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Sep. 1st, 2003 07:15 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
nigeltdeI was thinking today about Severus Snape and his seemingly eternal state of bitchy spitefulness. First up, I do love him. Why? Because he's so wonderfully unpleasant, so bitchy/snarky, so complicated, so flawed. I think it's unusual to have a character who's ostensibly on the 'good' side have so many 'bad' qualities. Plus, and I'm not ashamed to admit it, I saw the first movie before reading the books, and my predisposition towards Alan Rickman lead to an immediate liking for Snape.
But I've also been sucked into the popular fan portrayal of Snape as kind of tragic hero of the Shakespearean tradition (damn you, AR!): a noble mind undermined and corrupted by uncontrollable 'baser' passions - jealousy (Othello), power-lust (Macbeth), etc. In Snape's case, a toal inability to forgive a wrongdoing and a hell of a temper. And then I thought, Woah! Hold your horses there, girlie. Sure, he's undeniably extremely intelligent (which in a way adds to the 'tragic' aspect, considering the childishness of many of his actions), but the 'noble' part? That's really only a fanon conception. It can be inferred, I think plausibly, from the books, but so can other, less charitable, readings of his character. Besides the glimpse of him as a child in OotP, there's no real evidence of him having a state of grace from which to fall at all (if that makes sense). Moreover, JKR has hinted in interviews that he'll be returning to the dark side in the future.
So, I guess that unless I want my heart broken, I'm going to have to stop assuming so much about Snape's past. Man, I can't wait for book 6!
Anyway, I'd love to know how y'all see him. Tragic hero? Unredeemable bastard? Is he pathetic or just deeply flawed? Does he deserve our derision, pity, admiration, what? C'mon, I know you have opinions!
NB: Talking about Book!Snape here, I'm generally too distracted by AR to think about Movie!Snape in any depth ;-)
But I've also been sucked into the popular fan portrayal of Snape as kind of tragic hero of the Shakespearean tradition (damn you, AR!): a noble mind undermined and corrupted by uncontrollable 'baser' passions - jealousy (Othello), power-lust (Macbeth), etc. In Snape's case, a toal inability to forgive a wrongdoing and a hell of a temper. And then I thought, Woah! Hold your horses there, girlie. Sure, he's undeniably extremely intelligent (which in a way adds to the 'tragic' aspect, considering the childishness of many of his actions), but the 'noble' part? That's really only a fanon conception. It can be inferred, I think plausibly, from the books, but so can other, less charitable, readings of his character. Besides the glimpse of him as a child in OotP, there's no real evidence of him having a state of grace from which to fall at all (if that makes sense). Moreover, JKR has hinted in interviews that he'll be returning to the dark side in the future.
So, I guess that unless I want my heart broken, I'm going to have to stop assuming so much about Snape's past. Man, I can't wait for book 6!
Anyway, I'd love to know how y'all see him. Tragic hero? Unredeemable bastard? Is he pathetic or just deeply flawed? Does he deserve our derision, pity, admiration, what? C'mon, I know you have opinions!
NB: Talking about Book!Snape here, I'm generally too distracted by AR to think about Movie!Snape in any depth ;-)
