[HPforGrownups] SHIP: Snape's slide into the DE's

[lady.indigo at gmail.com]

No: HPFGUIDX 144426

On 12/9/05, Jen Reese <stevejjen at earthlink.net> wrote:
>
>  Snape lovin' Lily has never worked for me, even finding out she was
> a natural at Potions, cheeky and could have been in Slytherin didn't
> convince me of Snape's unrequited love. Then JKR said post-HBP she
> was willing to tell fans if either Snape or Lupin had loved Lily.
> Well, she backed off before answering completely and only mentioned
> Lupin, but I think that was a hint there's nothing more coming about
> Snape and Lily of much significance.


I wrote:

I seriously think JKR has just diverted you in exactly the way she wanted
to.  In all her interviews she doesn't hint at there being no significance,
especially not by omission.  She flat-out says if there is no significance
and you're going in the wrong direction.  The omission is when she doesn't
want you to know something.  She played the answer to that question out
expertly: "I can tell you either one.  Well, really, I can't tell you, can
I?  Here, let me sneak one of the answers in - which, if my answer is 100%
truthful, is totally unimportant to the plot and had really no reason to be
kept a secret - so I can divert you from the truly important plot twist that
I couldn't say."

When it comes to Snape and Lily, what you have to pay attention to is what
ISN'T said and what ISN'T known.  Why does Lily have a moment's shock and
hesitation when Snape calls her a Mudblood?  Why is that, of all things, his
worst memory?  (You've explained that a bit with the Florence story, but
I'll give my response to that in a second.)  Why does Petunia not mention
'that awful boy' by name, and never truly confirms Harry's assumption that
she's talking about his dad?  Why is special attention paid to Harry saying
'Snape hated my mother, too', and a moment devoted to the narrative's
responding words: "But nobody ever asked how Harry knew this."  (Because he
DOESN'T know it.)  Lupin's lines in the movie, Slughorn talking about the
power of obsessive love, the fact Lily was going to be allowed to live, how
Snape's regret of the Potter's deaths doesn't seem to make sense *right
now*...  All of this would add up.

I like your Florence story.  I like it because it does a lot of the things
that Snape being in love with Lily would do: explain why he made many of the
choices he did, and give him a tragic arc (while still fixed on his own poor
choices and mistakes) that sounds VERY similar to the ones a lot of
Snape/Lily shippers give him.  But I can't bring myself to care about
Florence because save for a single, one-line appearance, we have no idea who
she IS.  If so much of unriddling Snape rests on a woman we know nothing
about, Rowling's going to have to be a storytelling master in this last book
in making us care about her, Snape, and what happened to their forbidden
love.  A Snape/Lily romance, or at least an unrequited desire on Snape's
part, seems like a copout to so many people.  It would be more of a copout,
to me, if we were fed a relationship that had no meaning to us as readers
and then expected to care about it as a major character revelation.

Sorry if this was ever suggested before - I wasn't here for a good deal of
the Florence discussion prior to this, and there's a lot to read through -
but maybe we're approaching this from the wrong angle?  What if Florence is
an important factor in Snape and Lily's relationship?  For instance, maybe
she's sort of their Lavender Brown.  Snape and Lily had a growing interest
in each other, but it's Florence who Snape, for one reason or another, chose
to dally with behind the greenhouse - I can certainly see him having Ron's
lack of confidence, responding to whatever affection he could get.  And
since Snape and Lily are hardly Ron and Hermione, and didn't have those same
bonds formed to each other, the relationship didn't repair nearly as well
when Bertha Jorkins started gossiping.  Lily's defense of Snape to James was
possibly his last chance to make amends in response...and he blew it.
"Snape's Worst Memory".

- Lady Indigo


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