Different interpretations of the canon. WAS: Do the math

[lupinlore]

No: HPFGUIDX 137817

Pippin wrote:

> 
> But I think this is like the Shipping Wars of yore. People fix on 
> their notion of the One True Snape and if canon doesn't bear them
> out, well then, canon must be faulty. Could be, certainly.
> And maybe Aesop's fox was right and the grapes were sour after all,
> at least for that particular fox. De gustibus...
> 

I think you are probably right about that, Pippin.  The problem is 
that canon can legitimately be read and interpreted to fit a number 
of different views at this point.  I really don't think anyone's 
arguments hold a great deal of water, since we just don't know 
enough.  Given that, all we've got left to fall back on is our own 
reading of what would be an appropriate and satisfying end to the 
Snape arc -- and thus we fall back onto radically subjective 
measures of literature, good writing, and even moral propriety.  
That's life and there is absolutely no way to avoid it.

No matter how this comes out, there are going to be a lot of angry 
and dissatisfied people, as in the case of the Shipping Wars.  And 
these angry and dissatisfied people will have every right to find 
the outcome poor and badly written.  From their standpoint, they are 
entirely correct and have every right to say so.  There are no 
objective standards of writing or literature, despite the 
conventions that claim otherwise among some groups.  Writing is 
fundamentally about connecting with your readers on multiple levels -
 intellectual, emotional, moral, and spiritual.  Good writing, bad 
writing, effective writing are all relative judgments that hold 
water only for particular people at particular times.  Whatever JKR 
does, as in the case of her last two books, it will be both 
(genuinely) good writing and bad writing, effective and ineffective, 
well-crafted and contrived, persuasive and not persuasive.  And that 
is the way it has to be.  When the book comes out, everyone will put 
down their money and make up their own minds.  With this book, as 
with all books, as long as we are using Latin slogans, it will be 
Caveat Emptor followed, in many quarters, by Sic Transit Glorias 
Mundi (at least so far as JKR's reputation is concerned).  To quote 
in yet another language, c'est la vie (or perhaps more appropriatly, 
c'est la guerre).


Lupinlore