niche: Snape somehow or other made a decision that allied him
with the good--and Dumbledore, our moral compass vouches for him--but just
about everything else in his nature seems to ally him with evil.  How can
that one decision--and we don't yet know what it is--outweigh all his
horribleness?  How horrible can you be and still be a hero, as long as
you've got your feet set firmly on one true/good decision?  This is the
reason why Snape has become such an intriguing character to me.

(Can anyone else think of fictional characters in other books who are in a
similar position?  I really can't, or at least I can't at this time of the
morning.)

> Snape may not be allied with the forces of evil, but his behavior is
> unconscionable and I don't forgive him for it, even if supposedly
> some of it is to make him look believable as a spy. He's a nasty ugly
> piece of work, and I mean ugly on the inside, not the outside.
>
> Brooks said it best when quoting Churchill (which I'll probably
> mangle) "If Hitler was storming the gates of hell I'd have something
> good to say about Satan."

Another line which comes to mind is "He may be a sonofabitch, but he's OUR
sonofabitch."

I think that is about exactly what I meant when I called him "Our Man
Snape."  Again, as I've said before, irony doesn't always come across very
well on email.  (I never learn, I keep trying to use it.)

Gotta run

Peg