Twist JKR? (was:Re: Dumbledore's pleading...)

[Jen Reese]

No: HPFGUIDX 141685

Jen: 
> So it is better to twisty turny every other character so Snape
> can fit into OFH? Unless I'm misreading, that's exactly what 
> would need to happen. An overhaul of nearly every other major
> character and what we understand about their motivations and 
> agendas up to this point.
 
> Alla:
> How would it send every major character twisiting and turning,
> Jen? I am very confused now. In what aspect? In a sense that they 
> trusted Snape? If it so, it was clear enough to me in HBP that
> they really did not, they trusted Dumbledore's judgment, first and
> foremost. Would it make Dumbledore more fallible? Yes, quite
> tragic that, I agree, but also very sympathetic to me.
> Maybe you were talking about different twist and turns? If yes, 
> could you clarify?

Jen: I referred you back to my post off-list Alla, to explain the 
above snippet taken from a larger canon argument, but actually I can 
answer your question more clearly by just being blunt ;).

Basically what I was trying to show in post #141666 and perhaps 
wasn't completely clear about is I think none of the readings for 
Snape are straightforward because JKR has made certain of that. Some 
of us prefer to make a few backflips over the tower scene and some 
of us prefer to make them over Snape's statements and actions and 
chapter two, but ALL the readings require extrapolation and 
speculation at some point to make them square away.

If you like OFH, hey, there are parts of that which I see the value 
in particularly when dissecting the tower scene. If you like DDM, 
that one explains the events in chap. 2 and the Unbreakable Vow 
without twisting the characters of Voldemort and Dumbledore.

I'm just wondering why there HAS to be a straightforward reading at 
this point, what is the purpose? So we won't get our feelings hurt 
if JKR says, "Ah, well, I warned you didn't I?" I'll take my chances 
and enjoy my speculation, and continue to point out to others who 
comment on my back-flips--"well, explain your extrapolation of how 
Snape was able to fool the two greatest wizards in the world without 
telling me ANY information which you don't find in black and white 
in the text." Why not just say you *like* OFH!Snape and feel it 
explains things best? Why take it one step futher and insist it's 
the "Straight-forward reading" when none of them are? 

I have yet to read one post, including my own, which doesn't at some 
point draw conclusions based on something outside the text we have 
at the moment. That's all I'm saying. I don't understand the point 
of deigning one theory to be somehow higher on the scale because it 
requires *fewer* convolutions than anything else. A convolution is a 
convolution no matter how you slice it. 

Jen, who can't remember how the idea of a straight-forward reading 
ever came into play to begin with, but is starting to miss the days 
when theories got to play loose and fast and didn't require some 
literary litmus test.