Snape, the "Deeply Horrible Person"

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 94573

Q: Who's your favorite character besides Harry Potter?
 
A: It's very hard to choose. It's fun to write about Snape 
> because  he's a deeply horrible person. Hagrid is someone I'd 
> love to meet. 
<snip>
This seems like a *very* strong negative characterization to 
> me. It  also doesn't seem particulary consistent with the canon 
> we have so far. Snape is presented as complex, bitter, angry, 
> etc.<<
> 
Pippin:
<snip>
>  I think  Snape is cruel for the same reason that Harry was in 
> OOP,when he told  Hedwig to peck Ron and Hermione, and felt
> satisfied when he saw signs of the damage. Under the anger 
> there's a lot of hurt, and hurting others gives him satisfaction 
> because it  validates his pain. I think Rowling wants us to 
> understand that this is no more  out of character for Harry than it 
> is for Snape or any human being--we're all capable of such 
> behavior.

Carol:
I agree with the original poster that "deeply horrible person" isn't
consistent with the complex character we've seen so far and with
Pippin that there's a lot of hurt under that anger. (Look at the pain
Harry envisions inflicting on Snape. I suppose the difference is that
Snape is capable of inflicting pain--always psychological except for
one moment of uncontrolled anger. He's not going to chop Harry into
pieces as Harry imagines doing to him.)

Setting aside Kneasy's very important point that Snape is very likely
acting under cover whereas to Harry it's all real, we shouldn't forget
that Snape has tried several times to save Harry--trying to keep him
away from Fluffy, to counter Quirrell's jinx on his broom, to keep him
away from the supposed murderer sirius and the actual werewolf Lupin,
(If he were deeply horrible, would he have conjured stretchers and
floated HRH and Sirius back to the castle after HRH had stunned him?),
and to send a rescue party to the MoM?

Look at the context of this quotation. It's made in 1999, when JKR
still wants us to have our suspicions of Snape. It's made in response
to "Who is your *favorite character* other than Harry?" And it's
probably also made (correct me if I'm wrong) to an audience of children.

Contrast the later quotations, which always say to keep an eye on
Snape because there's more to him than meets the eye. This "deeply
horrible person" is trusted by Dumbledore and, as far as we can tell
from the evidence, working hand in glove with him. Yet Dumbledore,
according to JKR, is the epitome of goodness. (That, too, may be
somewhat misleading--it's not equivalent to "Dumbledore is perfect.")

I'm going to make an assertion that I'm fairly certain that not
everyone will agree with, but it's based on long experience
interpreting literary works. The author is not always absolutely right
about his or her own creations. Yes, JKR determines who lives or dies,
who marries whom, what careers the survivors will have, whether and in
what form Sirius will reappear, whether Snape and Percy are redeemed,
 and other "factual" matters. But once the characters and events have
been released to the world in print, they acquire an identity of their
own which extends beyond the intention of the author. (She herself has
said that certain characters, including Snape, grew beyond her
original conception of them.) Authors are not always fully aware of or
don't always fully realize their own intentions. Like any object of
art, the book is subject to interpretation and can be read and
understood in ways unanticipated by the author. That does *not* mean
that any interpretation is valid. We can't argue, for example, that
Lupin isn't *really* a werewolf or that Crouch!Moody was really
McGonagall. You can't disregard the established facts of a book, but
you can indicate places where the narrator is unreliable and others
where she may or may not be. 

My point is that even a statement like "Snape is a deeply horrible
person," which may seem unequivocal, is subject to interpretation.
Both the context and JKR's possible intentions need to be considered.
I, for one, place more weight on her later statements which ask us to
keep an eye on him. She expects readers not to like Snape *and* she
expects them to be surprised by his behavior in Book 7. That, to me,
suggests that the "horrible" Snape will do something good, that he
will be redeemed. Unlike Voldemort, for whom there is no hope, Snape
has not yet lost his soul to evil. "Deeply horrible" or not, we have
seen that he is capable of helping the side of good and (evidently)
capable of sincerely repenting his association with the Death Eaters.
Let's judge him, then, based on his own words and actions in the books
(always considering that they're reported from Harry's point of view)
and not from a statement lightly made in a 1999 interview.

Carol