Unsentimental JKR (was re: Snape Culpable and the Three-part Interview)

[susanmcgee48176]

No: HPFGUIDX 136080

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "lupinlore" <bob.oliver at c...> 
wrote:
> > Betsy Hp:
> <SNIP>
> > 
> > And I agree with Magda's over all point.  Why on earth would JKR 
> > give away the answer to her books?  That's another reason I'm 
> > dismissive of her interviews (especially with regards to 
characters 
> > like Snape and Draco) as theory foundations.  Because the final 
> > destiny for Draco and especially Snape is far too important for 
JKR > to tells us about in an interview.
> > 
> 
> And yet what has JKR ever told us that's been shown to be wrong or 
even 
> deliberately misleading?  Draco IS an evil little traitor.  That he 
> might have a failure of nerve isn't sympathetic or worthy of warm 
> feelings.  He is guilty of two attempted murders and betrayal of 
> Hogwarts.  Quite frankly, from a purely practical point of view, 
> everyone would have been better off if he had died from the 
> Sectumsempra curse (assuming that Snape isn't ESE and wouldn't have 
> killed Dumbledore anyway, which I don't think he is).
> 
> Why would she reveal secrets in her interviews?  That's a very good 
> question.  I think the answer is that a lot of times she doesn't 
think 
> they're secrets.  To wit the "anvil sized hints" she was dropping 
over 
> the shipping issue.  

Re: Attraction to Draco -- and to Snape.

I have never quite understood the attraction (sexual or whatever) to 
the vicious characters in the book.

I love rule breakers -- I believe that law and authority can be 
grounded in injustice and that they deserve to be flouted. One of the 
reasons that I love Order of the Phoenix is all that resistance to 
tyranny rule-breaking... the Dumbledore scene where he refuses to go 
quietly, Fred and George's exodus, the whole school rising up against 
Umbrage, etc. But like Harry, I was shocked by James' treatment of 
Snape as seen in the Pensieve (which we now know is reality, not 
someone's memory or perception).

But I do not like cruelty and viciousness -- and that's why I just 
don't "get" people who just love Draco or Snape. They are both 
verbally abusive, and nasty. Snape loves humiliating children over 
whom he has power (not just Harry -- remember his comment to Hermione 
about her teeth, and his absolutely vile treatment of Neville 
Longbottom, going out of his way to humiliate him in front of his new 
Professor (Lupin)). Draco is deferential and submissive to those 
above him -- to his father, to Snape until the HBP (why don't YOU 
apply to be headmaster, Professor?)...but is horrible to those he 
sees as "below him." I hate bullies.

So even if Snape does turn out to be on the side of righteousness, I 
could never be attracted to him, or like him, etc. Also, I have no 
trouble distinguishing Draco Malfoy from Tom Felton. I can absolutely 
see why someone might be attracted to or like Tom....

So what about Draco crying, being worried about the werewolf, not 
killing DD, etc.? Well, I THOUGHT JKR had said something about 
redemption.....one of the reasons I like the books is that there was 
an idea that characters could be COMPLEX....redemption is about 
CHANGE, moving from evil doing to doing the right thing...we hope 
that James AND Sirius (who lured Snape to perhaps his death or at 
least a bite from a werewolf)changed...We can see Draco as complex, 
perhaps, and perhaps in the last book we will see more change. So, 
he's crying in the bathroom, he doesn't think he can "do it" 
(murder), he's worried about his father and mother, he's unhappy that 
a murderous werewolf got into the castle where his friends are, but 
most importantly he doesn't kill Dumbledore when he has the chance 
to...Another clue to Draco might be that his mother truly loves him. 
His father may be a bully, but his mother takes the risk of going to 
Severus Snape and begs him to save Draco. If he is loved by his 
mother, and if he perhaps loves her..there may be hope for him. OR he 
may be a complex character who does some evil but stops short of 
other evil...

When I first read the HBP, I really hoped that Snape killed 
Dumbledore because Dumbledore was already dying, had asked Snape to 
kill him so that Snape would be positioned to save Harry from 
Voldemort. I have almost no hope after reading the interviews that 
JKR gave to Mugglenet and the Leaky Cauldron. I believed that Snape 
was a complex character who did wrong things, but was a true and 
faithful adherent of Albus Dumbledore's. Snape did save Harry's life 
in the Philosopher's Stone -- whether out of a debt to James or not --
 doesn't really matter..he did it. 

I'm trying to figure out why I am so invested in Snape not being in 
Lord Voldemort's camp. Part of it is that I can't stand the fact that 
Snape being evil means that he made a fool of Albus Dumbledore for so 
many years, that Dumbledore is then portrayed as one of those foolish 
people who love and trust... (as Lord Voldemort would characterize 
him, Lord Voldemort who neither loves nor trusts, nor is loved or 
trusted...instead of calling  him He Who Must Not Be Named we should 
call him He Who Does Not Love). 

Maybe it is that I'm so invested in the idea of redemption, and the 
idea that even someone who is nasty and evil can turn their back on 
evil and do something good at any point...? 

So, what evidence do we have that LV knew about the OoP...about its 
activities? (Snape tells Bellatrix and Narcissa that he has told LV 
about OoP). How well does Snape's explanations to LV stand up to 
scrutiny? I'd better go back and read the book again...

Susan McGee, Northern California