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I feel like I'm about to write a big cliché here, but I was struck recently by that essay about Snape being a deeply horrible person because it seems to mix a lot of things together about how people deal with this
Where it gets cliché is the whole "explaining is not excusing" thing. You can explain a character’s motivations without meaning that you condone everything s/he is doing. You can even explain it in a sympathetic way without doing that--the world is tricky that way. Sometimes awful people genuinely feel badly. But it does seem like sometimes we feel the need to jump back and forth between the two, which you can't really do. For instance, if you start out saying that Snape hates Harry because of James, and then jump outside of Snape and explain how Harry is a different person and Snape is stupid to do that. Well, yes, that's true, but how do those two things fit together for Snape? The first is the character's motivation, the second is the reason this does not justify what he's doing to a particular person. But motivations don't need to be justified to be motivations. Obviously Snape’s not gotten to the second part yet.
I feel like I'm always explaining that because I get that one a lot. I'm often hitting the wall where I'm supposed to too appalled by the person's actions to keep analyzing and instead I plow right on through. When I dislike characters, it's usually because they annoy me for one reason or another, and not for moral reasons. Even if I have moral problems with them, what annoys me about them is probably not that they've done something of which I do not approve. It's probably more that they were their annoying self while doing it.
Here's the thing with the kinds of things said about Snape in that post. Sometimes I think people do explain characters' actions in ways that do not hold up in canon, and sometimes those explanations seem calculated to make the character look better or more like a victim. I don't see any evidence in canon that Snape insults Neville, Harry or Hermione because he's worried about their putting themselves in danger, or trying to toughen them up or anything that's ultimately in their best interest. I also don't see any evidence that Harry's own behavior is much of an influence on Snape's. If Harry is more docile he might avoid Snape's attention more often, but Snape's bullying is rarely a direct response to Harry being disrespectful. Certainly Harry had done nothing to make Snape angry on the first day of class (when he was all of 11). Even when Snape pulls that particularly petty trick on Harry by destroying his potion and marking him off for it it's not in *direct* response to the Pensieve scene, iirc. His direct response is to get angry and violent. It's after he's thought about it and calmed down he makes the decision to get Harry back when Harry’s just doing his schoolwork.
But then there are the things that, far from being something some fangirl came up with to win sympathy for Snape, are right there in canon. Some of these things are somewhat sympathetic--occasionally they're the kinds of things readers can even relate to in a scene. The same can be said on a smaller scale for Draco in canon. Now, Draco is a character often described as completely flat while Snape is often described as wonderfully complex. In reality, I don't think they're all that far apart on the complexity scale. We know more about Snape, he has a more interesting past, and he seems to have shown at least one important sign of growth in leaving the DEs. In that way yes, I'd say he's a more interesting character. But as a personality, he's pretty straightforward.
On the first day of class Harry gets the feeling Snape has a personal grudge against him. Hagrid denies this, but is obviously lying. Dumbledore later reveals that Snape and James hated each other, and compares them to Harry and Draco (thus both underlining the intensity of S/J's hatred and putting H/D in perspective--this has happened before, it's not the greatest hatred the school has ever known). That motivation has stayed pretty consistent throughout canon. We've learned some more details about things that happened between the two at school, but besides that it's stayed pretty much the same. I don't think the events of the Pensieve put it all into a different light--well, mostly because I think the events of the Pensieve went along pretty clearly with the way Snape was treated by the Marauders Map in PoA. We've generally learned more details that muddy the facts--Dumbledore starts off saying Snape just hates being indebted to James the Hero for saving his life; Harry later learns James' saving of Snape came out of a dodgy situation to begin with. I don't think these bits of new info are there to justify so much as dramatize bitterness and anger via Snape. Personally, I really would love to know the whole story from Snape's pov. I think MWPP were and are fairly clueless as to how Snape really feels, and are happy with explanations like "he was jealous because James played Quidditch well," but anyone who's ever really *felt* bitter and jealous of another person knows that it's always more than that. It's not like Snape hates everyone for being good at Quidditch; being good at Quidditch was just one more piece of the hateful puzzle that was James Potter, to him.
Not only has the story of why Snape hates James via Harry not really changed, but Snape himself often tells Harry about it. He describes him as strutting around just like his father, is the one to tell Harry about how James saved his life in the Prank. I have no trouble believing that Snape blames James for getting him into the DEs (not that we know this in canon). Was it really James' fault? Of course not, but I can imagine Snape would think it was. Harry is a spoiled boy who thinks he's above the rules--just like James.
Malfoy, on a smaller scale, is kind of the same way, actually. He, too, has told Harry why he hates him-and like Snape, he did not say he hated Harry because he (Draco) was a deeply horrible person. School bullies are a dime-a-dozen in kids' books, and JKR did not have to set up hers the way she did. Draco could have been a bigger kid Harry just had to avoid because he bullied everyone. She could have had Harry simply surprise Draco his first year. Harry could have accidentally pissed off the school bully early on. Instead, JKR chose to have Harry draw first blood and make it personal. Draco hates Harry because Harry hurt him--she even got to use those lovely pink spots on the cheeks to make it clear he was wounded.
Now, before I get the obvious explanation of why Harry acted as he did towards Draco, I know why Harry did and said what he did. I was there, in his head, at the time, and I’m not scolding Harry for doing it. The fact still remains that if you're looking for a motivation for Draco's hating Harry, that's it. Draco, like Snape, even occasionally says this: "You think you're such a big man, Potter," "Remember what I said that day on the train, "everyone thinks he's so smart." He's jealous, he's rejected, Harry makes him feel like nothing.
Now, I should mention that I think plenty of time Snape and Draco go off about why they hate Harry, they aren't being completely honest. Most obviously, both of them speak about it as if it's all down to flaws in Harry's (and James') personalities rather than having anything to do with themselves. That's pretty common irl. Both of them point to Harry getting special treatment just because he's famous for nothing but having a stupid scar. But occasionally I think the real things poke through--Snape's claims that Harry gets away with stuff and is spoiled sound different when you think of Snape hung upside-down, humiliated.
I guess, liking both these characters, that's why I cringe to hear explanations like, "they're bullies, and that's it. Snape's not much different than Draco and Dudley," when good lord, how can you say all those three are the same? Bullies can be different just as good guys can be different. Draco and Snape maybe interest me even more because they have more things in common, yet I think at heart their Potter-hatred is slightly different. I guess we'll only know if we really get the story of how Snape and James' hatred began, but clearly it couldn't be just like H/D's, because they're two completely different kids with different histories. And Harry/Dudley as a relationship is worlds away from both.
So in conclusion, to make it seem like this was going somewhere, I understand how annoying it is to see a character given motivations that seem mostly concocted to make them sympathetic and passive. But I also get annoyed at references to "poor widdle Snape or Draco" used to characterize anything that sounds vaguely sympathetic or less than deeply horrible. Or maybe more to the point, I sometimes think things are described as "defenses" when they're not. "Defenses" are more, admittedly, created to support, justify, or protect a character from a perceived attack, and people are just as likely to leap to the defense of good characters as bad ones, and be just as dishonest about it. But I also think defending one's understanding of the character is different than defending the character. Just because you've come to the right conclusion (Snape is a jerk) does not mean the details of your interpretation necessarily hold up.
Where it gets cliché is the whole "explaining is not excusing" thing. You can explain a character’s motivations without meaning that you condone everything s/he is doing. You can even explain it in a sympathetic way without doing that--the world is tricky that way. Sometimes awful people genuinely feel badly. But it does seem like sometimes we feel the need to jump back and forth between the two, which you can't really do. For instance, if you start out saying that Snape hates Harry because of James, and then jump outside of Snape and explain how Harry is a different person and Snape is stupid to do that. Well, yes, that's true, but how do those two things fit together for Snape? The first is the character's motivation, the second is the reason this does not justify what he's doing to a particular person. But motivations don't need to be justified to be motivations. Obviously Snape’s not gotten to the second part yet.
I feel like I'm always explaining that because I get that one a lot. I'm often hitting the wall where I'm supposed to too appalled by the person's actions to keep analyzing and instead I plow right on through. When I dislike characters, it's usually because they annoy me for one reason or another, and not for moral reasons. Even if I have moral problems with them, what annoys me about them is probably not that they've done something of which I do not approve. It's probably more that they were their annoying self while doing it.
Here's the thing with the kinds of things said about Snape in that post. Sometimes I think people do explain characters' actions in ways that do not hold up in canon, and sometimes those explanations seem calculated to make the character look better or more like a victim. I don't see any evidence in canon that Snape insults Neville, Harry or Hermione because he's worried about their putting themselves in danger, or trying to toughen them up or anything that's ultimately in their best interest. I also don't see any evidence that Harry's own behavior is much of an influence on Snape's. If Harry is more docile he might avoid Snape's attention more often, but Snape's bullying is rarely a direct response to Harry being disrespectful. Certainly Harry had done nothing to make Snape angry on the first day of class (when he was all of 11). Even when Snape pulls that particularly petty trick on Harry by destroying his potion and marking him off for it it's not in *direct* response to the Pensieve scene, iirc. His direct response is to get angry and violent. It's after he's thought about it and calmed down he makes the decision to get Harry back when Harry’s just doing his schoolwork.
But then there are the things that, far from being something some fangirl came up with to win sympathy for Snape, are right there in canon. Some of these things are somewhat sympathetic--occasionally they're the kinds of things readers can even relate to in a scene. The same can be said on a smaller scale for Draco in canon. Now, Draco is a character often described as completely flat while Snape is often described as wonderfully complex. In reality, I don't think they're all that far apart on the complexity scale. We know more about Snape, he has a more interesting past, and he seems to have shown at least one important sign of growth in leaving the DEs. In that way yes, I'd say he's a more interesting character. But as a personality, he's pretty straightforward.
On the first day of class Harry gets the feeling Snape has a personal grudge against him. Hagrid denies this, but is obviously lying. Dumbledore later reveals that Snape and James hated each other, and compares them to Harry and Draco (thus both underlining the intensity of S/J's hatred and putting H/D in perspective--this has happened before, it's not the greatest hatred the school has ever known). That motivation has stayed pretty consistent throughout canon. We've learned some more details about things that happened between the two at school, but besides that it's stayed pretty much the same. I don't think the events of the Pensieve put it all into a different light--well, mostly because I think the events of the Pensieve went along pretty clearly with the way Snape was treated by the Marauders Map in PoA. We've generally learned more details that muddy the facts--Dumbledore starts off saying Snape just hates being indebted to James the Hero for saving his life; Harry later learns James' saving of Snape came out of a dodgy situation to begin with. I don't think these bits of new info are there to justify so much as dramatize bitterness and anger via Snape. Personally, I really would love to know the whole story from Snape's pov. I think MWPP were and are fairly clueless as to how Snape really feels, and are happy with explanations like "he was jealous because James played Quidditch well," but anyone who's ever really *felt* bitter and jealous of another person knows that it's always more than that. It's not like Snape hates everyone for being good at Quidditch; being good at Quidditch was just one more piece of the hateful puzzle that was James Potter, to him.
Not only has the story of why Snape hates James via Harry not really changed, but Snape himself often tells Harry about it. He describes him as strutting around just like his father, is the one to tell Harry about how James saved his life in the Prank. I have no trouble believing that Snape blames James for getting him into the DEs (not that we know this in canon). Was it really James' fault? Of course not, but I can imagine Snape would think it was. Harry is a spoiled boy who thinks he's above the rules--just like James.
Malfoy, on a smaller scale, is kind of the same way, actually. He, too, has told Harry why he hates him-and like Snape, he did not say he hated Harry because he (Draco) was a deeply horrible person. School bullies are a dime-a-dozen in kids' books, and JKR did not have to set up hers the way she did. Draco could have been a bigger kid Harry just had to avoid because he bullied everyone. She could have had Harry simply surprise Draco his first year. Harry could have accidentally pissed off the school bully early on. Instead, JKR chose to have Harry draw first blood and make it personal. Draco hates Harry because Harry hurt him--she even got to use those lovely pink spots on the cheeks to make it clear he was wounded.
Now, before I get the obvious explanation of why Harry acted as he did towards Draco, I know why Harry did and said what he did. I was there, in his head, at the time, and I’m not scolding Harry for doing it. The fact still remains that if you're looking for a motivation for Draco's hating Harry, that's it. Draco, like Snape, even occasionally says this: "You think you're such a big man, Potter," "Remember what I said that day on the train, "everyone thinks he's so smart." He's jealous, he's rejected, Harry makes him feel like nothing.
Now, I should mention that I think plenty of time Snape and Draco go off about why they hate Harry, they aren't being completely honest. Most obviously, both of them speak about it as if it's all down to flaws in Harry's (and James') personalities rather than having anything to do with themselves. That's pretty common irl. Both of them point to Harry getting special treatment just because he's famous for nothing but having a stupid scar. But occasionally I think the real things poke through--Snape's claims that Harry gets away with stuff and is spoiled sound different when you think of Snape hung upside-down, humiliated.
I guess, liking both these characters, that's why I cringe to hear explanations like, "they're bullies, and that's it. Snape's not much different than Draco and Dudley," when good lord, how can you say all those three are the same? Bullies can be different just as good guys can be different. Draco and Snape maybe interest me even more because they have more things in common, yet I think at heart their Potter-hatred is slightly different. I guess we'll only know if we really get the story of how Snape and James' hatred began, but clearly it couldn't be just like H/D's, because they're two completely different kids with different histories. And Harry/Dudley as a relationship is worlds away from both.
So in conclusion, to make it seem like this was going somewhere, I understand how annoying it is to see a character given motivations that seem mostly concocted to make them sympathetic and passive. But I also get annoyed at references to "poor widdle Snape or Draco" used to characterize anything that sounds vaguely sympathetic or less than deeply horrible. Or maybe more to the point, I sometimes think things are described as "defenses" when they're not. "Defenses" are more, admittedly, created to support, justify, or protect a character from a perceived attack, and people are just as likely to leap to the defense of good characters as bad ones, and be just as dishonest about it. But I also think defending one's understanding of the character is different than defending the character. Just because you've come to the right conclusion (Snape is a jerk) does not mean the details of your interpretation necessarily hold up.
Tags:
- characterization,
- draco,
- hp,
- meta,
- snape
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I read your post - then was distracted by a gmail notifier ping, came back and responded on THAT essay instead of this one. So that person got my "yay!Snape sympathy from someone who understands perspective"/why HP put me off (personal anecdote response that I was writing to you instead of you.
Uh...
Now I want to go over there and delete it - as am scared of being a Slytherin reader in the middle of that crowd.
uh...
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I read the original essay and cringed, particularly at the argument that if you attempt to give a more complex, logical and psychological rationale for Snape and Draco's feelings and actions then you are anti-Gryffindor, anti-Harry and anti-Dumbledore. *facepalms* Sigh.
And even if one loves Snape and Draco as characters, that doesn't necessarily mean one thinks their actions are correct. God knows I adore the both of them and more than once I've wanted to smack them upside the head. But I feel that way about Harry and Ron too. :D
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From:flying by, reply later
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Did you mean to say "...Snape hung upside-down, humiliated?" or am I just reading things incorrectly?
-Beth, who had a real response to this post, but who's so burnt out she's settling for just saying "Good Post!"
(and sorry for the multiple comments/deletions)
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This is a clear, cogent dissection of both Snape's and Draco's motives, and also of the fallacious motivations often attributed to them in some fanfiction. Your reasoning flows so clearly and smoothly here, and I found it very gratifying.
You can explain a character’s motivations without meaning that you condone everything s/he is doing.
Oh, yes. And sometimes (as with Snape) you find him interesting, and even like him, without condoning his motives or actions.
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I just love watching the way different characters bump up against each other. I think part of what makes Snape so compelling is maybe the way that on the surface he's the evil teacher, but because it's a fantasy he really *does* have a personal grudge against Harry. So then you've got Harry's pov and also Snape's.
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A character will always appear in a more sympathetic light, if you're able to understand their motivations, but that doesn't automatically make a character right, or their actions justified. I wish people would realise this, and I don't really understand this panicky fear of the possibility of having ome reasonable explanation for behaviors you loathe. You can still loathe said behavior, but if you gain a better understanding of where it can come from, you actually stand a better chance of stopping said behavior, than if you just choose to explain it with "well, they're evil, they should be destroyed, and now I'm going to dedicate the rest of my time raving about why they aren't already".
Statements like "Dudley, Draco and Snape are all the same" shows a very poor understanding of both the text as well as the characters. It's funny that the people who say such things, usually proclaim to be such big fans of JKR's writing, because they really don't give her much credit if they truly think she's only capable of writing one type of nasty character.
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I think to me this is sometimes at the very heart of it. It just seems to much more practical to try to figure out what's going on with them to see if you can make things go more smoothly. It's not like I'm a super-nice person and so want to give everyone what they want, it just seems like it's so much easier to do this than, as you say, deciding people must be destroyed and why aren't they already?
And truth be told, when it comes to Draco, you don't even haave to look beneath the surface, because he's so damn transparent it's all there.
I always find that so funny about him. People feel like I'm looking for hidden depth and to me it seems like it's right there in the text and it's not really very deep!
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And speaking of icons--Charles and Sebastian OTP!!!
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Anyway, I don't want to feel the urge to justify my character preferences anymore, because it's never going to stop, isn't it? You know, I don't think they want to see things from another point of view, just like I recently realised I don't want to start liking Ginny Weasley. I'm never going to understand why people constantly ask other people who have a different opinion about something to explain it to them, when it's clear that in 99% from all cases, the original questioner doesn't want to be converted. If anyone manages to change her/her opinion after all, it is going to happen on his/her own behalf. I didn't start liking Neville Longbottom more and more in the last year because someone converted me. It just happened by itself. If I ever start liking Ginny (I don't think I will, but everything's possible), it won't be because of the Ginny lovers' 'arguments', but because I'm going to notice something which will make me change my opinion. And I'm going to notice it by myself.
I completely agree with your post, of course. Sorry for rambling - I wish I didn't get as upset as I am right now just because someone decided to insult the intelligence of the H/D shippers.
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Actually, the essay was more along the lines of OMG Snape is a horrible person how dare you people just excuse away his actions like they were nothing? (Which, oddly enough, is what I find myself thinking about the AllPraiseAndWorshipToTheGreatDumbledoreandHarry,AllYeUnbelievers!type of fan.)
Agreed. Although it does help me to like someone or something if someone else sees like-worthy traits first, because then I'll actively be looking for them--even if I'm only looking to disprove whatever was said before.
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You bring up interesting points re: Snape and Draco and their common hatred of Harry. What do you think the differences between their Potter-hatreds are?
Also, I'm thinking of posting an essay on trip_jinx about Brat!Draco and why I don't think that concept works. Any opinions?
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I'd be interested in that Brat!Draco essay. It seems like most of the time people insist that he's a brat meaning he gets everything he wants in ways that always seem wrong to me. Well, it's like saying he's exactly like Dudley when I think he's very different from Dudley.
As for the differences between Snape and Draco, when I was writing this, I found myself wondering if the two of them had picked things up from each other. Like, does Draco spend more time wondering how Harry struts around because Snape says that; does Snape make Draco-type jokes about Harry now?
It seems like the one thing is that James was more aggressive--I read another essay recently that claimed that Snape was unpopular even in his own house, but I don't think we know how true that is. I believe he did go around with a gang of Slytherins at some point. But anyway, it seems like James probably picked on him randomly. Plus Snape is all about respect so that's maybe the thing that galls him the most was being bested so easily. He may have desperately tried to get back at James through hexing him and getting him in trouble, etc.
Draco seems like a much more naturally social kid, and I think he's more about affection. I doubt Snape ever tried to be friends with James and got rejected. Draco tells stories and jokes, does impressions, clowns around. So I think maybe the difference is that Snape feels disrespected constantly and Draco feels rejected. Snape kept getting disrespected, maybe, with pranks escalating to things like the Pensieve, and the final Prank where Sirius didn't get in much trouble. And Draco keeps getting rejected (I admit I read the dragon incident as one that could have ended the D/H hatred in first year, if Harry was interested, unlike Snape's Prank). Maybe they're good for each other, though: Draco gives Snape respect and he as Snape's favorite he gets approval/affection.
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I think it also ties into the thing about how hard it is to write (and read) about characters who are genuinely Not Nice. Sure, antiheroes are a dime a dozen, but you end up with what Suzy Mckee Charnas has brilliantly described as, for example, the emasculated vampire who is now just another brooding hunk with a dark secret & a highly unlikely streak of sentimentality. That seems to be one of the easiest fanfic pitfalls for Snape to fall into. Kudos to Rowling for making him so interesting & yet such a genuine asshole.
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That's an excellent point about characters like this--yes. I love that description of the emasculated vampire. People sometimes just get the urge to nice-up the characters they like, or make them less ugly in lots of ways. Really, they do that to every character, even ones that are already good guys but are sometimes idiots. Like with Snape trying to find a way that picking on Neville is something he's doing out of good feelings towards Neville, while in reality I think Dumbledore's more correct in just saying that Snape might genuinely hate the person but not want them dead. That's the level of good-feeling he's really at.
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First, I don't care if Cannon!Snape is a horrible person. Cannon!Snape has very little to do with my appreciation of fanfic in which he plays a starring role. In fact, for the purposes of fanfic, I cannot take the characterization of *any* of the adults in the movies/books seriously. For instance, in PoA, we are expected to believe that a double-agent death eater is scared and jumpy walking around the halls of Hogwarts at night? Please. It's completely ludicrous.
The adults are portrayed as fools of various sorts to highlight the enjoyment of the children watching the movie/reading the book. So when reading or writing fanfic, I try to take the experiences I know the character has undergone, and imagine more appropriate and realistic reactions. So long as the character's motivations and reactions are believable, and make some sense, and are internally consistent, I think it's good fanfic. And it's interesting!
And second, even if Snape IS a horrible person, I really don't see a problem with liking him anyway. He's interesting to me because of the incredible mental discipline he must posses to carry out his dual roles. And how exactly he carries out those roles. He's person of unusual character and strength. And I'm a sucker for the stern disciplinarian type, especially with dark hair.
I think other people have a problem with liking him because there's a belief in western society that it's not possible to have a positive romantic relationship with a person that's not "good", and so much fanfic revolves around romantic relationships.
I really don't think that assumption - about a person having to be good to be in a sustained relationship - is true. In fact, I put it to you that it's entirely possible to maintain a pretty decent romantic relationship with a peron who's "evil", "horrible", or otherwise not good. How would it work? Well, it's just like keeping a pet tiger -- the tiger may love you and lick you and play with you, but eventually, the tiger's probably going to bite your arm off. I mean, the tiger is a tiger, and he's just doing what it is in his nature to do. But so long as you're resigned to the likelihood of losing an arm, what's the problem?
At least with a "horrible" person, you have some understanding as to what's likely to happen. For some people that would be preferable to being with a "good" person who stabs you in the back unexpectedly.
And yes, I'm a big Snape fan. And of Lucius and Draco. And of unchipped, soulless Spike. And I don't care if they're ever redeemed. I love them just the way they are -- in fannon.
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I think other people have a problem with liking him because there's a belief in western society that it's not possible to have a positive romantic relationship with a person that's not "good", and so much fanfic revolves around romantic relationships.
This is also a great point. It seems to come up a lot also in the case of people liking the bad characters, and assuming this means they must not really get them as they are in canon. Sure, some people do polish them up and turn them into pricne charming, but they do that with the good guys too. But people are drawn to others for any number of things, and probably their being a good person isn't really one of them. You can think someone is basically a good person but not be attracted to them or want to be their friend. You can find someone fun, sexy and hilarious to be around even though they're a scary individual.
At least with a "horrible" person, you have some understanding as to what's likely to happen. For some people that would be preferable to being with a "good" person who stabs you in the back unexpectedly.
Which canon happen! I remember writing something once on the fanfic cliche of Evil!Ron, and while I don't think he's evil in canon or is going to be, I can completely see why that's an obvious way to go in fanfic. It's interesting to read a believable story that shows a good character tempted by the dark side. Really, that interests me in the already-bad characters too. They're just people, like everyone else, and why have they made these choices?
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gasses some Jewseats a live kitten or something? But er, that aside...I mean, yeah, okay, Umbridge causes umbridge, but she's also hilarious, wonderfully charictatured and so well embodied of so many things kids have encountered in adults that she sells. I'm not even that big on motivations, because a lot of people I've encountered IRL are just awsomely nice people because they're just awesomely nice people, and people who are stupid are just stupid, and people who are arseholes just have egos so large they have their own orbiting moons. But I do get that the motivations you pointed out are, well, basically the motivations for Snape & Draco, and I agree with them. So basically I think I'm saying "Wordy McWordpants". Cookie?
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And I totally admit there are times I find Umbridge completely hilarious. Some people are made absolutely furious by her but she never made me hate her, really. And Snape's just...well, he's Snape. I have no problem imagining him having good relationships with other people. If he were to leave the school I suspect the other teachers would miss him.
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Yep, that's pretty much my reason too.
I didn't even bother reading that essay, because I do not need the annoyance right now. I wish people would understand that liking a character is not the same as agreeing with them, and that authorial intent isn't some great gospel we must all follow without question.
You know, much of the recent backlash against 'unsympathetic' characters seems to be a dislike against attempting to look at their motivations, reading the books from a different perspective, and all the meta analysis that makes reading the books fun.
What really gets me is how shocked! and outraged! Snape and Draco haters seem to be that those 'one-dimentionnal Slytherin bullies' have fans at all. Eh. Different strokes, different folks. I personnaly have a great dislike for Ginny, the Twins, and to an extent MWPP-but I don't go around posting essays boggling at the fact they have fans, or assigning motivations to them.
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Yes. This perfectly expresses my own perception of and attitude towards the characters. The wonderful thing abour Rowling's characters - on the whole - is that they are painted in different shades of grey. None of the characters is the paragon of moral virtue - they merely display different strengths and weaknesses.
That much said, there are numerous people in the fandom who do more than understand and explain the "horrible characters'" motives. As much as I like Snape - he is without a doubt fascinating and complex, and I love writing him - I am often bewildered about that deep devotion towards him that some fans display, and I am not surprised that other fans and Rowling herself are irritated about it, too.
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I did read that other essay, and I thought about commenting, but after reading some of the comments and replies to them, I decided against it. I just couldn't take the aggravation and perhaps getting into an argument.
Saying that one can see a character's motivations, or that one can understand why a character does something or reacts a certain way has become volatile in some fandom circles these days. ;-) It's nice to see someone who also can put themself inside a character's head and try to see how it works, and still say 'that's not good behaviour'.
Fluffified Snape gets on my nerves as much as the flat out 'Snape is evil' does. Sometimes I wonder if that is the way people look at the world around them as well. Yes, these are fictional characters, but they wouldn't be believable or capturing if they didn't have passions, motivations, and opinions, and act and react accordingly. That is what I see as the area that is most successfully explored in fanfic, at least that is what brings me inspiration.
I'm putting this post in my memories... Is it ok if I friend you?
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That is what I see as the area that is most successfully explored in fanfic, at least that is what brings me inspiration.
ITA--I think the best fanfic writers are able to hide some of their personal preferences. For instance, they might like writing about their favorite but still try to be fair to the characters they don't like. It's always annoying seeing one character elevated or pushed aside just because the author wants that to happen. It's probably very satisfying for people who also want that to happen, though.:-)
The characters in this series really seem to make it easy for people to take sides and start twisting things to fit their pov, but that just probably shows how realistic the situations in the story are.
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It is curious the way people ignore the fact that JKR *did* invent the typical bully archetype - Dudley. He's even placed in stark relief against Draco in PS when Harry talks about hating Draco more than him. (To which my response was always... what the hell? Dudley's been tormenting you for years - how annoying can one kid be in the couple of weeks he has? That's *talent*, that is.) Nobody ever needed Draco for the school bully. All they needed was a slightly slyer, bigger version of Crabbe and Goyle.
One of the major points of similarity between Draco and Snape would also be the fact they're both so pitiable - and resentful of it. I also very much like the image of Snape going 'damn that James Potter... better than me at Quidditch... I WILL HATE HIM FOREVER... and that Agatha Greenley the Hufflepuff Keeper as well, she thinks she's so good... SHE WILL BE DESTROYED WHEN THE REVOLUTION COMES... not Ravenclaw though... they're pretty crap... I don't mind them.' Oh, the way history is altered to suit hindsight.
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Do you remember that genfic you wrore for CassieClaire about Draco becoming King of the Universe? That one line where Harry was freaking out and Draco was all, "Ha. You always do that. Pathetic people hanging around the hero trying to prove they mattered." That's very Draco and very Snape to me, fighting and getting people's attention so they themselves don't disappear.
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Totally and utterly OT
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I wish Harry wasn't so reactive/non-introspective, it would be interesting to see what his opinion of their personalities/the conflict between them is - I imagine it's a pretty similiar view: ie. they're terrible, he's great, and if they just dropped off the face off the earth, things would be nicer.
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I remember her saying, "a reason is not an excuse." (I hated this because I had a friend who would frequently throw that in my face, so the phrase itself was kind of ugly to me.) I was never quite sure what to make of that. Was I excusing Snape? It was hard to tell because it was fiction--liking him as a character in fiction is different from what I would think if I knew him in real life. I think in real life, I'd be frustrated with him and snap back at him constantly, but I'd still understand him. I might even still like him. Because I'd understand him.
The thing with me and these books is that while I like Harry and I like reading from his POV, I don't really get him and I'm nothing like him. I understood what it was like to be Snape. I'm not really anything like him, either, but I get him. I'm drawn towards the character I understand, the ones who I can identify with. Even if they're jerks and occasionally make me want to throw the book across the room with their pettiness. I still understood his choices, frustrations, and pains, far more than I understood Harry's--who certainly had a lot of them, he didn't have any better life than Snape.
Yet.
Yet I can also understand the fangirl idea of wanting to excuse him and make him a victim or hero. Of wanting to save him or redeem him.
I don't know. I might make a long post about this. I maybe shouldn't do it right now, though. My opinions about this kind of thing are changing lately. Lately I've just grown very sick of a particular kind of story, the closed-off man who's wounded and walled inside, maybe full of anger, who is understood and loved and saved by so-and-so, the vehicle of his redemption. I'm tired of it. I'm tired of living it.
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Re: Interpretations