Snape Loved or In-Love with Lily?

[Sydney]

No: HPFGUIDX 148453

Jen: 
> Jen looks up reluctantly from her teeny-tiny violin and whine with 
> cheese and smugly says to herself: "Look, Sydney with her 
> cheerleading uniform on. Hah! Like JKR is going to hang her series 
> on *that* one." 

Flee!  Flee in terror before my cheerleading uniform of doom <g>!


> Jen: Hey, what happened to the Time magazine article 
> about 'subverting the genre' and all that? Someone needs to tell JKR 
> the whole point of her story is that she uses cliche's really well 
> and then step back and wait for her response.

That would be this Time Magazine article:

"It's precisely Rowling's lack of sentimentality, her earthy, salty
realness, her refusal to buy into the basic clichés of fantasy, that
make her such a great fantasy writer. The genre tends to be deeply
conservative--politically, culturally, psychologically. It looks
backward to an idealized, romanticized, pseudofeudal world, where
knights and ladies morris-dance to Greensleeves. Rowling's books
aren't like that. They take place in the 1990s--not in some
never-never Narnia but in modern-day Mugglish England, with cars,
telephones and PlayStations. Rowling adapts an inherently conservative
genre for her own progressive purposes. Her Hogwarts is secular and
sexual and multicultural and multiracial and even sort of multimedia,
with all those talking ghosts. If Lewis showed up there, let's face
it, he'd probably wind up a Death Eater."

I gotta say, when I read that, the only words I come up with were,
"WTF?!"  Because okay, certainly there is some fantasty still being
written about morris-dancing to Greensleeves, but has this guy READ
any fantasy novels post, what, 1975?  Fantasy writing is 'inherently
conservative'? Ever hear of Ursula LeGuin?  WTF?

In any event, I totally agree that JKR doesn't use basic cliches of
fantasy.  She uses basic cliches of 19th century fiction, and
turn-of-the-century school stories.  I don't think there's been this
many fat jokes since the days of Billy Bunter.

>But about the tortured guy and unspoken 
> passion, I take it even you agree that the love could be no more 
> than unrequited in this instance? 

Oh, TOTALLY.  Soooo much more interesting, why do you think sitcoms
collapse when they resolve the sexual tension?  Unrequited, crammed
into the furthest corner of black soul, unspoken.  Unless exodust's
fiendishly clever idea just up-thread that poor Snivellus was once
Veritaserumed in the middle of the Great Hall comes to pass... 
although would even Sirius be that mean?  It sure brings a wallop to
Snape's threat to use it on Harry.

> Sydney:
> > -- 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.
> 
> Jen: Like Lily's sacrifice? Or Dumbledore's terminal quest to 
> destroy as many horcruxes as possible so Harry wouldn't have to? Or 
> Sirius' life ruined because of one mistake he made that caused the 
> deaths of the people he loved more dearly than anyone else?  There's 
> Love everywhere, who needs love? 

Lily isn't a central character, she's always been dead; D-dore is
a)destroying V-mort because it's a good idea generally, and b)seems to
have left the lion's share of the Horcruxes to Harry;  Sirius's life
wasn't ruined because he loved his friends, it was ruined because he
was betrayed and sent to prision for something he didn't do, not
saying he didn't love his friends but it's not CENTRAL.  

> Alla: 
> > And Tom Riddle Sr. and Merope seem like such a nice foreshadowing 
> > for Snape possibly wanting to drug Lily with Love Potion and 
> > (maybe?) abandoning such idea at some point.

Speaking of Unrequited Love, nasty as Snape is, I don't think he would
do this.  Not because it's wrong, but because IMO the LAST thing a guy
like that would want would be to ACTUALLY GET THE GIRL.  I mean, then
he'd have to, like, TALK TO HER.  Noooo... nice mile-high pedestal,
that's the safe place for girls Snape likes.

Tonks:
>I never could see the grudge of two teenagers being of any
>importance to a man in his late 30's.  That makes no sense either. A
>sensible man like Snape would have moved beyond that long ago.
><snippage> Then Snape overhears the prophesy
>only to find later that it comes back to bite him.  The two people
he would have wanted to forget are right in the middle of it all.

Yes, yes, yes.  I think Snape would be completely over both James and
Lilly if he hadn't ACCIDENTALLY KILLED THEM.  Yeah, that must sort of
make it hard to move on.

> Jen, with hands over her eyes: I know, I know! It's hard to even 
> argue anymore. I'm still disappointed in the idea Snape's mystery 
> will boil down to unrequited love for a girl 20 years 
> ago...sigh...<snip> Just the thought of Snape collapsing 
> down, as Nora also puts it, into a heap of blubbering lost love is 
> just...painful, yep, that's the word.

Just plain yummy, that's the word <g>.  I mean, I think there's a
danger of caricaturing the S/L thing into something really awful, but
it doesn't have to be that.  Although, mind you, given the HBP
romances... *shudder*... in my gut though I think JKR will be much,
much more on her game writing something as messed-up as Snape's
feelings for Lily than the shiny-happy-people H/G and R/H romances. 
Messed-up is what she does best, and much as I adore Snape he is
definietly not A-Okay.  
 
> Jen R., knowing she is a Scrooge about this one but thinking if 
> Sydney plays her jolly trombone she might just have to stuff a sock 
> in it. <g>

-- Sydney, wondering if perhaps a flugelhorn...?