Was HPB's ending BANG-y? (Was: Will there be an ESE!character in Book 7? )

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 147457

Nora wrote: 
> I thought it [the ending of HBP] was quite BANG-y, but then I
suspect I got into the pattern of reading which I *think* was quite
deliberate, and the one which I would guess (as I can't know this
unless it's confirmed much later) she was out to make, which her
mental 'ideal reader' would catch onto.  We get Spinner's End, with
all these explanations which seem to point to ESE!, but we the readers
know better than that, right?  And there's Harry, continuing to doubt
and have suspicions, but he's just biased and unfair.  After all,
Dumbledore believes in Snape and we believe in Dumbledore because he's
the epitome of goodness and is wiser than us and knows more.
> 
> And then Snape ups and kills him.  And we-the-readers are left
either to go "Wow, that was totally BANGy", or to start spinning more 
> explanations as to why it wasn't actually a genuine BANG (it wasn't 
> an AK curse, they had a plan, Dumbledore isn't actually dead, etc.).
> 
> But then again, since when does anything with Snape actually work
the way that JKR seems to have intended it?  Others may be skeptical,
but I get the impression that she's genuinely a little befuddled at
the way that people tend to read the character when she thinks that
she's made some things ("horrible person") rather clear.<snip>
> 
> I agree that the why is totally up in the air.  What I'd suggest is
that it's an open possibility that the event was genuinely BANG-y in a
way that's not going to be mitigated by the explanations, as many
listies want.  <snip>

Carol responds:
I could be mistaken, but I'm pretty sure that JKR calls Snape a
"horrible teacher," not a "horrible person" (there's a big
difference--Crouch!Moody is in some respects a "good" teacher but in
all respects a horrible person), and many of her responses regarding
Snape (notably that Snape wouldn't be caught dead wearing a turban and
that there's more to him than meets the eye) are less than helpful in
characterizing him. Note her response to the question about whether
Snape is evil, asked after HBP, which amounts to "You read the book.
What do *you* think?" She wants to keep Snape mysterious. She wants us
to keep on speculating, as she states in the same interview. She has
clamped down on speculations that lead nowhere (Snape is a vampire,
for example). But clearly what happened on the tower doesn't fall into
that category. There's more to come in the Harry-Snape subplot, and at
least one interview, as well as some canonical evidence, points at
redemption. I *do* think the events on the tower will be "mitigated by
explanation," but as neither of us has any way to convince the other,
we'll have to agree to disagree on that one.

As for BANG-y endings, certainly the events on the tower came as a
shock to most readers, if that's what you mean by a BANG. Many of us
expected Dumbledore to die--but not *that* way. And I, at any rate,
expected something terrible to happen to Snape (fiery ropes binding
his hands in "Spinner's End"? This can't be good. Snape taking the
DADA class? What kind of triumph is that? Has he forgotten what
happened to Lupin and Lockhart and all the others?). But kill his
mentor, the only man who trusted him? Noooooo! PoA and GoF had
fantastic, fireworks-style BANGs in which both Harry and the reader
kept thinking, "It can't be," but when you went back and reread the
books, all the clues were in place, clearly distinguishable from the
red herrings. On a second reading (unless you're Pippin ;-) ),
everything fell into place. And of course, as someone pointed, you
have the villain or someone else putting the pieces together at the
end of the story, so you know what clues to look for. 

That, of course, doesn't happen in HBP. No explanation from the
seeming villain, who behaves in ways completely inconsistent with
villainy like expressing concern for Draco ("Run, Draco! Run!"),
rescuing Harry from a Crucio, and deflecting his hexes instead of
injuring or kidnapping him. And this time, the reader and Harry are
not sharing a reaction. While the reader is going "It can't be!" with
regard to Snape, Harry's disbelief extends only to Dumbledore's death.
Snape, he has no doubt, is a villain. But this time, he's the one
who's interpreting the events without a mentor or the villain to
explain them. He's on his own, and the reader is not necessarily with
him. 

And a rereading of all six books brings us no closer to understanding
Snape. The clues that he's DDM! (especially in SS/PS and GoF but also
in the other books) are as solid-seeming as ever (Note that I said
"solid-seeming," not "solid." I'm not claiming my opinion as fact),
and no amount of sarcasm to his students or unfair point-taking on his
part can make them go away. Not even the revelation that he was the
eavesdropper can do that. It's still Dumbledore's judgment against
Harry's. And in a bildungsroman, where the child protagonist has not
yet acquired wisdom, it's unlikely that the child is right. As for the
heroic quest, I could be wrong, but I don't think that the hero's
judgment of who is or is not a villain is an essential element of the
genre. And since JKR has presented DD as the epitome of wisdom despite
such emotional mistakes as overprotecting Harry, I'm betting that DD,
not Harry, was right.

To return to the ending of HBP: it may be BANG-y by your definition,
but unlike the spectacular BANGs of PoA and GoF, which go off like a
Weasley-built firecracker, this one has all the beauty and cleverness
of a pistol shot to the gut. Far from solving the mystery, it
complicates it. And it's painful, excruciatingly painful, giving no
satisfaction, no sense of resolution at all (unless it's an "I told
you so" from the ESE!Snape faction).

Carol, whose first reaction to HBP was grief for *Snape* and anger at
JKR for betraying both him and the reader, but who now hopes after
multiple rereadings that JKR will redeem herself by giving us a
plausible and courageous (but still sarcastic) DDM!Snape in Book 7