Snapedom

Original poster: bohemianspirit

One assumption that seems to be common--among not only detractors of Severus Snape but also among some who identify as his fans--is that Severus Snape really was simply a nasty bastard. Period. He was a jerk. An asshole. A real prick. A man with no redeeming qualities whatsoever, apart from the final revelation that he was Brave and Loved A Gryffindor.

Certainly--so the assumption goes--he would never have wanted to have a family of his own! The idea that such a snarly, snappish, sarcastic, sullen human being as Severus Snape would want to be married and have children is dismissed as a romantic fangirl fantasy which can only be made plausible by wrenching the character completely Out Of Character.

Is this assumption reasonable?

I say, no. It reduces the character of Severus Snape to a two-dimensional cardboard cutout: It assumes that the sum total of the man's personality is the snarling snappish teacher we see through the eyes of Harry Potter. Yet as adults, we don't have to be teachers to know that the side of us which people see at work does not reflect all that we are away from work: There are many more facets to our lives, and to our selves, in the private spheres outside of our professional domains.

( Severus and one of my real-life teachers... )

Original poster: bohemianspirit

Yes, I know it's January, not December. ;-) I was out of town, but still wanted to contribute a few thoughts to the subject of the December challenge. There's so much more I could write about this, and so much everyone else has already written; I will settle for posting a couple of excerpts from my story "Light Between the Cracks," which was posted in October for snape_after_dh.

1. Did Severus spend his entire life pining after Lily?

Based on the character we see depicted over the entire series, not just on what we see in the memories in Deathly Hallows, I think it unlikely that Severus Snape spent his entire life crippled by grief. I think that his sense of guilt and grief over Lily's death acted as a catalyst, a wake-up call that pulled him off the destructive path he was on and set him on a new direction that ultimately enabled him to grow and mature. While his grief over her death would continue to haunt him, I don't think it utterly debilitated him. But I also think that he would not necessarily have revealed to Dumbledore, let alone to anyone else, whatever life he may have built for himself outside of Hogwarts and the Wizarding World.

Here's one way I envision him "processing" his grief and moving on with his life:

( First story excerpt )

In my story, he goes on to meet and marry a non-wizarding woman and build a life for himself off the radar screen of Hogwarts. Details are my own, but I'd like to believe that some version of this really did happen. It certainly would be very Severus to keep his life as private as possible!

2. Putting the guilt issues over Snape's Worst Memory into perspective.

Really, the story says it all, so I'll just let the story take over.

( Second story excerpt )

Original poster: bohemianspirit

Originally posted as a reply to a comment in another thread, but since we all love to meta so much, I thought it might be interesting to discuss. If not, then not. ;-)

Original poster: bohemianspirit

I debated whether this counts as "meta" or "fiction" for posting purposes, and in the end concluded that it's really just a form of meta, not a story, and so am sharing it here. Originally I wrote it as a response to a meme, but I thought might be of interest or amusement to a wider readership--especially on the matter of the Doe Patronus, which we were just discussing. ;-)

( Read the letter from Severus here... )

Original poster: bohemianspirit

Having written this for my personal journal, I thought some of you on this group might enjoy it as well as my f-list. (Edited from original to remove fic-pimping.)


I was talking to my sister jemby just a little while ago, and we were discussing interpretations of the character of Severus Snape: what his core personality is, versus the accretions of life experience, as lived in the canon story. All very useful stuff to consider when writing an AU Life of Severus!

Anyway, in the course of discussion, in which Jemby and I discussed the relationship of Severus Snape to Teh Dark Side, his motivations for interest in Teh Dark Artz, and so on, we both agreed that yes, he had a sarcastic streak that would emerge even under the best life circumstances, but being a sardonic observer of human stupidity is a far cry from being Teh Eeeeevul loving Teh Dark because it is Teh Dark. And I said, "He's really more snark than dark."

And Jemby SQUEEEED.

Well, not literally. Rather, she laughed, repeated, "More snark than dark!" and told me I must hang on to that phrase, that it encapsulates perfectly the "shadow" side of Severus Snape. Not evil, just jaded by the insufferable stupidity surrounding him.

Of course, there will always be those who prefer the Dark to the Snark. But that's not the man we see in the books, and frankly, a fundamentally good guy with a strong streak of sardonic wit is a hell of a lot more interesting than some Gothic Villain caricature--even if he does wear all black. ;-) But so do I, and I'm not evil. Honest.

Original poster: rattlesnakeroot

This is crossposted with my own journal . . .

Dear Ms. Rowling:
I've been thinking about this view you have of Snape Fans and their "Bad Boy" Syndrome, and the fact that it "heartens" you to see us on the forums, still arguing and cat-fighting after Book Seven.

Please - walk a mile in my shoes sometimes and tell me how fun it is then!

The Snape haters feel vindicated ( if not vindictive) themselves because you have patted them on their collective noodle-heads and told them they were "correct" to see how horrible Snape was. Please continue to ignore the fact that most of them wanted Harry to kill Snape on page one, that they spent months in denial about a friendship with Lily Evans, or that she would have even spoken to him once she set eyes on dear/deer James. Many of them, even now, see Snape as an "obsessed" or "twisted" person whose love wasnt' good enough. Is that what you meant for them to think?

I'm sure they feel the afterglow of your Tour and cannot wait to grasp other pearls of wisdom you wish to cast before them, as you rewrite your own Hero tale of Snape.
That's right - I called him a Hero again, so sue me! Go ahead ~ because that's what he is by any definition in the English language, or any other language.

Let me introduce you to "Good Guy Syndrome."

Original poster: greedyslayer

If Snape never became a Death Eater, which inevitatbly leads to his Teaching/Spying position...what job would he have? (For some reason, I can't seem exactly heading to teach at Hogwarts without the spying task and the DE background.)

My opininion: the wizarding equivalent to a Doctor, a Healer. (Thus bringing him ever closer to House, and my recent discovery of Scrubs' Dr. Cox.)

Original poster: bohemianspirit

I recently read an article about the British actor Sir Ian McKellen, and was struck by something he said:

"I think it's an actor's principal duty to stick up for the character. You don't have to like him, but you must understand and meet him from his own point of view." (emphasis mine)

McKellen was speaking as an actor portraying King Lear, but as a writer I was immediately struck by how appropriate it is for novelists and other storytellers: We need to UNDERSTAND our characters, from the inside out, and empathize with them and with their points of view, even if, as ourselves, we don't like everything about them.

I wonder if this is what we're touching on in all of our WTF-ing about J. K. Rowling's interview comments about Severus Snape. "How can she not understand her own character?" comes the cry, time and again. And the answer may be: Because she's only viewing him from the outside, not from the inside. Severus through the eyes of a Gryffindor wannabe is not Severus as he sees himself, nor as he really is beneath the layers of carefully-constructed persona(e) and manifestations of wounds that never quite properly healed.

For those of us who write, Sir Ian's comment and JKR's WTFness can serve as an important lesson in fiction writing: connect with your characters, from the inside out.

Thoughts?

Original poster: peignoir

this is partly a response to this essay, this essay, and this thread.

My discomfort with analyzing Snape as an instance of the nerd archetype comes from the fact that I see it as an insufficient description. I'm not saying that it never makes sense to look at Snape in the context of the nerd in fiction, or say that a few aspects of Snape's personality could be described as nerdy (it does help to explain his intellectual motives for studying the Dark Arts, for instance). But there is also something diagnostic about the term: it covers a constellation of traits without revealing something more about what the sum of them means. What information does it add about Snape and his experience to call him a nerd? On the other hand, what information is reduced or left out by this reading?

Snape is too much to describe using the nerd archetype, I think. The nerd carries a connotation of ivory-tower intellectual detachment, a sense of being not quite of the world. Snape is anything but—he's entangled in the world. He chooses, he acts; there's blood on his hands. The primary journey his character makes is a moral one, not a truth-quest. The archetypal nerd also tends to be the benign victim of bullying at school, so associating Snape with this identity puts the emphasis on the passive, victimized side of Snape, and gives too little attention to the active side. We identify with the lonely nerd, or at least many of us do; perhaps calling him that exculpates him a little—maybe these essays hope to reach other readers and convince them to view Snape with the same empathy that we already do. But it's actually his culpability, that responsibility for his choices from which he can't be fully excused, that makes his character remarkable by giving him the heaviest of burdens. While some parts of his character may be illuminated by looking at him through the nerd lens, others, like his central moral entanglement with the world, get obscured.

Other, relatively more minor, aspects of Snape's character are also excluded: what can a Snape-as-nerd reading say about the Snape who was taken under the wing of Lucius Malfoy, who learned to affect membership in the upper class well enough to shock Bellatrix when she first saw his house? About his skill in Legilimency and ability to hold a class's attention without effort, proof of his instinct for people? About the Snape who may have maligned Quidditch jocks, but was also the only faculty member besides Madam Hooch whom we know was qualified for refereeing, and whose ability to fly unsupported suggests some physical grace and skill? About the eloquent, droll conversationalist and the convincing actor?

Original poster: bohemianspirit

"Snape is vindictive. He's cruel. He's not a big man. ... But he loves. I like him, but I'd also like to slap him hard."

"Although [Dumbledore] seems to be so benign for six books, he's quite a Machiavellian figure, really. He's been pulling a lot of strings. Harry has been his puppet. ... When Snape says to Dumbledore, 'We've been protecting [Harry] so he could die at the right moment'--I don't think in book one you would have ever envisioned a moment where your sympathy would be with Snape rather than Dumbledore."

-- J. K. Rowling, 10-15-07 (source)

( I have a few things to say about this... )

Original poster: hope_24

Post DH Snape.

Responding to the October challenge with some of my thoughts, as I'm too undisciplined to write a coherent essay.

One of the most frequent thoughts, and my own too, on post-DH Snape has been disappointment at the 'diminishment' of Snape's character. Snape, who had previously been regarded as complex and mysterious had suddenly been reduced to a man whose every motivation was explained by a long-standing infatuation with a woman. The character who was capable of both extreme selflessness and petty childishness, reduced, in one fell swoop, to a man seemingly stuck in adolescence. The ignominy of it all.

However, despite this, I've read several post-DH analyses (on this comm and others) discussing the psychological complexity of Snape. These often examine the unhealthiness of Snape's 'crush, his emotional neediness, the repercussions of his childhood, his ambiguous relationship with Dumbledore etc etc. These analyses would argue that instead of reducing Snape to a one note character, DH gave him yet more complexity (screwed up complexity, but complexity nonetheless;) This made me wonder, was DH really as dminishing to Snape as it appeared at first?

After all, it sort of confirmed a lot of fanon Snape conventions. Canon now gives us a Snape who can be sarcastic, misanthropic, bitter, angry - but who is also capable of affection, is deeply loyal, is emotionally needy, idealistic.......in short, a layered, complex, believable human being. A lot of fanon hypotheses were actually affirmed, more than anything.

This left me wondering though, why was I still infuriated by what DH had done to Snape?

First up, the queasy morality of DH, and how it related to Snape in particular. I'm not going to go into this in depth, as it's been done much better elsewhere (in mary_j_59's recent essay, Jenny Sawyer's review, The_Bitter_Word's review, Sigune's review, subtle_science's review and several of Sylvanawood's posts on dh_oh_shit) Suffice to say, the blatant double standards applied throughout turn my stomach. Condemning the character of an eleven year old boy who has suffered a neglectful (and at worse, abusive) childhood is wrong.

Secondly, when I considered the idea of an outwardly bitter and sarcastic man who inwardly still pined over the loss of childhood friendship and unrequited affection I found I could deal with it. The idea of him devoting his life to atoning for past sins? Well, I think it was messed up - for all sorts of reasons: Dumbledore's manipulations, Snape's emotional problems - but again (thanks to the various analyses I had read) I caould understand how it might happen. I could also read into the text and wonder about Snape's political beliefs. I like fanfic and reader-response theory, this didn't bother me too much.

What did bother me, phenomenally, was the idol to whom Snape had pinned all his hopes: Lily. I can understand Snape being psychologically screwed up. What I couldn't bear was the idea of him pining over, and devoting his life to such a fundamentally underwhelming creature. She just seems so shallow and sanctimonious. She laughs at his public humiliation. She takes up with the group who had bullied him continuously throughout his school career. Lastly, knowing that he has been largely neglected at home and ostracised at school, she abandons him to friends whom she herself knew were a terrible influence. This, this is the great love to whom Snape is willing to sacrifice his life?

Worse yet, whereas elsewhere it might have been possible to enetertain genuine authorial ambiguity and read into the text for added complexity, canon seems genuinely insistent that Lily was a fabulous, flawless woman without parallel. This is where the nasty morality comes into play again. It's OK to turn your back on your friends? Be unforgiving? Find bullying funny? Have double-standards?

So, overall, it wasn't the diminishing of Snape that bothered me (because I don't think he was) - but the diminishing of Lily. Given that the author does not seem to see Lily as diminished or flawed in any way - it was the skewed and worrying morality to be found in DH that bothered me.
Although I originally felt that Snape's character had been sorely diminished by DH - he actually shines through as the undimmed bright point in an otherwise morally murky tale.

I'd love to hear other thoughts on this. :)

Original poster: death_ofme

This is my first post to the comm, so if I've grossly broken any rules, do say, and I'll fix them.

Snape's character has been hashed and rehashed since the end of DH, and his motivations and reasons for his actions have mostly come into question, especially regarding Lily and the Death Eaters. I confess, I haven't been able to go through all the numerous metas and opinions on this, so if I've repeated someone else's views, it was unintentional and I'm sorry for the repetition. I don't think I have, though, so we'll see. The theory I have is also not an interpretatin of canon, but rather, a motive we may be able to explore in fanon and in picking up where DH left off.

And it involves Severus' father.