Sycophant Hex ~ View topic - WHAT NOW FOR SNAPE ROMANCERS? AN ANALYSIS OF HBP SNAPE

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< The Library ~ WHAT NOW FOR SNAPE ROMANCERS? AN ANALYSIS OF HBP SNAPE

azazello

Posted: Sun Jul 17, 2005 10:08 am

Joined: 29 Nov 2004 Posts: 183 Location: Northern UK

What Now for Snape Romancers?

It is the morning after the night before…

Hurricane Jo left a lot of wreckage to tidy up that’s for sure. And I’m still picking up bits of fanon Snape, scattered hither and yon. As well as cruising lj and watching the biggest attempt at damage limitation since Watergate.

My own fanfic take on Snape was pretty much blasted to smithereens yesterday, I feel the pain of others, ship and non-ship writers, but for my own part, I can smell the coffee. Let’s move on.

Let’s have a look at what we have got. Who is Severus Snape exactly?

If you are still in heavy canon denial you might not like what's coming... I make no excuses for Snape, though have tried to balance the various things we learned.

Background

Posh, rich, patrician Snape was exploded forever in book 6. Snape is not the pureblood aristocrat (impoverished) that I thought him (I got most of his background as wrong as you can get, I freely admit it) but a wizard of mixed parentage. And that parentage is not glamorous, either, unless you find Laurentian provenances exotic. Dad was the Muggle, Tobias Snape. That sounds like some dour Yorkshire or Lancashire miser to me. That was the man we saw shouting at Mrs Snape in one of Snape’s memories in book 5. Why was he shouting at her? We do not know. I’m betting he was shouting at her in No. X Spinner’s End. Spinner’s End by the by is the name of the street, not the house. Industrial Heartland back-to-backs (as this house most clearly was) do not have names, like ‘Dunsnaping’. It would be number 8 or such.

Mum is the exotically named “Eileen Prince”. Who was bog ugly and Gobstones Captain of Hogwarts.

“A skinny girl of around fifteen, She was not pretty; she looked simultaneously cross and sullen with heavy brows and a long, pallid face. Underneath the photograph was the caption: . Eileen Prince, Captain of the Hogwarts Gobstones Team.”

Not glamorous, this lassie is not the Semiramis Snape (or pick your alternative exotic S name for Snape’s exquisite mummy) of fanon. Oh, and if he comes from where I think he does, she wasn’t his mum, either. She was his mam.

From the HP Lexicon, sorry to debunk the glamour even further:

Gobstones is a game involving stones played something like marbles, in which the stones spit disgusting liquid at the opposing player when they lose a point. There are Gobstone clubs at Hogwarts (OP17) and also an International Gobstones League (DP) Many of the kids at Hogwarts have a set of Gobstones and it's played fairly regularly (CS10, PA16, GF20). Harry was tempted to buy a solid gold set in Diagon Alley (PA4). The offices of the Official Gobstones Club are in the Department of Games and Sports on level seven of the Ministry of Magic (OP7).

See? Not even a glamorous talent. So Snape is the plain offspring of just as plain and unvarnished parents. He comes from somewhere northern (I think) and is emphatically non-posh. He has a chip on his shoulder, that’s for sure, roughly the size of Ben Nevis.

So we have Severus Snape born into what seems to be a mixed marriage of distinctly plebeian provenance, and brought up somewhere decidedly grotty.

The Half-Blood Prince

Explicit: There aren’t any real princes in the wizarding world. So there is no “Half-blood Prince” for real. It seems that at some point, Snape started calling himself that. I’ll return to the point of that later.

I’ve had my first argument over this on a forum, on another website, far, far away, because I commented that styling yourself “A Prince” is a tad pathetic. My respondent suggests that he was only a kid. Quite so. But he was a boy (girls tend to play princesses, boys do not play princes) and also he is using the title in his final exchange to Harry as if he always thinks of himself in that way:

“You dare use my own spells against me, Potter? It was I who invented them – I, the Half-Blood Prince!”

The man who says this is approximately 38 years old. Ponder that for a moment. I have and it is not pretty. My actual comment on first read, was, sorry to say, “What a wanker!” And the more I think of it, the more bonkers for conkers I find him, in saying that. Do you use your childhood nicknames when an adult? I sure do not go around calling myself Dootch (oh, shit, I should not have told y’all that one).

At what age did Snape have this book? Generally it becomes a required set book in sixth year, however, Snape has written on his old copy a number of the spells he had invented, at least one of which becomes known more generally and is used against him in his fifth year (the notorious Pensieve memory). Perhaps he wrote them down for easy reference in his sixth year? Was he styling himself the Half-Blood Prince in sixth year? Possibly he got the book earlier, but notwithstanding that, calling yourself by some bogus title is sad. And childish.

He clearly wanted to make himself important in some way, and more tragically, still does. He uses that childish self-styling as an adult. Jeez.

I only know one person other who uses a bogus title: Voldemort. And more to the point, both titles are a word play on the person’s real origins:

Tom Marvolo Riddle = I am Lord Voldemort

The Half-Blood Prince = Severus Snape, son of Eileen Prince, pureblood witch, and Tobias Snape, Muggle.

“Maybe she was proud of being half a prince!” (Hermione early on in the conjecture about the Potions book’s owner).

And maybe poor Snape felt that was the only thing he had to be proud about, if he hated his dad. Muggle hate (per dad) might be one of his reasons for going to the dark side. Maybe his mum would say, “Remember you are half a prince!” There, that’s a sop for the apologists, and the only one I can come up with.

That Potions Text Book

“Scribbled along the bottom of the back cover in the same small, cramped handwriting…”

That same small cramped handwriting was seen in book 5, when Snape sat his DADA Owl. Small cramped handwriting, if JKR is a graphology fan, is not a good sign. It generally implies a cramped personality, too.

There’s more damnation about the handwriting:

“It might have been a girl. I think the handwriting looks more like a girl’s than a boy’s.”

Ouch. That’s Hermione’s comment on page 185 of HBP. That swooshing sound you hear is the sound of the SS/HG ship foundering. There were more Snape ships scuttled yesterday than when the German fleet scuttled itself at Scarpa Flow in 1918.

Other things about the book, are that the owner was clearly talented in two areas – Potions and Dark Magic. It’s not overstating to say that the HBP was clearly a boy prodigy at Potions making. Now that’s very interesting. Because the man evidently loves Dark Arts more, given his years of wanting that job, and given the fact that when he gets offered the job, he snaps it up. So Snape preferred Dark Arts (there’s been some debate over that, I always thought his desire for the DADA position was a PR stunt cooked up between him and Dumbledore, that’s another thing I misjudged – not doing very well, am I?) all along. But he clearly liked Potions – remember his spiel in book 1. Why did he get to like them?

Here’s where it gets murky.

“The clear winner!” he cried to the dungeon. “Excellent, excellent, Harry! Good Lord, it’s clear you’ve inherited your mother’s talent, she was a dab hand at Potions, Lily was!”

(that’s Slughorn in Harry’s first Potions lesson)

All that stuff about obsessive love, mentioned. Did Snape have an obsession with a fellow talented Potions student, who he could not get? And did he perhaps seek to make that potion? That sound you hear is my claws clutching desperately at the shiny surface of the SS/LE podium.

Those Spells

If you read back through HBP, you will see that all the Half-Blood Prince’s self-invented spells are downright nasty.

Harry tries a variety of them, with unpleasant effect, and in the writing JKR ups the ante ever so slightly until the explosive nastiness of the Sectumsempra curse. Harry’s on dangerous ground here, using spells which he has no idea of the effect of. Of course he’s taken in by a parallel con trick to the Riddle Diary here – because he is being unwittingly seduced by the Dark Arts. Most of the spells he reads in the annotations are spiteful and malicious, and Sectumsempra is actually horribly vicious. We may or may not like Draco at that point (it was the first point I felt remotely sympathetic to him) but that spell could have killed him.

Snape knows instantly what spell did that, because he fixes it effortlessly. He fails to see that he has any share of the blame in its being cast. I found this one of the death blows against my view of Snape being a highly moral man, and instead am forced to see that his morality is highly questionable. At this point, he knows that Harry has a dangerous book, he does nothing much about it. He makes an attempt to get it back; he does NOT speak to Dumbledore about it, or express misgivings. He is covering his back, possibly, none of which is noble. He gives Harry detentions - that’s all. He made an attempt to get the book, but largely gives up, even in the knowledge that the most magically talented student in the school has access to a lot of dark magic.

I refer readers back to the Pensieve memory. No wonder the kid Snape was twitchy. I’d be twitchy in his place. If he’d been going around tossing nasty made-up spells like that, probably half the school was laying for him.

Snape’s Actions

Now to the main course.

JKR showed in chapter 2, ‘Spinner’s End’ that all bets are off. Yes, I’m aware that Snape could be lying, twisting the truth, and yes, I am also aware that he has to speak as he does in order to survive. He’s a spy, and a double agent, and both sides of the business know that. DD knows he’s back in with Voldemort, and Voldemort is convinced that Snape is his agent through and through.

For those who saw sexual frisson between Snape and Narcissa, sorry, that’s just wishful thinking from where I’m sitting. The man has an ego roughly the size of Greater Manchester (which may be his area of provenance) which does not seem to support his having any real interest in anyone who is not Severus Snape. He agrees to the unbreakable vow because he has no choice. He’s firmly backed into a corner. Does he care about Draco Malfoy? Personally I doubt it. I saw no shipping there, either.

Sexual tension with Narcissa? Personally I saw more sexual tension between Snape and Peter – and they appear to be cohabiting… (feral smile).

We learn nothing about Snape’s true allegiance for sure in that scene, but I felt there was a strong case for his being a true Death Eater. Perhaps his spying is so successful that when he talks to Voldemort he is truly loyal to Voldemort, and when he talks to Dumbledore he is truly loyal to the order.

Oh, and something very nasty – Snape fitted up Emmeline Vance. And he’s bragging about it.

Something we really need to know to make a sure judgement – what Snape told Dumbledore when he turned (if he really turned) and how true it was. So far we have a lot of data, but no value added to the data. I’ll come down here and say it is not looking good for Snape.

Data in isolation from good interpretation is worthless, to some extent. I was totally hoodwinked along with much of fandom, by the various clues of OOTP. I failed to read them correctly.

One possible piece of evidence for Snape the-not-so-bad-as-all-that, during the vow:

“…if it seems Draco will fail…” whispered Narcissa (Snape’s hand twitched within hers, but he did not draw away)…

Our next sight of Snape is standard Snape being really nasty stuff – he’s very snide towards Tonks, and then gets into his usual nasty to Harry role. I no longer have a shred of belief (and I did not have much) that Snape’s loathing for Harry is some act. It’s genuine hard-wired behaviour. Born out by his conduct of the only DADA class we see him teach. Though I will say his teaching seemed very good.

Trustworthy? Or Not?

Snape apologists are currently grabbing hard to the fact that Dumbledore’s trust in Snape remains absolute to the end. But does it?

Consider what Hagrid has to say, in the chapter called, “Elf Tails”:

“… the other evenin’ an’ I overhead ‘em talkin’ – well arguin’”….

“Well – I jus’ heard Snape sayin’ Dumbledore took too much fer granted an’ maybe he – Snape – didn’ wan’ ter do it any more –“

“Do what?”

“I dunno, Harry, it sounded like Snape was feelin’ a bit overworked, tha’s all. Dumbledore told him flat out he’d agreed ter do it an’ that was all there was to it.”

So what is going on here? Is Snape saying he’s tired of spying? It sounds that way. Or is he already arguing over the set up that some fans have insisted took place, of Dumbledore appointing Snape his assassin.

On balance, I think it is the former. I do not know if DD told Snape to be his assassin in those circumstances. I do not believe Snape could have killed Dumbledore without the emotion necessary, and there’s already hard evidence in POA that Snape harbours resentment against Dumbledore, after Sirius Black gets into Hogwarts and the students spend the night in the Great Hall. There is a brief exchange about Sirius and Harry sees this:

“Snape stood for a moment, watching the Headmaster with an expression of deep resentment on his face, then he, too, left.”

For what it is worth, I think Dumbledore was wrong about Snape. It was a fatal mistake, it does not lessen Dumbledore in anyway, it merely emphasises his humanity.

I still like Snape and I’ll be happy to be wrong, by the way.

Endgame

Dumbledore is very, very ill when he and Harry return from the quest of the Horcrux. That potion, as he says, was no health drink, and I agree with early speculation that Dumbledore may well have been close to death at that point.

Here’s a big mystery. On return to the castle, Dumbledore is frantic to have Snape brought to him. I think it is the big question. Is it that he wants Snape to “do the deed” and secure his place as Voldemort’s right hand? Or is it to provide an antidote to whatever poison? I know a lot of fandom feel this is so, I’m sorry, I cannot be so certain.

Then we have the final confrontations. Dumbledore insists throughout that Snape is to be trusted. Draco insists louder that he is not.

Draco ultimately cannot do the deed for which he has been coached, and for which he believes his life is on the line, he also wants to kill Dumbledore “to get the glory of it” – petty bunch these DE, by the way, and the new bunch of DE in this story nukes the idea that the DE are sexy into so much powdered rubble.

Enter Snape….

(pause for breath)

Dumbledore appears to plead – for his life, or for their odd bargain to be completed?

I don’t know. Because Avada Kedavra is a curse, and you need malice and hate to power a curse.

Snape produces it admirably, and note the fact that his DE colleagues appear to be afraid of him.

We then have the final view of Snape, and romancers, it is not pretty.

“A face full of rage…” Rage at what? “Suffused with hatred” – that’s for Harry.

And here’s the bit that kills Anti-hero Snape stone dead:

“And you’d turn my inventions on me, like your filthy father, would you?” Well, hell’s bells, sunshine, what do you expect, if you go around inventing dark spells, sho ‘nuff, someone else is going to use them, too.

Then he goes into the sort of melt down we saw in book 3: “…and his face was suddenly demented, inhuman, as though he was in as much pain as the yelping, howling dog stuck in the burning house behind them, ‘- CALL ME COWARD!’”

Pure capslock. I’m betting that at some point he’s been called just that, not that this is a man in mental agony at the horror his fate has taken him to.

Exit, pursued by a Hippogriff. Not dignified either.

In Conclusion

Watches f-list shrink… Well sorry, maybe I’m just less into denial than most. I’m not going to spend the next two years pretending HBP did not happen, and I’m more than prepared to eat a dish of spit roasted crow if I am wrong.

I don’t think I am.

My mental jury is out and may be some time before I can be sure of Snape’s actions vis a vis Dumbledore, and what exactly was going on. I’m not prepared to say that the killing was pre-planned between them, because the evidence conflicts, and there is strong evidence that Snape murdered his mentor and the man who saved him from a stretch in Azkaban.

Dumbledore trusted Snape. He could have been wrong.

Whatever, this book hammer-blowed the concept of Snape-the-Hero (and as someone who has believed such since book 3, that’s a pretty hard knowledge). I do not think he is heroic. I think he is a tragic person, who may be redeemed, but there is nothing romantic about him, or his actions, which I believe are self-serving in the main.

I desperately want to be wrong, but I reiterate what I said all over lj yesterday, fanon Snape is dead. What we have here is a complex morally ambiguous character who is just so not nice.

A deeply horrible person, in short. Just as JKR promised. We fans just refused to see it.

Implications

Most Snape ships are sunk, or failing that any writer in the more prominent ships is going to have to work harder than they normally do to make the ship sail. Generally, I’d say I cannot imagine a plausible Snarry story at this juncture. With all other Snape ships, het and slash close behind, unless huge characterisation thought is given.

See, I do not consider this man romantic. He does not have a place in a love story that I can see at present. I still love the character; I no longer love the man. That’s not because of his killing Dumbledore, either, it’s just the feelings I get about him.

He’s ashamed of his origins. He’s a snob.

He’s petty, and I believe this man in HBP was the sort of creature who would see a fellow man in Azkaban for the sake of a schoolboy grudge. I think what we saw in POA was what we get.

RIP Fanon Snape. I’ll miss you. Thanks, it was fun.

_________________
Listen, strange women lyin' in ponds distributin' swords is no basis for a system of government. Supreme executive power derives from a mandate from the masses, not from some farcical aquatic ceremony ~ Monty Python and the Holy Grail

Melvacaea

Posted: Sun Jul 17, 2005 12:13 pm

Joined: 06 May 2005 Posts: 36

(Not posting ANYTHING as long as that... but I admit, you kept me hooked until the end!)

I do not think you're mental.

I've believed it since book 4.

I'm not quite sure why... probably because Snape's facade was a bit much for me and Mum's description of book 3 did it for me (She just knew this was going to happen). But even if I did believe, I shut it out and continued on my normal, Snape-fanfiction routine. Happy romance.

Thank god for AU stories... without 'em, we'd all be dead.

I saw my fanfiction shattering to pieces... and I saw something new, dark, and angsty coming my way. *Grins evilly*

Snape went conky on us there... I cried. Even if he was a slimy traitor (forgive me), I didn't expect him to go nutty on us. Petty, nutty, slimy, evil.... take your pick. (Write a Snape/Pettigrew story, aza, I dare you... I'll be one of your reviewers!)

No frission between Narcissa and Severus... I don't like that ship. Gives me the willies.

So he was a half-blood Slytherin who had his enemies use his spells against him. Idiot. (Sorry again, for any hard-goers).

Well, I can see the smut that's coming... and the slew of AU stories... and the dark, angsty books (of which I shall be one).

Thanks for that summary Azazello. I'm going to need it!

-Mel

P.S. in conclusion, I'm about 99% sure of Snape's evilness. I always leave 1% for reasonable doubt... maybe 2%

_________________
"One word removes us from the weight and pain of life -- that word is love." -Sophocles

Severus' mind is his own. We can only speculate.

Kismet

Posted: Sun Jul 17, 2005 1:38 pm

Joined: 17 Jul 2005 Posts: 34

azazello wrote:

And here’s the bit that kills Anti-hero Snape stone dead:

“And you’d turn my inventions on me, like your filthy father, would you?” Well, hell’s bells, sunshine, what do you expect, if you go around inventing dark spells, sho ‘nuff, someone else is going to use them, too.

As an aside, I can now really see why that was Snape's worst memory; not only was he embarrassed in front of his peers, but spells of his own creation were used to embarrass him in front of his peers.

Quote:

Then he goes into the sort of melt down we saw in book 3: “…and his face was suddenly demented, inhuman, as though he was in as much pain as the yelping, howling dog stuck in the burning house behind them, ‘- CALL ME COWARD!’”

Pure capslock. I’m betting that at some point he’s been called just that, not that this is a man in mental agony at the horror his fate has taken him to.

He didn't go into a meltdown the first time Harry called him a coward a bit earlier in the fight. Then he just taunted Harry about his father. It's only when Harry called him a coward for killing Dumbledore that he goes ballistic. That's what made me think that Dumbledore made him promise to do what he had to do.

Melvacaea

Posted: Sun Jul 17, 2005 1:52 pm

Joined: 06 May 2005 Posts: 36

Huh. That is an interesting point, Kismet, I hadn't realized. (Of course, I devoured it in 4 hours, so what can I say?)

Reasonable doubt's a wonderful thing...

_________________
"One word removes us from the weight and pain of life -- that word is love." -Sophocles

Severus' mind is his own. We can only speculate.

Delirium

Posted: Sun Jul 17, 2005 2:20 pm

Joined: 20 Feb 2005 Posts: 34 Location: New York

Devil's advocate...perhaps he called himself the "Half-Blood Prince" to divorce himself from his father. Perhaps the "Prince" reference was a nod to his pure blood mother and not a self styled attempt at Wizarding Royalty.

Melvacaea

Posted: Sun Jul 17, 2005 2:36 pm

Joined: 06 May 2005 Posts: 36

But don't forget... that was when he was young, tortured.... had no one to turn to but himself and Voldemort. He's a 38 to 40 year old man... it's a bit petty referring to something very young. It's till only a name, a pretend name. Something that he retreated to in times of loneliness.

That was definitely not a time of loneliness. More like nuttiness.

_________________
"One word removes us from the weight and pain of life -- that word is love." -Sophocles

Severus' mind is his own. We can only speculate.

Pace

Posted: Sun Jul 17, 2005 3:17 pm

Joined: 17 Jul 2005 Posts: 43 Location: Cologne (Germany)

I could argue now that lonely people do get rather peculiar after some time, but I won't.

And maybe he did continue to refer to himself as the Half-Blood Prince, as childish a notion it may be, to make himself believe that he was worth something (Snape strikes me as someone who has a problem with self-esteem and insecurities - not surprising with that background). Not a lowly muggle-Snape, but a half-blood member of the noble Prince family. Could be an ego-booster, no?

_________________
If it's not chocolate I'm not interested.

Melvacaea

Posted: Sun Jul 17, 2005 4:16 pm

Joined: 06 May 2005 Posts: 36

An ego-booster is just as pathetic, in my view. And just as childish. Even if he does have a bad background (poor Snapey...), it's ... well, like I said before, pathetic and childish.

Of course, this is my opinion and most of the time I'm wrong so *despondently* Don't pay any attention to me. (Well, actually, do, but whatever..)

_________________
"One word removes us from the weight and pain of life -- that word is love." -Sophocles

Severus' mind is his own. We can only speculate.

Alynna

Posted: Sun Jul 17, 2005 4:25 pm

Joined: 01 Mar 2005 Posts: 24 Location: central Maryland

I suspect the man's certifiably unstable, self-serving and has a complete lack of self-esteem, but as has been pointed out elsewhere on this board, even horrible people can be on the side of good. Yes, the romance is dead. I agree that what we're left with is a tragic (and pathetic) character who, even if he is redeemed in deed, will not be redeemed as a worthy person. But at this juncture, in terms of the whole story, it is the deed that matters, not the man.

Still, I am an avowed Snape lover, so his fall from whatever dubious grace was left to him (and I really haven't seen much since GOF) is painful.

I have to say I look forward to the slew of angst fics that will arise from this... and the AUs... and the slash (Fenrir/Lupin, anyone? Rolling Eyes

)... more fodder here than in the last two books combined, IMO. *rubs hands gleefully*

_________________
"Something there is in beauty
which grows in the soul of the beholder
like a flower..."

Melvacaea

Posted: Sun Jul 17, 2005 4:32 pm

Joined: 06 May 2005 Posts: 36

The angst and darkness is going to be bloody amazing.

And I can't say that I won't join them because, frankly, once I finish submitting "To Travel Through Time" (which is now, to my chagrin, completely AU), I'm going to.

I have plans. And I'll need an angst beta reader. Time to start composing lists, I've had a bad time with betas. *wince*

Romance is GONE. I mean WHOOOSH! I heard it leave through the window.. look there it goes! *rolls eyes* But the slash is here, dark slash, and the evil and the hatred... wheee!

He could try but you know, in the eyes of those who live halfway in reality, we know that he could never try to redeem himself in the eyes of the characters. We know that, Jo knows that, the characters know that.. but do the die-hards know that?

He's not completely evil, I know. (I hope) Remember... 99% sure...I'll stop rambling now as I'm not making ANY sense WHATSOEVER.

I need coffee...

_________________
"One word removes us from the weight and pain of life -- that word is love." -Sophocles

Severus' mind is his own. We can only speculate.

Marianne

Posted: Sun Jul 17, 2005 6:00 pm

Joined: 15 Jul 2005 Posts: 25

I've not read many of the angst stories. The evil snape was more of a cliche to me than the good (not nice). An ugly menacing and hateful man all dressed in black and in the end he turns out to be exactly as he appears in the beginning of the 1.book: evil.
I still don't want to believe it.
So I have to choices -say good bye or live in denial and hope there will be a solution in HP 7
I still cannot understand why she did it; she knows how many fans Snape has. Will one of them read HP 7? Sad

Melvacaea

Posted: Sun Jul 17, 2005 6:05 pm

Joined: 06 May 2005 Posts: 36

I got the coffee. I can smell it. God it smells so good...

Er.... right, anyway...

now that you point it out to me(and as I glance down at the book) it does seem a bit cliche, doesn't it? For him to seem evil, prove that he was good, and then, in the end, turn out to be exactly as he started out as? Back to square one?

4%.

We're finding excuses.

I think we're succeeding. :p

All we can do is wait.

_________________
"One word removes us from the weight and pain of life -- that word is love." -Sophocles

Severus' mind is his own. We can only speculate.

Alynna

Posted: Sun Jul 17, 2005 6:06 pm

Joined: 01 Mar 2005 Posts: 24 Location: central Maryland

Marianne wrote:

I still cannot understand why she did it; she knows how many fans Snape has. Will one of them read HP 7? Sad

We all will, hoping for his redemption. Anyway, I suspect this was planned way before Snape had fans, as was Sirius' death. She had no way of knowing which of her characters would become popular.

I don't believe it's a good author's job to cater to an audience, anyway. The best authors write to tell a story, to put on paper the proverbial ghosts and pests that won't leave them sleep at night. That's why we write fic... and who writes it purely to get applause from one fan base or another? Even those who write on request are rarely capable of coming up with a good story about something they feel no passion for. We write for ourselves first.

_________________
"Something there is in beauty
which grows in the soul of the beholder
like a flower..."

aphrodeia

Posted: Sun Jul 17, 2005 6:08 pm

Moderator Joined: 06 Dec 2004 Posts: 46

Marianne wrote:

I still cannot understand why she did it; she knows how many fans Snape has. Will one of them read HP 7? Sad

Since when do authors write entire novels for the express purpose of catering to a comparatively-small part of their fanbase?

This further cements the fact, for me, that she's not a sellout. To write the books to cater to us would put into question her integrity and vision. If I found out she were doing so, I would lose a great deal of interest in her.

Kismet

Posted: Sun Jul 17, 2005 6:10 pm

Joined: 17 Jul 2005 Posts: 34

Marianne wrote:

I can't say that I thought he appeared to be evil in book 1. Mean, nasty and spiteful, yes; evil, no.

I'm sure there will be a solution in book 7, but it may not be the solution you're hoping for.

She's telling the story she has to tell, she's not writing to the whims of the fans, or at least I hope she isn't.

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