Good vs. Evil in Fantasy /Snape

[grey_wolf_c]

No: HPFGUIDX 37676

--- In HPforGrownups at y..., "finwitch" <finwitch at y...> wrote:
> I've been thinking about this about goodies and baddies in fantasy, 
> in general. We might have a goodie character who continously steals 
> with no remorse, i.e. Kenders in Dragonlance. A character who kills 
> and is a goodie, remorse or not (Nyissan Sadi in Mallorean Series), 
> some asassins in others...
> 
> But - so far I can see one thing that unites these fantasy "goodie"-
> criminals. When someone does them this bad thing - they don't hold a 
> grudge. A killer-"goodie" thinks an attempt on his *own* life is 
> just "part of business" or "misunderstanding". A "goodie"-thief who 
> has been stolen from either does not get angry or is angry at himself 
> for not taking better care of his possessions... In other words, they 
> *can* taste their own medicine. Their goodie-friends don't exactly 
> approve these habits, though, but a reader *does* get to think that 
> they *are* on the good side despite of their bad habits.

Sorry, but I have to disagree. It cannot be further from the truth. To 
take your own example, Sadi from the Belgariad/Malloreaon *does* indeed 
hold grudges: a competitor poisons him, and he quickly arranges to have 
him thrown into the river with weights tied to his feet. From the same 
series, Silk steals and assasinates freely, but the moment someone he 
holds dear is assasinated (Bethra), he goes on a killing spree, killing 
15 people, of which only two were directly responsible of the 
assasination (the rest were just extended family of the real 
"baddies"). Haplo, from the Death Gate cycle, takes personally his 
enemies' plans to bring down his master (although he's doing exactly 
the same to them). And so on. Most of the time, the only difference 
between amoral (or inmoral) characters in the good side and the bad 
side is that the first help the good characters and the others don't. 
It's only a matter of using Machiavelism, and fits both sides. When a 
more careful difference is created by the author, it generally lies in 
the fact that the "good" amoral character will not backstab his 
friends, while the "bad" amoral character will have no friends, and is 
busy arranging the circunstances so that he comes into more power 
(normally wading through a pool of competitors's blood).

> Severus Snape doesn't accept his own faults in others, sees these 
> faults where he couldn't be more wrong -- he simply breaks the custom 
> of a goodie with a very bad habit. We get a hint from AD (who seems 
> to be the one who knows and knows he knows) that he *is* a goodie, 
> but the character contradicts what *every* other goodie with nasty 
> faults has been so far.

There really isn't much difference between Haplo and Snape, nor do I 
see Snape as a particularly new idea of ally for the good side. He's 
malevolent, his own objectives are hard to imagine, and the major good 
guy (AD) believes in him: I've seen it before. It's uncommon, 
especially in fantasy, but it's not unheard of.
 
> This is what puts him under Question. Is he there to show that even 
> Dumbledore's judgement of character isn't perfect because even 
> Headmasters like AD do err? Or is he there to break the pattern 
> of "spy, thief, killer, dirty and foulmouthed but with a good heart"
> 
> -- Finwitch

For a guy of this characteristics (except for foulmouthed) which has no 
"good heart" to speak off, take a look at Jarlaxle, from the Dark Elf 
series of R.A. Salvatore. He's not strictly speaking one of the good 
guys, since he's a secondary character, but he's much darker than 
Snape:truly amoral, you cannot turn your back to him. Although the 
pattern you propose exists (specially in Eddings), it's been broken 
before.

Hope that helps,

Grey Wolf

PD: this discussion is going VERY quickly into OT ground, so I'll 
probably cut my own intervention here.