Is Snape good or evil?

[horridporrid03]

No: HPFGUIDX 148988

> >>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.

> >>Nora: 
> That conflates a climax with a BANG.
> <snip>

Betsy Hp:
Well, yeah!  Every single Potter book has had a BANGy sort of 
climax.  That's JKR's style.

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

Betsy Hp:
I should have said "classic", which isn't YMMV at all.  Some ancient 
Greek guy laid it all out (Plato?), and Western Civilization has 
pretty much followed those rules for a while now.  There have been 
writers who boldly break the rules and then there's the non-Western 
stuff, but JKR is pretty much governed by the rules of classic story 
telling, which do put the climax at the end.

> >>Nora: 
> 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".
> <snip>

Betsy Hp:
Ah, this is one of those places where I doubt we'll see eye to eye 
<g>.  A DDM!Snape on the Tower strikes me as *more* BANGy.  Whereas 
an ESE! or OFH! Snape is pretty darn dull (clean kill, no gloating, 
no massacre of Order members, no torture of boy hero).  The only new 
information that would truly lessen the BANG of the Tower, IMO, is 
if Dumbledore didn't actually die.

But having a loyal and good Snape forced to kill his mentor/father 
figure to further the cause they both would sacrifice anything for 
strikes me as pretty darn angsty and BANGy.  Plus, there's all that 
delicious depth.

> >>Nora:
> 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.

Betsy Hp:
Well, no.  There's nothing to take away the BANGy image of Snape 
killing Dumbledore.  No explanation could possibly compete with that 
image.  But *Harry* would certainly go through a massive shock, and 
that will provide the BANG, I think.  (Going by DDM!Snape.)

> >>Nora:
> 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.

Betsy Hp:
But it'd sure make for a tidier tale if it did. <g>  And JKR has 
quite a deft hand at managing her various plot strings and having 
them turn into a cohesive whole at the climax.  I mean, the *diary* 
destroyed all the way back in book *two* suddenly becomes something 
upon which the entire means of destroying Voldemort hangs.  I cannot 
see the Tower Scene turning into an "oh, by the way".  But that's 
me. <g>

Betsy Hp