JKR and the boys/ Dark Magic and Snape

[Sydney]

No: HPFGUIDX 161464

Magpie:

> It seems like one thing we've learned about Purebloods is that they 
> know who they all are. They're almost a family more than a race.

Sydney:

I think the 'racial' metaphor of magic/non-magic blood is entangled
with a class metaphor.  Class is still an amazingly bitter and
senstive subject in Britain and goes hand in hand with race
discussions in terms of 'otherness' and the establishment and
prejudice and resentment. Especially as the Wizarding World has a
distinctly 1920's between-the-wars vibe and at the same time draws a
lot of its atmosphere from Dickens.  The idea of the family trees and
intermarriage is a lot more resonant of a class than a race thing.

Then there's that JKR's placed Snape in an industrial northern town. 
 That carries a lot of baggage-- there were huge race riots in the
mill town of Bradford in the mid-nineties, Yorkshire is the stronghold
of the British National Party, and it's also where the 7/7 bombers
were from.  Of course, it's also Bronte country and maybe the
Heathcliffiness is all there is to it!    

Magpie:

>I don't recall any Princes on the Black's tree, nor have we 
> heard of any current students with the name.  

Yeah-- these guys have come out of nowhere.  Are they freaks of nature
like the Gaunts, or what?  I'm still clinging on to my hope that
there's some sort of Knockturn Alley connection with Snape-- before
HBP I was convinced he was a social-climbing, barrow-boy Cockney
urchin.  Maybe it's the way he uses this almost comically formal
language-- a bit like a Dickens social climber like Mr. Guppy in
"Bleak House".  He definitely has that self-made vibe of... oh, how
did Trelawney put it?  "A pushing, thrusting young man" (I must say
there's a spray of coffee decorating that page of my copy of HBP, but
I have sort of a dirty mind). 

Okay, so now he's a social climbing Northern urchin, but maybe the
Princes came from Knockturn, and that's where he picked up all those
curses he came to school with?  Mostly I just love the location of
Knockturn alley and want an excuse to take the book back there.

Magpie:

 > And then look at his relationship with the Blacks in Spinner's End.  
> These people, even if they don't know his father was a Muggle, would 
> I'd think know Snape wasn't a Pureblood family, yet he seems to have 
> worked his way into an important position with them--Narcissa goes 
> to him when she's in trouble. 

Sydney:

Yeah, it's so intriguing!  Because on the one hand JKR's really set
him up as the familiar figure of the chip-on-shoulder lower-class guy
trying to 'pass'.  But he's more than passing, he seems to have
established a very respectable position with the biggest snobs in the
place.  It doesn't seem possible that they don't know who he is, the
insularity of the pureblood world is such a theme.  Maybe they respect
him as playing the game right, that in a way he knows his 'place'? 
There's an edge of that in Umbrige's line that Lucius 'speaks highly
of him', which implies that Lucius has a right to pass judgement.  I
don't get that vibe so much in Spinner's End, especially because Bella
argues with him like an equal.  Argh!  I think we'll just have to wait
on this one!

Magpie:

> I could even imagine--and obviously this is pure speculation--but I 
> could imagine Lily encouraging him to be defiant about his Half-
> blood status 

Sydney:

I feel sure there's some sort of connection with Lily and the Potions
book, and that might extend to the nickname.  I read a very cool
theory somewhere that the famous significance of Harry having Lily's
eyes is that that's why he's the only one who can make out the
handwriting in the HPB book-- Snape spelled it 'for lily's eyes only'!
 It goes with the idea that the whole significance of "Snape's Worst
Memory" is acutally the use of Levicorpus-- that Lily had to hide a
smile because she knew it was Snape's spell, and Snape snapped at her
because he thought she had passed his secret spells to James.


-- Sydney, a bit incoherent..