Simple!Snape? (was: Draco, Snape and Others: Castles in the air?)

[nkafkafi]

No: HPFGUIDX 124893


> Lupinlore wrote:
> 
> <Snipped>
> 
> That is a good point.  However, I'm not sure that Snape's character
> really IS all THAT contradictory.  What I mean by that is that human
> beings are very complex creatures, given to all kinds of
> self-contradiction, foolishness, and illogical behavior.  George
> Patton was a great general and a brave man sincerely dedicated to
> bringing about the Allied Victory in WW II.  He was also arrogant,
> petty, vain, ambitious, capable of feuds extending over years with
> some of his most important allies (particularly Montgormery),given to
> almost breathtaking viciousness and cruelty toward subordinates he
> perceived as having crossed him or having failed him, and not above
> using the lives of American soldiers as chips in the high stakes game
> of building his own reputation.  Pappy Boyington was one of the
> greatest American aces of WWII, a pilot whose men (the famous Black
> Sheep Squadron) admired him greatly for his bravery and leadership
> skills.  He was also a drunk and a gambling addict who had been
> sentenced to join the Army by a court as punishment for welching on
> debts and getting into drunken fights, and whose own men (the same
> ones who admired him a squadron commander) often expressed contempt
> for the way he handled his personal life and treated the people close
> to him.
> 
> Which is just to say I'm not really sure that Snape's contradictions
> are all that extraordinary.

Neri:
Is it my imagination, or is your simple Snape becoming more and more
complex as you try to explain him? And likable besides...

People like Patton or Boyington certainly exist in RL. Painting their
characters as unresolved contradictions, however, is perhaps the
prerogative of a biography, but not of a novel. From a novel,
especially a mystery or an adventure story (which are not usually
about very complex characterizations) we usually expect to give some
clear meaning to a character, to reveal his innermost secrets that led
him to be what he is. Another possibility is to leave the
contradictions unresolved and unexplained but teach us to like the
character. This, however, requires a long familiarity with this
character. For example, DD dies in the end of Book 6, and Harry has to
cooperate with Snape in fighting Voldemort throughout Book 7, in which
we get a very detailed account of Snape, much longer and deeper than
we had in the last five books together. In the end none of the
contradictions is resolved or explained, but Harry and us learn to
accept these contradictions and like Snape nevertheless. This scenario
may happen, of course, but I very much doubt it. JKR is not that type
of author, she won't have time for such leisurely character portraits
in Book 7, and as you rightly pointed out this IS the story of Harry
Potter, not the biography of Severus Snape. So JKR will probably
reveal one or more BIG secrets of Snape that are the key to
understanding his contradictions. If she will just leave him
unexplained it would be rightly considered a big failure of her, and
she most certainly knows that. 

Neri