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I didn't want to take up any more of the thread in terri's post, or make other commentators there uncomfortable, so I've moved my reply here.
ETA to avoid any misunderstanding: THIS IS NOT A STAND-ALONE ESSAY. It is a REPLY to a long discussion on terri's Remus as Parent post. Please, if you think something is missing or unclear, please read back in the discussion to be sure, for the sake of avoiding misunderstandings. Link is
http://asylums.insanejournal.com/snaped
Thank you.
There are a couple of points I want to make, sailorlum. I was trying not to tl;dr but I did it again. Sorry. :( Thank you for not taking my rantiness personally.
The first point that occurs to me reading your response is "how could Remus NOT assume he'd be traumatized to some degree?" Not, let me be clear, that Remus ought to be able to judge the specific degree of it to a millimeter. Just that, knowing the *fact* that Severus had nearly lost his life to a werewolf, Remus could reasonably be expected to assume that maybe Severus might have a less than enthusiastic response to living in the same castle as the werewolf again, and that this would need to be respected and addressed somehow.
And no, Severus wouldn't have cried about it in front of everyone. That's not the point. It's a normal, standard human reaction to deeply impacted by such a near miss, even if you don’t talk about it constantly. So much that we would consider abnormal someone who *wasn't.*
But. People do heal, yes. Usually, after such a near miss, when they have a good deal of support and counseling and time. Which Severus didn't have. But, as you point out, Remus hadn't been in contact with him (as far as we know) for over a decade. He wouldn’t necessarily *know* he still hurts. Ok. Maybe he thought Severus had gotten over it? Let's start over, again assuming the best. Let's assume Remus did not *know* how traumatized Severus really was. I'll do more that take that as my new starting point, I'll grant you without retraction that, up through the end of that scene, it's as possible/valid as the reading that he did *know.* As you say, he hadn't been in contact with Severus in years. So you’ve adjusted my thinking with that.
But. My second point, after having considered how your point affects my previous argument: What did he do, upon returning to Hogwarts and encountering Severus again? Did he (from the indications in the text), in re-establishing his relationship to Severus, attempt to discern how the man really felt, now that he was present? (Regardless of how Severus might have responded, did Remus *try*)? Did he give an indication of considering *the possibility* that Severus, still wary and suspicious of him, might be reacting to the presence of the werewolf who nearly mauled him? That is, did he even once attempt to put himself in Severus' shoes and think about the *possibility* that the man was still suffering?
No. He made *assumptions* about Severus. He *assumed* that Severus either was not traumatized (as a normal person would have been) or that he was over it. There is no sign in the text that he attempted to get confirmation of this fact from Severus, no sign that he ever accorded Severus the human respect of *asking* him how he felt. Even if Severus wouldn't have responded well, that's not the point - Remus had a duty to think of the situation from Severus' POV for a moment rather than make assumptions about the feelings and state of mind of another person regarding a life-threatening incident.
His failure here is exactly the same at base as if he had *known* for certain. He failed to accord Severus the human respect of thinking of him as a separate person who can feel pain, who has his own POV on things, and whose pain *matters.* He failed to consider Severus' possible pain as real or *worthy of thought* - whether he knew for certain that Severus was in pain or whether it was merely possible that he was, based on a normal person's reactions to things. He did not think of the mere possibility that Severus might hurt as something *he needed to investigate,* however minimally. He assumed. And acted, on the basis of that assumption, to deny and invalidate Severus' pain when he was brought face to face with it - regardless of motive or of his conscious awareness that that was what he was doing.
People are often emotionally dumb, as you put it, and far far too often fail in exactly this way. They fail to think of other people as truly, fully *human* beings who feel pain and have their own perspectives. It's a very very common failing, and I do not exclude myself from that. It is also, most of the time, not a particularly conscious failing. That still does not excuse it. It may be human to fail in this way - I'm not saying Remus is the worst person in the world for failing like this. He’s not Voldemort, and he has positive traits. But it is a failing, and I won't let him off the hook for it even when I assume the best motives.
Regarding your argument that he later realized what he'd done and tried to make up for it...well, perhaps it holds in the moment. No longer. It doesn't actually impact his behavior - because he again fails to respect Severus' pain even after this incident. He again makes Severus track him down with the potion at the last minute. And we get words from his own lips, that second evening, that confirm that he *still* does not think Severus' pain (which, in your argument, he was now conscious of) worthy of regard. He is still failing to respect Severus as a human being that evening. Because, having seen that Severus is indeed still traumatized and hurting, he explicitly tells Severus *to his face* that he needs to get over it, that it is just "a schoolboy grudge." Here it's not a question of not realizing Severus was hurt; Remus (now) knows he's hurt. He simply thinks, and says, that Severus has no *right* to be hurt. He trivializes the impact of a life-threatening encounter, to the man's face. Severus' pain *does not matter to him.*
As you say, Remus certainly minimized the Prank in his own mind. That is precisely my point, overall. He minimized another person's life-threatening experience, and in so doing necessarily minimized the meaningfulness of that person’s pain. An action which, conscious and deliberate or not, is a step towards dehumanization. And he continued to do this even after seeing for himself that the person was still hurting. You can argue that, before the tussle over the potion, it was merely a failure to do his human duty and consider things, not a deliberate act. I...don’t entirely agree with that reading, but it’s certainly possible. But after that encounter he ought to have realized and acted, but he did not. And in the Shack, when he explicitly acknowledged and then dismissed Severus’ pain to the man’s face, it utterly ceased to be a passive failure. At that point, if not before, it was willful refusal. A refusal we never see him apologize for, nor recant. - Had he repented and changed, that we could see, I would not come down so hard on him. I would also be more willing to accept arguments that it was unconscious, passive failure most of the time, such as in the first tussle over the potion. The fact that he never significantly alters his attitude or behavior (speech is another thing) that we see inclines me to read it as a consistent aspect of his character, not an unconscious failing he’d likely repent once awoken to it.
See, I understand that you want to give him the benefit of the doubt, that you like him and want a flawed but human Remus. Of course that’s your right. Even more than that, I agree that he *is* flawed but human. He is not Voldemort, and does have good points. He’s willing to risk his life to defeat Voldemort, for one thing. He’s loyal to his friends (for better or worse). For those in his pack, he does care, even if he is not always perfect about fulfilling his responsibilities to them. He wants to make the WW a better place. And he suffers, yes, decidedly, and sometimes beyond anything deserved. But he has his flaws. This is exactly my point. He has flaws, and these are his flaws. He can be insensitive to other people. He has recurring moments of moral cowardice that he repeatedly gives into. And if you aren’t in his pack (like Severus), he can fail to accord you the respect due another human being, at times willfully. The *reasons* for these failings, and his various motives at any point in time, may add shades of grey, but they don’t excuse his behavior towards Severus. Perhaps we see him at his worst with Severus. If you want to grant him that, I’ll go along with it. It’s these complexities that make characters fascinating to me - and I am fascinated by Lupin, even if I *like* him less and less with time.
I don’t mean to pick on Remus. None of the characters in the books are shining angels, Severus included. But I tend, personally, to point out the flaws in seemingly-blameless characters like Remus, and to emphasize the pain of those like Severus who are discarded by other characters, for a reason. If we go along with the bias that the narrative voice, and JKR’s pronouncements, encourage and tolerate or cover over failings like the one I’ve described because the characters are otherwise sympathetic to us, we fall into a trap that IMHO is very, very dangerous. The books encourage us (in behavior) NOT to think of other people as human beings unless we *like* them, or if they are close to us in some way. The people who might seem unpleasant - bitter, or pompous (Percy), or what have you - are shoved off to the side, and we are encouraged to distinguish between our & our friends’ pain (real, terrible, worthy of vengeance) and the pain of people we don’t particularly like (exaggerated, they need to get over it, they have no right to criticize US). When, IMHO, it is our human duty to at least try to put ourselves in other people’s shoes even for a moment, to respect a fundamental baseline humanity in every person. When a character fails at exactly this, and the narrative either whitewashes it or *encourages* us to go along with it, I hit the brakes. (And, obviously, go tl;dr on everyone. ;) ) It’s a common failing that I’m sure I’ve been guilty of myself, but when I am conscious of it I won’t tolerate it. And I see it in these books.
Which is why I’m not letting go of your argument. Not that you are consciously doing this, not at all. I understand that you sympathize with Remus, and have your own reading of the books - totally fine and your right. And maybe I’m taking it more seriously than you want to - I tend to get really serious about these things, maybe because I’m a lit student. :) But it seems to me that your argument is still...not really acknowledging the real failing that I see here, nor satisfactorily explaining away the evidence that leads me to see that failing. Really damning IMHO is Remus’ comment in the Shack, and the fact that in the scene before Severus *twice* drew his attention to the potion. Even with your argument that Remus wasn’t aware at first of Severus’ pain, after the potion incident he ought to have realized his failing and acted to change it (knowing and not acting being another kind of failure). But he didn’t. And even if at that point it was not a deliberate *refusal* to see, it was still a *failure* to consider - a passive fault rather than an active one, but very real nonetheless. I’m not asking Remus to be a mind-reader (at least, not anymore. I grant I hadn’t considered the years apart. But he still can be faulted IMHO for assuming rather than considering Severus’ possible POV.) I’m asking him to stop and think of Severus as a real human being for a moment, and act in consideration of that. Something I think every person has a duty to do towards others (and which just about every character in the series, Severus included, at times fails to do). Which Remus repeatedly fails to do. And...I don’t see how your argument acknowledges/gets rid of that lack of consideration here. Which is slightly frustrating for me - I feel like we’re talking past each other. :( Your arguments acknowledge that Remus has his flaws, but discount or explain away every concrete instance of those flaws, which makes the acknowledgment seem hollow.
So how about this, to be fair to you. If, after all this debating, I still haven’t convinced you....Why don’t you give me a couple of concrete instances in which you see Remus really, really failing? What are his worst moments, to you? And I mean tell me in detail - don’t worry about tl;dr. :) The things that you, personally, *can’t* bring yourself to explain away, make light of, or give him the benefit of the doubt on? You say (earlier) that Remus can be passive-aggressive towards Severus, just that the potions scene isn’t an example of it. So what WOULD be an example of it? Give me some real dirt. Convince me that we really do have two very different interpretations of the character, including where his real flaws are. If you don’t want to fill up the thread here, make a separate post or email me - moviemaedchen@gmail.com
If you want to, of course. Obviously this stops having a point when you start to not enjoy it, and I don’t want to wear you out. Sometimes (like Severus), I have a hard time letting go of something. ;) But I do genuinely enjoy debating with you, and if you haven’t convinced me of your reading in toto you’ve still made me consider things from different POVs, and taking more things into account. Which IMO any good debate should do, for all involved. It helps strengthen skill at reasoning, always a good thing, right? :) I thought the Lily thing went pretty well, am I right? I hope I’m not upsetting you, and that I haven’t slipped up somewhere and said something about you personally rather than your argument. I know you really don’t like that, and I can be sensitive that way myself, so I’ve done my best to keep it about the argument. Please correct me if I have - or if I have misunderstood you somewhere along the line.
Thanks for reading and responding to all this. Wow, tl;dr to the tenth degree. *sigh*
ETA to avoid any misunderstanding: THIS IS NOT A STAND-ALONE ESSAY. It is a REPLY to a long discussion on terri's Remus as Parent post. Please, if you think something is missing or unclear, please read back in the discussion to be sure, for the sake of avoiding misunderstandings. Link is
http://asylums.insanejournal.com/snaped
Thank you.
There are a couple of points I want to make, sailorlum. I was trying not to tl;dr but I did it again. Sorry. :( Thank you for not taking my rantiness personally.
The first point that occurs to me reading your response is "how could Remus NOT assume he'd be traumatized to some degree?" Not, let me be clear, that Remus ought to be able to judge the specific degree of it to a millimeter. Just that, knowing the *fact* that Severus had nearly lost his life to a werewolf, Remus could reasonably be expected to assume that maybe Severus might have a less than enthusiastic response to living in the same castle as the werewolf again, and that this would need to be respected and addressed somehow.
And no, Severus wouldn't have cried about it in front of everyone. That's not the point. It's a normal, standard human reaction to deeply impacted by such a near miss, even if you don’t talk about it constantly. So much that we would consider abnormal someone who *wasn't.*
But. People do heal, yes. Usually, after such a near miss, when they have a good deal of support and counseling and time. Which Severus didn't have. But, as you point out, Remus hadn't been in contact with him (as far as we know) for over a decade. He wouldn’t necessarily *know* he still hurts. Ok. Maybe he thought Severus had gotten over it? Let's start over, again assuming the best. Let's assume Remus did not *know* how traumatized Severus really was. I'll do more that take that as my new starting point, I'll grant you without retraction that, up through the end of that scene, it's as possible/valid as the reading that he did *know.* As you say, he hadn't been in contact with Severus in years. So you’ve adjusted my thinking with that.
But. My second point, after having considered how your point affects my previous argument: What did he do, upon returning to Hogwarts and encountering Severus again? Did he (from the indications in the text), in re-establishing his relationship to Severus, attempt to discern how the man really felt, now that he was present? (Regardless of how Severus might have responded, did Remus *try*)? Did he give an indication of considering *the possibility* that Severus, still wary and suspicious of him, might be reacting to the presence of the werewolf who nearly mauled him? That is, did he even once attempt to put himself in Severus' shoes and think about the *possibility* that the man was still suffering?
No. He made *assumptions* about Severus. He *assumed* that Severus either was not traumatized (as a normal person would have been) or that he was over it. There is no sign in the text that he attempted to get confirmation of this fact from Severus, no sign that he ever accorded Severus the human respect of *asking* him how he felt. Even if Severus wouldn't have responded well, that's not the point - Remus had a duty to think of the situation from Severus' POV for a moment rather than make assumptions about the feelings and state of mind of another person regarding a life-threatening incident.
His failure here is exactly the same at base as if he had *known* for certain. He failed to accord Severus the human respect of thinking of him as a separate person who can feel pain, who has his own POV on things, and whose pain *matters.* He failed to consider Severus' possible pain as real or *worthy of thought* - whether he knew for certain that Severus was in pain or whether it was merely possible that he was, based on a normal person's reactions to things. He did not think of the mere possibility that Severus might hurt as something *he needed to investigate,* however minimally. He assumed. And acted, on the basis of that assumption, to deny and invalidate Severus' pain when he was brought face to face with it - regardless of motive or of his conscious awareness that that was what he was doing.
People are often emotionally dumb, as you put it, and far far too often fail in exactly this way. They fail to think of other people as truly, fully *human* beings who feel pain and have their own perspectives. It's a very very common failing, and I do not exclude myself from that. It is also, most of the time, not a particularly conscious failing. That still does not excuse it. It may be human to fail in this way - I'm not saying Remus is the worst person in the world for failing like this. He’s not Voldemort, and he has positive traits. But it is a failing, and I won't let him off the hook for it even when I assume the best motives.
Regarding your argument that he later realized what he'd done and tried to make up for it...well, perhaps it holds in the moment. No longer. It doesn't actually impact his behavior - because he again fails to respect Severus' pain even after this incident. He again makes Severus track him down with the potion at the last minute. And we get words from his own lips, that second evening, that confirm that he *still* does not think Severus' pain (which, in your argument, he was now conscious of) worthy of regard. He is still failing to respect Severus as a human being that evening. Because, having seen that Severus is indeed still traumatized and hurting, he explicitly tells Severus *to his face* that he needs to get over it, that it is just "a schoolboy grudge." Here it's not a question of not realizing Severus was hurt; Remus (now) knows he's hurt. He simply thinks, and says, that Severus has no *right* to be hurt. He trivializes the impact of a life-threatening encounter, to the man's face. Severus' pain *does not matter to him.*
As you say, Remus certainly minimized the Prank in his own mind. That is precisely my point, overall. He minimized another person's life-threatening experience, and in so doing necessarily minimized the meaningfulness of that person’s pain. An action which, conscious and deliberate or not, is a step towards dehumanization. And he continued to do this even after seeing for himself that the person was still hurting. You can argue that, before the tussle over the potion, it was merely a failure to do his human duty and consider things, not a deliberate act. I...don’t entirely agree with that reading, but it’s certainly possible. But after that encounter he ought to have realized and acted, but he did not. And in the Shack, when he explicitly acknowledged and then dismissed Severus’ pain to the man’s face, it utterly ceased to be a passive failure. At that point, if not before, it was willful refusal. A refusal we never see him apologize for, nor recant. - Had he repented and changed, that we could see, I would not come down so hard on him. I would also be more willing to accept arguments that it was unconscious, passive failure most of the time, such as in the first tussle over the potion. The fact that he never significantly alters his attitude or behavior (speech is another thing) that we see inclines me to read it as a consistent aspect of his character, not an unconscious failing he’d likely repent once awoken to it.
See, I understand that you want to give him the benefit of the doubt, that you like him and want a flawed but human Remus. Of course that’s your right. Even more than that, I agree that he *is* flawed but human. He is not Voldemort, and does have good points. He’s willing to risk his life to defeat Voldemort, for one thing. He’s loyal to his friends (for better or worse). For those in his pack, he does care, even if he is not always perfect about fulfilling his responsibilities to them. He wants to make the WW a better place. And he suffers, yes, decidedly, and sometimes beyond anything deserved. But he has his flaws. This is exactly my point. He has flaws, and these are his flaws. He can be insensitive to other people. He has recurring moments of moral cowardice that he repeatedly gives into. And if you aren’t in his pack (like Severus), he can fail to accord you the respect due another human being, at times willfully. The *reasons* for these failings, and his various motives at any point in time, may add shades of grey, but they don’t excuse his behavior towards Severus. Perhaps we see him at his worst with Severus. If you want to grant him that, I’ll go along with it. It’s these complexities that make characters fascinating to me - and I am fascinated by Lupin, even if I *like* him less and less with time.
I don’t mean to pick on Remus. None of the characters in the books are shining angels, Severus included. But I tend, personally, to point out the flaws in seemingly-blameless characters like Remus, and to emphasize the pain of those like Severus who are discarded by other characters, for a reason. If we go along with the bias that the narrative voice, and JKR’s pronouncements, encourage and tolerate or cover over failings like the one I’ve described because the characters are otherwise sympathetic to us, we fall into a trap that IMHO is very, very dangerous. The books encourage us (in behavior) NOT to think of other people as human beings unless we *like* them, or if they are close to us in some way. The people who might seem unpleasant - bitter, or pompous (Percy), or what have you - are shoved off to the side, and we are encouraged to distinguish between our & our friends’ pain (real, terrible, worthy of vengeance) and the pain of people we don’t particularly like (exaggerated, they need to get over it, they have no right to criticize US). When, IMHO, it is our human duty to at least try to put ourselves in other people’s shoes even for a moment, to respect a fundamental baseline humanity in every person. When a character fails at exactly this, and the narrative either whitewashes it or *encourages* us to go along with it, I hit the brakes. (And, obviously, go tl;dr on everyone. ;) ) It’s a common failing that I’m sure I’ve been guilty of myself, but when I am conscious of it I won’t tolerate it. And I see it in these books.
Which is why I’m not letting go of your argument. Not that you are consciously doing this, not at all. I understand that you sympathize with Remus, and have your own reading of the books - totally fine and your right. And maybe I’m taking it more seriously than you want to - I tend to get really serious about these things, maybe because I’m a lit student. :) But it seems to me that your argument is still...not really acknowledging the real failing that I see here, nor satisfactorily explaining away the evidence that leads me to see that failing. Really damning IMHO is Remus’ comment in the Shack, and the fact that in the scene before Severus *twice* drew his attention to the potion. Even with your argument that Remus wasn’t aware at first of Severus’ pain, after the potion incident he ought to have realized his failing and acted to change it (knowing and not acting being another kind of failure). But he didn’t. And even if at that point it was not a deliberate *refusal* to see, it was still a *failure* to consider - a passive fault rather than an active one, but very real nonetheless. I’m not asking Remus to be a mind-reader (at least, not anymore. I grant I hadn’t considered the years apart. But he still can be faulted IMHO for assuming rather than considering Severus’ possible POV.) I’m asking him to stop and think of Severus as a real human being for a moment, and act in consideration of that. Something I think every person has a duty to do towards others (and which just about every character in the series, Severus included, at times fails to do). Which Remus repeatedly fails to do. And...I don’t see how your argument acknowledges/gets rid of that lack of consideration here. Which is slightly frustrating for me - I feel like we’re talking past each other. :( Your arguments acknowledge that Remus has his flaws, but discount or explain away every concrete instance of those flaws, which makes the acknowledgment seem hollow.
So how about this, to be fair to you. If, after all this debating, I still haven’t convinced you....Why don’t you give me a couple of concrete instances in which you see Remus really, really failing? What are his worst moments, to you? And I mean tell me in detail - don’t worry about tl;dr. :) The things that you, personally, *can’t* bring yourself to explain away, make light of, or give him the benefit of the doubt on? You say (earlier) that Remus can be passive-aggressive towards Severus, just that the potions scene isn’t an example of it. So what WOULD be an example of it? Give me some real dirt. Convince me that we really do have two very different interpretations of the character, including where his real flaws are. If you don’t want to fill up the thread here, make a separate post or email me - moviemaedchen@gmail.com
If you want to, of course. Obviously this stops having a point when you start to not enjoy it, and I don’t want to wear you out. Sometimes (like Severus), I have a hard time letting go of something. ;) But I do genuinely enjoy debating with you, and if you haven’t convinced me of your reading in toto you’ve still made me consider things from different POVs, and taking more things into account. Which IMO any good debate should do, for all involved. It helps strengthen skill at reasoning, always a good thing, right? :) I thought the Lily thing went pretty well, am I right? I hope I’m not upsetting you, and that I haven’t slipped up somewhere and said something about you personally rather than your argument. I know you really don’t like that, and I can be sensitive that way myself, so I’ve done my best to keep it about the argument. Please correct me if I have - or if I have misunderstood you somewhere along the line.
Thanks for reading and responding to all this. Wow, tl;dr to the tenth degree. *sigh*
Re: The redemption of Severus
Re: the Calormenes. They are quite clearly based on the Moors - but most Narnians are animals, actually! People of any kind are a minority. And we are shown Aravis and Emeth, and therefore see that Calormenes are as good as Narnians. In short - to Lewis, choice matters. What you do matters. To Rowling, it doesn't. If you are one of the elect, you can do whatever you like. If you aren't, nothing you can do will save you.
And I'd like to reiterate what Oryx said so clearly. What do you mean when you say Snape is redeemed? Is he accepted by his society; considered a hero, perhaps? If this is what you mean, there is no evidence in the text, since little Al has never even heard of him.
Is he a good person, basically, working his slow and painful way toward virtue and having repented his sins? Yes, he is. You and I both see that. But -
Is he redeemed in the afterlife? No. We are never shown any such thing.
Re: The redemption of Severus
I, like you, would choose that kinder interpretation but some people have never forgiven Lewis for it!
And I'd like to reiterate what Oryx said so clearly. What do you mean when you say Snape is redeemed? Is he accepted by his society; considered a hero, perhaps? If this is what you mean, there is no evidence in the text, since little Al has never even heard of him.
Mary, I find it very ironic that another Snape fan is grilling me on why I think he is redeemed! This is coming over rather like an interrogation (nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition!) and, with the greatest respect, I really don’t think I have to justify my view on this. :)
Snape is redeemed in MY eyes. MINE. I don’t care about Rowling’s eyes or even yours. He is redeemed in MINE. :)
Is he a good person, basically, working his slow and painful way toward virtue and having repented his sins?
Snape’s courage in his dangerous and difficult work as double agent is awesome. But there is one thing he didn’t publicly repent of and that is the way he spoke to Harry about James. He was 100% in the wrong there. Not wrong to discipline Harry. Wrong to speak of the boy’s dead father in the way he did.
But I’ve always found the moment of Snape’s death very moving, when he whispers to Harry, ‘Look at me’. The common interpretation is that he wanted to look in Lily’s eyes one last time. I also like to think that he was saying to Harry, ‘Look at me, really look at me, the real me.’ It’s an intensely vulnerable moment.
And if that is not what Rowling intended by that scene, she should have done. *snort* It’s what I would intend, were I writing Severus Snape. ;)
-- pearlette
Re: The redemption of Severus
My own view on Snape is that he's treated like a character out of Graham Greene--a flawed and struggling character, ultimately doing good for what are apparently all the wrong reasons. The world almost uniformly looks upon him as evil and repulsive.
After his death, people generally forget him or feel the world's well rid of him. One or two of his acquaintances (he never has friends) might feel he wasn't such a bad bloke. But only God and the sympathetic reader know he was redeemed.
I've read in a few places that JKR is acquainted with Greene's works. And this explains to me (and probably only to me!) how Snape can be redeemed while at the same time, apparently, treated so badly in her story by his creator.
Re: The redemption of Severus
Rowling does know a fair bit of literature, and she managed to come up with at least one vivid and interesting character by borrowing wholesale from several books. As many other readers have noted, Snape's literary antecedents are Dante, Heathcliff, and Saint Exupery's little Prince. So-
At the end of Wuthering Heights, it is ambiguous whether Cathy and Heathcliff are at peace. Are they? or are they wandering ghosts, haunting the moor? Or has Heathcliff gone to hell, like the devil so many think he is? We never know for sure.
In The Little Prince, the little boy is, of course, bitten by a serpent and falls. But then his body vanishes. Did he go back to his planet, and is he happy there with his rose? The narrator says that sometimes he thinks yes - and then it seems all the stars are laughing. But when he thinks no- well. I'm not going to mangle it further by misquoting; I don't own the book.
So, since Snape is based on these characters, his redemption has to be ambiguous, like Heathcliff's. His body has to vanish, like the Little Prince's. But Rowling completely misses the sense of consolation and completeness we (or at least I) get from those other books. What she does to Snape is just plain frustrating. It's notable that, in those earlier books, the dead have mourners - people who truly loved them and weep for them. Not so in DH. Not for Snape.
And there's one more thing, as far as his redemption goes. The poor guy never knows that Voldemort is defeated. As far as he knows, he has sent Harry to his death while Nagini is still alive and Voldemort seems triumphant. I thought that was awfully cruel.
Re: The redemption of Severus
The Master and the Potions Master
Actually, the most obvious model for Severus Snape is Sherlock Holmes. When I first read PS/SS, I thought, "Hey, this guy is just like Sherlock Holmes! It's like Sherlock Holmes with magic!" The similarities between them are so great, in fact, that I'm surprised Rowling has never been sued by the Doyle estate. That would be a nice irony. ; )
The gory details will have to wait for my full essay on the subject, but briefly, the major points of sameness are these:
Appearance: Both are thin and have black hair, hooked noses, and sallow skin, although Holmes's eyes are gray and his hair is short. Since Holmes is a smoker, he no doubt has yellow teeth, also. BTW, Sidney Paget's famous drawings of Holmes show a man who is quite attractive, even handsome. So much for the fanon idea Snape is ugly. See here for examples, noting particularly the pictures for "The Red-Headed League" and "A Case of Identity": http://ignisart.com/camdenhouse/gal
Personality: Both are INTJs on the Myers-Briggs or Keirsey personality tests. (So am I, BTW, which is why I'm such a fan of them both.) Both are sarcastic, impatient, bossy, perfectionistic, and have no tolerance for stupidity or incompetence, in either themselves or others.
There are several of Doyle's stories in which Holmes treats Watson so badly, I've always thought they would have been greatly improved if Watson had hauled off and slugged Holmes. Like Snape, Holmes would probably be an atrocious teacher of dumb, disinterested kids.
Talents/Accomplishments: Holmes is an expert chemist and accomplished fencer and boxer. Snape is a potions expert and accomplished duelist.
Professional and Extra-Professional Activities: Holmes is a detective who undertakes secret assignments for the British government, including working as a double agent during WWI. Snape is a teacher who acts like a detective, tracking MWPP as a student and the Trio as a teacher. He undertakes secret assignments for Dumbledore, who's operating a shadow government in the Wizarding World, and works as a double agent during Vold Wars I and II.
Clothing: Both wear a lot of black. In the movies, Snape wears a frock coat, which is also what Victorian gentlemen wore.
Miscellaneous: Both like fine wine and live in a smallish, cluttered home. During HBP, Snape even has a roommate, the way Holmes did with Watson. Snape is a Potions Master, and Holmes's fans refer to him as the Master. Both came to be hated by their creators, who were furious at the fans for paying "too much attention" the characters. Consequently, both Holmes and Snape suffered gratuitous, manufactured, yet heroic deaths facing down their series' major bad guys.
However, Holmes came back from the dead, and Snape...didn't? I've always said that if Rowling really wants to write adult mysteries, all she has to do is say she made a mistake, Snape's not really dead, and use him as her detective. He already has the requisite training and expertise, not to mention a built-in fandom.
The only major difference between the two characters is the filter: Harry is a self-centered kid who hates Snape, so he portrays the man as a nasty scumbag who occasionally does something decent, almost in spite of himself. Watson is a grown man and disabled combat veteran who loves and respects Holmes, so he portrays the man as a brave, noble, self-sacrificing hero who occasionally acts like a jerk. One is largely reviled by the fandom he's in, while the other has been a cultural icon of virtue and heroism for 120 years.
Stick that in your pipes and smoke it, Snape-haters!
Re: The Master and the Potions Master
BTW, when you said "the real model" the first time you posted, I thought you meant John Nettleship, Rowling's former chemistry teacher. According to an extended article I read, Mr. Nettleship gave Rowling's mother a job when the family was in need, and gave young Joanne a place to shelter from bullies. Yet, in an interview after DH, she was still saying "he deserved it" (about both Nettleship and Snape, I guess), because he was sharp-tongued in chemistry class. One hopes she was joking.
Re: The Master and the Potions Master
Sadly, I could see her meaning it. But one can hope, I suppose.
Re: The redemption of Severus
I'm not too familiar with the Heathcliff argument, but I think any comparison between him and Snape breaks down pretty fast. Snape's very much a creature of his society and works through its organizations, formal and informal--Hogwarts, the DE's, the Order. Heathcliff's a throwback to something before society--you get this reiterated again and again by the housekeeper-narrator. Thus I think there's no heaven or hell for either Heathcliff or Cathy after their deaths, just a return to their natural element, the pre-social wilderness of the moors. As you say, we can't know whether that brings them peace as we'd understand it, so I can't say I'm consoled by their story. I would agree with you that it's complete.
So's Snape's story, for me. He's active to the end, communicating through his memories what Harry must do. That he dies not knowing whether he was successful, that after death he doesn't receive the appreciation that some of his fans might have wished him to have is the Greene element at work again. Severus's story isn't particularly consoling in many ways, but it's complete.
I haven't read "The Little Prince", so I can't comment on that. I haven't read your essay, either. Do you have a link?
Re: The redemption of Severus
You really should read "The Little Prince".
And I don't think Severus's story is either consoling or complete. I think the last two books of this series are, quite frankly, badly written! But we'll probably have to agree to differ there.
Here is the link to my essay:
http://mary-j-59.livejournal.com/28
Re: The redemption of Severus
In my opinion, the question of which characters are redeemed or not is a literary question, not a series of plot points. And -- in my opinion -- the point of view of the writing makes all the difference. Because almost the entire series is from Harry's pov, the reader is expected to view everything from Harry's perspective. Of course, discerning readers can see past Harry's pov. Still, Harry's pov is what counts in terms of the storytelling. So redemption for any character is really based on Harry's pov. In other words, if Snape is redeemed in Harry's eyes, he's redeemed. Period.
So I think the real question is whether Snape is redeemed in Harry's eyes or not. And yes, I think that is what Rowling was talking about when she said she wanted there to be redemption. After all, she did mean *something* was redeemed. And she was on the topic of Snape and Harry. And Harry clearly, in Rowling's eyes, didn't need redemption. So she must have been talking about Snape.
Does Harry see Snape as redeemed? Yes, I think so. And therefore, because we're meant to see from Harry's perspective, Snape is redeemed. It doesn't matter about afterlife, what the rest of the Wizarding World thinks, etc. Only what Harry thinks. Not because Harry is wonderful and wise, or a hero or a Gryffindor, but because Harry is the protagonist and the story is told through his pov.
I agree with practically all of your other comments. It's just this one I object to.
Re: The redemption of Severus
Yes, Harry is the viewpoint character. But he has no right to judge whether Severus is redeemed or not. None of us have the right to judge any other person in that regard, and Harry, in particular, doesn't have it because, from what I can see, he's not capable of reflection and never repents of anything.
What's more, we are not SHOWN Harry forgiving Severus. We are not shown his coming to terms with the new information he gets on who Severus really was. Had we seen Harry doing that work, I'm sure I would have been more willing to concede that Harry's forgiveness meant something. "The bravest man I ever knew", 19 years after the fact, to a little boy who has clearly never even heard of the man his father's talking about, just isn't sufficient for me.
One more thing - I felt strongly that the chief conflict in these books was that between Harry and Severus. Therefore, it matters greatly that we never see it resolved on the page. As far as I'm concerned, the epilogue is just a cheat, on so many levels.
My two cents. I really will stop now!
Re: The redemption of Severus
So Harry does *not* acknowledge that, whatever his faults, Severus also had good in him and did good. The extent of his admirable qualities in the eyes of the protagonist (and, clearly, the author) is utterly divorced from questions of his moral development - despite the centrality of this question to the series. ("Is Snape Good or Evil?" was even one of the seven questions Scholastic's marketing campaign for DH revolved around.)
Re: The redemption of Severus
And the Potterverse has Bellatrix as a prime example.
Re: The redemption of Severus
Re: The redemption of Severus
I agree that bravery has no morality.
But neither you nor I wrote the story. JKR *does* see bravery as a very high virtue. So when Harry calls Snape "the bravest man" JKR is having her protagonist call Snape the highest standard of what *she* (not you or I) considers the greatest virtue.
That is extremely important. You and I may not think that Snape's bravery is an indication of his redemption, but JKR would think so and she appears to have tied the two together in her comments about wanting to show redemption. That is, she specifically said she wanted to show redemption (and who else but Snape could be redeemed in the scene?) and yet what she does is have her protagonist attest to Snape's bravery. I think it's one and the same for JKR. I'm sure she would never consider Bellatrix brave.
Re: The redemption of Severus
Re: The redemption of Severus
So when she has Harry proclaim Snape as the standard of bravery, we know that JKR considers bravery/courage the highest virtue when it is not just physical or showy, but moral courage as well. And that she even sees repentance (which Snape has in spades), as taking courage - presumably moral courage.
It's always instructive to understand exactly what a person *means* by their words. We are all using English, but not everyone views words in the same way. Courage and bravery are highly charged words and do not carry the same meaning to everyone. My guess is that JKR would never consider Bellatrix truly brave, because she has no real morals with which to have moral courage.
I think it was Aristotle that said something about courage or bravery being dependent on the individual making a choice that was actually worth the risk that was being taken. One might say, if one believed that was important to true bravery, that if the choice is evil, then it's not worthy of the risk and hence not "brave" at all.
Re: The redemption of Severus
This is true, but it does not IMO resolve the problem. This is exactly the sort of thing than an author has to take into consideration when writing. It's probably not possible to make sure that every single person on the planet will get what you intend from a certain bit of text, but you can take steps to insure that the majority of readers do. JKR's personal notion of bravery has precisely zero to do with how readers interpret her text unless she communicates it effectively through that text. Which she does not really manage here, if her explicit statements about bravery have to be brought in in order to make Severus' moral redemption unambiguous. We shouldn't NEED her interviews in order to get the fundamental, meaningful points of her narrative from her text. It's her job as an author to give us those as clearly as possible *in the narrative.*
Re: The redemption of Severus
And I certainly think JKR means for Snape to be seen as redeemed and for Harry's statements and attitude towards Snape at the end of the book (after TPT) to reflect and signify that.
Personally, I saw Snape as redeemed immediately after reading TPT. I didn't even need Harry to acknowledge it (and I didn't read interviews till I had finished with the books). In the end, Severus used his bravery in the fight against good and evil, on the side of good (and had been doing that for 15 yrs or so). And I saw true repentance in TPT: Snape bared his soul to Harry by way of Pensieve (and on purpose, since he gave him the memories) and Snape was shown to have realized some very big wrongs and repented, IMHO. He wasn't perfect (far from), but I don't think he needed to be. I would personally assume, that at the very least, Severus wasn't damned. Frankly, I'd assume he got a good afterlife.
The way I see it, in the universe of the story, whether Snape was redeemed or not depends on Snape (the state of his soul is ultimately up to him), not Harry or any other mortal. Harry acknowledging the true bravery of Severus Snape and naming a kid after him (well, middle name), and giving a "Take That, Snape was on The Good Side all along" speech to Voldy, was literary sign enough, for me, that Severus was as redeemed as I thought he was.
Sure, no character dropped the Anvil and said verbatum "By golly, that Severus Snape was ultimately a White Hat all along. He really redeemed himself! Huzzah!" ...but I don't think they needed to. Not for ultimate redemption, which is above and beyond redemption in the eyes of the public (wizarding world and whatnot), IMHO.
Also, I agree with your estimation of whether JKR would consider Bellatrix brave or not. I think JKR would go with Aristotle (or whoever said) that true bravery has to be for good, not evil.
I rambled... ;P
Re: The redemption of Severus
Before DH came out, I felt strongly that Snape's death had to come *after* Harry forgave him, because otherwise Harry would just be forgiving a dead person which is easier than forgiving the living person in front of you. In other words, Harry's forgiveness would be too easy if it came after Snape's death.
But JKR did not clearly show Harry's forgiveness. You are quite right that Harry was never shown doing the "work" of coming to terms with who Snape really was. Nevertheless, JKR did want redemption and did intend Harry's naming his son Albus Severus as well as the "bravest man" line to show that redemption.
The "bravest man" line is extremely important. Why? Because 1. it's a proclamation by the protagonist at the very end of the book and therefore carries a Huge amount of weight. And because 2. bravery is JKR's self proclaimed greatest virtue.
So at the end of the book, she has the protagonist, through whom the reader is to view all the events and characters of the series, proclaim Snape the highest standard of what she considers (and the books convey) to be the greatest virtue. You can hardly get any more redeemed than that.
Re: The redemption of Severus
The issue of Severus' *moral* standing specifically is a major question in the books, while his *bravery* is not. He is called coward at various points, because the issue is meaningful to him personally, but the huge question on readers' minds was never "Is Snape brave or cowardly?" It was "Is Snape good or evil?"
Calling him brave at the end may indeed be granting him a virtue that JKR holds highly. It does not, however, have anything to do with the central question of his development that she set up throughout the story. The question that the issue of his redemption revolves around. How can you be redeemed from a particular sort of fallen state you were never in? It's not a question of having him be seen as cowardly and then redeemed as brave; it's a question of him having been seen as *evil* and then....seen as brave? The answer one would expect in a redemption scenario for a character whose *moral goodness* was questioned would be to acknowledge his moral goodness. Not his bravery.
It's a non sequiter, and therefore feels (to me at least and, I gather, many others) *hollow.* The question we all were hoping would be answered was *Is Severus good? Is his goodness acknowledged?" Which, in the end, it is not. We are given his bravery, which was never in serious doubt, and told that that is supposed to be enough, even though it's palming us off with the answer to a different question.
Re: The redemption of Severus
Re: The redemption of Severus
"I would want to be in Gryffindor and the reason I would want to be in Gryffindor is because I do prize courage in all its various ramifications. I value it more highly than any other virtue and by that I mean not just physical courage and flashy courage, but moral courage."
Now of course, many of us would immediately start wondering where exactly she found so much "moral" courage in Gryffindor. But the point I'm making isn't just that JKR thinks courage is important, but that she values it "more highly than any other virtue"! And further, that she means a courage that is not just physical (Bellatrix) or flashy, but "moral courage". So when she has Harry proclaim Snape as the penultimate example of courage -- especially when she makes such a point of this by giving this statement as the big supposedly surprise ending of the entire series -- I think you can bet that she didn't mean for Harry to be saying that Snape had the greatest "physical or flashy" courage, but the greatest "moral courage".
Now granted, if a reader isn't pretty well up on JKR's interviews, it's not terribly difficult to miss the point. But JKR almost certainly did intend the point of Snape's moral courage to be there.
Re: The redemption of Severus
For me, extra-textual information about the author's intentions may be interesting to compare with the text, but it has little bearing on how I actually interpret the text itself. Only what is in the text count for me. Statements of authorial intention enlighten us only to the contents of the author's mind, not of the actual text. The text, since it is fixed in specific words and phrases with multiple connotations, and cannot include everything in the author's mind, is necessarily less than a perfect representation of the author's imagined world and is open to the reader's interpretation. Even given the best editing and so on...which is not really the case with HP.
JKR may very well think bravery is the highest virtue, especially moral courage, but the books themselves do not give us a sufficiently unambiguous presentation of bravery as moral for it to stand as the representative of moral virtue more generally, IMHO. Had she fully done her job as an author here, it would be fully clear *from the text alone* that by acknowleding someone's bravery you are also implicitly granting them very high moral status. The fact that many readers don *not* get this signal points to the text being rather more ambiguous or open on this subject. I'm not saying you are wrong - I can totally see where you are coming from with you reading - but my response is to cry out "She shouldn't have to TELL us this!" It should be leaping out of the text at us. An author's job is to *communicate* through their *works.*
She can do that - the idea of Snape/Lily arose with PoA! But it doesn't happen here, in the text. Which is, IMHO, where it *should* happen. Otherwise it simply is not there for me. I don't think a book ought to be something you have to plug the author's official set of Interpretation Coupons into in order to get the "real" story. There may be redemption for Severus in JKR's mind, and I may write my own mental fanfic to give him redemption in my own, but it is not there *in the text* for me.