Rowling interview transcript

[IreneMikhlin]

No: HPFGUIDX 180312

The whole text is available here:

http://www.the-leaky-cauldron.org/2008/1/2/pottercast-131-j-k-rowling-interview-transcript

I just want to comment on one bit:

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SU: You know, Snape is so amazing, was he truly meant to be in 
Slytherin, Snape?

JKR: Yes, God, yes, definitely, at the time that he was sorted. I 
believe what Dumbledore believes when he says to Snape in the very last 
book, Sometimes I think we sort too soon. To judge someone at the age 
of eleven, to judge them, to set their future course so young seems to 
me to be a very harsh thing to do. And it doesnt take into account the 
fact that we do change and evolve. A lot of people are at forty what 
they were at eleven, having said that, so I think Sorting Hat is shrewd, 
but Snape does redeem himself and (SU: Yeah.) it fails to take that into 
account.
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So, we can't delude ourselves that it was just old sociopath Dumbledore 
talking. Nope, it's the whole authorial intent: he was a bad child, so 
the Slytherin was the right place for him, but he outgrew it later. 
Mighty white of you, Severus.

And yet in the next answer she repeats - "they are not all bad, and, 
well, far from it."

I just don't get it, how it sits together for her - Slytherins are not 
all bad, and yet someone who becomes a better person, stops being 
suitable for Slytherin.

Irene