The Possibilities of Grey Snape (was Re: What would a successful AK mean?)

[Sydney]

No: HPFGUIDX 143042

This thread is moving very fast and is getting a little more emotional
than I'm comfortable with, but I'd just like to clear up a couple of
misconceptions about story structure..


> Lupinlore:
> Well, he's a child abuser.  What's not to hate?

I think 'child abuser' is a very strong and loaded term, but that
aside-- Darth Vader blew up entire planets, but his role in the story
still demanded a reconciliation with Luke.  


> in that it's "about" something very clear at all (an I'm not sure it 
> is).
> 
> As for classical story structure, so much of that has been driven 
> into the ground a la Joseph Campbell that it is not only no longer 
> interesting and effective, 

'Classical structure' is a bit of a seperate subject from the
mythological themes that Cambell analyzed, although JKR has so far
followed both very closely.  By 'classical', it's meant REALLY
classical, as in Aristotle -- what we call a 'reversal' he called the
'peripatea', the point at which relationships between characters'turn
on the wheel'.  To this he added the concept of 'recognition', the
movement within a character "from ignorance to knowledge, producing
love or hate".  These two concepts are the basis of western drama and
you can expect to find them in anything from a commercial to a movie
to a novel, unless the writer has actively decided to discard it.  As
the man said:

"If an enemy kills an enemy, there is nothing to excite pity either in
the act or the intention- except so far as the suffering in itself is
pitiful. So again with indifferent persons. But when the tragic
incident occurs between those who are near or dear to one another- if,
for example, a brother kills, or intends to kill, a brother, a son his
father, a mother her son, a son his mother, or any other deed of the
kind is done- these are the situations to be looked for by the poet"

This is from the Poetics, which is only about tragedies, and as I
don't think the HP series is a tragedy, I would say the reversal is
more likely to be the glimpse he gives us of a comic structure: 

"It is proper rather to Comedy, where those who, in the piece, are the
deadliest enemies- like Orestes and Aegisthus- quit the stage as
friends at the close, and no one slays or is slain." 

Now before you throw up, I certainly don't think it's necessary of
even likely that Snape and Harry quit the stage as best of friends;
only that their relationship undergoes a reversal from negative to
positive.  As to what kind of reversal, Aristotle once again:

"The best form of recognition is coincident with a Reversal of the
Situation, as in the Oedipus....Again, we may recognize or discover
whether a person has done a thing or not. But the recognition which is
most intimately connected with the plot and action is, as we have
said, the recognition of persons. ... Recognition, then, being between
persons, it may happen that one person only is recognized by the
other- when the latter is already known- or it may be necessary that
the recognition should be on both sides." 

Of all the relationships in HP, the one that has been most
consistently, and INsistently, set up for this convergence of reversal
and recognition, is Harry's with Snape.  The element of 'recognition'
I think will prove vital, simply because we've had 5 books worth of
setup on Harry misunderstanding, or failing to 're-cognize' Snape.
Your option of Harry 'recognizing' that Snape is pathetic or childish
or dark, is not exactly a revelation for Harry.  The ending may
certainly also involve a 'recognition' from Snape that Harry is a
great kid, but I could go either way as to whether it will happen, not
because I want or don't want it to happen ( I do) but because I don't
get enough of a feeling as to whether JKR has hung that gun on the wall.

Joseph Campbell is something else again, and would be a much longer
post, but for heaven's sake, this is a series about an orphan of
improbably pure heart abandoned with evil stepparents and destined to
defeat an evil wizard and mentored to that end by a wise old man, all
of which is wrapped up in Feudian and Jungian symbolism.  Whatever you
think about Campbell (and I feel the same way about story-guru Robert
McKee), I would consider it strange not to use him as a reliable
predictor of future events.

> Lupinlore:
> Well, it's clear that this is what you WANT to have been set up for 
> some reason.  If that's what floats your boat <shrug>.  All of this 
> is unavoidably subjective.

I'll cheerfully admit to being a Snape fan, but I also have to go to a
 lot of meetings where I have to at least make a pretense of clinical
objectivity :).  I'm LOOKING FORWARD to it, but I'm also pretty
confident that this is where the story is leading.  I'm not crazy
about Harry/Ginny, but I'm also pretty confident about where THAT is
leading. 

 
>   That is she gives us a storyline that emphasizes 
> a DDM!Snape of some sort who undergoes some kind of karmic 
> retribution for his treatment of Harry with elements of forgiveness 
> and empowerment for Harry thrown in along with an important role for 
> Snape in the defeat of Voldemort.  

Weirdly, we DO agree on the probable outcome of the story, so I'm not
sure what we're agruging about now!  
> 
> To tell the truth, I think this is one of the reasons I think Grey!
> Snape is very likely.  I don't think it would be the best way to 
> resolve the storyline, but I think it will make a very attractive 
> option for JKR.  In this way she gives something to the widest 
> possible swathe of her readership, as well as spreading the annoyance 
> and disappointment pretty evenly across the spectrum.  

I disagree here, in that this isn't a television series with a
committee of ratings watchers and a rotating panel of writers.  It's
pretty plain to me that this has been a meticulously planned narritive
down to tiny details.  She may be throwing in the occasional gag for
insiders or giving a little more screen-time for some things, but
she's not going to throw away all her groundwork for vague 'reader
demands', or what a bunch of kooks like us write on the internet!

-- Sydney