Snape as Byronic hero

[melclaros <melclaros@yahoo.com>]

No: HPFGUIDX 48503

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "kiricat2001 <Zarleycat at a...>" 
> clear that JKR is not trying to portray Snape as a physically 
> attractive man. Nor, to my recollection, is there any instance in 
the 
> books where any implication is made that any of the other 
characters 
> see him as attractive.  

  <snip>

> Marianne, who freely admits she doesn't understand the Snape 
> attraction factor that's out there, but who also thinks Snape is 
the  most layered, interesting character in all of Potterverse.



Oh, but there you have it, Marianne. His attractiveness in a 
nutshell. Snape's attractiveness (putting aside the movie portrayal--
a whole 'nother Snape layer) is *not* necessarily in his physcial 
appearance. Of course, as someone pointed out earlier, if Rowling was 
really trying to make him *completly* physically unattractive, she 
should have created him more in the image of Pettigrew. 
The closest one (ok, me) could come to using any physical trait as 
described by Rowling as part of his attraction would be her 
descriptions of his voice and the way he uses it and the same with 
the way he moves. 
The attraction of the *character* is, as you yourself say is in his 
complexity, his multifaceted, multilayered portrayal as laid out by 
Rowling, one tantalizing hint at a time and the mystery surrounding 
his motives.
Does that make him Byronic? Perhaps. 
I think Snape himself might give a little self-satisfied smirk and 
like to consider himself "mad, bad and dangerous to know." Not 
necessarily Byronic, more Byron like.

Melpomene