Snape and the Edinburgh Festival

[mnaper2001]

No: HPFGUIDX 111006

Potioncat:
> I suppose I should have snipped a little, but for the first post I 
> thought I'd better leave everything in.
> 
> Where are all the Snape foes?  Where are all the Snape fans?  Twice 
> in one interview JKR made a comment about not loving Snape.  If she 
> keeps this up I might start to believe her!  What do the rest of 
you 
> think?  Are we to take it that he's really a horrible man who is 
> useful in the fight against LV...and nothing more?  

Ally:

I'm not sure.  Given her references to girl's having crushes on Tom 
Felton and a friend thinking Lucius was hot, I think what she's 
responding to is the sort of romantic crush many fans have for Snape -
 those who think Snape will turn out to have a heart of gold and 
everything nasty he does is just a front to keep up his cover.

As someone who loves Snape but sees him as inherently mean and 
doesn't want to date him (now Alan Rickman, that's another story), I 
was a little put off by these comments.  I love the idea of a petty, 
nasty guy fighting for the side of the good (especially when he gets 
such great lines) and would be disappointed if she was trying to tell 
us Snape is going to end up doing something bad.  But I really do 
suspect she just wants to remind folks he's not a cream puff at heart 
as opposed to suggesting that he's going to do something evil.  He's 
complex and he's great.  If she's going to have it turn out that he 
was a bad guy all along, how could she say in the same breath that 
he's a "gift of a character?"  To me, he's much less of a gift and 
much less interesting if he's a villian.

Potioncat:
> But what I found interesting was the clue about his being a pure 
> blood.  I took her answer to mean that he isn't Muggle-born, but 
> that one of his parents might be. (I'd vote for his mother.) Did 
> anyone else read it that way?  It could just as easily mean that 
> yes, he is pure blood.  But why not just say that?

Ally:
I would bet on this.  It was suspicious that she only ruled him out 
as a muggle-born.  I could see him being a half blood.  It would make 
sense that he had some connection to muggle world given his use of 
the muggle logic puzzle. (but then I thought Tom Riddle was the HBP, 
so what do I know?)

What I also thought was a clue was her quote "Snape WAS a death 
eater." (my emphasis)  To me, this reaffirms his current allegiances 
to DD.