Why readers love Snape

[A. Vulgarweed]

No: HPFGUIDX 33366

hey y'all
been lurking for a while, finally feel like pitching in. Nice to "meet" ya.
>
>Eloise wrote: (on readers liking Snape but not Draco)

I find Draco petty and dull, the perfect archetype of the pretty but
brainless upperclass jerk, and wouldn't weep too much if he gets killed
off. (Maybe it's too much Edward Gorey and Roald Dahl, but the death  of
perfectly horrible and one-dimensional fictional children doesn't upset me
nearly as much as the death of perfectly horrible--but
fascinating--fictional adults might). Though I would prefer creative
torments to outright death, as they're more entertaining (e.g., the
bouncing ferret scene).

Now, Cassie's right in one with the Byronic baggage our Potions Master
carries (though I really don't buy the vampire stuff). If JKR *really*
didn't want Snape to accumulate groupies, she (a) shouldn't have dressed
him so well; (b) shouldn't have given him a mysterious past or a tormented
soul, and certainly not a commanding/insinuating voice; (c) shouldn't have
made his sarcastic barbs so dead-on funny; and (d) [referencing an
unmentionable] should NEVER have told ANYONE that her first actor choice
for the role was Alan "Roast Sex on a Stick" Rickman. Being a very
well-read woman, she would certainly be familiar with the very common
phenomenon of bookish ladies developing crushes on literary characters, the
good-bad-but-not-evil brooding antihero being particularly popular. (Sirius
Black and Remus Lupin fall into this category also, but in different
ways--what a smorgasbord she's given us). It's only a more
visual-imagination-heavy version of having the hots for a celebrity after
all--celebrities are just as "fictional" for non-Hollywood types who have
to invent personalities for them since we have no idea what the real ones
are. I think I know a lot more about Snape's personality (or that of any
major character in any novel I've read) than I do about, say, Tom Cruise's
or Johnny Depp's (or that of any actor, really); hence there's a lot richer
crush material there.
>

and Gabriele wrote:
>
>I can also imagine two additional points.
>First, a character, who is more or less horrible is much more
>interesting than a nice character. I am an opera lover and the evil
>characters are always more interesting than the good ones - in
>particular in Italian operas it is nearly almost the baritone vs. the
>tenore or the alto vs. the soprano. The tenore has the better love
>songs but the baritone has much more power in his arias and for my ears
>and impression also the "better" melodies (not always but often).
>Second, I also can imagine that the "good handful of us who is in love/
>lust with Sevi" would hope that our love may save his soul and because
>of our love he could become a better person. Who does not hope to
>change a beloved but evil person to the better because of our love?
>That´s MHO
>Gabriele
>

Actually, I like him the way he is. The 'all he needs is the love of a good
woman' fantasy makes me think, alas, too much of the all-too-common story
in which Good Woman tames Bad Boy (makes the dashing gambler get a straight
job to support the family, gets the rock star to stay home from the road,
etc.) and then gets frustrated because his end of their marriage involves a
lot of weight-gaining and TV watching and virtually no active interest in
life, including sex. Well....duh, what did they expect? The reason I like
Snape the way he is that he is such a wonderful twist on the bad-guy theme,
especially as seen through the kids' POV. So far as we know in canon, he's
a mean-spirited, sarcastic, domineering, sadistic s.o.b. who would actually
be a real villain if all the kids had to worry about was the normal stuff
schoolkids worry about in much kids' lit, where the mean teacher IS the
worst they have to face. BUT, technically, he IS one of the "good guys."
The fact that in JKR's universe "nice" and "good" are not at all the same
thing adds a lot of depth that wouldn't otherwise be there, IMO.

I also tend to believe that Dumbledore has known all along that Voldemort
will likely return, has never trusted the Ministry, and has enlisted the
faculty he has at his fortress, Hogwarts, for strategic reasons that aren't
just about education. So I tend to believe that virtually everyone who
works there (especially those who seem to have no business working there)
might turn out to have some skill and/or destiny that's important in
protecting the place. Still can't explain Trelawney or Lockhart by this
theory, but what the hell, they're funny. I bet Dumbledore would find that
important too.

A.V.
(who remembers none of her high school years except her Latin teacher, who
was sardonic, occasionally mean, and absolutely brilliant [and sorta dowdy
and female--no obvious parallel there] and whose Latin is still much better
than her algebra ever was.}