Nice vs. Good, and a Rowling quote

[Renee]

No: HPFGUIDX 153015

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "houyhnhnm102" <celizwh at ...> wrote:
>
> Joe:
> 
> > Didn't JKR her self say that the "adoration or liking" 
> > that some people have for Snape and in particular Draco 
> > was a bit disturbing to her?
> 
> houyhnhnm:
> 
> No, I don't think that's what she said.  Here is the quote (from the
> August, 2004, Edinburgh Book Festival):
> *************************
> Q: Also, will we see more of Snape?
> 
> A: You always see a lot of Snape, because he is a gift of a character.
> I hesitate to say that I love him. [Audience member: I do]. You do?
> This is a very worrying thing. Are you thinking about Alan Rickman or
> about Snape? [Laughter]. Isn't this life, though? I make this
> hero—Harry, obviously—and there he is on the screen, the perfect
> Harry, because Dan is very much as I imagine Harry, but who does every
> girl under the age of 15 fall in love with? Tom Felton as Draco
> Malfoy. Girls, stop going for the bad guy. Go for a nice man in the
> first place. It took me 35 years to learn that, but I am giving you
> that nugget free, right now, at the beginning of your love lives.
> *************************
> 
> Notice that she is not responding to the questioner but to the
> audience member who blurted out "I do".  

Renee:
What I notice first and foremost is that JKR says: "Go for a nice man
in the first place." 

Now we may all have our own ideas about what the word "nice" really
means, but in this quote the author of the books uses it as the
opposite of "bad". This sheds an interesting light on the "nice vs.
good" debate. Either JKR doesn't see these two concepts as opposed or
fundamentally different at all - or she gives girls the advice to go
for the polished surface, which may or may not conceal a black heart,
rather than for the possibility of a golden heart hiding behind a
semblance of nastiness. 

Personally, I rather think it's the former, the latter not being a
very laudable alternative. And an author's use of a concept in an
interview should be a fairly strong indication of the way it's handled
in the books. 

Renee