![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
I feel weird writing this post, because I don't really feel like posting, yet it seems like I should, and then I think--what, do you imagine the public is waiting on pins and needles for your words? Get over yourself!:-D
Anyway, I didn't much like it. Perhaps my feelings will change, but stop here if you don’t want to read any negative stuff. I don't have any rants prepared or anything or want to harsh anybody's buzz. (But misery also loves company!) I was talking to someone who's asked me what I needed from the book, what I wanted to happen or what would have made me satisfied, and the truth is, I don't have an answer. I don't have a list of prescriptive criticism, or think things were done badly, or should have been done a different way.
Well, except one little thing, which couldn't be helped. When that white doe showed up I never doubted for a second it was Snape's Lily!Patronus (cause she's a lady!James!). We'd seen Arthur's and Kingsley's Patronuses talk, and oh, how I wanted that beautiful sparkly stag to come up to Harry and tell him to get this Quest going already in Snape's sarcastic voice.
I've never loved these books the way some do--which should not be taken as a criticism of people who do. I just mean that I know there are people who re-read the books over and over as comfort, and that's not something I ever did. I didn't ever want to re-read to spend time with these people or in this world. There are other books I do feel that way about, books that other people find meh. Basically, I felt like JKR was writing a story of good and evil, and life and death, that resonated with her and satisfied her, and felt like a triumph for her--just not me. So I was a bit left out of the story, objectively even seeing characters doing good, brave things, and just not sharing much in the emotions. More than once I felt like I was seeing more story outline/structure than story so that it seemed very contrived (a couple of times Harry himself seemed to admit it) and made it feel like nothing was building to anything.
What it mostly made me do is go over all the ways I was reading it wrong, making my issues more central than the author really considered them. I don't think I was ever so off as, say, a Harmonian banking on the Hippogriff o'love or anything like that, and some things that happened I did predict (Snape/Lily, obviously, and DDM!Snape). But in general I think I was reading Rowling a bit too much like a Tolkien fan, and maybe too much as a Jungian (not that I'm any expert on Jung, but I was reading from my own idea of his stuff). And I think when JKR said that she was Christian and if she talked about her faith we'd know the ending, I immediately began interrogating from the *wrong* Christian perspective and got that wrong too.
Contrary to what some may have thought at times-or not-I don't hate the good guys. Still don't hate them, just still would not want to spend time with them or re-read the books to spend time with them. The characters I liked the most I think less of now or am just kind of confused by, which is unfortunate. I find Harry affectionately naming his child Albus Severus downright creepy--but that wasn't the first time in the book where that kind of thing happened.
Not sure what I predict fanfic-wise. I wonder if people might not start writing some interesting stuff. I did at one point think how I wanted to take a favorite character and put him in a different story.
Oh, also I've been dreading the epilogue for years, because I've always hated epilogues. Even when I was too young to know the name for them I hated them. Some books I guess can make a case for them being appropriate. HP is really not one of them that I can see. There was no reason I could see for needing to see these people married with children. The one good thing I read about it was after it was leaked, before I read it, and I read a comment where someone said the epilogue read like any cliché H/G fic...or any cliché post-war H/D fic.;-)
Anyway, I didn't much like it. Perhaps my feelings will change, but stop here if you don’t want to read any negative stuff. I don't have any rants prepared or anything or want to harsh anybody's buzz. (But misery also loves company!) I was talking to someone who's asked me what I needed from the book, what I wanted to happen or what would have made me satisfied, and the truth is, I don't have an answer. I don't have a list of prescriptive criticism, or think things were done badly, or should have been done a different way.
Well, except one little thing, which couldn't be helped. When that white doe showed up I never doubted for a second it was Snape's Lily!Patronus (cause she's a lady!James!). We'd seen Arthur's and Kingsley's Patronuses talk, and oh, how I wanted that beautiful sparkly stag to come up to Harry and tell him to get this Quest going already in Snape's sarcastic voice.
I've never loved these books the way some do--which should not be taken as a criticism of people who do. I just mean that I know there are people who re-read the books over and over as comfort, and that's not something I ever did. I didn't ever want to re-read to spend time with these people or in this world. There are other books I do feel that way about, books that other people find meh. Basically, I felt like JKR was writing a story of good and evil, and life and death, that resonated with her and satisfied her, and felt like a triumph for her--just not me. So I was a bit left out of the story, objectively even seeing characters doing good, brave things, and just not sharing much in the emotions. More than once I felt like I was seeing more story outline/structure than story so that it seemed very contrived (a couple of times Harry himself seemed to admit it) and made it feel like nothing was building to anything.
What it mostly made me do is go over all the ways I was reading it wrong, making my issues more central than the author really considered them. I don't think I was ever so off as, say, a Harmonian banking on the Hippogriff o'love or anything like that, and some things that happened I did predict (Snape/Lily, obviously, and DDM!Snape). But in general I think I was reading Rowling a bit too much like a Tolkien fan, and maybe too much as a Jungian (not that I'm any expert on Jung, but I was reading from my own idea of his stuff). And I think when JKR said that she was Christian and if she talked about her faith we'd know the ending, I immediately began interrogating from the *wrong* Christian perspective and got that wrong too.
Contrary to what some may have thought at times-or not-I don't hate the good guys. Still don't hate them, just still would not want to spend time with them or re-read the books to spend time with them. The characters I liked the most I think less of now or am just kind of confused by, which is unfortunate. I find Harry affectionately naming his child Albus Severus downright creepy--but that wasn't the first time in the book where that kind of thing happened.
Not sure what I predict fanfic-wise. I wonder if people might not start writing some interesting stuff. I did at one point think how I wanted to take a favorite character and put him in a different story.
Oh, also I've been dreading the epilogue for years, because I've always hated epilogues. Even when I was too young to know the name for them I hated them. Some books I guess can make a case for them being appropriate. HP is really not one of them that I can see. There was no reason I could see for needing to see these people married with children. The one good thing I read about it was after it was leaked, before I read it, and I read a comment where someone said the epilogue read like any cliché H/G fic...or any cliché post-war H/D fic.;-)
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
From:
part II
I don't think it's lack of empathy as much as Snape truly believes Petunia is beneath them because she isn't magical. I mean, he practically says as much. The fact that she's not magical trumps the fact that she's Lily's sister (and it's not like Snape's an orphan; he knows what family ties are).
doesn't get that "mudblood" and what Avery and Mulciber get up to is bad
I absolutely disagree that he doesn't get it that mudblood is bad; he knows it is, which is why he tries to convince Lily he didn't mean it. If he truly had no concept of its wrongness, he'd have no understanding of why she's upset that he called her one. And I think the sequencing of events there is critical, too. He and Lily had had their argument *before* she tried to stick up for him to James. He was angry with her already when she did that and he did what a lot of people do when they're really angry at someone they care about -- reached for the most hurtful thing he could think of to say to her. He feels bad about it after-the-fact, but that's not the same thing as him being unaware, in the moment, of what he was doing.
doesn't get that Lily might be upset if her son and husband are murdered
At that point in the story Snape was 21 (he went to Hogwarts for the first time the same year Lily did and Lily died at 21, so they were approximately the same age). I can give him the benefit of the doubt re: Petunia initially because he was all of, like, 7. But at 21, he's old enough to know that Lily would be upset about James and Harry being killed. He cares more that she's alive, though, than that she might be unhappy for a while.
From:
Re: part II
From:
Re: part II
ITA. That's why I keep going back to the Narcissa parallel: qualitatively, Narcissa and Snape are doing the same thing -- thwarting Voldemort because of a specific person they love -- even if Snape has *quantitatively* done more over the years. And love is a fine reason to be spurred to act; I certainly don't mean to suggest otherwise. But there's something ultimately ... selfish to me about not only Snape's love for Lily, but how he reacts in the wake of believing/learning he betrayed that love. I can't help feeling like he wouldn't have become Severus Snape, Double Agent, if Lily had survived Godric's Hollow somehow and that impression necessarily colors my view of just how heroic -- or not -- his conduct really is.
From: (Anonymous)
Re: part II
Hmmm...I think I'm going to argue that it's the same thing. In order to dehumanize someone like that, whether it be on looks or magicalness or whatever, you have to cut off your ability to empathize with them. Or never have had that ability in the first place.
I absolutely disagree that he doesn't get it that mudblood is bad...
Yeah - I'm having trouble putting into words what I was thinking with this. I agree that he knew it was bad. But my thinking was that it was in the way an addict knows it's wrong when they steal their Grandma's pension for drug money. They know they're being bad - but it really takes recovery and soul searching to get how bad it is. Do you know what I mean?
At that point in the story Snape was 21 ... at 21, he's old enough to know that Lily would be upset about James and Harry being killed
And my point was not anything to do with age - but a real psychological disorder type of lack of empathy. The type that can turn a person into a killer. I think her murder, and his hand in it, was the shock that got him to really look at himself enough to gain some self realization about his role in it all, and with it, some empathy for others. Again, I think that's why he only gave Harry those memories where he (Snape) was acting badly - it was finally awareness that he was acting badly and setting bad things into motion.
Again - that's just what I think the author was going for. I do think it's redemption, but a real life kind, not so much a story kind.
-Cindy