Vampire/Half Vampire/Schvampire -was all the other vampire Snape stuff

[pippin_999]

No: HPFGUIDX 88502

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "junediamanti" 
<june.diamanti at b...> wrote:
d why do the Vampire!Snape adherents take such 
> an insistent approach to it being necessary to the plot and the 
> story?  There can be a vampire or not - 
<snip>
> 
> Still waiting for EVIDENCE...

"Evidence" is any fact which might be helpful in forming a 
conclusion or judgement. It seems to me that by "evidence" you 
mean  "evidence which leads to an inescapable conclusion." 
That is not simply evidence. That is *proof*.   The fact that other 
explanations can be devised for the vampire Snape clues does 
not exclude them as evidence. 

 Occam's razor is not a terribly useful instrument in 
solving mystery stories, rather we must follow Sherlock Holmes 
and procede by eliminating the impossible and going with what 
remains, however unlikely. 

I think we can eliminate the possibility that vampires will play no 
major role in the story.   If a major character turned out to be,
say,  a heliopath, that would be sloppy storytelling, IMO, but the 
grounds for a clandestine vampire are well-laid. 

How vampires will be necessary to the plot we don't yet know, 
because we know so little about JKR's vampires. After all, we 
didn't know why it would be important that Hagrid is 
kin to giants until the very end of Book Four. And it didn't turn out 
to be  size that was important. It doesn't have to be their appetite 
for blood that makes vampires significant.

As for what the Potterverse vampires *are*, we've been told that  
centaurs make little distinction among humans, so it's 
doubtful that vampires can be some  sort of diseased human 
like werewolves. They must be a race, like Giants  or Veela. And 
if so, then there may be "part" vampires. Just as an aside, "part" 
creatures are not a  JKR invention. The folklore of the British 
Isles is full of them. 

So, if there is a vampire or part-vampire concealed among the 
characters, where is it? Possibly Voldemort has transformed 
himself into something like a vampire. But he  cannot be a  born 
vampire. His parents were a wizard and a Muggle.  If either of  
Viktor Krum's parents were vampires surely someone at the 
Third Task would have remarked on it.  But we know nothing 
about Snape's ancestry-- we don't even know if the people Harry 
glimpsed in Snape's memory were his parents. 

Now it won't make much difference to me if JKR comes up with 
some other explanation for Snape's vampire-like characteristics, 
but I do insist that such  an explanation exist and  be coherent. 
Red herrings have to lead *somewhere*.  The characters have to 
be hiding *something.* It wouldn't be very satisfying to the reader 
if no explanation for Bagman's furtive behavior in GoF had been 
given, or if it had been only coincidence that Percy was in the 
dungeons and  trying to shush Ginny in CoS. 

If there is no hidden vampire at Hogwarts, then I want to know 
why vampires are mentioned in all five of the books and both 
school books. Why  has JKR gone out of her way to assure  us 
that the Hogwarts Elves can accommodate special diets? Why, 
though she's emphasized that most wizards cannot easily alter 
their appearance,has she made a positive exception for "fangs"?

Why has she taken such care not to show us Snape in the 
sunlight, except for one occasion when he was in obvious 
discomfort? Snape's an enthusiastic Quidditch fan, so why 
should he be wearing a "very grim smile" when his team is 
going for the Final?

I do think it's interesting that the anti-vampire contingent has said 
their feelings about this are so strong because thinking of Snape 
as a vampire would significantly change the way that they 
perceive him. Could JKR devise a  stronger illustration of the 
insidious power of  preconceived ideas?

Pippin