[HPforGrownups] Re: The two good Slytherins

[Bart Lidofsky]

No: HPFGUIDX 176366

From: allthecoolnamesgone <allthecoolnamesgone at yahoo.co.uk>
>I watched some of JKR's interviews on the Leaky Cauldron 
>last night and she was astonished that people think Snape 
>a hero! The most she would concede is that he is brave. Yet 
>she then went on to say that the most important virtue, she 
>felt, was courage and that she hoped she would be 'worthy' 
>to be a Gryffindor. 

Bart:
Isaac Asimov once postulated that if you brought William Shakespeare into the present, and put him into a college class on the works of Shakespeare, he would most likely flunk. 

A few days ago, I wrote a piece on heroism, and how many in modern society mistake the hero as one who is without flaws, causing them to try to explain away the flaws they find in their heroes. Here is Professor Snape, a HIGHLY flawed man, yet he sacrifices everything, including giving up his own life trying to help someone he deeply resented, in an attempt to make up for a great evil he had done (the famous 12 Labors of Hercules was also pennance for evil HE had done). I wonder if JKR considers Harry's Crucio to be justified. 

When RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK came out, I groaned over the number of critics who referred to Indiana Jones as an "anti-hero". I guess they defined an anti-hero as a hero who needed a shave. 

So, my question is, why would one say that Snape was NOT a hero?

Bart