Rowling interview transcript

[Carol]

No: HPFGUIDX 180349

Irene wrote:
>
> 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:
> 
> --------------------
> 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 doesn't 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.
> ----------------------
Irene again: 
> 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.

>
Carol adds:

You snipped this part, which I think is important for the Epilogue:
'But then again, you could turn that on his head and say, "But maybe,
with these people being sorted into Slytherin, someone who has the
capacity to change themselves might also have the capacity to change
Slytherin."' I suppose we could apply that to Snape, if he had lived,
but JKR precluded that possibility by killing him (yes, I know. We
don't see his body brought to the Great Hall, so she *could* resurrect
him. . . ."

I agree, however, that she's not being consistent either within the
interview comment or with the depiction of Snape in the book. (I found
little Sev an extremely sympathetic character, in marked contrast to
James.)

Also, she says in that interview that "Slughorn came galloping back
with the Slytherins," which is what she thinks she wrote or intended
to write, meaning that Harry's fleeting impression that the crowd
consisted of townspeople and parents of the students who stayed to
fight must be, as I've argued, his mistaken impression.

The question is, are interviews canon? Can we accept the parts that
match our own interpretations and reject the rest? I still think that
what matters is what's on the pages of the books themselves, which
we're free to interpret, and I still don't trust her off-the-cuff
comments, which are only what she's thinking at that second, not
carefully thought-out statements like those we can still hope for in
the encyclopedia (which I fear may still contradict the books
themselves given that they sometimes contradict each other).

If I may be "disrespectful" for the moment, JKR comes across to me as
rather muddle-headed in her interviews (as if she's speaking off the
top of her head to friends, forgetting that her statements will be
part of the public record), and it would probably be an act of
courtesy not to hold her to them.

Carol, wondering what JKR thinks would have placed little Severus in
Slytherin besides his own delusion that it was the House for "brains"
but not at all sure that I want to hear the answer