Snape - A goodie and nasty with it!

[meglet2]

No: HPFGUIDX 37636

I have greatly enjoyed many of the comments on Snape on this list 
and the (occasionally) wild speculations about his 
nature/background/motivation - sorry though, not buying any 
LOLLIPOPS today -  but there is one apsect of Snape above all others 
that still intrigues me.

I find it fascinating that JKR presents us with someone who, as we 
discover in book 4, is really one of the good guys (at least as far 
as his actions go and assuming that Dumbledore is not ever so evil) 
but who remains basically a nasty piece of work. His instincts, as 
many on this list have pointed out, are more in tune with his former 
DE colleagues than with the kindness and consideration practised by 
Dumbledore, Lupin, Molly et al. Even by the end of GoF there is for 
me no sense that his behaviour will be any different to Harry and 
co. He can be cruel, vindictive, petty, irrational, unfair and 
downright unpleasant yet he is also constantly in fact acting to 
protect and advance the good and he clearly has great courage and 
determination.

This seems to me to be moral sophistication of a high order 
especially in a 'children's' book. I love it when black and white 
assumptions are undermined like this. People can be on the right 
side and be thoroughly unpleasant with it. We don't and can't always 
like those who are doing the right thing and are on our side. 

It reminds a bit of Peter Schaeffer's play 'Amadeus'. When I first 
saw it years ago in London some people behind me were deeply 
scandalised by the portrait of Mozart. I heard them discussing it at 
the interval after which they left and didn't come back. They 
couldn't handle a picture of a musical genius as a revolting little 
creep with a purile and smutty sense of humour. Yet that is the 
whole point of the play. That into this very unworthy vessel God had 
poured total inspiration, while poor old Salieri who wanted to offer 
his talents to the glory of God plodded through life with a very 
mediocre talent and with never a spark of inspiration. Very unfair 
but very true to life. Snape for me carries something of the same 
complexity. 

Mercia