Snape, Apologies, and Redemption

[Don L.]

No: HPFGUIDX 152149

I would be very surprised if JKR wrote the Dumbledore confrontation 
with the Dursleys at the beginning of HBP in response to criticism.  
There is no requirement to make heroes more heroic, villains more 
villainous, worlds for unworldly but it almost always occurs in 
literature and is what makes books of fantasy interesting and 
enjoyable.  I for one do not think JKR had bowed or should bow to 
criticism for her fictional characters' faults any more than she 
should stop writing the series because of criticism from some parts 
because of the misplaced fear that young readers may become Satan's 
followers or read more redeeming books less.

As a boy I daydreamed in school about such worlds as Heinlein and 
Tolkien, where parents were non-existant, where rules, science and 
history were lost, where characters like Snape and LV were defeated 
by me and on occasion my friends.  As an adult I understand 
daydreams for what they are – a memory, and on occasion a book like 
the Harry Potter Series resonates, taking me back, if not for short 
periods, to a time and place when I had the time to aimlessly 
daydream.  

JKR's world is of wizardry, where wizarding justice is reduced to a 
political farce called the Wizengamot allowing children to be put on 
trial, where children are allowed wands, learn spells, and fly on 
unsafe broomsticks.  Got it.  But IMO without the author's license to 
create world and characters however flawed, the book is less the 
fantasy and approaches non-fiction, and I get enough of political 
correctness from the nightly news.  I enjoy the JKR books and this 
forum for what they are - entertainment.  Conversely, I detest the 
idea that an author must conform her story, her world and her 
characters particularly Snape or DD, judged and criticized on narrow 
definitions of repentance and redemption.

Don L.