Harry's story , NOT Snape's (was Re: "An old man's mistakes")

[lady.indigo at gmail.com]

No: HPFGUIDX 139013

On 8/29/05, nrenka <nrenka at yahoo.com> wrote:
> 
> 'Six books' is a little misleading; Snape has figured into six books, 
> but when you go back and look at how much actual page time he has, he 
> does far less than one might think (especially given his habitually 
> inflated role in fanfiction). We certainly never get much insight or 
> illumination into his actions.


Nonetheless, I've read very little fanfiction and looked at very little 
speculation about the books until post-HBP and I still feel like I 
understand and am concerned about this character far more than Pettigrew. 
Snape fans are not all love-blind tin hat theorists looking at selective 
evidence; a lot more has been answered and a lot more questions are still 
being asked than anything Pettigrew had a role in.

That's not to deny that he's been more central than Peter, but Peter 
> has always been there, in the background--perhaps even more pivotal 
> in events than Snape has been. It's been a huge question since book 
> 3, why did Peter do it? And being as this connects immediately to 
> James and Lily's deaths, I think there's a lot of resonance there.


I've never questioned why Peter did it, because as far as I know that was 
answered for me. Peter was a follower, probably very insecure, felt a lot 
weaker than his friends as much as he adored them, and when threatened by 
Voldemort he joined up out of cowardice and a need to be protected rather 
than do the right thing and sacrifice himself. He's a Neville who went 
wrong, in a sense. If there's any more mystery behind that, any ambiguity 
that I'm forgetting, let me know.

<snip>
> 
> That wasn't quite my complaint, actually; I just hooked onto the 
> thread. :)



Sorry. :) I'm terrible at keeping track of who's writing what still. It was 
the original complaint, I should probably say. 

But then again, maybe I'm an odd one and actually found Snape *far* 
> more sympathetic before OotP. Why? Because then, under the open 
> situation we had, not knowing which way the war would go, I had hopes 
> for Snape acting like a mature and helpful adult. I actually lost 
> some sympathy for Snape after the Pensieve scene when he throws Harry 
> out--it's all about Snape and his humiliation there, and he can't or 
> won't calm down enough (later, either) to wonder what Harry 
> *actually* thought about the situation. 


Which is an incredibly immature and stupid thing to do, yes, but I 
understand Snape with regard to Harry - this is a situation he'll read into 
what he will, and react based on injured pride and a need to attack James 
through his son. If he'd responded any other way he'd certainly be a more 
mature and stable person but he definitely wouldn't be Snape. And I've had 
several friends in my life who have been so hurt by others that they can't 
be entirely rational about certain subjects, friends who in many other 
aspects are definitely adults. It's being reminded of them, maybe, that 
increases my sympathy for Snape following all that. He's a man who's had an 
unstable and painful life he's seen no break from, and after a while I'm 
sure it's enough to warrent some *massive* therapy he's not currently 
recieving.

<snip> 

However, HBP did us all the favor of problematizing 
> everything we know about Snape, without resolving solidly any of the 
> major issues (schooldays, so-called Prank, role in the DEs, 
> defection), which means those things may not be actual.



What do you mean, exactly? We knew Snape had invented curses, even came to 
school knowing them, from OotP. If I'd been bullied constantly and probably 
abused by my father, frankly I'd be mixing up some way to defend myself too. 
Meanwhile, Harry's not rational enough on the subject of Snape to really 
think about these things, but I maintain the subject would have not come up 
time and time again since Book 3 if it didn't have some importance. I can't 
accept that in a "children's book" there isn't something to be learned from 
the 'good guys' bullying Snape and hating him to this day, and what that led 
to.

<snip>
> 
> [Is that the realism that gives us an emotionally sound Harry after 
> 10-something years of neglect at the hands of his relatives? Or 
> should we say plausibility...ack, not a great word either. Welcome 
> to the realm of fiction...]



I knew someone was going to bring this up and I've thought about it myself. 
There are two answers to this, I think...first of all, Hogwarts created more 
problems for Harry but it *did* turn out to be an escape, a place where he 
had friends and belonged and needed to go back to. (Snape didn't have refuge 
anywhere; his home was abusive, whether or not it was as abusive as the 
Marauders at Hogwarts.) Secondly, while everyone has a different emotional 
core and resilience against pain and abuse, I don't think Harry *is* 
perfectly sound. He's projected his anger onto Voldemort and Snape, but 
there's an incredible amount of it. I can't imagine it's ALL leveled at 
those two sources, when he'd never even met Voldemort until Book 4 and 
doesn't really recall his parents. A lot of it has been built up by the 
Dursleys, whether or not he's too good to take it out on them.

It's all in motivations, methinks. The guy who knew everything could 
> be not an idiot, but cruelly deceived by someone he thought was 
> genuine. It could be exceedingly BANG-y whereby Harry has been wrong 
> about Snape in the past, but for once is actually right. 


Yes, and the BANG was in this book, very well-executed, but I really think 
we can't go on from here. It'd mean that Harry wasn't wrong in the past, 
right in the future - he was just *right all along*, and so was his father, 
and so was everyone else who ever doubted the guy and barely associated with 
him. What do those years of mistaken prejudice even matter if the core of 
that prejudice is so firmly grounded in reality? 
And I'm not about to argue whether or not Dumbledore's forgiveness was 
stupidity or just well-executed deception, because we'll be here all day, 
but it still means Snape was trusted for an *extremely* dubious reason that 
a child would have blinked and said "WTF?" to. If that's all the payoff we 
get, I'm taking my bike and going home. But there are still ambiguities 
behind the 'betrayal' for a reason, still hints that there was something 
very important about Lily, and so I don't think this is all we get.

I also think the complexity of the books well can be overrated. Note 
> all the wacky theories for plot that people have come up with, almost 
> none of which have turned out; it's not too much of a stretch to note 
> that very complex theme-readings, and not only the plot-readings, 
> might turn out to be pushed aside.


It's very easy to play tin hatter about Harry Potter plot because JKR *has* 
given us so many little hints that come to fruition later. People are just 
harping on the wrong ones, are still shaky about how to read her. But we 
haven't invented the way she tells a bit of a mystery story, we haven't 
invented the running commentary on bravery because she told us herself it's 
there, and I doubt, whether it's a theme of the book, that we've invented 
the relevance - not the importance, but the relevance - of Snape's 
backstory. Again, if all that's to be derived from his ambiguities and his 
sympathetic elements is that you're supposed to hate him, then Rowling has 
no idea what she's working with and she's an idiot if she thought she'd get 
no Snape sympathizers. I think, though, she's smarter than this.

- Lady Indigo


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]