Snape's canon opposite/ Proving loyalty (Re: Hearing from the Great Middle)

[zgirnius]

No: HPFGUIDX 140186


> Betsy Hp:
> I'm under the impression that Dumbledore was going to stay with 
> Slughorn until he got the "yes" he was after.  So I do think Snape 
> knew, at the time of Spinner's End, that he was going to be DADA 
> professor. 

zgirnius:
Thanks for that! I now feel free to believe the DADA theory 
completely. ;-) And in the spirit of returning the favor...

> Betsy Hp:
> This is where I'm aware I'm kind of on my own, but honestly?  I've 
> yet to Snape behaving as a "deeply horrible person".  He's 
certainly 
> never struck me as sadistic (where do folks get that idea? I 
> seriously wonder), and I've not really seen him abuse his powers.

zgirnius:
It's interesting that you should say this. Earlier this summer, 
having read JKR's comments about how children understand what 
teachers like Snape are about, I conducted a highly non-scientific 
poll with a sample of one (my nephew, now entering the fourth grade, 
who had just finished HBP and is a long-time fan of the series.) I 
asked him what he thought of Snape as a teacher, and he responded he 
thought Snape was a good teacher. He knows his stuff and doesn't put 
up with cr*p from his students. So there are at least two of you...

Alla:
I am not saying that you should pay attention to interviews, but to
me it is similar to when we try to solve jigsaw puzzle ( thanks,
Potioncat) and deliberately threw away one of the pieces and trying
to solve the puzzle without this piece and then wonder why the
picture is not complete.

zgirnius:
You asked this question of Betsy Hp, but since I feel similarly about 
interviews, I'll try to explain my own feeling about them. The bottom 
line is that the picture is not going to be complete until Book 7 is 
out anyway. I will actually be very interested to hear anything she 
has to say about her characters and her created world at that time, 
and can't imagine that I would regard any such comments as anything 
*but* canon. Until that time, though, I think that in her interviews 
she would tend to want to "protect" her work, and our unspoiled 
enjoyment of it. If there are secrets she does not want us to guess, 
I would think she would try to steer us away from them in interview 
comments. I don't really see this as lying or misleading us, in the 
sense that she is *already* misleading us, with the text of her books 
to date. She's trying to be consistent with that, IMO.
I don't think JKR is trying to mislead us, so much as she is trying 
to protect her creation.

As an example (the one Vivian brought up earlier) she calls Snape 
a 'deeply horrible person'. For many fans this is obvious...so is it 
really misleading to say this?

Also, interviews are extemporaneous. She does not have time to think 
through what exactly she wants to say on any given subject. Whereas I 
am convinced she gives many aspects of her writing a great deal of 
thought. Which makes interview comments have a much higher 
probability of being wrong with no bad intent on JKR's part.