Snape as Byronic Hero?

[GulPlum]

No: HPFGUIDX 48415

(I just sent this message but for some reason, Yahoo chopped it off halfway 
through, so I deleted the original and am reposting, in the hope that the 
whole will make it this time...)

I'm not sure how in keeping with a strict interpretation of the Group's 
charter this is, so I crave your indulgence for a moment. However, I know 
this will be of interest to many folk so I'm sending it anyway. I've done a 
search of YahooMort but as usual it's come up empty, although I can't 
believe this topic hasn't been done to death on a regular and frequent basis.

Whilst going through the last several weeks of posts recently to catch up 
with HPFGU while I was too busy on the movie list to follow events daily, I 
found at least two descriptions of Snape as Byronic Hero (sorry, I haven't 
noted who it was).

I'll be perfectly honest and admit that I've been scratching my head trying 
to square  that notion for the last couple of days. As I recall my 
secondary school LitCrit (mainly devoted to European lit., but Byron had a 
major influence on Romantic writing well outside these islands), the 
classic Byronic Hero has several attributes, few of which I see in Snape:

He's extraordinarily handsome or attractive (often to both sexes), but puts 
himself outside the reach of the particular person who desires him/whom he 
desires, isolating himself (both physically and emotionally) - such 
isolation could be forced upon him; he's wounded or physically disabled in 
some way, moody or gloomy; he's full of remorse for some act in his past 
(an act which he sees as far more damaging than it actually was, and which 
he sees as having been damaging to the object of his desires) but 
unrepentant despite that remorse (because the act was committed "for the 
greater good"); he's self-reliant, emotionally, physically and financially.

Above all, he is passionate in both emotion and action. His personality is 
ruled by passion, far, far, above rational thought or consideration. He 
pursues his own ends according to his self-generated moral code, against 
all opposition (of which he encounters a great deal!).
I'm sure I've forgotten some of the attributes, but those are the most 
important ones, and the ones which spring to *my* mind when I see that term 
used.

Now, whilst the above description is perfectly apt for a certain character 
in the Potterverse who shall remain nameless, I hardly see it fitting 
Snape. Sure, some of the attributes fit a common fanon view, but I see 
little or no support in actual canon for this.

Especially not the first and last listed attributes. JKR goes to great 
lengths to describe him as physically unattractive as possible without 
making him into an ogre, and his every action appears calculated and 
determined. To say that Snape is ruled by his passions just doesn't measure 
up.

There is one possible exception to his calculated nature, namely all his 
dealings with The Famous Harry Potter. However, even when he loses his cool 
with Harry and his friends, it's in situations in which, as he sees it (or 
at least, as much as we can determine that he sees it, IYSWIM), *Harry* is 
being ruled by emotions and passions rather than cold common sense (Harry & 
Ron's arrival at Hogwarts at the beginning of CoS, the Shrieking Shack 
scene, the PoA hospital showdown, etc, etc).

Of all the characters in the Potterverse, Snape strikes me as quite 
possibly the *least* likely to allow his passions to take over (which 
doesn't necessarily invalidate a view that he's become this way because at 
some stage in his past he *did* behave recklessly and he's been trying to 
make up for it ever since).

So in just what way can *anyone* see Snape as an archetypal Byronic hero, 
rather than as the absolute antithesis of such?

--
GulPlum AKA Richard, who is hoping that this doesn't degenerate into a 
repeat of the Sirius -v- Snape Apologists debate, which is what brought on 
the above reflections in the first place...