Connections Interview re: Snape (1999)

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 171628

zgurnius wrote:
 
> > I think the comment was a somewhat flippant remark based on
Snape's personality. I, of course, and a convinced LOLLIPOPs
believer...so this answer seems also a dodge of further discussion of
Snape being in love with someone. And an honest one. If Snape was
indeed in love with Lily Evans, it sure worked out badly for her.
> >
> 
> Julie:
> I agree that it was a flippant remark on JKR's part. Just as she
calls him horrible, and says "you wouldn't want to think he's too
nice," she simply doesn't want to give away too much about the
character. Remember, she's always known that Snape would be the one
killing Dumbledore in HBP, and that 6th book would end with the whole
of the WW (and many readers) seeing Snape as ESE. Whether Snape really
is that bad, or whether he turns out to be DDM, she has to maintain as
a negative an impression about him as possible to prepare for his
betrayal scene (real or apparent) in HBP. 
> 
> That said, I'm not certain about Snape being in love with Lily, but
I do think love played a part in his defection from Voldemort, as
reflected in his "fools who wear their hearts on their sleeves..."
speech. Lily, Narcissa, <snip> (Florence, anyone?), I'm not sure the
identity matters that much. (And Snape could-and apparently-did have
some sort of relationship/contact with Lily without it being based on
romantic love.)

Carol responds:

I think it's time to quote the whole interview segment.

Lydon: What about Snape?

JKR: OK. Snape is the - er - very sadistic teacher loosely based on a
teacher I myself had, I have to say. Erm .. I think it ... Children
are very aware - and we ... we're kidding ourselves if we don't think
that they are - that teachers do sometimes abuse their power and this
particular teacher /does/ abuse his power. He is not a - he is not a
particularly pleasant person at all. /However/, everyone should keep
their eye on Snape, I'll just say that, because there's more to him
than meets the eye, and you will find out part of what I'm talking
about if you read book four. And no, I am not trying to drum up more
sales; go to the library and get it out, I'd rather people read it.

Lydon: Er - one of our connec- ... one of our internet correspondents
wondered if Snape is going to fall in love?

JKR: Yeah? Who on earth would want Snape in love with them, that is a
very horrible idea. Erm ...

Lydon: But you'd get an important kind of redemptive pattern to Snape

JKR: It is, isn't it ... I got ... There's so much I wish I could say
to you, and I can't because it'd ruin ... I promise you ... whoever
asked that question, can I just say to you that I'm - I'm slightly
stunned that you've said that - erm - and you'll find out why I'm so
stunned if you read book 7. And that's all I'm going to say.

Lydon: Mmmm - this is - this is encouraging.

http://www.accio-quote.org/articles/1999/1099-connectiontransc2.htm#p13
(Slashes in the transcript indicate italics, words emphasized by JKR
in the audio interview)

Carol again:

I think first, that it's important to hear the whole segment, which is
quite short and takes only a few seconds.

http://www.accio-quote.org/audio/connection-1999/13-Snape.mp3

One thing that's important, IMO, is JKR's emphasis on "however" in the
first part of her response. She seems to be making a concession--yes,
he's a sadistic teacher who abuses his power--and then turning it
around: *However*, everyone should keep their eye on Snape because
there's more to him than meets the eye. That to me indicates that the
Snape Harry sees is not the real Snape; he sees only the superficial
sadism and not Snape's loyalty to Dumbledore or his constant efforts
to protect Harry. As for what we learn about Snape in GoF, surely it's
that he was a DE but turned spy for our side at great personal risk, a
role that he returns to at the end of that book.

The second important thing, IMO, is that JKR and Lydon are talking
over each other in the second segment (not clear from the transcript).
She seems to be simultaneously responding to his interjected remark
about the redemptive pattern to Snape and the reader's question about
Snape in love. Obviously the part about someone wanting Snape in love
with them being a horrible idea is her attempt to evade the question,
and we can interpret it any way we like (I think she just finds the
idea of hook-nosed, "sadistic" Snape romantically unappealing), but
IMO--and I realize that many posters disagree with me--the next part
of her response relates to Lydon's "redemptive pattern" idea. that, I
think, is what she's responding to when she says, addressing him as
"you," "It is, isn't it ... I got ... There's so much I wish I could
say to you, and I can't because it'd ruin . . ." At that point, she
returns to the Internet correspondent's question about Snape falling
in love, answering it with "I promise you ... whoever asked that
question, can I just say to you that I'm - I'm slightly stunned that
you've said that - erm - and you'll find out why I'm so stunned if you
read book 7. And that's all I'm going to say."

So she seems to concede the redemptive pattern, which she can't expand
on because it would ruin the plot, and then she says she's stunned
that someone asked the question about Snape being in love, which again
relates to Book 7. Much as I hate the idea, it does sound as if he was
in love with Lily, which would relate to or even cause his remorse
when he found out how Voldemort interpreted the Prophecy. I don't
think for a moment, however, that Voldemort would tell Lily to stand
aside because Snape asked him to do so. I think that, like Cedric in
GoF, she was simply in Voldemort's way. (There's a Time magazine
inteview in which she describes Cedric's death in exactly that way.)

Nor do I think that Lily was in any way involved in the creation of
the HBP's spells or potions hints, all of which are in *his* small
cramped handwriting, first seen on his DADA OWL in OoP. And it would
be scarcely forgiveable if she had betrayed his trust by reading his
marginal notes and passing on the nonverbal Levicorpus and its
countercurse to James. FWIW, they would not have been using the NEWT
Potions book for fifth-year Potions, nor do I think it likely that a
Gryffindor and a Slytherin would be Potions partners or that James
would have a crush on a girl who was friends with Severus.

While I'm at it, I think JKR's saying that Snape is "in some ways . .
. more culpable even than Voldemort, who never has [been loved"

http://www.accio-quote.org/articles/2005/0705-tlc_mugglenet-anelli-3.htm

means simply that Snape knows what love is, so *in some ways* he's
more responsible for his misdeeds and mistakes. It certainly doesn't
mean that he's more evil or that his crimes (joining the DEs, leaking
the partial Prophecy, killing DD for whatever reason) are worse than
Voldemort's (lying, stealing, and torturing other children as a boy,
releasing the Basilisk, murdering his father and grandparents, framing
his uncle for the murder, murdering Hepzibah Smith, framing Hokey for
the murder, committing various other murders, creating five or six
Horcruxes with some of those murders, attempting to murder a toddler,
organizing the DEs and ordering them to engage in coercion, torture,
and murder, including the murder of a teenage boy). Evidently, the
difference is that Voldemort really believes that "there is no good
and evil, only power and those to weak to seek it," while Snape, who
has been loved (by his mother?) knows that good and evil exist and,
for a time, willing chose evil (which, IMO, he has since rejected).

Carol, agreeing that "Who would want Snape in love with them?" was a
flippant remark and believing that the "redemptive pattern" is more
important, or at least as important, as whether Snape was in love
(with Lily or anyone else)