All of a Piece (was re: The Possibilities of Grey Snape)

[lupinlore]

No: HPFGUIDX 143061

Irene Mikhlin wrote:
>
<SNIP>
> 
> 
> You know,  you should prepare for a massive
> disappointment. :-)
> If JKR punishes Snape in any way close to what you
> anticipate, it will be for murdering Dumbledore, for
> his role in the deaths of Potters or maybe Sirius,
> possibly for some yet undisclosed things, but his
> teaching methods won't be on of them, I'm ready to bet
> the farm on it.
>  She's upped the ante in book 6, the game is very
> different now. All our arguments about what kind of
> teacher Snape is are so passe. :-)
> 


And yet, as Nora likes to point out, it's all of a piece, isn't it? 
If indeed JKR is a theorist of character as opposed to a theorist of 
action, which I believe she probably is, I don't think the question 
of Snape and his child abusing methods are passe at all.  After all, 
from what does all this issue of trust and power arise, if not Snape 
and his daily attitudes toward Harry?  That is the root of much of 
the tragedy that has befallen the side of light recently.  Sirius' 
death, Harry's failure to master occlumency, the absolute meltdown 
at the end of HBP, all spring in part or in whole from Snape's 
interactions with Harry. And as I say, if Snape isn't punished for 
the way he's abused Harry, then JKR is a very poor writer indeed 
with no idea of how to craft a well-written and satisfactory story.

I don't doubt there are a lot of other factors to be weighed, and a 
lot of things Snape has to answer for.  But I deny that they can be 
separated out into "Well, we can punish Snape for the Potters but 
not for hating Harry," or "We can punish Snape for Dumbledore but 
not his teaching methods."  These factors are so deeply interrelated 
that it is impossible to weigh and judge one without weighing and 
judging them all.  And if, as Alla particularly likes to theorize -- 
and I think theorize well --  the type of punishment likely to be 
manifest in the end is that of karmic retribution and poetic 
justice, then it is almost inevitable that it will be determined by 
Snape's entire gestalt of interactions and personality, including 
fairly obviously his daily attitudes and actions and, yes, teaching 
methods.

There has always, as once again Nora likes to point out, been a 
fundamental tension in the HP saga between what many people perceive 
JKR's message to be and what she often actually shows.  That is many 
people think the message is "our choices make us who we are," even 
though the actual quote is "our choices reveal who we are."  And yet 
a deep, although not universal, strain of essentialism runs through 
the characters, as best revealed by Voldemort who seems, JKR's 
protestations not withstanding, to have been evil from birth.   Now, 
essentialism does not mean simplicity.  Many people have very 
complicated and internally incoherent characters, and their actions 
reflect this.  And it is true that the question of choice and 
character becomes terribly blurred as you really push the issue, and 
trying to figure out in the end whether decision springs from deep 
psychology or psychology is formed by decision becomes one of the 
greatest of all chicken and egg problems.  Still, JKR does seem to 
hold, perhaps instinctively, to the idea that character is destiny.  
And thus in the end nearly everything, comes down not to analysis 
and decision, not to plots and plans, but to who you, in your 
innermost heart, are.  And who you are is revealed as much, in fact 
more, in your daily interactions as it is in your decisions at a 
moment of crisis.  And, probably more importantly, who you are in 
the long run effects others more in your daily interactions than it 
does in your decisions at a moment of crisis.


Lupinlore