Secrets (Long) OLD POST REPOST

[montavilla47]

No: HPFGUIDX 186496

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "dumbledore11214" <dumbledore11214 at ...> wrote:
>
> Montavilla47:
> 
> Well, yeah. But that's normal human behavior. If, for
> example, you had a sweetheart in high school, who married
> the quarterback of the football team and then one day, he
> had too much to drink and drove their car into a tree, you
> might have some resentments towards him, too.
> 
> Even if you served him the drinks.
> 
> Nobody would get over that kind of thing easily.
> But I'll bet you'd be angrier over him driving drunk and
> killing your old sweetheart than you would because he
> used to give you wedgies.
> 
> Alla:
> 
> Well, that is if the other reasons for that grudge are dismissed of course, but to me this sounds more like as if your friend, who you would love to be your sweetheart married the quarterback of the football team and you told the gang leader that they did something to try and stop his activities and that gang leader (whose gang you were a member of) decided he is going to come and kill them one day. You warned them that they should go to witness protection program, but the guy refused.
> 
> Yeah, I could be angry, but that does not mean that I would not know that I should be angry with myself first and foremost.


Montavilla47:

Hehe.  But it would be *more* like you told your gang leader 
about this liquor store they should hold up, and the quarterback
happened to witness the crime ad *then* had to go into the 
witness protection program.  

:)

Now I can't even remember why I brought that silly
comparison in in the first place.

> Montavilla47:
> I consider it more fun to go back and consider different
> motivations and perspectives. But you're not *obligated*
> to do it, just because I like it.
> 
> Alla:
> 
> It sounds as if this is some sort of complicated task to do. Everybody who rereads the series after DH reads it with new information in mind, no?. The question is whether this information indeed changes the character significantly or at least somewhat. It is not like we  will ever forget that Snape loved Lily and worked for Dumbledore. I mean as you said we debated the topic whether he works for Dumbledore for two years and it is not like even I who really really really wanted him to work for Vodlemort was surprised by this storyline. We figured it out, right?


Montavilla47:
Yes.  But that's because we lived through the period when the 
books came out--and there was a two- or three-year wait
in between each one.  That gave us all a lot of time to 
speculate on what was really going on.  And if the books had
contained an ESE Minerva McGonagall, most of the fan world
would have been extremely shocked, but that was a possibility
that was thoroughly explored on this list.  

So, none of were really in a position to have our minds 
blown by a reversal on Snape from evil murderer to flawed
but basically heroic good guy.


Alla:
 And it was always in my mind as possibility which I hoped will not come true. 

Montavilla47:
I hear you.  I was hoping that Harry wouldn't turn into Christ.  
We all have our disappointments.

Alla:
So it did. But the thing is, it depends on what to you is the core of Snape's character. If you think that he is good because he works for Dumbledore,  then of course his character changed after Prince tale. Or did he? Because for those who thought he was good, they already thought so, right?

Montavilla47:
My perception of Snape as good was pretty dependent on him 
working for Dumbledore.  If it had turned out that he hadn't been
told to kill Dumbledore by Dumbledore, then I think I would have 
had to accept that Snape was a force for bad in the books.


Alla:
> But to me, even if I wanted that plot development badly, him working for Voldemort  would have been the icing on the cake.  Before book 7 I saw Snape as nasty man who was capable of hating innocent child on sight because of the history he had with his parents. Said nasty man may have been DE or working for Dumbledore. Nothing in book 7 changed my view of Snape,  as nasty man who was capable of hating innocent child on sight because of the history he had with his parents. Text to me did not disprove it, in fact text provided additional clues to strengthen that interpretation (his indifference to Harry's fate, his indignation – For him?). I learned that he worked for Dumbledore, but to me the core of his character remained mostly the same.

Montavilla47:
It sounds like that was a deal-breaker for you.  It wasn't
ever a deal-breaker for me.  But then, it wasn't something
that struck me as particularly brutal.  That's just me.

You know, I do feel sympathy for your POV.  I'm the 
same way with Darth Vader.  The man blew up Naboo, for
goodness sake.  

When he told Luke that he was his father, that seemed
important to me because it affected Luke--but it didn't 
change my opinion of Vader one little bit.  And when
Luke went to go save him, I just shook my head.  Could 
not have cared less that Anakin got redeemed.

Twenty years later, I went to see the new SW films--
and got all the backstory on Anakin/Vader.  Still don't
care about him.

All I really learned was that, in addition to every other
horrible thing he does, he blew up Jimmy Smits.  I'll never
forgive him for that. (Although, I suppose he ought to 
get a little credit for blowing up Jar-Jar Binks.)


On a slightly different note, the Prince's Tale didn't
change my view of Snape significantly, but it really changed 
my view on James, Lily, and Dumbledore.  Before reading 
that chapter, I might not have liked James, but I was a 
bit fond of Lily for jumping in save the geeky boy being
bullied.

But the whole SWM episode completely changed.  She
did jump in to help her friend, but at the same time 
hid the fact that they were friends.  Which is unfathomable
behavior to me.  

And I had assumed, as did most people, that James had
sobered up after saving Snape (this, even after Lupin told 
us differently).  That he behaved so atrociously after his
friends nearly killed Snape pushes him into some kind 
weird uber-bully role.  And that the Marauder even thought
they could get away with that reflects very badly on 
Hogwarts.  

Of course, Dumbledore appeared to be cold, manipulative,
and almost contemptuous of Snape until GoF, when he seems 
to have a bit more respect for his spy.  Up to that point,
I had bought the idea that Dumbledore of being basically
decent and very liberal in his respect for others.  

Alla:
> Do you see why Prince tale cannot change  much my interpretation of his character despite new information that it provided?
> 
> Another new (but suspected) information that I learned is that Snape loved Lily. I also learned that he tried to atone for her death in which he was complicit.  But again that makes me hate him more, knowing that he loved Lily and dared to treat her son that way. And every time I read the part where Snape takes from Harry's home part of Lily's letter that makes me very angry. He loved Lily so much that he was quite fine with damaging one of the very few pieces of memories that her son may have of her. And no, I do not think that this letter meant little to Harry, I think it is described in great detail of how much he got from this letter, considering that he had nothing.

Montavilla47:
I'll agree with you that that was a bad moment.  I don't like Snape doing
that either, mainly because I thought of Snape as someone who had 
respect for other people's privacy.  (Unless, of course, they had stolen 
his old potion book and were using it to cheat in class and carve up 
their classmates.)

I think the letter meant a lot to Harry, but it wasn't true that Harry
had nothing of his parents.  In PS/SS, Hagrid gave Harry an entire
scrapbook filled with photos of his parents, which Hagrid had gotten
from their friends.  

But you're right that nothing excuses what Snape does in that moment.
It wasn't his property and he was stealing it.

Alla:
> So, no, no radical changes in interpretation for me. But you said yourself that you also did not change your opinion much, yours was already high and just went down a little bit. Are you saying that Prince tale indeed was supposed to change Snape's character drastically or just give us more information for what we already saw?

Montavilla47:
I think it was meant to radically change the reader's mind about
Snape.  Those readers who finished HBP thinking that Snape had 
been a snake in the Hogwarts grass all along--or that he might 
have been on Dumbledore's side, but had changed his allegiance 
because of Narcissa or for whatever reason.

In other words, the Chapter was meant to change the perspective
of those who believed in ESE Snape.  Those who considered him 
morally ambiguous would probably find him still that way, since 
he was never going to make it all the over into "nice."

It seemed to me, even before DH came out, that JKR was going
for a Pride and Prejudice story with Snape (sans the romance, of
course).  When Elizabeth Bennet first meets Mr. Darcy,  she 
hears him say something completely insulting about her and
pretty much everyone she knows.

Then she hears about him doing some pretty awful things, 
including deliberately breaking up her sister's romance.  

Then, after Elizabeth indignantly rejects Mr. Darcy, she 
starts learning over things about him, and she starts to 
realize that, from his perspective, many of his actions that
she thought were bad turned out to be good.  

But... and this is the important part... not all of them 
were good.  It's not like he *didn't* insult her and 
he tells her that he's proud of breaking up his friend and
her sister.  And then he insults her family some more.

And three hundred pages later, they get married.

But Mr. Darcy doesn't change.  Neither does Elizabeth.
They simply come to understand each better.

I think that's what JKR was going for with Snape and 
Harry (sans the romance).  Neither of them changed
their character, but Harry did come to understand Snape--
and I think that JKR wanted her readers to make that 
same journey.

However, some of us just aren't going to down that
path and some of us had walked down it so many times
before DH came out that we sitting there, tapping our
feet, and  waiting for Harry to catch up.

Alla:
> I do agree though that predicting and analyzing storylines will play a part in being surprised, we indeed probably played out every possible scenario. I wonder whether readers who did not do all that were surprised and changed their opinion of Snape.
> 

Montavilla47:
I wonder that, too.  I guess I should ask my niece and nephew,
since they were too young to read the thousands of posts on
the subject.  

I remember a few people on another forum who said they 
were surprised.  Which surprised me, as I had been arguing
for two solid years that Snape would turn out to be DDM.