Is Snape good or evil?

[nrenka]

No: HPFGUIDX 148930

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "horridporrid03" 
<horridporrid03 at ...> wrote:

> Betsy Hp:
> But doesn't that deny a basic rule of story telling?  The climax 
> happens at the *end* of the story, therefore the biggest BANG 
> *will* be in the last book.

That conflates a climax with a BANG.  Something BANGy is usually 
something shocking and sudden, a major catastrophic event and/or 
revelation.  The climax of a story does not have to follow this model 
of the sudden infraction, but could be something which has been built 
steadily towards throughout the story, before we finally arrive at 
what we've known has been coming for a while.  Novels with battles 
often work this way, for instance.

[As an aside, 'basic rules of storytelling' is also very much a YMMV 
thing...]

> I'm curious though, who's out there denying the BANG of HBP?  I, an 
> unapologetic, Snape-fangirl extraodinaire, found HBP *very* BANG-
> y.

Maybe I should elaborate; there are a lot of theories out there 
looking to mitigate or explain away what makes the end of HBP so 
devastatingly BANGy.  There was a plan, it wasn't a real AK curse so 
Snape didn't do something deeply evil, Snape is now going to help in 
the Horsluts hunt and be an inside agent, it'll all turn out alright 
in the end.  All of these things work against the impact of the HBP 
BANG, it seems to me: hence the comment of "Another BANG, but one 
that I'm more comfortable with".  If JKR wants to take that route, 
it's certainly open and the revision model is a familiar one, but it 
shouldn't be taken for granted.

That's not to mention that another BANG, if it happens, may simply 
*not* deal with the same territory or material as the one at the end 
of HBP.  You seem, if I read things correctly, to be looking for 
another and larger BANG to reverse the effects of that one.  But say 
we do get a BANG at the climax of the novel, which involves Harry and 
Voldemort and some sudden revelation on Harry's part of What He Has 
To Do.  This need not have anything to do with the HBP BANG.

> But that doesn't mean that Snape has exited stage left to never be 
> heard from again.  This isn't that type of story.

I would be rather disappointed if he did, as there are clearly issues 
left over to be dealt with.  I just don't know how much page time and 
influence they're going to exert.  HBP itself provides an interesting 
example.  Who expected the bulk of the book to be taken up with 
teenagers and their daily lives?

> Betsy Hp:
> In that questions will be answered, yes I agree with you.  But I 
> will be surprised if the answers aren't *satisfying*.

I waver.  I think they may be depressingly simple to the listies, 
such as how almost everyone was "That's IT?" when we got to the 
prophecy.  There may be more to come with all of that, but her 
answers do tend to the kind that can be distilled down to the 'short 
answer' format.

> Betsy Hp:
> 
> If Snape was nothing at all to the tale, or if the tower scene was 
> exactly what it seemed, she'd flat out tell us I think.  Instead of 
> doing her version of the mysterious twinkle.  

I don't think she'd tell us because the motivations for the tower 
scene are interesting and may come into play no matter what the 
outcome is.  And she knows that she's built something that *seems* 
ambiguous, although it ultimately is almost certainly not.  Not to 
mention that the negative spoilage she's given us tends more towards 
the character delineation type, although anyone surprised to learn 
that Draco and Hermione wouldn't date *in canon*...

Plot spoilers, those she is quite spare with.  Even when they're 
things which would have turned out to be quite minor.

-Nora ponders using Smyth to prop up a wobbly shelf