JKR and the boys/ Dark Magic and Snape

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 161478

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.

Carol responds:
I'm not British, of course, but I agree with both of you based on my
knowledge of English literature and history (more interesting to me
than the American equivalents). The "vibe" to me is almost medieval.
Think of the lengths to which the Plantagenet monarchs went to get
papal dispensations to marry their own cousins of varying degrees so
that the "blood royal" wouldn't be polluted through marriage to
commoners or outsiders. 

Sydney: 
> 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! 

Carol:
"Race" in what sense? If you mean the antagonism between Yorkshire and
the southern counties, you can see that in the era of Richard III, who
died in 1485, and probably before. As you say, it's a class thing, not
race, with the Southerners regarding the Northerners as almost
barbarians and the Northerners seeing the Southerners as soft and
corrupt. But I don't see Snape in that picture at all. Just because he
lives in Spinner's End as an adult doesn't mean it was his childhood
home. It's as good a place as any to hide from both sides.   
> 
> Magpie:
> 
> >I don't recall any Princes on the Black's tree, nor have we 
> > heard of any current students with the name.

Carol:
True, but Harry would not have noticed the Princes in OoP. He's only
looking at the recent portions of a tree that goes back (IIRC) a
thousand years, and only noticing familiar names. Gaunt and Peverell
must be on there somewhere, too, if it's true that the purebloods are
all related, but we don't see them. Nor does Harry notice the name
Yaxley, which appears on the bit of the tree that see on the Lexicon
site--and matches the last name of a Death Eater (Brutal Face, I'll
bet my lunch on it). He's only interested in Tonks and Draco and other
people that he has close contact with. So the name Prince could be
there a few generations back, or a dozen generations back, and he'd
take no notice. (Everybody has eight great-grandparents and sixteen
great-great-grandparents. It doesn't take long for a name to get lost,
especially if it's a wife's maiden name.)


As fo no students of that name, it seems that the pureblood families
(Weasleys excepted) seem to have only one or two children and to die
out. We've seen the end of the Crouch, Gaunt, and Black lines just in
the last three books. True, the Blacks have female descendants, but
the male line is extinguished, and with it the family name.) So Eileen
Prince could have been the only child of the Pureblood Princes, and
her father might also have been an only child or only son. Eileen
could be Sirius Black's mother's third cousin twice removed and he'd
never know it.  

Sydney:
<snip> 
> 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.

Carol:
Or maybe not. He could have been raised by the Princes with no
connection to the industrial North, even if Spinner's End was one his
father's house. (Its chandeliers and walls of books with magically
opening doors suggest that it wasn't Tobias's home. I rather think
that's Snape's own modification--at least as likely as a Knockturn
Alley connection. Or, if you like Knockturn Alley, maybe he had a shop
there in his early DE days. He needed paid employment or a business,
right? To my knowledge, DEs don't get paid.

> 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!

Carol:
I don't wholly agree. Yes, he's reshaped his image so that he's no
longer a stoop-shouldered, pallid teenager with a neglected look (as a
pureblood family might treat the half-blood grandson that they were
forced to take in on his father's death--see, I think the shouting man
is Grandpa Prince, which would explain the absence of Muggle clothes
in Snape's childhood memory. Not even Harry would fail to spot those.)
 He seems to need to earn a living, perhaps because the Princes
refused to support him after he came of age. That doesn't mean that he
came from a working class background. Lucius as a wealthy pureblood
who doesn't have to work would be naturally condescending to a less
wealthy but highly talented halfblood whom he regards as his protege
(the "lapdog" idea) and who has to teach for a living. But
intellectually and in terms of magical power, Snape is at least his
equal and Lucius knows it. And Bella, though she won't admit it, is
flat out afraid of Snape. Otherwise, she'd never have tried to prevent
Narcissa from seeing him or taught Draco elementary Occlumency to keep
him from knowing what Draco was up to.

> 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'! <snip>

Carol:
All of the references to Lily's eyes have been to their color (and
once, IMO, to their unusual almond shape). Having Lily's eyes helped
Harry get the memory from Slughorn. I think we've seen the last of
that motif in HBP.

Carol, not sure why she disagrees with these speculations when she
agrees that "blood" is about class more than "race"