There will be no foolish wand-waving…
January 27, 2009
…or silly incantations in this blog!
Well, alright, perhaps a few silly incantations from time to time. For the fun of it.
Anyway, hello all out there and welcome to the dungeons of my mind (or at least the upper basement – the real dungeons are a few levels down). This is the space where I (intend to) come to rant about various subjects having to do with everyone’s favorite Potions Master in a slightly more coherent way than I generally do on forums, and to collect my already-scattered thoughts on this subject from the corners of the internet. I expect also to eventually post my fic here; in the meanwhile I shall provide fic recs from time to time. Please enjoy all offerings at your leisure.
So now we come to the question that – for some of you – probably doesn’t need answering: Why Snape?
Well…the short answer, and most coherent one, is: he’s Snape. Despite JKR’s repeated attempts to belittle her own creation and the industrial-strength psychic blinders she must be wearing if she honestly doesn’t see what a marvelous, complex and beautiful character she has created, there’s something about Severus Snape that simply refuses to be let itself be ignored. There’s a real depth of possibility (and character) there, something that shines through even DH’s clunky prose and even clunkier plotting. The man is, one has to admit, fascinating. And endlessly debatable. And I’m not simply talking about the Is he a White Hat or a Black Hat? discussion – DH pretty much answered that one, at least in the CanonVerse. Rather, it seems to me almost as if in Severus Snape JKR has (accidentally? purposefully? unknowingly?) given us a realistic character moving in a world that is decidedly non-realistic (beyond the simple issue of magic, I mean); it’s a folk-tale-ish, half-allegorical world in which realistic psychology and moral growth/decline sticks out like a sore thumb…or like Severus Snape. And yet, he (almost) fits. There’s some strange alchemy going on between the character and the world though which he moves, it seems, and it just cries out to be interpreted, analysed, sifted and gone through. Unlocked, if you like.
Alohomora.
