Hero types was Re: Another Snape thread/ Snape as hero

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 152042

Pippin wrote:
<snip> 
> Then we have Snape, the anti-hero. Anti-heroes fly in the face of
> *almost* everything that heroes stand for -- they will never be held up 
> as an example to small children, they seek no social good and obey only 
> their own internal code of conduct, their love interests betray them, 
> they usually have a mysterious  past that turns out to be shady or
> criminal, they are dishonest, cynical and disillusioned. They don't
resemble
> heroes in any way -- except that when their internal code demands it,
> they will risk everything to save a weak or innocent person from harm.

Carol responds:
I would classify Snape (assuming that he's DDM!) as a Byronic hero.
Here's a partial definition of the term from

http://www.umd.umich.edu/casl/hum/eng/classes/434/charweb/CHARACTE.htm :

"A Byronic hero exhibits several characteristic traits, and in many
ways he can be considered a rebel. The Byronic hero does not possess
'heroic virtue' in the usual sense; instead, he has many dark
qualities. With regard to his intellectual capacity, self-respect, and
hypersensitivity, the Byronic hero is 'larger than life' . . . . 

"He is usually isolated from society as a wanderer or is in exile of
some kind. It does not matter whether this social separation is
imposed upon him by some external force or is self-imposed. . . .

"Often the Byronic hero is moody by nature or passionate about a
particular issue. He also has emotional and intellectual capacities,
which are superior to the average man. These heightened abilities
force the Byronic hero to be arrogant, confident, abnormally
sensitive, and extremely conscious of himself. <snip> In one form or
another, he rejects the values and moral codes of society and because
of this he is often unrepentant by society's standards. Often the
Byronic hero is characterized by a guilty memory of some unnamed . . .
crime. Due to these characteristics, the Byronic hero is often a
figure of repulsion, as well as fascination."

Obviously, the definition doesn't fit perfectly (especially his
"emotional capacity"), but even in SS/PS Snape was depicted as
intellectually superior to most wizards (his skill in logic, which
Hermione notes is rare among wizards), and HBP reveals him as a
genius. GoF shows his remarkable courage (a necessary quality in any
hero); OoP begins to show us his precocious abilities as a schoolboy
(knowing more curses at age eleven than half the seventh years, the
detailed response to his DADA OWL, his mastery of Occlumency); and HBP
expands the picture to show remarkable ingenuity in potion making and
spell creation, as well as wholly unanticipated healing capacities.
His knowledge of, or rather expertise in, the Dark Arts fits both the
unusual intellectual capacity and the dark side of the Byronic hero. 

His joining the DEs in the first place qualifies as an act of
rebellion against his society's standards (followed by a second act of
rebellion or rejection that others, say McGonagall and Lupin, fail to
acknowledge, which fits "unrepentant by society's standards"). And, of
course, he's moody, arrogant, "abnormally sensitive," and of course he
has a guilty memory (or more than one) that drives him. For many
readers, especially after the tower scene in HBP, he's "a figure of
repulsion, as well as fascination," and he's certainly exiled from
society after killing Dumbledore.

I would add that Snape's mystique and his dark hair and eyes resemble
those of the best-known Byronic heroes, Rochester and Heathcliff, and
his black robes trailing behind him as he sweeps from a room, his
frequently "unfathomable" expressions, even his dark hair and
eyes--suggest a gothic element often associated with Byronic heroes
("gothic" in the sense of the gothic novel, a genre invented by Horace
Walpole in 1764--gothic novels are always set in a castle and share
certain elements with the Potter books, e.g., ghosts, secret chambers,
and prophecies). 

I'm not sure how the Byronic hero (also called a Satanic hero because
of the influence on Byron of Milton's Satan) relates to Pippin's use
of the term "anti-hero." Perhaps they're two terms for the same
concept, or one is a variant of the other.

Carol, fully aware that Snape is not *the* hero of the series and that
having affinities with a Byronic/Satanic hero (or an anti-hero) is not
the same as actually being one