What does it mean to 'like' a character, a character like Snape

[Porphyria]

No: HPFGUIDX 34740

Yeesh! Just when I thought our semi-regular Snape discussions would 
fizzle out. And sometimes I feel guilty since I'm so obsessed with him 
myself. ;-) Let's start by saying he's an acquired taste. Also, for the 
benefit of anyone newly signed onto the list, we had a series of similar 
'why love/hate him' posts for the first two weeks or so in January 
during which time many interesting things were said -- and that's just 
since I've been lurking.

Now, I really wanted to reply the previous posts discussing why we 
'like' a particular character (specifically Elkins' #34058, Mahoney's 
#34078, et.al.) and I didn't quite have time at the time, so I'll 
combine my comments to that thread with the current Snape one. I could 
go on and on defending Snape's various questionable actions forever, but 
I'd like to shift the emphasis a little back to the question of why we 
enjoy or identify with one character over another.

I think what one likes in a fictitious character is not always simply 
whom we would like in real life, or whom we feel we can justify 
according to some sort of virtue/vice ratio. They are fictitious! We 
don't have to worry about getting along with them in real life. Instead, 
I tend to judge characters by what they represent as characters: what 
kind of struggle or issue they seem to be saddled with, what kind 
'problem to be worked out' that the character symbolizes. This judgment 
is based partly on how well they are depicted -- obviously they have to 
be complex or they won't have any heft as characters, and partly on 
their function in the story -- a character strictly there for comic 
relief (IMO, Colin Creevey) won't have the same potential for meaning as 
a character with real problems.

In this case I find Snape a much more compelling character than Sirius. 
Unlike Sirius, Snape probably is guilty of terrible crimes (not simply 
dumb sophomoric pranks, or well-meaning errors of judgment), plus he's 
saddled with a vindictive and extremely irritable personality. So he's 
got a lot to work against. Luckily he seems to have in his favor a large 
amount of conviction, bravery and talent (and on this point I'll simply 
defer to all the previous posts defending him). Therefore what I expect 
him to do to make up for his past, or to put it in a more literary way, 
*to resolve the problem he represents*, ought to be that much more 
dramatic and powerful.

But even in the meantime it's the struggle he represents that I identify 
with. Not literally (I'm a very *nice* person, kind to children and 
animals), but with the symbol, with the idea of corralling your dark 
impulses into the service of good. Snape seems to have an enormous 
struggle with guilt, regret and traumatic emotional damage. I'm basing 
this on evidence from the staircase scene in GoF where he nearly has a 
nervous breakdown featuring full-blown hysterical symptoms when 
Crouch-as-Moody confronts him with his past, plus my assumption that 
being a DE, or worse yet, a DE spy, must be emotionally warping. Amanda 
pointed out in her post #34435 "Far from not developing, he was pushed 
too far, to where he doesn't give a thought to what most of us think are 
big, major, awful things to do." I agree, I think his petty, sniping, 
moments are a measure of how callous his past has made him, and the 
points where he really loses control are a measure of how traumatized he 
still is from those days. I think he tries to atone for his past by his 
obsessive (and unappreciated) protecting of Harry, and his obvious 
loyalty to Dumbledore, among other things. The fact that he often deals 
with things *badly* makes his effort that much more powerful a symbol 
for me -- he's messed up, and he's still trying.

So does that mean I 'like' him? Absolutely, because I identify with him 
as a larger-than-life version of a few of my own problems with guilt, 
anger, spite, the usual. I'm desperately rooting for him to find some 
sort of peace. But do I apply the same standards of judgment to him that 
I would to a real person? No, because he is fictitious and in order to 
be a powerful symbol he has to be drawn as more dramatic than life. 
Plus, this is a fantasy world that often has more brutal standards than 
ours. Plus no real teenagers were harmed in the writing of Snape -- I 
actually love some of his vindictive moments precisely because they are 
fiction, and why bother reading fiction if you can't vicariously enjoy 
stuff you can't do in real life? So yes, he's my favorite character 
precisely for all is problematic traits.

~~Porphyria

p.s. Catlady wrote "I love purple, I named the Prewetts Porphyry and 
Perpetua in my fic" and Barb wrote "How cool that you have for your 
handle the disease I gave Snape in my fic to explain his temper and his 
vampire-like qualities!" Thanks, you two! Just for the record, I got 
this handle from the wonderfully perverse Browning poem, but I do love 
all things purple and all things gothic, so it fits. :-)



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