Power vs. Trust (was:The Possibilities of Grey Snape...)
nrenka
nrenka at yahoo.com
Tue Nov 15 05:38:01 UTC 2005
No: HPFGUIDX 143043
--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "sistermagpie" <belviso at a...>
wrote:
> Magpie:
<snip>
> (And as Sydney correctly pointed out, the scene in the Tower is
> designed so that we don't see a moment where Dumbledore realizes
> he's been wrong.)
Actually, that is precisely what I find the whole pleading scene to
be.
"The sound frightened Harry beyond anything he had experienced all
evening. For the first time, Dumbledore was pleading."
There's your tragic anagnorisis right there (also argued for in post
142981), just in the terse style which JKR likes. [It's also
interesting that this happens right as Snape enters the scene, which
means some switch--positive or negative--goes off immediately.]
Mercifully, she forgoes the fanfiction option of laying everything
out on the table and telling us what everyone in the room thinks.
Results in far more arguments about what actually happened, but is
far better literature. :)
> Magpie:
>
> Harry's right a lot.
Except about Snape, of course. The plot is often driven by him being
mistaken or lacking in knowledge about something, with revelations
coming at the end of the novel (often rendering our hero fairly
passive as the one being enlightened). One could argue that this is
now the standard for the books and will continue; but it's just as
viable to note that the structure of the novels has been fraying in
terms of its regularity, exceptional events have happened, etc. I'd
almost argue that it's *more* unrealistic to expect the pattern to
keep going, especially given an author who I'd class as sentimental
as opposed to naive. She's aware of the genre conventions and thus
may choose to follow or tweak them at will.
<snip>
> In chapter two of the sixth book of a seven book series we're just
> told okay, here's the real deal with Snape, so think of him this
> way from now on. It won't be a surprise for you when he kills
> Dumbledore, because here he is swearing to do so.
Except that it's done in a way that provides maximal opportunities
for fans to pull out the 'spy' and 'pretending' excuses--which is a
lot of what generates the interesting frission in reading the novel.
We get an eagle's eye view, except even then we're unsure.
> It seems to come down to whether the tension about trusting Snape
> was an important part of the story or just a distraction to keep
> Harry busy until he got out of school.
I find the tension to be integral to the experience of reading the
books, even if it's ultimately more peripheral to the plot than most
of us might have predicted.
> Perhaps an editor should have made sure in the end we all knew what
> everyone knew when.
That would take most of the fun out of it, though. It rockets us
into fanfictionland, where authors are happy to write out detailed
accounts of events and then have endless scenes (usually in the
Headmaster's Office and involving drinks, as a way to get the entire
cast of characters as audience in there) then explaining to us what
everyone has been doing and why they've been doing it.
-Nora feels for everyone reading the series first after book 7 who
will most likely have it all totally spoiled for them before they
start
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