Snape passionate about the dark arts? [was: Snape]

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 89794

-> NORA:
> > That's an interesting idea, and I think there's something to 
> > support it--but for the interview comments made. 
> > 
> > (Ah, here it is): quoting (from the Royal Albert Hall webcast):
> > 
> > *When Prof Dumbledore took Prof Snape onto the staff and Prof Snape 
> > said "I'd like to be Prof of Defence Against the Dark Arts please" 
> > and Prof Dumbledore felt it might bring out the worst in Snape so 
> > said "I think we'll get you to teach Potions and see how you get 
> > along there".*
> > 
> > That does punch something of a hole in the theory...he may keep 
> > applying year after year as something of a cover, maybe something 
> > of a game, but it's clear from that that at least at one point, he 
> > did want that job.
> 
> Siriusly Snapey Susan:
> Thank you for that reminder, Nora.  Even though I've read that 
> interview in its entirety at least 3 times, I still forget things 
> I've read there!  
> 
> As a *small* bit in my own defense, though, I would include the line 
> JKR said just before where you started to quote:  "That is an 
> excellent question and the reason is
 I have to be careful
 not to 
> say too much."  That's probably not enough to dig my way out of this 
> one, but.... :-)
> 
> Siriusly Snapey Susan

Carol:
I think you have some wiggle room here, thanks to JKR's evasive manner
of answering important questions. It looks to me as if she's
improvising here to get herself out of a tight spot. Even if the
dialogue between Snape and DD does reflect what she has already
determined "really happened" (as opposed to being invented at that
moment), it has the marks of being paraphrased and incomplete. Note
that she "doesn't want to say too much," so, like DD, she's not giving
us the whole truth.

Also we need to remember how young Snape was at the time, just
twenty-one and with a year of spying but no teaching experience to his
credit, yet Dumbledore, who clearly needed to fill the Potions as well
as the DADA position, gave the young man the job because he knew he
had the knowledge to teach it. So maybe the original situation was
roughly as JKR sketches it in the interview, with young Snape wanting
DADA and getting Potions instead, but his desire to teach DADA instead
instead of potions could still be deliberately manipulated by both
Snape and DD as part of his cover as a spy or double agent. I think he
wants the job, but he's using his thwarted desire for his own and
Dumbledore's ends. In other words, this is another instance when both
sides can be right. 

Carol