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

[nrenka]

No: HPFGUIDX 140189

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

<snip>

> 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.

On the other hand, this *is* the author who gave us the absolute 
exact important question before HBP that was answered in it.  She 
deliberately steers us away from useless speculation, such as Vampire!
Snape and intricate theories about the Longbottoms.  In some ways, 
she makes it painfully clear what the questions and issues are--she 
just doesn't give us the information about the denoument.  [See Peter 
and life debts in the latest interview.]

Personally, I think the whole "JKR is deeply sneaky" thing is 
massively overrated.  It's really pretty clear where the ambiguity 
and tricksiness lies, in the books, and the interview refusals to 
clarify match up.  Then there are the things that we've obsessed over 
that get a simple "No, not important".

> 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?

I'd put that comment into a different category, myself.  She's 
obviously both bemused and confused by the fan perception of and 
reaction to certain characters, particularly both Draco and Snape.  
As such, she occasionally comes out and gives us a partial view of 
her perspective upon a character.  I think this is a really valuable 
predictive heuristic.  Much of the adult fandom may loathe Hagrid (in 
an unscientific poll, he tends to lose), but we know that Rowling 
loves him--which means betting against Hagrid is a low-return 
proposition.

Similarly, if you know that she's made those comments about Snape, 
and you assume at least some good faith on her part, there are things 
you might be more wary of predicting.  Nothing misleading about 
giving her own estimation of a character.  I'm reasonably confident  
that her character commentary will have enough solid confirmation by 
the end of book 7 to be able to cite chapter and verse.  She might 
even have fun deliberately shooting down some of our extrapolations 
of intention, especially regarding some characters.

-Nora ponders some zzzzzzzz...