Eeevil!Snape was Snape in Shrieking Shack

[nrenka]

No: HPFGUIDX 142342

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "pippin_999" <foxmoth at q...> 
wrote:
>
> Pippin:
> That's the best argument I've heard against Eeevil!Snape. It takes 
> all the mystery JKR has built up around this 'gift of a character' 
> and  collapses it like a house of cards. 

You don't think the mystery isn't going to collapse as a mystery at 
the end of the series anyways? :)

> If Snape is evil then it really doesn't matter why he hates Harry 
> so much, why Dumbledore thought his remorse was genuine, why he 
> joined the DE's in the first place.  Eeevil!Snape could still be 
> redeemed of course, but how and why he went wrong isn't important 
> for that. Harry doesn't need to know, because evil in these kinds 
> of stories isn't individual. It takes advantage of individual 
> weaknesses but it's like a virus -- once it gets  through your 
> defenses, it shuts down what you were and makes you into a copy of 
> itself.

I think that Evil!Snape could still be interesting.  This strikes me 
as a case of what wouldn't be interesting to *you*, Pippin...and 
weren't you warning us about what happens when readers let their own 
wishes and expectations for the plot run rampant and restrict their 
imaginations?

No matter what the resolution of Snape, and maybe even *especially* 
if we have Evil!Snape, why he went is still important (if he turns 
out to have gone at all).  We need some discussion of and answer to 
Dumbledore's trust and all of that--I assume it's going to be 
important thematically.

No, I must object to the characterization of evil in 'these kinds of 
stories'.  Firstly, because I'm not so confident about the generic 
classification we're ultimately going to settle on, and how much or 
little JKR is straying from an abstracted paradigm.  Secondly because 
we've gotten illustrations of any number of kinds of evil in the 
books: Wormtail, Lucius Malfoy, Voldemort, Umbridge, Fudge.  All 
partaking of some sort of evil, but all in very different ways and 
for different reasons.  Are these reasons not interesting, 
thematically compelling, and thematically relevant?  I don't see the 
carbon-copy viral evil at work here.  But maybe that's just me.

-Nora returns from conference not rested but full of ideas...