[HPforGrownups] Re: Favorite theories proved wrong

[doliesl at yahoo.com]

No: HPFGUIDX 172201


Kamil responded:
I won't be shocked, or angry, as I think the text supports both
readings at this point. I will, however, be deeply disappointed.

Talk about wasting a "gift of a character." If he's evil then he's
managed to pull the wool over Dumbledore's eyes for lo, these many
years. And as Dumbledore has always been set up as the cleverest,
hardest-to-fool wizard known to all of wizardkind then it'd be very
interesting to see all of his assumptions proved wrong in the end -
especially if Harry knew better than his mentor did on this one 
thing.

Lisa:

Isn't it funny how we can all read the same words and have totally 
opposite reactions to them?!  I've thought that if Snape turns out to 
be on the side of the Order (I can't say "good," because he's just too 
nasty a man to his students and contemporaries to be called "good") he 
will have been a well-fleshed-out character about whom the author has 
kept us on the fence all these years.  But if he's been evil all along, 
then I'd consider him to be a trite, flat, shallow character in whom 
the author invested little.

Me: 

Agree with Lisa, JKR can't possibly satisified everyone (as she say, many will 'loathe' it but that's just how the story has been setup all along). It's either this way or that way. I thought the "Saint teen Harry is ultimately right and wiser than stupid gullible Dumbledore" is the most trite and eye rolling lame to me.  Not only that but idiot!DD/evil!Snape has no revelation nor emotional satisfaction for a finale, other than serving those couple Snape-haters so-called 'poetic justice' and desperation to be right about their hate on a fictional character.  I'd rather want revelation, moment of truth and ultimately well rounded characters and an emotional story, not badass for badass sake just because you want your most hated ficitonal character to be evil and died a villain death, or  justice for justice sake just because you don't want to see him being heroic or sacrificial or tragic.



Kamil responded:
> Only without the snarky one-liners.

Hickengruendler:
Without snarky onliners?
How about (while speaking to Bella): "Of course you weren't a lot use 
to him in prison, but the gesture was undoubtly fine". Or the 
Wormtail smackdown in the same chapter. Or when he catches Harry and 
Ron in CoS, afte rthey arrived in the car. Or during his interactions 
with Lockhart. Snape can be very snarky, if he wants. 

Me: 
LOL!
Snape's awesome with snarky one-liners, we must be reading very different book.


vmonte again:
I agree with you. I think it would be a lot more interesting if in 
the end Snape and Harry had to fight each other. I've never been 
interested in Voldemort was a character. He is such a cartoon-
like/moustache twirling kind of villian that I just can't get into 
him at all. Snape, whether he is ESE or DD's man, is very cool (in a 
dirty hair/dirty underwear kind of way).

Me: 
As many people has pointed out endlessly on this list already, OFH/Dark Lord wannabe/self-serving Snape just  sounds completely OOC and total lack of any possible believable nor interesting motivations to me. A grudge-obsessed Snape doesn't sound like someone who cannot commit to anything and suave enough to play both side and such. It's conflicting characterization. On the contray, Snape is someone who has a cause (no matter how trivial or petty it might be) and will see thru it till the grudging end, he's a 'die hard follow one leader/cause' type of man. 

vmonte again:
<One thing that really bothers me is the idea of people blindly 
following a leader, without ever questioning or thinking on their 
own. How many characters told Harry that they trust Snape because 
Dumbledore said so. What the hell is that? >

For the "Greater good" I supposed? 
Fit with JKR's themes. 

D.









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