Viewing Snape "directly" (Was:Twist JKR? )

[nrenka]

No: HPFGUIDX 141618

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "justcarol67" 
<justcarol67 at y...> wrote:

> Carol responds:
> 
> I'm curious, Nora, and please don't think I'm being rude because 
> that certainly isn't my intention. Exactly what is this plain truth 
> about Snape that you think requires no explanation? 

I don't think there's anything that requires *no* explanation, but I 
do think that there are things which require *less* explanation, and 
I'm inclined to priviledge them (at the present, and this is subject 
to change).

This involves, as a methodological principle, the issue that what we 
think is mysterious--such as your questioning of whether it was 
actually an AK or not--may well not be mysterious.  If we want to 
argue for 'directness', then we are in fact obliged to take a 
minimizing approach to the assumptions of mystery. 

So in this general approach, it is pretty self-evident that Snape 
killed Dumbledore, because it requires the construction of a 
considerable edifice of assumptions to argue that oh, the AK here is 
exceptional, and there could have been some communication, etc.  This 
still leaves open any number of possibilities as to *why*, where the 
same conditions I'm objecting to don't obtain in the same way.

Think of all the little details which theories of the past hinged 
upon, and which took us nowhere.  Yes, some of the little things and 
some of the discrepancies are meaningful--and most of them are not.

> What a waste of JKR's time and effort if all that evidence (a few 
> scenes per book, but what memorable ones!) is all for nothing. 

You think it's all for nothing if Snape actually did turn on and kill 
Dumbledore?  I have to disagree, because it generates/d a great deal 
of interest in the reading.  The process of reading through something 
and the conclusions which we come to/the solutions and resolutions 
ultimately offered as concrete fact, they're not the same thing.

> And what a disappointment for readers on either end of the Snape 
> spectrum if this "gift of a character" is nothing but a cardboard 
> villain.

I don't see how what I pointed towards would make him into a 
cardboard villain, just not the massively complex character of 
profound central importance who the fans want him to be.  JKR is a 
very plot-oriented author, and Snape has been/is of great use to her 
in causing things to happen, as well as in establishing atmosphere.  
But he doesn't have the kind of page time or depth lavished upon him 
as her genuine hero Harry does.

> Carol, hoping you'll understand that I'm genuinely confused here
> because I see no "direct," straightforward reading of Snape in HBP 
> or anywhere else

It's a matter of degree, of course.  I make absolutely no claims to 
certainty, and I'm as likely as anyone to be wrong.  But I'm playing 
with an approach that I think has a number of strengths, including a 
superior claim to directness.  YMMV on whether that's a virtue, in 
the case of this series, or not.

-Nora notes, alas, that 'interesting' and 'accurate' have nothing 
whatsoever to do with each other, and what we want is often not what 
we get