Did Snape have a choice or not? Levels and contradictions in JKR's writing

[lupinlore]

No: HPFGUIDX 138388

> Lupinlore:
> >In terms of your tolerance for contradiction, I think the 
situation 
> >is more complicated.  Both Good!Snape and Evil!Snape face a 
number 
> >of 
> >plot holes and contradictions.  You can either try to solve these 
> >holes and contradictions in a way that supports your position or 
> >you 
> >can simply take the position that the saga will have numerous 
holes 
> >and contradictions regardless of how it comes out.
> 
>Ellecain: 
> *Sigh* 
> You have spelled out my worst fear Lupinlore.
> Im afraid Book 7 will have large gaping plotholes
> The more Good!Snape/ESE!Snape speculation continues,
> the more convinced I become that 
> JKR has not thought this through!!!!
> I just hope that I am proved wrong.
> 

Well, I guess we need to be clear that being a good thinker is not 
necessarily the same thing as being a methodical and thorough 
thinker.  There are many ways you can be a good thinker.  JKR is a 
very good thinker in some ways, such as in creative settings and 
interestingly presented characters.  However, she just isn't a very 
methodical thinker -- as she herself admits when it comes to matters 
dealing with numbers and math.

I suspect she isn't always a very thorough thinker, either.  Oh, I'm 
sure she's telling the truth that she has pages and pages of notes 
and background, but I suspect most of that is simply extra anecdotes 
and detail that haven't been thoroughly thought through and 
integrated into her main plotlines.  JKR is wonderful with detail, 
but not so good at making sure the details add up into some kind of 
logically or thematically coherent pattern.

I think a lot of the complaints that greeted HBP, particularly about 
how it seemed like OOTP never happened, illustrate this.  I suspect 
that JKR simply hadn't thought through the implications of a lot of 
the stuff that happened and was said in OOTP.  And when those 
implications became more obvious through fan discussions/arguments, 
she jumped back from them like a scalded cat.  I suspect a lot of 
the contradictory and problematic situations that still exist in 
canon arise from the same source -- as you say, JKR just didn't 
think things through thoroughly before she dropped them in, and then 
she's forced to either ignore them or scramble retroactively to 
patch the holes.  To wit: Why didn't the marauder's map betray 
Pettigrew much earlier than it did?  Why did Fake!Moody go through 
such a song and dance to get a portkey in Harry's hand when he could 
have just enchanted anything, had Harry pick it up, and then 
say "No, I haven't seen the boy?"  Why, if Dumbledore was so upset 
at the way the Dursleys treated Harry, didn't he drop in and 
straighten the situation out at some point in the relevant years? 
Why don't wizards ever use their apparation ability to apparate 
behind their opponent in the midst of a duel?  Why, if DD suspected 
that Occlumency would eventually be necessary for Harry, did he not 
teach it to him early on instead of waiting until the ox was in the 
ditch? The list goes on.  Explanations are, of course, possible, but 
I think the real explanation in each of those cases, and many more 
besides, is because JKR just didn't think of that.


Lupinlore