Thoughts on Severus: how does he fit in?

[Sydney]

No: HPFGUIDX 176740


John Paul Smith wrote:

>However, and what I have been
> > racking my brain about is "Where does Snape fit in this equation?"
> > Not Star Wars mind you but as an archetypal character? I have been
> > racking my brain about him and I can't seem to locate one. The
> > closest I come is close to an anti-hero but it doesn't quite fit,
> > does it? A good example of modern anti-hero is Travis Bickle in
> > Taxi Driver. But Snape always does the right thing throughout
> > the course of the books. Maybe not his past history, but through
> > the series he does, yes? So he is good, but he can't allow people
> > to know. Why? Therein is the issue I think.
> 
> 
> montims:
> I do think, however, we must look to British
> literature for this kind of character

Sydney: 

:D  I love this kind of topic, and HP is particularily good for, "I've
seen this guy somewhere before..."  It's the Name That Tune of books!

Snape is a felicitous composite of a couple of characters I think.  In
terms of the "Mean Teacher", he's a fairly direct ripoff of Mr. King,
Head of a rival House in Kipling's "Stalky & Co.", the grandaddy of
all Boarding-school novels (great-grandaddy being "Tom Brown's
Schooldays", whence the twinkling all-wise headmaster comes from). 
OMG!  *slaps forehead*  MR. KING!  The Half-Blood PRINCE!!  That's
hilarious-- I recognized the character but this is the first time I
got the name thing.  Anyhow, here's some flavour of Mr. King:



"It happened to be King, in gown and
mortar-board, enjoying a Saturday evening prowl before dinner.

"Locked doors! Locked doors!" he snapped with a scowl. "What's the
meaning of this; and what, may I ask, is the intention of this--this
epicene attire?"
<snip>

"As usual!" sneered King. "Futile foolery just when your careers, such
as they may be, are hanging in the balance. I see! Ah, I see!"



Anyways, he's always prowling in his black robes and sneering and
being sarcastic and trying to catch Our Heroes in expellable mischief,
and then being made to look ridiculous.  And then of course... it's
kind of hard not to think of that other wizarding school
dungeons-inhabiting potions teacher who hates the protagonist,
Constance Hardbroom in "The Worst Witch"... anyone hankering for an HP
fix should obviously turn to this great (pre-HP series, also a TV
series, wasn't it?) A nice HP/Worst Witch comparison here 
http://www.geocities.com/audrahammer/hpvsww.html  

Now, strict schoolteacher with working-class roots and rage issues,
passionately in love with a Pure Heroine but losing her to a loathed
arrogant rival.. hmmmmm... Bradley Headstone in Dickens' "Our Mutual
Friend" of course.  Meh, I can't find a sufficiently short quote to
illustrate the parallel.. something else "Our Mutual Friend" and HP
have in common, is I think I'll always conveniently forget the ending
that makes a nonesense out of half the story!  Oh well!

Moving right along, so.. schoolmasters.. unrequited love.. of course
we need to bring in Sidney Carton at this point as has already been
mentioned.  Quotage:


"To none.  No, Miss Manette, to none.  If you will hear me through a
very little more, all you can ever do for me is done.  I wish you to
know that you have been the last dream of my soul.  In my degradation
I have not been so degraded but that the sight of you with your
father, and of this home made such a home by you, has stirred old
shadows that I thought had died out of me.  Since I knew you, I have
been troubled by a remorse that I thought would never reproach me
again, and have heard whispers from old voices impelling me upward,
that I thought were silent for ever.  I have had unformed ideas of
striving afresh, beginning anew, shaking off sloth and sensuality, and
fighting out the abandoned fight.  A dream, all a dream, that ends in
nothing, and leaves the sleeper where he lay down, but I wish you to
know that you inspired it."


*sniffle*  He also has long black hair that hangs around his face and
is sarcastic and loses the Pure Heroine to hated rival and people
think he's being bad when he's being good yadda yadda.  JKR said she
cried and cried when Carton sacrificed himself for everyone..
strangely, she seems to have thought to herself, "That was great, but
it would be even better if, rather than being a sarcastic loner
disliked by everyone, the martyr was an adorable orphan beloved by
all!"  Whatever.  

Next:  tormented self-loathing spies, and again with the unrequited
love, with a heaping side of guilt:  the impossibly Snapey Razumov
from Joseph Conrad's "Under Western Eyes".  Ah, he fills a
Snape-shaped hole in my life, kind of like the one in that window in
Hogwarts *cue poignant music with inexplicable looney-tunes angle* 
You could write an entire Snape fic just by cutting and pasting bits
of this. Here, I'll start: "It occurred to me that his face was really
of the very mobile sort, and that the absolute stillness of it was the
acquired habit of a revolutionist, of a conspirator everlastingly on
his guard against self-betrayal in a world of secret spies."

Oh, I'll indulge myself, a bit more:



    "Take care, Razumov, my good friend. If you carry on like this you
will go mad. You are angry with everybody and bitter with yourself,
and on the look out for something to torment yourself with."

    "It's intolerable!" Razumov could only speak in gasps. "You must
admit that I can have no illusions on the attitude which
 it isn't
clear
 or rather
 only too clear." He made a gesture of despair. It
was not his courage that failed him. The choking fumes of falsehood
had taken him by the throat—the thought of being condemned to struggle
on and on in that tainted atmosphere without the hope of ever renewing
his strength by a breath of fresh air."


I should add that this novel (not Conrad's best, but still awesome)
has a fantastic and appropriately ironic end for Razumov, that would
have been perfect for Snape.  Oh well!


Lastly... character who is mean but actually good but misunderstood by
everyone and Not the Villain... isn't that like, nearly every
Scooby-doo plot?  

-- Sydney