JKR's Ambiguities (was Re: ... Contradiction or Clue?)

[cat_kind]

No: HPFGUIDX 139739

Geoff in 75634: 
    
>> ...I have cogitated for some time as to whether JKR spent a great 
deal of time putting together the words of the prophecy so that 
ambiguities would be perceived by those who like to dissect every 
paragraph of the book with a scalpel! Maybe JKR wrote down the words 
of the prophecy with her own specific line of thought in mind 
without stopping to consider how the readers might choose to see a 
different meaning – or did she consider every word thinking "Aha! 
This'll get `em going. He, he". <<

Geoff now: 
> I wonder whether some of those comments are still relevant today 
when we consider Horcruxes and the role of Snape?<

catkind: I don't know about Horcruxes, but I do think we have 
evidence of JKR doing a certain amount of "aha!"ing.  

She did say somewhere that we should be able to work out "at least" 
one of the Horcruxes.  Though I think that is the Grimmauld Place 
one, and theories about the others may be a little beyond the second-
guessable. She's also said that she phrased the prophecy very 
carefully, though obviously we've yet to see how that plays out.  

But the role of Snape?  Surely that must be deliberately ambiguous.  
There were so many things he could have done to put the matter 
beyond doubt.  He could have joined in the fight at Hogwarts and 
hurt or killed someone else.  He could have crucio'd Harry, or at 
least fought him.  Well, and all the other points that everyone has 
been making in his favour.  I don't think we're all deluded, I think 
that was deliberate on JKR's part. 

It can't just be the building up to a surprise - some of the most 
convincing evidence (to me, at least) in Snape's favour comes after 
Dumbledore's death.  I suppose it could be JKR being soft-hearted 
and not wanting anyone else hurt (yet); she might have thought DD's 
death was sufficiently damning evidence to stand alone. 

Then there's my favourite Chapter 2. Firstly, we see that JKR *does* 
ask herself the same sort of questions that readers ask.  
Bellatrix's list of questions and Snape's replies to it could have 
come straight off this group.  And she seems to have been 
deliberately setting Snape up as ambiguous at this stage in the book 
anyway.  Why else the standard spy-pretending-to-know-the-secret-
plan setup? This chapter must have been intended to set up Ambiguous!
Snape if not the full DD'sMan!Snape.  Even apart from the 
impressions I got from the chapter, it would make no sense to me if 
this was supposed to set up Evil!Snape, or there would be no 
surprises left at the end of the book. 

I guess the point I'm trying to make is that if at this point JKR 
was transmitting ambiguous and we received ambiguous, why not assume 
the same at the end?

What I do doubt is that if JKR is deliberately being ambiguous, we 
can somehow "figure it out". We don't have the data IMO. 

catkind