ACID POPS and Teenager Draco

[Sydney]

No: HPFGUIDX 157487


Neri

> This is probably the root of our differences. I don't see at all that
> Snape and Harry (the order by which you mention them is interesting)
> are the central characters. I see that Harry is the central character,
> with Ron and Hermione the next main characters.

Sydney: 

As I said, Snape and Harry have the central *relationship*.  It's the
one that has the most unresolved emotional energy going into the last
stage of the book.  It's the one with the most potential for change in
*Harry*, the central character.  It's the one, as I said, where
everything that goes on with Snape has to go back to Harry.  Ron and
Hermione are sidekicks and they can have their own stories that run
parallel to the plot, like Jane could have her own romance with
Bingley or all the little side characters in Dickens can have their
own colourful storylines.  Snape is not so free.  His story has to
loop back into Harry's.  That's why we've had so many intimate,
emotially intense scenes with the two of them, why so many
opportunities are provided for Harry to burn with rage at Snape, why
Snape has some weird thing going on with Harry that we don't know what
it is.


Neri:

> But it's dangerous to confuse fanon with canon. The fact that
> in the HP fanon Snape (and Draco) had become much more important than
> Harry has no effect on JKR.   


Sydney:

Neri, please stop using "you're confusing fanon with canon" as an
argument, unless you can direct me to a point of fact upon which I am
incorrect. I have done nothing but quote canon;  I don't read that
much fanon.  I notice you did this repeatedly with the 'Pride and
Prejudice' example as well.  You  might find it instructive to come to
terms with the fact that it was you, in fact, who was misremembering
the plot.  


Neri:

> I'd estimate that LOLLIPOPS would tend to place Snape center stage in
> Book 7, practically making him the hero of the series and distracting
> us from Harry and his mission. OTOH I think ACID POPS is exactly the
> proper size of SHIP for a character of Snape's magnitude.

Sydney:

If you'll forgive me for saying so, I think you are mistaking your
preference-- your 'fanon', if you will, for 'canon' about how
important Snape and Harry's relationship is to the story. You are
therefore trying to invent stories that drain that relationship of its
energy and intensity, ignoring the fact that that energy and intesity
*is actually there in the book*, because you have such an extremely
powerful desire to remove Snape as much as possible from the story. 



> > Sydney:
> > 
> > I honestly have no idea how you comprehend story.  Snape has millions
> > of flaws.  It's a character we already know quite well.  His downfall
> > already seems assured from every possible angle. <snip>
> 
> Neri:
> Snape has million flaws, but he is also portrayed as a kind of super
> wizard. Potions wiz, inventing spells at school, superb occlumenn,
> Dark Arts expert, a double and triple agent, winning both Voldemort's
> and Dumbledore's trust and never quite caught, confronting Bellatrix
> with a sardonic smile. Not every flaw is thematic enough to bring down
> a such a powerful man. 

Sydney:

I'm really baffled here.  If Snape's hubris is meant to bring him
down, why not use some existing weakness of Snape's that we already
are familiar with and can anticipate? You're spoilt for choice: 
Snape's hysterical jealousy of Harry, Snape's resentment of what
Dumbledore demands from him, Snape's temper, Snape's tendency to think
the worst of people on his own side, Snape's ultimately untenable
position as a double-agent.  His 'hubris' could have slipped him up on
any of these points.  I don't think 'hubris' is really thematically
related to Snape, but if it was, the last thing I'd do is muddy it up
by dragging in some sort of love angle.  I mean, is he in love with
Narcissa and selflessly sacrificed himself for her peace of mind?  Or
is the hubris thing that he has some crazy plan to save Draco, kill
Dumbledore, stay out of jail, take over the world, and then get the
trophy wife?  And I don't think you'd get away, for that reason, with
your one line of dialogue explaining why Snape took the UV, because
you'd still have to explain why Snape took the UV.


> Neri:
> Again, I suspect you tend to assign too much importance to both Snape
> and his love affairs. 

Sydney:  

No, YOU are inventing Snape's love affairs and assigning them an
importance that has nothing to do with Harry.  ACID POPS and the Life
Debt and some scattered explanations leave Harry unaffected and so do
not resolve the tension.  

Neri:

If Snape saves Harry's life in Book 7 because of
> his debt to James, especially if as a result Snape will find himself
> fighting against Voldemort, and especially if Snape did kill
> Dumbledore, then this would give both Harry and Snape quite enough to
> care about. Snape's love affair would be redundant for making Harry
> care.

Sydney:

And your point is, that Snape's love affair with Narcissa would be
redudant for making Harry care.  Strange, I thought that was my point.


Neri:

> Besides, ACID POPS is not "hitherto unsuspected" <g>. I too have
> speculated about some things before HBP, and I also have the post to
> prove it. See #106729.
> 

Sydney:

Unsuspected by Harry.  The main character.  Unintroduced by the
narrator.  

> 
> > Sydney:
> > 
> > Yes, but why *wouldn't* JKR give things away if there was a
> > Snape/Narcissa thing going on?  It would be one more for the
> > 'Spinner's End Exposition Party'-- reasons for the reader to
> > understand how evil!Snape would theoretically work.  'Ah', they would
> > say to themselves, 'this is how the downfall of Snape starts.  He's in
> > love with Narcissa'.
> 
> Neri:
> What? And deprive us of such a juicy theory to speculate and argue
> about for two years? And since when does JKR give away things about
> Snape, unless she absolutely must? It's against her official policy.


Sydney:

JKR is not writing random stuff for us to spin juicy theories about. 
She is constructing a story with a strong arc that is all meant to
make sense.  Her policy about giving things away about Snape is surely
because they are important, shocking, critical to the plot, and, I
hate to keep saying this, will have an effect on Harry, the main
character,  that she doesn't want to happen until the last possible
moment.  

> Neri:
> Life debt and ACID POPS give you two "What?!?" moments in Book 7
> instead of just one.

Sydney:

And you think that's STRONGER?  And here I was looking for a grand
unified Snape theory that ties back into Harry on every unanswered
point.  Instead I should just be looking for a bunch of random stuff
that I can plug in here and there.  And how is "Snape loves Narcissa"
a WHAT? moment?  You yourself seem to think it's just a throw-away
walk-on, walk-off device for a peripheral character's decision to put
his life on the line.


> Neri:
> Draco asks Borgin how to fix the cabinet, so why can't he ask Snape?
> That wouldn't be admitting to failure, only asking for information.
> When he succeeds in repairing the cabinet, Draco has no problem
> calling in several SS officers, I mean several DEs, into a school for
> an assassination mission, but he doesn't call Snape, who had taken a
> UV to guard him and had just saved his life. 

Sydney:

Because Draco is CLOSE to Snape.  Snape was, as I said, his role
model, a father figure.  The other DE's and Borgin are guys he can use
and give orders to and doesn't really have to deal with.  Snape is
someone who is wrapped up with all the *emotional* issues that Draco
is having.  You will notice that Draco also avoids telling *his
friends*, Crabbe and Goyle, what's going on.  Because he just might
start cracking up.


Neri:

What does Draco's have
> against Snape personally that he *doesn't* have against any other DE
> or bad man out there? This is not a minor question, it is a critical
> one. The whole tragedy in the end of HBP would have been prevented if
> only Draco, at any single point during this whole year, would have
> told Snape. I think this requires a more specific reason than "it was
> Draco's coming-of-age story".
> 

Sydney:

"More specific"?  Once again I'm confused by what you want out of a
story.  Draco's 'coming of age' is a character growing and changing. 
Inventing a bunch of extrenal factors to replace that emotional growth
seems to be what you mean by 'more specific'.  "What Draco has against
Snape personally" is that Snape and Draco are, well, personal.  


Neri:

> He doesn't want just to prove that he can do it by
> himself. He wants Snape demoted. He wants to be more important than
> Snape. Are we not supposed to ask why? 

Sydney:

16-year-old boy... wants to take down father-figure a peg... wants to
be important and independent...  dang it, what's going on!?  There
must be some sort of magical device to explain all this bizzareness! 
Hey, maybe Slughorn made Draco take some sort of 'conflicted
adolescent' potion or something!  That would explain it!


> Neri:

> Oh, I see. If nobody thinks so, then it can't be true. How did I dare
> think about it? Especially if the Draco *fans* decided that Draco's
> behavior is so compelling here, then who am I to say otherwise?
> Perhaps you should also notify Pippin that she's wasting her time on
> ESE!Lupin, because all the Lupin fans are sure he's a good guy.

Sydney:

Actually, I do think Pippin is wasting her time with ESE Lupin,
because I think there's a reason so few people hold that theory. 
Because it's not emotionally satisfying.  If it WAS emotionally
satisfying, there would be a lot more people on that bandwagon.

"If nobody thinks so, it can't be true".  Well, I thinks it more, "if
nobody sees it coming, it can't be foreshadowed as you say it's being
foreshadowed.  Because nobody seems to see it coming."


> Neri, 
> who notes also that nobody's interested in discussing the juicy SHIP
> clues in Spinner's End, which is quite strange for HPfGU.

Sydney:

"Strange", or "totally understandable because they're not clues". 
Your call.

--Sydney