Bad guys and black hats (was Re: Unreliable narrator)

[nrenka]

No: HPFGUIDX 117777


--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "Renee" <R.Vink2 at c...> wrote:

<snip> 

> What would you have done if you hadn't considered Snape a sadistic 
> teacher, or conversely, if JKR had said he's mostly play-acting? 
> Would you have rejected her comment like you reject the one about 
> the conventional black hats? Can you really do this: accept those 
> authorial comments that confirm your own judgement and 
> interpretation but reject those that don't? 

Well, this is how I tend to use her comments, and I'll illustrate 
using this particular example.

Some of Snape's behavior is describable as sadistic from the text 
itself, being as it is often presented to us that he *enjoys* the 
distress that he gets to directly or indirect cause other people.  
This enjoyment can be read in a fairly straightforward manner from 
descriptions of his behavior, and so forth.  (I don't feel the need 
to give a catalog here, as it's been done before.)  However, 
the 'sadistic' descriptor is dependent upon this enjoyment *actually* 
being something that Snape is getting out of it.

Many a reader has postulated that we are being misled as to Snape's 
actual enjoyment of this behavior, by means of the unreliable 
narrator and Harry's mistaken perception of events.  It seems to me 
that this subversive position is ultimately contingent upon a final 
revelation of intention--a "No, you foolish boy, I did all of that 
because I really had to, and I didn't like having to do it", or some 
mutation thereof.

I take JKR's own descriptor of Snape as a 'sadistic teacher who 
abuses his power' as a statement indicating that we are indeed 
justified in that reading of the text and are not going to find out 
the contrary.  [If, however, she were to state that 'Snape was play-
acting all along, and then goes on to show it, even in a subtle 
manner--that'd be another story.]

But I admit to having the bias that, lacking the all-important later 
qualifications that can completely change how we see things, the more 
overtly supportable interpretations are the better ones--**for and 
only for** a situation where we have a distinct pattern of behavior.  
In other words, for things that aren't a one-off, but something with 
a number of examples behind it.  There are other things where I do 
think the most overt explanation is probably incomplete/possibly 
wrong, but that's usually because they're singular incidents (and 
thus cannot be seriated).  And this does not apply to all 
considerations of Snape's character by *any* means.

Authorial statements about character can be useful as potential 
regulations for predictions.  Given her statements about such people 
as Lucius Malfoy and Dolores Umbridge, I wouldn't put much money on a 
subversive reading of either of those characters.  Pippin is really 
hoping (methinks) that JKR has been exceedingly sneaky and careful 
with her statements about Lupin, to set us up for a very big BANG.  
And there's a lot she won't answer about Snape, so when she gives a 
certain qualifier/descriptor of behavior that lines up closely with 
patterns that can be cataloged and fairly easily lifted from the 
text, I'm inclined to pay attention.

-Nora goes to play in the snow and maybe try to write some on the 
papers