Snape, Harry, Dumbledore, and flaws in the books

[kyntor70]

No: HPFGUIDX 105581

Dzeytoun wrote:

"A lot of threads lately have been devoted to explaining mysteries of
the relationships among Snape, Harry, and Dumbledore. These
relationships are fascinating, but also puzzling and inconsistent.
To a large extent we are lacking a lot of information we need. We
are also hampered by the tight Harry-centric POV JKR uses.

However, and this isn't going to make me popular, I think a lot of
the explanation for why these three act the way they do is, well,
that they HAVE to act that way for the plot to go the way JKR wants
it to. The fact is that, good a writer as JKR is, characterization
is her severe weak point. She just isn't very good at explaining
what makes people tick. Look at the trio. After five books we STILL
don't really know much about what kind of people Ron and Hermione
really are, and why they make the decisions they do.

True, a lot of this is due to POV. But an awful lot is also because
JKR sometimes commits the cardinal sin of writing, she lots plot
dictate character instead of the other way around. A lot of the
seeming inconsistencies and flaws really ARE inconstistencies and
flaws.

In this case why does Dumbledore let Snape act the way he does toward
Harry? Because it's needed for the plot. Dumbledore IS NOT a
Machiavellian puppet master. Snape and Dumbledore ARE NOT engaged in
some tag team good cop/bad cop arrangement to teach Harry about
life. Snape IS NOT secretly a good guy who abuses Harry and Neville
for their own good. Dumbledore IS NOT some secret evil genius out to
manipulate Snape, Harry, and everybody else for some nefarious end.
JKR wanted a good, kindly wizard headmaster to be Harry's mentor and
an nasty, difficult teacher to be his nemesis. Therefore, that's the
way she writes things. This creates contradictions and flaws. And
that, by and large, is ALL they are.

We want things to make sense. But the story often doesn't. And why
should it? Life usually doesn't make sense. Theories about Snape
and Dumbledore conspiring together to teach Harry about life are the
same as theories about how Oswald had help on the grassy knoll in
Dallas. That is they are conspiracy theories aimed at reducing the
complexity of things to some controllable, understandable set of
motives and decisions.

And yes, I realize I'm being inconsistent in saying that JKR has
flaws in the story on one hand and the story's are like life on the
other. A foolish consistency and all that.

Now such theories are a heck of a lot of fun. But at the end of the
day, they almost never reveal anything much."

Kyntor replies:

This has been mentioned before (if I remember correctly, it was long 
time ago), but I think that it bears repeating.  The Harry Potter 
Series was originally intended for children.  In order to appeal to 
children some of the character traits are exagerrated (as in all 
children's literature).  Because of this fact, some of the 
development of certain characters is flawed.  Now that JKR is gearing 
her books toward a little bit older crowd, she is stuck with some 
inconsistancies.

Kyntor