sistermagpie | Vampires and Werewolves

Happy birthday

xnera!

I realized I forgot to mention I saw Corpse Bride, which I enjoyed. Even more I enjoyed the Q&A with Tim Burton after the movie. I've heard he's very shy about speaking in front of people, but he was relaxed and funny and interesting. Afterwards I also met a guy named Shade who had appeared on that Bravo's 100 Scariest Horror Movies which I watched rather avidly, and we liked a lot of the same movies.:-)

Speaking of horror movies--well, really not but I'm attempting a transition here--I've been thinking about those Vampire and Werewolf theories that so persistently float around HP fandom and thinking about a way

The two theories I'm thinking about are the one where Snape is a Vampire and the one where Draco is a werewolf. I don't think there's any evidence in canon that either of these things is true as of HBP, and JKR has dismissed the one about Snape. So why do people (John Granger, for instance) continue to hold on to them? Well, leaving aside the fandom-psychology reasons, there are interesting things about them, things that maybe get lost when we focus too much on them being literally true. It's interesting, for instance, that Snape is the vampire and Draco is the werewolf, with very few suggestions that we switch the two. After all, Draco's name is a lot like Dracula. He's described as being pale and bloodless, as opposed to sallow, and vampires are usually described as the former, not the latter. He's a sensual character, leaning against things, drawling, very physical in a sensual way. One person I spoke with actually always pictured him with black hair "like Dracula" before PoA revealed he was blond. Meanwhile Snape often foams a bit at the mouth, he has fits of rage and smashes things. He's been more physical in a violent way. Yet Draco's rarely thought to be a vampire and Snape is rarely thought to be a werewolf.

The main reason Snape is thought of as a vampire is that he's so often described as bat-like. I don't think that's JKR hinting he's a vampire so much as hitting on a metaphor that sounds right for her for the same reason Vampire sounds right for fandom. Snape is vampire-like in more interesting ways than the literal. His dealings with Harry do often have a hint of the vampire. The dark eyes that are like tunnels, the way he leans over him in his black cape, the seductive way he speaks about Potions and DADA, the way he speaks silkily. He even seduces Harry via his textbook in HBP. Hermione recognizes the same attraction to the Dark Arts in the way he and Harry speak of them. They speak of the Dark Arts as something sophisticated, not brutal.

Snape is, as far as I can see, the only Death Eater to have eaten death and come back to the living--he's undead in a very real way. Unlike some other would-be DEs, Snape also seems to have thrived on the Dark Arts. He's not an emotionally healthy person by any means, but he doesn't seem to suffer from the kind of madness Bellatrix does, or be as beaten as Peter is. Voldemort appears to hold him in high regard, even if he doesn't completely trust him. We're told he came to school knowing all sorts of Dark Arts. He was possibly shunned by students who pegged him as "dark" on sight. The Order has always considered him "the other" and only trusted him because DD vouched for him. I don't think fans are correct when they sometimes assume Snape's time with the DEs wasn't quite so bad, that he didn't kill or engage in evil acts but just researched Potions. He seems to have been a real DE, and possibly not all that haunted by his deeds. He hates being called a coward, but I don't think he'd mind being called a killer.

In a way, Snape has always been living on borrowed time and between two worlds. Whichever side he is really on, he's leeching off one of them. Both sides think on some level that Snape should be dead--he sold his soul to Voldemort, after all. JKR says DD didn't want Snape to teach DADA because he'd be tempted by the Dark Arts, and it does seem like possibly Snape isn't so much tempted by them as something exotic but almost that he just sees them as natural. Harry is freaked out by Sectumsempra because the HBP seemed like a normal guy, offering fun hexes and good Potions advice, but perhaps to Snape it's just that there's no difference. He doesn't cross a line in developing Sectumsempra; he simply approaches hurting his enemies with the same efficiency as he approaches Potions.

So perhaps what's more interesting about Snape as a vampire isn't that he literally is one, but that his relationship to wizards is much like a vampire's to humans. Lines that other wizards might suffer for crossing simply don't have that much of a bad effect on Snape.

Draco as a werewolf is another theory that doesn't hold up at all factually. The inspiration for it apparently comes from the fact that Harry thinks Draco's arm is sensitive in HBP in the robe shop, and that he shows something to Mr. Borgin that is threatening and that he warns Borgin not to tell anyone about. Of course, there's neither of these things have to have anything to do with werewolves. Perhaps he did just get stuck by a pin like he said he did, and he could have shown Borgin anything. He's thought of as a werewolf because, just as Snape is sometimes connected with bats in canon, Draco has been connected with werewolves. He expresses fear of them in PS/SS and, more importantly, he threatens Borgin with Fenrir Greyback and later is horrified to have brought him into the school. The only other person Fenrir is connected to is Lupin, whom he bit and with whom he is currently living.

Unfortunately, all the "proof" that Draco is a werewolf doesn't hold up. He has several classes with Harry, who is watching him closely, and we never hear of him missing classes each month. Everything about Draco's behavior is explained through the cabinet/assassination attempt (those explanations are completely dismissed and ignored to get the werewolf stuff in there). Theorists also claim that Draco's not being on the map is proof that he's turned into a wolf, despite the fact that other transformed people show up as themselves (Peter as a rat, Crabbe and Goyle as girls). So I think it's safe to say that Draco is not an actual werewolf in canon.

So is there a connection? I think there is. Draco's one line about being afraid of werewolves might not mean much (werewolves are mentioned throughout the first few books without any reference to Draco), but there is that Greyback connection in HBP and I suspect fandom's eagerness to jump to this connection is maybe not far off from whatever led the author to connect the two. It just seems like Draco is more sensitive and frightened of werewolves than other kids. Maybe it's fanon, but it doesn't seem to come from fanfic.

I'm going to talk about vampires and werewolves here, though I realize that they're often described differently depending on the story. I'm referring here mostly to what I think are the most popular and familiar associations with them, and won't be surprised if people offer other examples that contradict them. Hopefully if someone does that it will make the comparisons in canon more interesting, though.

Vampires and werewolves are both creatures who infect humans and turn them into monsters. But there's interesting differences in the way their bites are perceived. Vampire bites are often described as pleasant, orgasmic even. Being a vampire, in popular Western culture, is not such a bad thing. It's associated with eternal life (like Death Eaters), beauty and strength. Vampires are not usually as associated with pining over being human, since if they were human they would be dead. They might long for the sun, the taste of food, sex, but they don't usually want to be human as long as they are okay with their taste for blood. They can't taste these things, while werewolves almost taste them more vividly than others. (While I disagree with claims that Draco begins to look ill "like Lupin" in HBP, I do think there's a connection in the fact that Draco's his savagery makes him look ill like Lupin, as opposed to beastly like Greyback.)

Werewolves, by contrast, are hunted animals. Popular culture often describes them as victims, good men who fight and fear their transformations and are horrified by what they do. They do not usually intentionally turn into monsters. Their transformations are thrust upon them, sometimes at bad moments, and they're often described as painful. Lupin belongs more to that tradition, while Fenrir is more the type of werewolf who revels in being an animal. Still, Fenrir is an animal--all humans seem to find him repulsive, including Draco Malfoy, a boy who in canon is described as being pretty fastidious. A person who enjoys being a werewolf is a person who embraces being an animal with all the primitive savagery that implies. Iow, we're not just talking about killing here, we're also talking about all those embarrassing things that animals do. He's not fit for human society.

I think that's the reason Draco is just more compelling in connection with werewolves, as Snape is in connection to vampires. These creatures more accurately seem to describe their relationship to the Dark Arts and evil. Draco may be fascinated by it, but when faced with it he finds it savage and repulsive. He doesn't have the killer instinct--if he did kill, it would be more like the human turning into an animal. He isn't quite Lupin, but he's not Fenrir either. Snape, otoh, appears more able to kill while still retaining his human form. I'm not explaining it well...what I mean is, there's no split for Snape the way there seems to be with Draco. There's no horror of the beast that kills--it isn't a beast, really. He does what he has to do, and the death is clean and face-to-face. By contrast, Draco's instinctive method for killing is poison-one that puts a distance between himself and the act. He's trying to retain his humanity, but even he doesn't seem to think he can do that and kill. DD appeals to exactly that in their final scene.

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Date: 2005-09-15 06:17 pm (UTC)

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