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I’ve almost posted a version of this idea a few times, but I was finally reading something yesterday that, I don’t know, gave me a new spin on it? Anyway, it just has to do with John Steinbeck’s East of Eden and how I’ve always related it to Sirius and Regulus Black, only now I’m also relating it to
..something general in HP as well.
East of Eden takes its title from the story of Cain and Abel in the Bible, a story that is played over twice in two generations in the book. The central question the story raises is that we know that Cain killed Abel because God was pleased with Abel’s sacrifice of a lamb and not pleased with Cain’s offering of grain, but WHY was God displeased? A character in the book studies the original scriptures in Hebrew for years trying to figure this out, and also to figure out the correct translation of a word at the end of the story. He finally comes to the conclusion that it’s possible God just liked lamb more than he liked grain.
Where it relates to the story of the Trask family is that in one generation and then another we have two brothers and a father, where one brother is loved more than the other, sometimes for completely random reasons. This is driven home to the less-loved brother when it comes time for an offering. The father is pleased with the gift of the loved son and displeased by the gift of the unloved son. In the first generation, especially, the sons’ roles are not immediately apparent. Adam is constantly criticized by his father, and hates his father in return. Charles and his father get along fine and the father seems to approve of everything he does. But Charles realizes (while Adam does not) that it is Adam the father loves; even his criticism is a way of showing that. His approval of Charles masks indifference.
Somehow, this is just always the way I’ve seen Sirius and Regulus. There’s not enough canon on the Blacks for me to prove this at all, it’s just instinctively what I think, and in the few Regulus stories I’ve read other people seem to pick up similar notes with him, with Sirius being the more charismatic brother and Regulus being the dimmer star--and knowing it. I suppose people pick up on Regulus being eager to please but also not evil enough to be a real Death Eater and come up with that characterization. Perhaps also, though, it’s just Sirius’ personality. It’s hard to imagine him *not* being the vortex of attention at all times. Surely Regulus couldn’t be *better* than Sirius, only easier to live with for his parents, perhaps we think.
Sirius has that casual arrogance and confidence in himself; it really doesn’t, imo, go with the other fanon idea of Sirius being made to feel worthless from birth. JKR makes it very clear that Sirius was a rebel and loved rebelling just as an end in itself. I also just instinctively feel that the way Sirius is immature speaks more to a child used to getting attention than a child angry over never getting attention. Certainly his manner in the Pensieve suggests someone who takes status for granted. It’s not strange, then, to imagine the younger brother defining himself against that and doing the opposite, but good children don’t seem to do well in the HP-verse. Percy may have been the one his mother held up as an example, but the twins do still seem to be shown more attention and affection, even if it’s the exasperated sort. By being trouble, the twins and Sirius demand affection in spite of themselves. By being good Percy and Regulus may always set themselves up to wonder—would I be loved if I disobeyed? I can easily see Regulus watching his mother’s rages over Sirius and always feeling that no matter how he sought to make her feel better; he could never hope to fill the space in her heart that was for Sirius.
That led me to think of something in the general HP sense that maybe only relates in my head, but this was the thing. I think it was that someone was recently referring to JKR’s favorite characters or the characters she speaks about in positive terms and using that as a guide to how to read canon. That is, these are her favorite characters so these are the characters we should, I guess, take our moral cues from, or find the meaning of the story.
But…hmm…there are different ways to have favorite characters. She has said that Hagrid is her favorite character and speaks glowingly about Ginny and others. She says she loves *doing* horrible things to characters who are bad like the Dursleys and Snape. But that doesn’t really cover it. However much Rowling may like Ginny or the twins or even Hagrid, all four of them easily lift out of the story without much trouble. The first three are pretty much window dressing. Ginny is important to the plot only once so far in CoS, and even then it could have been anyone in the chamber. It works out nicely since she’s Harry’s ideal girl later and all (though come to think of it, it might have been more interesting all around if Ron had been the one possessed by the book), and JKR always finds different ways to keep characters somewhat in play, but Ginny’s personal experience in the book didn’t amount to anything, either for her or for the plot. Perhaps right after CoS it might have seemed as if the Malfoy/Weasley feud was going to be important but in Book VI it seems revealed that the importance of the CoS plot was all about Lucius having to give that diary to someone and get it destroyed so that he’d be in further hot water with Voldemort. The twins are often useful, but other people could be used in their stead. Hagrid is the one character connected with Voldemort in the past and he too obviously has his uses in supplying animals etc., but he’s still a character standing slightly outside the central spine.
Even Ron and Hermione, who are obviously important, are there to help Harry. They have no personal ties to the main plot except by volunteering to help. (I think actually, that this is a big reason behind Secret!Pureblood!Hermione as recently described at the![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
daily_snitch--if Hermione is to have a special destiny, she needs ties to wizards, not dentists.)
When Rowling gets down to the sixth book where she’s answering questions and narrowing the field to the final climax, she does not turn mostly to her favorite characters, she turns to characters like Snape. Snape’s essential character and choices are, I would say, the central mystery of the mystery series, and Harry’s finally coming to terms with him, whatever those terms are, seems like the thing to which this is all leading. Snape has become more important to Harry’s journey as the series went on: first he was just a mean teacher, then his father’s arch enemy, then an actual Death Eater, then the boy who turned Saint!James into a bully, then the eavesdropper who started it all—possibly he will be tied to Lily as well (yipes). HBP has really a very small cast of characters that aren’t peripheral. They are: Harry, Dumbledore, Snape, Draco, and Tom Riddle. Maybe I’d add Slughorn to that if his personal failure was played up more than it was. Only one of those, Dumbledore, is both a favorite and on the “inside” of the central Voldemort’ plot. But he’s dead by the last book, so not essential to the climax.
Basically it’s like…Rowling may love Hagrid, but as a writer she knows what side her story’s buttered on. She didn’t go with fandom’s idea of a last minute good Slytherin who’d join the DA and bring other Slytherins with him, thus helping Harry neatly sidestep all the potential drama that’s been built up around that subject. And when it came time to give another kid besides Harry an actual story with character development and change and a crisis of faith, it turned out to be “You’re all getting entirely too fond of” Malfoy. That’s another character that was dismissed in interviews for a long time, to the point where the majority seemed very sure that he was literally going to drop out of the books as someone Harry just outgrew. This was especially true after OotP, which surprised me because in that book Draco, like Snape, was drawn closer into the main plot and Harry’s circle, not pushed away. He became this generation’s link to a lot of people, and had a potentially important development in losing his father. Already JKR had always made sure to remind us of his connection to Snape in every book.
I hope the distinctions I’m making are clear, but I fear they aren’t. Obviously I’m not saying that characters like Ron and Hermione aren’t important since they are the two main characters next to Harry. But they are sidekicks. I’m not using “sidekick” in a dismissive way—I happen to like sidekicks. But they are there to help Harry. They’re given subplots and lives outside of him, but their connection to the story is that wherever Harry needs them, they will help. They are not making the central story happen. This is a series with tons of supporting and minor characters filling out the world. Fanfic has a ball with all of them. So when I say a character can be lifted out I don’t mean that characters sucks, just that within this monstrously huge universe there is a central story that involves certain key personalities. To be honest, I’d have to think, after the last book, about who they all are. I’m not sure Lupin will ultimately qualify. Of all the Marauders he’s the most on the periphery so far, important in introducing us to Sirius and Peter, but existing in that outer sphere himself. He’s important plot-wise for his werewolfism—that’s the center of the Prank, Snape’s grudge, his friends becoming Animagi. But Remus himself is fairly passive even in that story. His friends chose to do things; he chose to let them. (Obviously the last book may make me revise how I see everybody, I’ll have to see.) I’m sure Snape will be ultimately central to the plot, but we’ll see who else will be.
So when I talk about Rowling turning to Snape for her main plot I don’t mean she’s lying when she says Hagrid’s her favorite. (As of now as far as I’m concerned there’s little other reason for putting us through Hagrid’s Tale.) I mean that whatever she means by “favorite” does not necessarily mean the character is particularly meaty or important to her main theme. There again I find myself going back to East of Eden. I said the character who studies Cain and Abel is also trying to find the meaning of a Hebrew word to understand the story. The word is used by God talking to Cain, telling him that he can do right or do wrong. “But if you do not do right, sin couches at the door. Its urge is toward you, but you […] rule over it. The blank is where the mystery word goes: timshel. In one translation the character reads, Cain “shalt” rule over it (it’s a promise). In another he tells Cain, he “must” rule over it (it’s an order). Ultimately the character and many rabbis come to the conclusion that the closest translation is, “Its urge is toward you, but though mayest rule over it.”
Iow, it’s the freedom that’s important. You might or you might not rule over it. But you can’t have the struggle if you don’t have sin at your door. Where I’m comparing this to HP is that when it comes to the moral story I don’t know…it seems like JKR is more interested in those “mayest” characters (as is fandom, to judge from the passionate discussions about Snape especially). Snape has done wrong, sin couches at his door, but he mayest rule over it. Characters like Hagrid and the rest may be great in all the ways they are, but they seem to be stamped with “thou shalts.” They’re such “thou shalts” the author rarely if ever lets sin even couch by their door. I might see it sitting there plain as day, but it never seems to become a large story issue and discussions of these moments always seem to come back to the same views the characters have of themselves in the books—they do something and it’s justified, even if they have to do a little lying to themselves to do it. Certainly there’s the potential for some very good and evil discussion there too, but so far that doesn’t seem to be where the story is going. The characters are actually amazingly free of self-reflection or regret.
Usually regret and any other icky ideas get pushed onto, well, characters like Snape so again, I think that seems to be where the drama is. Snape is one of the characters who are identified with those who have done not right. Thus he is a character sin is urging towards. However much other characters are liked, they’re not being tapped to make the story run. They support Harry; Snape is more likely to upset Harry, challenge Harry, shake Harry up, change Harry. Much has been made in the past of how difficult Harry finds it to trust people; the one character he’s trusted and looked up to most genuinely is…Snape in the guise of the Half-Blood Prince. Harry’s special friend. In fact it’s really not surprising that probably the characters throughout the book Harry is mostly likely to compare himself to, however reluctantly, are the ones he doesn’t like. When he needs support he can often call up the voices of his friends and imagine what they’d say to him if they were there; they provide outside support even when they’re not there. Their bad qualities are their own, different than his. He’s more likely to worry he *is* one of these other characters—he’s told he sounds like Snape when he talks about the DA, doesn’t want to be arrogant as Draco and thinks he might be possessed by Voldemort and not know it. He’s more likely to be reminded of his “good” friends by other people and see their qualities reflected there. (For instance, he comes to terms with James’ vanity when he sees it reflected in Suddenly!Hair-mussing!Ron.)
Perhaps people tend to lean more towards one type of character than another. There do seem to be a lot of fandom discussions that try to erase “thou mayest” and turn it into either “thou shalt” or “thou must.” Iow: I know this character ruled over it and now I just have to come up with a reason. Or: That character better do and suffer everything I feel he owes or else I will not accept him as anything but evil. I know there are many people who probably do want to see Snape as a “thou shalt” all the way, but sometimes I think by definition with Snape that’s all about the “thou mayest.”
..something general in HP as well.
East of Eden takes its title from the story of Cain and Abel in the Bible, a story that is played over twice in two generations in the book. The central question the story raises is that we know that Cain killed Abel because God was pleased with Abel’s sacrifice of a lamb and not pleased with Cain’s offering of grain, but WHY was God displeased? A character in the book studies the original scriptures in Hebrew for years trying to figure this out, and also to figure out the correct translation of a word at the end of the story. He finally comes to the conclusion that it’s possible God just liked lamb more than he liked grain.
Where it relates to the story of the Trask family is that in one generation and then another we have two brothers and a father, where one brother is loved more than the other, sometimes for completely random reasons. This is driven home to the less-loved brother when it comes time for an offering. The father is pleased with the gift of the loved son and displeased by the gift of the unloved son. In the first generation, especially, the sons’ roles are not immediately apparent. Adam is constantly criticized by his father, and hates his father in return. Charles and his father get along fine and the father seems to approve of everything he does. But Charles realizes (while Adam does not) that it is Adam the father loves; even his criticism is a way of showing that. His approval of Charles masks indifference.
Somehow, this is just always the way I’ve seen Sirius and Regulus. There’s not enough canon on the Blacks for me to prove this at all, it’s just instinctively what I think, and in the few Regulus stories I’ve read other people seem to pick up similar notes with him, with Sirius being the more charismatic brother and Regulus being the dimmer star--and knowing it. I suppose people pick up on Regulus being eager to please but also not evil enough to be a real Death Eater and come up with that characterization. Perhaps also, though, it’s just Sirius’ personality. It’s hard to imagine him *not* being the vortex of attention at all times. Surely Regulus couldn’t be *better* than Sirius, only easier to live with for his parents, perhaps we think.
Sirius has that casual arrogance and confidence in himself; it really doesn’t, imo, go with the other fanon idea of Sirius being made to feel worthless from birth. JKR makes it very clear that Sirius was a rebel and loved rebelling just as an end in itself. I also just instinctively feel that the way Sirius is immature speaks more to a child used to getting attention than a child angry over never getting attention. Certainly his manner in the Pensieve suggests someone who takes status for granted. It’s not strange, then, to imagine the younger brother defining himself against that and doing the opposite, but good children don’t seem to do well in the HP-verse. Percy may have been the one his mother held up as an example, but the twins do still seem to be shown more attention and affection, even if it’s the exasperated sort. By being trouble, the twins and Sirius demand affection in spite of themselves. By being good Percy and Regulus may always set themselves up to wonder—would I be loved if I disobeyed? I can easily see Regulus watching his mother’s rages over Sirius and always feeling that no matter how he sought to make her feel better; he could never hope to fill the space in her heart that was for Sirius.
That led me to think of something in the general HP sense that maybe only relates in my head, but this was the thing. I think it was that someone was recently referring to JKR’s favorite characters or the characters she speaks about in positive terms and using that as a guide to how to read canon. That is, these are her favorite characters so these are the characters we should, I guess, take our moral cues from, or find the meaning of the story.
But…hmm…there are different ways to have favorite characters. She has said that Hagrid is her favorite character and speaks glowingly about Ginny and others. She says she loves *doing* horrible things to characters who are bad like the Dursleys and Snape. But that doesn’t really cover it. However much Rowling may like Ginny or the twins or even Hagrid, all four of them easily lift out of the story without much trouble. The first three are pretty much window dressing. Ginny is important to the plot only once so far in CoS, and even then it could have been anyone in the chamber. It works out nicely since she’s Harry’s ideal girl later and all (though come to think of it, it might have been more interesting all around if Ron had been the one possessed by the book), and JKR always finds different ways to keep characters somewhat in play, but Ginny’s personal experience in the book didn’t amount to anything, either for her or for the plot. Perhaps right after CoS it might have seemed as if the Malfoy/Weasley feud was going to be important but in Book VI it seems revealed that the importance of the CoS plot was all about Lucius having to give that diary to someone and get it destroyed so that he’d be in further hot water with Voldemort. The twins are often useful, but other people could be used in their stead. Hagrid is the one character connected with Voldemort in the past and he too obviously has his uses in supplying animals etc., but he’s still a character standing slightly outside the central spine.
Even Ron and Hermione, who are obviously important, are there to help Harry. They have no personal ties to the main plot except by volunteering to help. (I think actually, that this is a big reason behind Secret!Pureblood!Hermione as recently described at the
daily_snitch--if Hermione is to have a special destiny, she needs ties to wizards, not dentists.)When Rowling gets down to the sixth book where she’s answering questions and narrowing the field to the final climax, she does not turn mostly to her favorite characters, she turns to characters like Snape. Snape’s essential character and choices are, I would say, the central mystery of the mystery series, and Harry’s finally coming to terms with him, whatever those terms are, seems like the thing to which this is all leading. Snape has become more important to Harry’s journey as the series went on: first he was just a mean teacher, then his father’s arch enemy, then an actual Death Eater, then the boy who turned Saint!James into a bully, then the eavesdropper who started it all—possibly he will be tied to Lily as well (yipes). HBP has really a very small cast of characters that aren’t peripheral. They are: Harry, Dumbledore, Snape, Draco, and Tom Riddle. Maybe I’d add Slughorn to that if his personal failure was played up more than it was. Only one of those, Dumbledore, is both a favorite and on the “inside” of the central Voldemort’ plot. But he’s dead by the last book, so not essential to the climax.
Basically it’s like…Rowling may love Hagrid, but as a writer she knows what side her story’s buttered on. She didn’t go with fandom’s idea of a last minute good Slytherin who’d join the DA and bring other Slytherins with him, thus helping Harry neatly sidestep all the potential drama that’s been built up around that subject. And when it came time to give another kid besides Harry an actual story with character development and change and a crisis of faith, it turned out to be “You’re all getting entirely too fond of” Malfoy. That’s another character that was dismissed in interviews for a long time, to the point where the majority seemed very sure that he was literally going to drop out of the books as someone Harry just outgrew. This was especially true after OotP, which surprised me because in that book Draco, like Snape, was drawn closer into the main plot and Harry’s circle, not pushed away. He became this generation’s link to a lot of people, and had a potentially important development in losing his father. Already JKR had always made sure to remind us of his connection to Snape in every book.
I hope the distinctions I’m making are clear, but I fear they aren’t. Obviously I’m not saying that characters like Ron and Hermione aren’t important since they are the two main characters next to Harry. But they are sidekicks. I’m not using “sidekick” in a dismissive way—I happen to like sidekicks. But they are there to help Harry. They’re given subplots and lives outside of him, but their connection to the story is that wherever Harry needs them, they will help. They are not making the central story happen. This is a series with tons of supporting and minor characters filling out the world. Fanfic has a ball with all of them. So when I say a character can be lifted out I don’t mean that characters sucks, just that within this monstrously huge universe there is a central story that involves certain key personalities. To be honest, I’d have to think, after the last book, about who they all are. I’m not sure Lupin will ultimately qualify. Of all the Marauders he’s the most on the periphery so far, important in introducing us to Sirius and Peter, but existing in that outer sphere himself. He’s important plot-wise for his werewolfism—that’s the center of the Prank, Snape’s grudge, his friends becoming Animagi. But Remus himself is fairly passive even in that story. His friends chose to do things; he chose to let them. (Obviously the last book may make me revise how I see everybody, I’ll have to see.) I’m sure Snape will be ultimately central to the plot, but we’ll see who else will be.
So when I talk about Rowling turning to Snape for her main plot I don’t mean she’s lying when she says Hagrid’s her favorite. (As of now as far as I’m concerned there’s little other reason for putting us through Hagrid’s Tale.) I mean that whatever she means by “favorite” does not necessarily mean the character is particularly meaty or important to her main theme. There again I find myself going back to East of Eden. I said the character who studies Cain and Abel is also trying to find the meaning of a Hebrew word to understand the story. The word is used by God talking to Cain, telling him that he can do right or do wrong. “But if you do not do right, sin couches at the door. Its urge is toward you, but you […] rule over it. The blank is where the mystery word goes: timshel. In one translation the character reads, Cain “shalt” rule over it (it’s a promise). In another he tells Cain, he “must” rule over it (it’s an order). Ultimately the character and many rabbis come to the conclusion that the closest translation is, “Its urge is toward you, but though mayest rule over it.”
Iow, it’s the freedom that’s important. You might or you might not rule over it. But you can’t have the struggle if you don’t have sin at your door. Where I’m comparing this to HP is that when it comes to the moral story I don’t know…it seems like JKR is more interested in those “mayest” characters (as is fandom, to judge from the passionate discussions about Snape especially). Snape has done wrong, sin couches at his door, but he mayest rule over it. Characters like Hagrid and the rest may be great in all the ways they are, but they seem to be stamped with “thou shalts.” They’re such “thou shalts” the author rarely if ever lets sin even couch by their door. I might see it sitting there plain as day, but it never seems to become a large story issue and discussions of these moments always seem to come back to the same views the characters have of themselves in the books—they do something and it’s justified, even if they have to do a little lying to themselves to do it. Certainly there’s the potential for some very good and evil discussion there too, but so far that doesn’t seem to be where the story is going. The characters are actually amazingly free of self-reflection or regret.
Usually regret and any other icky ideas get pushed onto, well, characters like Snape so again, I think that seems to be where the drama is. Snape is one of the characters who are identified with those who have done not right. Thus he is a character sin is urging towards. However much other characters are liked, they’re not being tapped to make the story run. They support Harry; Snape is more likely to upset Harry, challenge Harry, shake Harry up, change Harry. Much has been made in the past of how difficult Harry finds it to trust people; the one character he’s trusted and looked up to most genuinely is…Snape in the guise of the Half-Blood Prince. Harry’s special friend. In fact it’s really not surprising that probably the characters throughout the book Harry is mostly likely to compare himself to, however reluctantly, are the ones he doesn’t like. When he needs support he can often call up the voices of his friends and imagine what they’d say to him if they were there; they provide outside support even when they’re not there. Their bad qualities are their own, different than his. He’s more likely to worry he *is* one of these other characters—he’s told he sounds like Snape when he talks about the DA, doesn’t want to be arrogant as Draco and thinks he might be possessed by Voldemort and not know it. He’s more likely to be reminded of his “good” friends by other people and see their qualities reflected there. (For instance, he comes to terms with James’ vanity when he sees it reflected in Suddenly!Hair-mussing!Ron.)
Perhaps people tend to lean more towards one type of character than another. There do seem to be a lot of fandom discussions that try to erase “thou mayest” and turn it into either “thou shalt” or “thou must.” Iow: I know this character ruled over it and now I just have to come up with a reason. Or: That character better do and suffer everything I feel he owes or else I will not accept him as anything but evil. I know there are many people who probably do want to see Snape as a “thou shalt” all the way, but sometimes I think by definition with Snape that’s all about the “thou mayest.”
