Hidden in Plain Sight (was:POA CHAPTER 2 DISCUSSION)

[Mike]

No: HPFGUIDX 189411



> AM now - I dunno if you got it! ;^)
> I wondered if JKR meant us to see Snape taking up Vernon's role at
> Hogwarts, before she really worked out that Snape would have a much
> more pivotal role in the story?

Mike:
Oh I doubt that. ;) I think JKR knew what Snape's story was from the beginning and took pains to hide it from us. She even tried to convince us there was nothing between Severus and Lily in Snape's Worst Memory. But that still didn't dissuade the believers in the LOLLIPOPS theory. And those believers were right.

The neat part of the way JKR did it, was how Snape was becomming less important in Harry's eyes through OotP and HBP. At the same time, we were being treated to more independent glimpses of Snape and just knew that he was going to play a more pivotal role despite Harry's lack of attention.

But you are also right, Snape did take up where Dursley left off. Except the Dursleys didn't become moot until OotP, when Harry no longer paid them any attention (Aunt Petunia's acknowledgement of the WW in the beginning of OotP aside).

 
> AM continued:
> Some of the other characters seem, to me, to have this feeling
> they're going one way, then they become a different sort of player
> in her game. Hagrid's my favourite for this - through most of the
> books, he becomes a comic bumbling sideshow, West Country accent
> and all, but in the first book, he seemed powerful and quite dark
> to me, yellow circus tent notwithstanding.

Mike:
Gosh, I thought of Hagrid as the big bumbling, doesn't-know-his-own-strength oaf from the get go. Two sentences into his introduction on the Hut on the Rock and I knew who he was. 

Snape, he remained a mystery up to the end. We all knew he would play that pivotal role, that he probably wasn't who he seemed to Harry; but I still didn't like him all the same. As I said above, planned from the beginning, IMO.

To a much lesser degree, Petunia turned out to be much different than she originally started out, that scene in the Kitchen in OotP being our first hint. But that too was intended from the beginning, IMHO.

For me, the character that kept changing was Sirius Black. He goes from the convicted murderer to the rather congenial godfather in this book (PoA). Along the way we learn of his close friendship with James. Combine that with our already established Ministry prediliction for dubious justice, and we had already been wondering who this Sirius Black character really was. [Side note: I loved how JKR used a minor character like Madam Rosemerta to plant the seed of doubt, while major characters like Dumbledore remain convinced of Black's guilt.]

Then he turns into the somewhat wise sage and mentor/protector of Harry in GoF. At the end of GoF he appears to be poised to be a major player in the fight against Voldemort, only to turn again. He is used almost for comic relief in the beginning of OotP, then he turns into a sad lonely drunk. In the end, he becomes another martyr - at least in Harry's eyes - in the fight against LV. Finally, in DH, Harry references Sirius when he wonders if he too is becoming a rash godfather. So who and what was Sirius Black? BTW, Sirius is my favorite character in the series.


> AM:
> I like your link with the Evans women; I hadn't seen it quite
> like that before!

Mike:
A blind squirrel, ya know! <shrug>