Snape Loved or In-Love with Lily?

[Sydney]

No: HPFGUIDX 148440

Jen:

  >EWW. Snape/Lily bothers me because the only scenario that
> seems
> > possible in JKR's world of romance, which is incredibly
> traditional,
> > would be unrequited love on the part of Snape.

Sydney

*rubs hands together*   Ah, the Snape/Lily bandwagon is piling up with
mournful-looking souls playing reluctant dirges on their teeny-tiny
violins.   Well, folks, I was a one-woman Snape/Lily band before we even
HAD a wagon-- from Book 1 as a matter of fact-- so whine all you like,
I'll be standing up front drowning youse all out with a jolly trombone. 
Let's get a little enthusiasm here!

The black-swathed ambiguous guy tortured but ennobled by his unspoken
passion for the lily-white heroine-- what's not to love?  So it's a
romantic, corny cliche that went out with the horse-and-buggy.  Gee,
like improbably good-hearted orphans raised by comically nasty
stepparents?  Or like romantic rebels locked away on island prisons for
crimes they didn't commit?  Or mad super-villains after World
Domination?  Dagnab it, the whole POINT of Harry Potter is that it
rummages around everything from fairy tales to Dickens, pulls out all
the stuff that no-one's dared to use in a million years because it's not
ironic or 'realistic' or postmodern or progressive, and dares to bring
it back alive and without apology.  Personally I ADORE Rowling's
wholehearted embrace of cliche, because IMO what ruins so much writing
is the anxiety to be original, or the fear of looking stupid by
excessive sincerity or romanticism.

JKR is can be sneaky, but she's certainly not into deconstructing the
genre.  She has whatever mystery she's using to drive the action of each
book, but on the whole she comes not to abolish, but to fulfill.  The
main objection to Snape/Lily has been "but it's such a cliche!", to
which one can only say, "Yeah, isn't it great!"

> Alla:
> > If your objections are just based on predictability part, well
> > then how more predictable "Ron/Hermione" and "Harry/Ginny" can
be?

EXACTLY.  (LOL, probably the only time I'll ever say that to Alla <g>)

Oh, Snape-loved-Lily, how do I love thee?  Let me count the ways..

-- Dude, Sydney Carton in "Tale of Two Cities" was one of my first
loves, and JKR said she cried and cried at end of the book... could he
LOOK more Snapey in the Phiz illustration?
<http://www.victorianweb.org/art/illustration/phiz/2b.html>    All
broody and shadow-lurking and shoulder-length-black-haired and with his
'fatal air of caring for nothing'...  PS. Jo, you'd BETTER not make me
cry and cry at the end of Book 7, lady.

-- It has the classic JRK-revelation virtue of making you go back and
re-read everything with new eyes, making everything more complex and
resonant-- like Lupin being a werewolf, or Neville and his tragic
parents.  Snape isn't just some creep who hates Harry because he  hated
his father;  he's some creep who hates Harry because he hated his
father, and loved his mother, and is tormented by guilt for having
caused her death.  Which was because of Harry.  But mostly because of
Snape.  Oh the ANGST!

-- What keeps being hinted as the theme of the whole series?  Oh, yeah,
love.  Haven't seen a whole lot of that around yet.  Might be a good
idea to have it, like, drive one of the central characters or something.

-- Oh, man, there's so many dramatic possibilities for scenes between
Snape and Harry when Harry finds out, I can't even count them all.   If
you're spoiled for choice of strong scenes, that a good sign that you're
going the right way.

-- Crack investigative journalist Jeremy Paxman smells a rat, and that's
good enough for me:

JEREMY PAXMAN: Are we going to discover anything more about Snape
?
JK ROWLING: Yes.
JEREMY PAXMAN: And Harry's mother? Did he have a crush on Harry's
mother or unrequited love or anything like that?
JK ROWLING: Hence his animosity to Harry?
JEREMY PAXMAN: Yes.
JK ROWLING: You speculate?
JEREMY PAXMAN: I speculate, yes, I'm just asking whether you can
tell us.
JK ROWLING: No I can't tell you.
Oh Jeremy, you are so adorable.   You have to have watched Paxman
eviscerating politicians live on the BBC every night to appreciate the
hilariousness of his puppy-dog eyes when he asked this.  Anyways...

I went into HBP with Snape-Lily-unrequited-love as a working theory. 
With Slughorn's little speech about the power of obsessive love, and
this:

"You have no idea of the remorse Professor Snape felt when he realized
how Lord Voldemort had interpreted the prophecy, Harry.  I believe it to
be the greatest regret of his life and reason he turned.."

Well, I finished the book pretty much assuming it was canon.


  > Alla, who unfortunately is unable to talk herself out of Snape/Lily >
anymore.

-- Sydney, who can't WAIT for S/L stuff in book 7.  Cheer UP, people,
it'll be FUN, I promise.





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