Snape and the Edinburgh Festival

[kiricat2001]

No: HPFGUIDX 111030

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "potioncat" <willsonkmom at m...> 
wrote:
> 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?  

Marianne:

Well, JKR has in the past called Snape a horrid person and also 
described him as an abusive teacher.  So, I do think she would not 
like a lot of his characteristics were he to be a real flesh and 
blood figure.  In that sense alone, it doesn't surprise me that she 
may wonder why legions of people adore Snape. But, as the creator of 
this person, she has wisely not let him become a caricature bad guy 
and I'd think she must appreciate that her creation has struck a 
chord with so many readers.

Potioncat:
> And she's answered fairly closely a question that came up a while 
> ago, "How involved was he with the Death Eater activities?" 
> Of 
> course it could be argued that she says, "he'll have seen
> things 
> that
"

Marianne:

As someone who apprecieates the character of Snape, but who has 
absolutely no warm, fuzzy feelings about him,  I will be highly 
disappointed if his DE career is revealed as something he 
participated in on the sidelines.  I don't want his role to have been 
as witness, as simply having "seen things that..."  I want to find 
out that he jumped in whole-heartedly with both feet, took part in 
various bouts of mayhem and murder and then came to have some sort of 
epiphany that made him change course.  If, as JKR has hinted earlier, 
there is a redemptive pattern to Snape, then he's got to have done 
something that requires redemtion.  

Marianne