The Good and Evil of Snape (was: Harry ... act like ...)

[pippin_999]

No: HPFGUIDX 99725

Sue wrote:

> 
> But my personal take on it is that if JKR says he's meant to be 
a horrible person, he is. He's  her character, after all, and we 
have to respect her vision.<

Pippin:
But is horrible the same as evil? I think Rowling is making a very 
important distinction between rights and feelings. Snape does 
not respect other people's feelings and for that he is deservedly 
unpopular. But  he seldom infringes on anyone's rights. 

He does not refuse to teach potions  to Harry or Neville. He does 
make them miserable, but not to the point where they can't learn.  
He gives  Harry proper credit for  potions that are made 
correctly. He blusters about getting people expelled or turning 
them over to Dementors, but when the chips are down he 
doesn't actually do it. In fact he goes so far as to invent an 
excuse for the Trio for their attack on him in PoA, and he turns 
Sirius over to justice instead of taking revenge himself.


Even though Dumbledore recognizes that Snape's hatred of 
Harry is a wound that may never heal, he still trusts Snape, 
because, IMO, horrible as Snape is, he has so far  consistently 
supported  Dumbledore's values.

In the two cases where Snape seems to have defied 
Dumbledore,  there is canon for Dumbledore tacit approval. 
Dumbledore does not refuse to accept Lupin's resignation as he 
did Hagrid's, or arrange to let Lupin stay at the school as he did 
Trelawney. And Dumbledore does not arrange for someone else 
to teach Harry Occlumency.

JKR tells us that  we shouldn't  rely entirely on our feelings to 
distinguish between good and evil, or at least we should be 
suspicious if something feels both right and pleasurable. JKR is 
making a good many readers feel that it's both right and easy to 
hate Snape. It could be she plans to teach them a lesson.

Sue:
 However, as a good writer, she  couldn't make [Snape] 
two-dimensional, and whatever she intended at the beginning, 
he has  ended up a fascinating, complex character, far more 
interesting than the "good guys". 
 Probably a case of the character getting away from the writer! :-)
 Think, say, Shylock in THE MERCHANT OF VENICE - I am pretty 
sure he was meant to be the villain, but  Shakespeare being 
Shakespeare, couldn't make him two-dimensional, whatever he  
intended.<

Pippin:
I would give both Rowling and Shakespear credit for wanting to 
present their characters as three dimensional, and getting the 
audience to see that in Snape's/Shylock's shoes we might be 
just as bitter, just as unconcerned with how we behave to others. 
After all if people are going to hate you anyway, what difference 
does it make how you treat them? 

By the conventions of his time, Shakespeare had to show Jews 
as inferior socially and morally to Christians. Thus Shylock has 
to be utterly discredited, and daughter Jessica must convert. But 
does JKR mean to discredit Slytherin utterly and show the 'good' 
Slytherins converting to other Houses?  Or will there be a 
solution dearer to JKR's liberal heart? 

Pippin