A BIAS in the Pensieve: A Batty Idea About Snape

[pippin_999]

Pippin
> > But as JKR is not, IMO, a romantic, and her world is nowhere  
near the escapist-friendly place it appears to be at first glance, 
part-vampire!Snape's inadequacies as a fantasy figure wouldn't  
bother her. <<
> 
Mel:
> Which makes the vampire!Snape idea even *less* likely since 
JK's  being's and monsters (with the sole exception of Remus' 
werewolf  form--and I specify Remus because from what we've 
been told, other  werewolves lurk about in the forbidden forest 
and are not as nice as  him at all) tend towards the most 
grotesque forms of their folkloric  models. It would follow that 
Rowling's vamps would be far more  likely to resemble 
Nosferatu than any tuxedoed-Hollywood's-golden  era-vampire.

Pippin:
Well, the House Elves certainly fit your model. On the other hand  
the goblins don't and neither do the centaurs nor the merpeople, 
none of which are as grotesque in canon as some of the myths 
and  folklore about them. Goblins in folklore are not the sort of 
folks you'd trust to run a bank. The mythical centaurs were, with 
one exception, uncivilized boorish rowdies. And while the sirens 
were lovely, the merpeople of Celtic lands were far more 
grotesque than the characters JKR describes. 

JKR seems to borrow freely, one might even say promiscuously, 
from many sources, much to the despair of purists who think 
she should follow Tolkien and disdain Hollywood and any literary 
source later than 1066. But then, JKR doesn't seem to have 
much use for purists, does she?

Pippin