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<  Deathy Hallows Open Discussion  ~  Astonished and appalled

Circle_of_Echoes
Posted: Fri Jul 27, 2007 4:35 am Reply with quote
Joined: 26 Jul 2007 Posts: 9
Forgive me if this is quite long for a first post, but there are many things to be said... and I will not say nearly as much as I want to. I apologize in advance for my overuse of caps, exclamation points, other weird punctuation, run-on sentences, parenthetical thoughts, and for being verbose in general; a lot of bad habits, I guess. I'm a reader, not a writer.

The following is my take on DH, plus a lot of rambling about the way I think a few crucial things would more likely have happened. Read or ignore; your choice.

I am not happy with the way the book played out. Oh, it had its moments--Aberforth (gotta love him for busting Albus's nose, as well as that honking big mountain goat Patronus), Narcissa (the lady has some serious guts), YoungChild!Snape, and a few others--but the other 95 percent consisted of saying "Oh, by the way..." about action that took place offstage, watching the Wonder Trio/Duo/Trio Again camping out, and long arguments about the way Hermione cooks fish.

But my biggest disappointment, along with a lot of other people's, was the massive and unconscionable shafting of Snape. Not only was he OOC to the nth degree, but he wasn't even accorded the dignity of having true and believable human responses.

I utterly loathe Lily. Pure, perfect, beautiful, oh-so-wonderful Lily. Hmph. She has all the empathy of a cement lamp post. After five years at Hogwarts, you would think she would evince some tiny bit of understanding of the realities of being in any given House--enough to dimly realize that young Severus would be scared to death knowing his Housemates were hearing him being defended by a Muggleborn Gryffindor, and that he would much rather have just withstood the Marauders' abuse without her interference--but no-o-o. When he reacts the only way he can, for self-preservation's sake (Slytherin's his dormitory, after all; you don't tick off the people you have to share a bedroom with, especially when they can hex you into the next century), his groveling apology isn't enough... and *boy*, what wouldn't his fellow Slytherins have made out of said apology had they known about it, which I'm quite sure they didn't. Lily just sticks her nose in the air and decamps. She didn't like his Slytherin friends, and forget what McGonagall said about 'Your House is like your family.' No matter, and just as well she had the excuse, as Snape had served his purpose as the first rung on Lily's magical ladder; now it's time to climb up to better things and leave him behind with her dainty little footprint on his head. When you're the up-and-coming Gryffindor prom queen, who needs an unpopular, unattractive, geeky Slytherin hanging around when you can have all those handsome, chest-beating types? Newsflash, Lily dear: that's called abandonment, and the results ain't pretty. Abandoned people do NOT end up adoring their abandoners. They especially do not devote every moment and action of their lives to them. They do not love them, even a little; on the contrary--and in self-defense, if nothing else--they end up hating them, bitterly. If they're extremely lucky, they will eventually feel nothing at all. But I don't think it was ever in Snape's nature to feel nothing. YoungChild!Snape clearly felt things very deeply. It's the very reason I am absolutely sure that as an adult, he's capable of intense love, but only if he's convinced it's reciprocated. He's a pragmatic, wary sort, and not having that kind of certitude would tell him it wasn't worth his time and emotional effort; certainly, it wouldn't be worth the risk of lowering his defenses and having his heart broken. Of course, at the age of 15, I'd imagine Snape had a typical hormonal boy's reaction to one of the prettiest girls in school, and that's perfectly understandable; I'm sure half the boys at Hogwarts were in lust with Lily. But even if she didn't love him in the way he wished, the one thing Snape WAS convinced of was her steadfast friendship. Steadfast. Yeah, right. One wrong word from him spoken in a moment of fright and humiliation, and off she trots. Love Lily, and her alone, to his dying day? Not on your life, JKR. That kind of claptrap belongs in cheap romance novels.

This, of course, begs the question: would Snape have warned Dumbledore of Voldemort's intention to kill the Potters? I believe he would, in spite of the fact that likely hated them both, because the motivation would rest within his own psychological makeup. A young man's politics can, and often do, change instantly, especially when he discovers that he's chained himself to a sociopath. Sociopaths have no rhyme or reason as to why they do things; they just do them because they want to. Because they CAN. That's the complete opposite of Snape, who is logical and meticulous in his thinking, and does things for a reason. His reasons may be off-center at times, but they're there, and a change of heart could come in just as simple a manner as suddenly thinking, "WTF am I doing?! I'm being told we're going to kill people I know; people my age; people I went to school with!" It's the difference between dropping a bomb on a city, and having to stab someone up close and personal. I think knowing the intended victims so well would make the reality of the killing finally get right in Snape's face (given his immense talent in potions, I'd think he was normally of more use to Voldemort in a lab somewhere, concocting chemical weapons that he himself never saw used), forcing him to face up to how stupid he'd been to swear allegiance to Voldemort the Insane. Of course, we all know that getting out wasn't a simple matter of turning his back and walking away. The only thing Snape would have gotten for that was a long, highly-amusing (for Voldemort) death by torture. Both self-preservation and a desire to set himself back on an honourable path could ONLY send him to Dumbledore. Furthermore, having failed in his effort to save the Potters, he wouldn't write it off with "Oh well, I tried my best, but it didn't work. Too bad." Severus Snape is not a man who fails. His pride would never allow it. He goes back and tries and tries and tries until he gets it right. He'll die trying. He DOES die trying. Now, if only it had been written right...

For pity's sake, what was with Snape just standing there repeating the same two helpless lines when faced with Nagini? He would never do that! Never never NEVER never!! Did I say never? I mean NEVER!! Snape is a proud and powerful wizard, and by damn, he'd go down as nothing less. Even if it ultimately amounted to no more than going for his wand before being AK'd by Voldemort or swallowed whole by Nagini, he'd take action. Egads, even if he regarded the peace of death, at this point in his hellish life, as the only reward it was possible to obtain, he'd still die like a man--and like a wizard--with his wand in his hand, a sneer on his face, and (most probably) sarcastic words on his lips. I can't tell you how upset I am by that particular scene. It just doesn't ring true no matter how you try to explain it away. To be honest, I was sure Snape was going to die in DH, but the way it was done was just plain insulting. What a horrible life he led, **all in the name of honour** (that's my idea; I do not know if it's truly JKR's). What a horrendously awful tenure as Headmaster he endured. It's so godawful that I can barely stand thinking about it. And every time he was Summoned since GoF, he stared the possibility of a gruesome, agonising death in the face, but never folded or gave away his real loyalties. For withstanding all that, Severus Snape deserved, at the very least, to have his death scene written in full, forceful character, and to be allowed to die with his pride and dignity intact, not as someone gone suddenly unrecognisable, broken, mute, and weak.

A thought: is anyone else here as affronted as I am by the persistent idea that "Gryffindor is good, Slytherin is bad, and the other two Houses don't really count unless we're talking about Luna, who really should have been in Gryffindor"? What's with the theme of 'escaping' sneaky Slytherin and being sorted instead into brave Gryffindor (like Sirius, for example)? And it's all right for Gryffindor Dumbledore, who had a marvelous time at school, to be friends with Grindelwald at 17 and then to see the error of his beliefs and ways, and no one (well, except for Aberforth) faults him for anything, but it's not all right for 17-year-old Slytherin Snape, traumatised throughout his school years, to hook up with Voldemort and then to have second thoughts. He's a bad Slytherin, bad forever.

I have one word for that kind of thinking: phooey.

Same word for the idea of the doe Patronus. Not hardly; not with the way Lily treated him. Uh-uh. No. Me, I think Snape's happiest, Patronus-producing memory would have been the moment of his first wild magic as a child; that moment when he discovered he was a wizard and had stepped beyond his dreadful, mundane home life. For a little kid who had nothing, that would be... well, it would literally be a dream come true, and what better basis for a Patronus memory is there? It wouldn't matter what followed it, whether it be fighting, screaming, accusations, or anything else, because that one initial instant, in and of itself, would have been overwhelmingly glorious. I like to think of Snape's Patronus as being something both beautiful and dangerous, and something which represents physical freedom, such as a hawk. Who knows?

Just one final thought about honour. Could there possibly be a word that describes Snape more? He's the very personification of principle and honour. You don't have to be a nice person to have it. You just have to have the unshakeable intent to do the right thing, a steel backbone, and cast-iron gonads... and I defy anyone to say that Severus Snape didn't have all three.

I'm afraid I have not put DH on the shelf with my other HP books. I just can't. HP will forever remain for me a 6-book series, to be completed in various ways by those who have a little more respect for those who people its universe; and, especially, respect for Snape, who is so important and so central to the story.

I'm sure most of this has been said before, and in much better style, too, but it's been a far more unexpectedly emotional past few days than I ever bargained on. Thanks for listening to me rant.

Echo
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Tesla
Posted: Fri Jul 27, 2007 7:51 am Reply with quote
Joined: 03 Mar 2007 Posts: 13
I thought it was weak that JKR had all the Slytherin students failing to fight. It turns the house into a one-dimensional stereotype. Let's not forget that Pettigrew was in Gryffindor, and look how he turned out. I can't be convinced that the students from Slytherin house can be believeably condemned in such a fashion. Slughorn fought. Surely at least some of his charges would do the same.
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just me
Posted: Fri Jul 27, 2007 8:44 am Reply with quote
Joined: 20 Jul 2005 Posts: 28 Location: Germany
Circle_of_Echoes wrote:
Thanks for listening to me rant.

Echo


Please rant on. I wish I could rant this way, but I´m German and my English is sadly lacking.

If you have more to say, pls post it - I will read it.

all the best,
robe aka just me
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Circle_of_Echoes
Posted: Fri Jul 27, 2007 9:02 am Reply with quote
Joined: 26 Jul 2007 Posts: 9
No kidding. I was dumbfounded by that whole turn of events. There was an opportunity to make something really multidimensional out of the whole thing--showing, for instance, that some of the older Slytherins had grown out of schoolchildren's rivalries and pettiness and were now making the right rather than the easy choices (yeah, yeah, I know Dumbledore said that)--but perhaps the author thought it would cause too much confusion. Slytherins are BAD, after all, and they must remain bad. But did anyone notice how Pettigrew's "moment of mercy" was specifically pointed out? He can't be allowed to be all bad; he's a Gryffindor, after all.

Not even Snape was allowed to actively fight, if only for his own self-respect, which was the one thing I felt he'd been trying to regain all these years. And, as was noted at HBP.org (and I certainly noticed it), he was killed by the symbol of his House.

Maybe it's just me, because I tend to think in multitudinous shades of grey, but this black/white, all-good/all-bad business just doesn't work. It might have worked in the first book, when things were much simpler and there were so many unknowns in the Potterverse, but seven years later... uh-uh. Whatever the morality that was supposed to be pointed out, if any, it just came off as mean and, as you said, stereotypical.

Echo
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Circle_of_Echoes
Posted: Fri Jul 27, 2007 9:28 am Reply with quote
Joined: 26 Jul 2007 Posts: 9
just me wrote:


Please rant on. I wish I could rant this way, but I´m German and my English is sadly lacking.

If you have more to say, pls post it - I will read it.

all the best,
robe aka just me


Why, thank you very much. As I said, I'm no writer, but when I feel very strongly about something, as I do about this topic, I tend to run off at the mouth... or the keyboard!

Incidentally, I've read some of your other posts, and your English is just fine.

Echo
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magicsprout
Posted: Fri Jul 27, 2007 1:29 pm Reply with quote
Joined: 23 Jul 2007 Posts: 2
i totally agree with the dodgy ending, there was so much in the book that looked like she had lost the plot then got some ideas for the ending from somewhere and backfilled to make it fit.
snapes pointless death about the wand lore seemed merely an excuse to get rid of him as he had no place in a happy ever after.
why did he go back to voldemort anyway, the battle was in progress and he had a message to get to harry, couldnnt he have used the doe to lead him to the pensive???
and to stand there like a lemon when he knew he was going to be killed hmm no thats not a snape characteristic where was the shield? couldnt he apperate out after all the shrieking shack isnt in hogwarts.
the whole ending seemed very odd. snapes childhood seems strikingly similar to something else ive read as was the final show down with voldemort. mind you there has been alot written and some sort of similarity was probably unavoidable.
why did hagrid not know harry was alive? hes a game keeper he should know the difference between carrying live meat as opposed to dead it feels completely different even after only a few minutes. i finally lost interest when voldemort put the sorting hat on neville and said you will all be slytherin doh like the house you are in at school determines your personality, they were put into different houses because of their personalities.
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