JKR Interview on Mugglenet; Snape = Evil?

[Emily Salter]

No: HPFGUIDX 133792

pookasmorning wrote:

>I was blissfully reading the JRK interview that was posted on
>Mugglenet/The Leaky Cauldron, and came to a bit that has given me
>serious pause.
>
>***
>ES: Was Dumbledore planning to die?
>
>JKR: [Pause.] Do you think that's going to be the big theory?
>
>MA & ES: Yes. It'll be a big theory.
>
>JKR: [Pause.] Well, I don't want to shoot that one down. [A little
>laughter.] I have to give people hope.
>
>[snip]
>
>MA: whether this had been planned, and since Dumbledore had this
>knowledge of Draco the whole year, had they had a discussion that
>said, "Should this happen, you have to act as if it is entirely 
>your intention to just walk forward and kill me, because if you 
>don't, Draco will die, the Unbreakable Vow, you'll die," and so 
>on 
>
>JKR: No, I see that, and yeah, I follow your line there. I can't 
> I mean, obviously, there are lines of speculation I don't want
>to shut down.
>***
>
>I was completely convinced that Snape was a triple agent and that
>Dumbledore was pleading with him to go through with the murder. 
>100% sure. Now, however, I don't know what to think. That doesn't 
>sound to me like JKR sparing our sensibilities; it sounds like the 
>same sort of bet-hedging she did when asked about Harry/Hermione 
>(and the same interview shows how that one turned out).
>
>So is that it? Snape wasn't faking it? Was this whole book just
>hitting us over the head with "Dumbledore is totally gullible, 
>OMG"? Has JRK been playing with the readers' expectations regarding
>narrative conventions (i.e. the guy who seems bad must in fact be
>good) this whole time? 


But look what she then goes on to say a few lines later:

"Generally speaking, I shut down those lines of speculation that 
are plain unprofitable. Even with the shippers. God bless them, 
but they had a lot of fun with it. It's when people get really off 
the wall  it's when people devote hours of their time to proving 
that Snape is a vampire that I feel it's time to step in, because 
there's really nothing in the canon that supports that. ... So, 
there are things I shut down just because I think, well, don't 
waste your time, there's better stuff to be debating, and even if 
it's wrong, it will probably lead you somewhere interesting. 
That's my rough theory anyway."

That's a pretty evasive answer if you ask me and the fact that 
she's categorically not shutting the theory down suggests that 
there is some merit in it.  She's messing with our heads here!  I 
think she wants us to spend the next three years debating this 
instead of just accepting that Snape is evil like the characters 
seem to have done.

And I know everyone's had their say on the evil/not evil debate, 
but all my pro-Snape thoughts are in this essay I wrote on the LJ Harry Potter essays community:

http://www.livejournal.com/community/hp_essays/68860.html

-Emily.