[the_old_crowd] Re: The Bad Guy[tm]

[sean dwyer]

On Mon, Oct 04, 2004 at 05:18:43PM -0000, Nora Renka wrote:

> Speaking as someone who inevitably and currently gets drawn into 
> these threads this is, umm, not something that everyone is accepting 
> as 'given'.  In fact, there's been many a spirited defense of Snape 
> as completely NOT a Bad Guy, with some Ever So Subtle (ESS?) readings 
> of the books for support.

This is what I'm referring to. I don't doubt there's an intentionally grey
cast to Snape's character, it's the convoluted arguments forwarded on behalf
of his redemption I doubt :)

> It's going to take some cold, hard, textual revelations to ever make 
> a dent in this never-ending battle.  I await the Great Snape 
> Apocalypse with a good bottle of French booze, and the right to be 
> smug if I end up right (and a nice plate of crow if I don't).

I think he could be the Darth Vader of the piece. He's probably Harry's real
father, or something.

> An interesting complaint made on the thread is that the bad sides of 
> the good folks have been presented more convincingly and in-depth 
> than the bad sides of the bad folks.  I'm not *sure* about that, but 
> to go fandom sociologist for a moment, some people certainly have 
> picked that up and ran with it.  I'm thinking of the defenses in 
> which it is argued that Dolores Umbridge is not that bad, and that 
> nothing Draco has ever done has been worse than something that one of 
> the Gryffindors have--so, naturally, there's a complete moral 
> equivalency at work.  (I'm too lazy to dig up my links--just trust me 
> that such arguments exist.)

No no I agree, I've seen plenty of examples myself; and some excellent fanfic
is based on such premises. For myself, Umbridge is just a sick puppy given a
run by amoral masters. Draco is still portrayed as the kid who mouths his
daddy's opinion. Here's hoping we get something more substantial in the next
book.

> Well, certainly not; and I'm not going to speak for others here, but 
> I can almost understand the...desire to have the writer Make the Bad 
> Guys Pay.  My own money is actually on this happening in one way-
> shape-or-form, in part influenced by some of her own comments.  But 
> to get proscriptive towards a writer is certainly to miss something 
> of the point, I think.

I don't mind Bad Guys paying, nor the desire thereof; I'm disturbed by those
who are determined that they really aren't Bad Guys and therefore we don't
have to get into the icky business of doing the deed; or so the implications
would run.

BTW, on a completely different point, I found out the origin of the word
'escapism' the other day. The word escapism is used to laugh at those poor
adults like you and I who enjoy fantasy literature (and many other things
critics don't like) and it turns out that it was probably invented by...a
critic in the mid-1930's to rubbish someone's book. So next time someone calls
you escapist, or Potter as escapist nonsense, remember, they're just a sad
know-all who can't think of something more intelligent to say. :))

-- 
I come from a LAN down under
Where the packets flow and routers chunder