Harry's POV was Snape is NOT Sexy

[abigailnus]

No: HPFGUIDX 56472

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "severin_szaltis" <severin_szaltis at y...> wrote:
> Diana Williams: 
> Harry is the Point-of-View character in the story, and if you'll look 
> back
> at the story, it is *not* told from the omniscient narrator POV.
>  
> 
> Me: 
> I'm afraid not; it *is* an omniscient narrator (or ON). The fact that 
> the narrator only chooses to tell us what Harry feels and thinks and 
> not the other characters, is neither here nor there with regard to 
> the omniscience of the narrator.  
> 
> 
> What is happening is that the ON is choosing to tell us events from 
> Harry's stand point.  Although the distinction is a subtle one, this 
> is *not* the same as telling the story in Harry's voice.  The books 
> are *not* a First Person Narrative, which would be the only case in 
> which we could say that every description in the book was Harry's 
> personal view and given in light of *his* prejudices and bias.  The 
> HP books are written in the third person and only when it 
> says, "Harry thought..." (or similar) are we getting Harry's personal 
> opinion.  Otherwise we are listening to the ON. 

No one suggested that the books were a first person narrative, which is certainly not the only kind of narrative that allows us to see the world through a particular person's eyes.  Harry Potter is written in Third Person Restricted, which means that while the narrative is indeed written in the third person, it tells us only what a particular person - Harry - is seeing or feeling.  This is in contrast to a Third Person Omniscient narrative, which can indeed give us an "objective" view of the world - such a narrator will occasionaly step out of his characters' heads and tell us an ulitmate truth about them, or switch from one character's perception to another's.  Obviously, an omniscient narrator can still choose to conceal facts from the readers, but this is not a qualification for omniscience - the narrator knows everything, but we only know what the narrator chooses to tell us.

For the most part, this is not what happens in the Harry Potter books.  There are two scenes in PS in which the narrative moves away from Harry - the first chapter and Hermione's rescue of Harry during the first Quidditch match.  The first chapter of GoF might also count as such a divergence, becuase even though Harry witnesses it, the readers are told facts that Harry has no way of knowing, such as the history of the Riddle House and Frank Bryce's name and past, and in fact Harry never learns most of these facts (note that during the graveyard scene, when Frank's shadow steps out of Voldemort's wand, he is described as 'an old man'.  Harry doesn't know his name, which means that the narrative doesn't either).  But excluding these scenes, the readers know only what Harry knows, and we learn it as he does.  The narrative constantly informs us of Harry's emotional state, whereas all other characters are only as emotionally transparent to us as they are to Harry (which is to say, not much, as Harry is a rather typical teenager in that respect).  

A good example of how the books are indeed told from Harry's POV is looking at  Harry's misconceptions.  Look at Snape, as long as we're talking about him.  Harry detests him, with some justification, and has never been able to shake the conviction that Snape is dangerous.  And yet, whenever we see Snape interacting with people while unaware that Harry is watching him - his conversations with Moody and Karkaroff in GoF, for example - his venom level goes down.  And then there's Neville, whom Harry constantly describes as being magically weak, 'nearly a squib'.  It's been pointed out several times on the group that Neville, in fact, displays a great deal of magical strengh, but almost no ability to control it.  Harry doesn't notice these things, and neither do most readers on a first reading, because the fact that the narrative is from Harry's POV skews our perceptions.   

Coming back to Snape, and the question of whether his appearance is in fact as odious as Harry perceives it to be.  It may be true that Harry's dislike of Snape is coloring his perception, and I would guess that this might have started happening soon after the two met, but Harry's unpleasant descriptions of Snape begin before Snape makes his dislike clear.  When Harry first sees Snape at Hogwarts, and during the first Potions lesson, he has no preconceptions and no bias against Snape, and yet he still describes him as physically unappealing.   

Stickbook wrote:
>>But what about Lucius Malfoy? He's vindictive with a capital V. I 
 never saw many fangirls swooning after him, certainly not as many as 
 went after Draco. But maybe I'm sheltered. I was just curious:
 
 Where do we rate Lucius in terms of sexiness?>>

Actually, I think there's a rather large Sexy!Lucius contingent, although I wouldn't swear that this wasn't due to Jason Isaacs's performance in the movie (not that I get the attraction.  Alan Rickman is yummy, but Isaacs didn't impress me).  I suspect we're looking at different qualities of sexiness.  Lucius is sexy because he's a bad boy, and very good at it.  Snape is sexy because he's mysterious and tortured.

Abigail