Disarming spell/ Character's choices

[Carol]

No: HPFGUIDX 185472

> Kemper now:
> <snip> I agree with Harry treating Snape as a hero.  But I don't
think there were any anti-hero's in the book.  Snape sure isn't one. 
He was bad, then he was good.

Carol responds:

I don't think it was that simple. He wasn't bad as a child; he was
just led astray by his Slytherin friends, with no guidance and
direction for his talents. Joining the Death eaters was certainly a
bad decision, as was revealing the Prophecy to Voldemort, whom he knew
to be evil but served, anyway. But his love for Lily led him to go to
Dumbledore, whom he feared would kill him, and then secretly and
courageously risk his life by spying and so forth. I won't go into
details because we all know the story, but I think that all his adult
life after Godric's Hollow, his love for Lily and his promise to
Dumbledore fought with his natural Slytherin sympathies, his
friendship with the Malfoys, and his hatred of James Potter. All these
internal conflicts, not to mention remorse and the inability to turn
back the clock and undo his mistakes or bring Lily back to life, made
him a bitter, sarcastic man who nevertheless performed brilliantly
under pressure and served Dumbledore well, especially in that last,
desperate, spectacular bit of wandless magic.

I think the question of whether he's a hero or an anti-hero or neither
depends on your definition of those terms. I think it could be
plausibly argued that he's a variation of the Byronic (or Satanic)
hero originally modeled on the Satan of Milton's "Paradise Lost" and
further developed through Byron's poetry. A Byronic hero is moody and
mysterious, not necessarily handsome, capable of great love or
passion, but hiding a dark secret. (Mr. Rochester in "Jane Eyre" is a
familiar example.) I think Snape qualifies (even though he's not the
hero of the book, *a* hero and *the* hero being two different things).

Here are a pair of links that some readers may find interesting,
especially if they want to find out a bit more about Romanticism
(winks at Potioncat):

http://www.wwnorton.com/college/english/nael/romantic/topic_5/welcome.htm

or

http://tinyurl.com/3ex5gt

http://victorian-fiction.suite101.com/article.cfm/mr_rochester_byronic_hero

or

http://tinyurl.com/c75wue

Carol, adding tinyurls in case the long ones don't link