hobgoblinn (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
hobgoblinn) wrote2007-07-27 12:00 pm
hobgoblinn) wrote2007-07-27 12:00 pm
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Snape is not Brave
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spoil_me_dh
Wait! Hold your fire! Before you flame me, let me explain. IF we are reasoning Only on the evidence of DH prior to the epilogue and JKR's recent comments, he can't be.
It would seem from the evidence, that JKR wants us to read Snape as brave, if "horrible". Harry says it, after all, in the epilogue. But why? Because he's willing to face death, and ultimately dies? She seems to think this about Harry, too-- his willingness to die is even more poignant than Snape's, and he has to walk to his death, not unlike Christ to the cross.
But willingness to die is not necessarily brave. Having faced something like it in my own life, I must tell you that it's easy. Why? You know if you can just hold on a bit longer, that it will soon be Over. Even if we take bravery as doing something in spite of your fear, if that something is dying, or doing something else that has an ending to it, hanging on with dignity through that fear is not necessarily the mark of a brave man. It might be the mark of a man who has an unusual ability to tolerate suffering and persevere in spite of it, which is not at all the same thing.
For facing death or fear to be bravery per se, it seems to me that one must have some kind of choice in the matter. And this is where I part company with JKR and book 7. In the previous 6 books, we get hints that Snape does have, and has in fact made, a choice to do good, to protect the son of his enemy (and his unrequited love), at great personal cost. If he's doing this, as Book 7 seems to indicate, from some kind of creepy stalker unrequited obsession (JKR's characterization here makes me wonder if she thinks Snape was in fact capable of Love) or worse yet, from guilt, This Is Not Bravery.
Which is why, again, I have to part company with this part of an otherwise wonderful saga. Until the last book, the message seems to be that people are not always what they seem, that choices and actions matter more than innate abilities or personality quirks, that handsome people are not necessarily good, and ugly ones are not necessarily bad. For some reason I cannot begin to fathom, all this is thrown out the window in Book 7, and even Harry's ultimate triumph has a great deal less impact, because we find he really never is at all tempted by the darkness-- he never changes. This idea is laid out more fully in the recent Christian Science Monitor review.
What I was expecting, and what would have made a much more compelling and consistent story, would have been for Harry, struggling with the temptation to darkness, to be aided by the only other character to have faced that kind of darkness-- Snape. And I think the bitterness and rage in Snape, while not making him any the less brave or noble, should have been the thing that Harry helps Snape have the courage to let go of. Dumbledore, meddler that he is, becomes a whole lot less culpable using the two of them, if he had, as it seemed from earlier books, some aim of putting these two together to ultimately redeem each other. To grow in understanding and wisdom.
Which is why I say, thank Merlin for Fan Fiction. I already know a number of stories where just this kind of transformation and redemption occurs, but if anyone has others they'd like to share, I would be quite grateful for recommendations and links.
Okay, now I'll get out my asbestos robes.
Hob
spoil_me_dhWait! Hold your fire! Before you flame me, let me explain. IF we are reasoning Only on the evidence of DH prior to the epilogue and JKR's recent comments, he can't be.
It would seem from the evidence, that JKR wants us to read Snape as brave, if "horrible". Harry says it, after all, in the epilogue. But why? Because he's willing to face death, and ultimately dies? She seems to think this about Harry, too-- his willingness to die is even more poignant than Snape's, and he has to walk to his death, not unlike Christ to the cross.
But willingness to die is not necessarily brave. Having faced something like it in my own life, I must tell you that it's easy. Why? You know if you can just hold on a bit longer, that it will soon be Over. Even if we take bravery as doing something in spite of your fear, if that something is dying, or doing something else that has an ending to it, hanging on with dignity through that fear is not necessarily the mark of a brave man. It might be the mark of a man who has an unusual ability to tolerate suffering and persevere in spite of it, which is not at all the same thing.
For facing death or fear to be bravery per se, it seems to me that one must have some kind of choice in the matter. And this is where I part company with JKR and book 7. In the previous 6 books, we get hints that Snape does have, and has in fact made, a choice to do good, to protect the son of his enemy (and his unrequited love), at great personal cost. If he's doing this, as Book 7 seems to indicate, from some kind of creepy stalker unrequited obsession (JKR's characterization here makes me wonder if she thinks Snape was in fact capable of Love) or worse yet, from guilt, This Is Not Bravery.
Which is why, again, I have to part company with this part of an otherwise wonderful saga. Until the last book, the message seems to be that people are not always what they seem, that choices and actions matter more than innate abilities or personality quirks, that handsome people are not necessarily good, and ugly ones are not necessarily bad. For some reason I cannot begin to fathom, all this is thrown out the window in Book 7, and even Harry's ultimate triumph has a great deal less impact, because we find he really never is at all tempted by the darkness-- he never changes. This idea is laid out more fully in the recent Christian Science Monitor review.
What I was expecting, and what would have made a much more compelling and consistent story, would have been for Harry, struggling with the temptation to darkness, to be aided by the only other character to have faced that kind of darkness-- Snape. And I think the bitterness and rage in Snape, while not making him any the less brave or noble, should have been the thing that Harry helps Snape have the courage to let go of. Dumbledore, meddler that he is, becomes a whole lot less culpable using the two of them, if he had, as it seemed from earlier books, some aim of putting these two together to ultimately redeem each other. To grow in understanding and wisdom.
Which is why I say, thank Merlin for Fan Fiction. I already know a number of stories where just this kind of transformation and redemption occurs, but if anyone has others they'd like to share, I would be quite grateful for recommendations and links.
Okay, now I'll get out my asbestos robes.
Hob
no subject
It's more than just willingness to die in the book that is what makes Snape brave, it's what he died for. Snape could have easily sold out Harry on any occasion even to the minute of his death but he didn't just so that Harry would succeed. It's the fact that he learned what Voldemort and the deatheaters were really about and changed he then spent the next 17 years into fighting on the side of good. He puts himself through being a spy for Dumbledore and all the pain and danger that might encompass so that someone might one day destroy him. If anything he did it from his love of Lily Evans, not for fame or glory. I think his love for her was tragically sweet not stalkerish and the impetus for the realization of his true nature. Sure he was still a horrible jerk of a guy but he was capable of remorse and change and sacrfice for others (all when he didn't have to I mean his one love is already dead who's he trying to impress) and I think that's what makes him brave.
no subject
I agree with all your points about Snape and what he died for-- as I say in a response above, I do find Snape brave, despite my post title. I just find Jo's handling of the issue in Book 7 very inconsistent with the rest of the series in this regard. And a lot of what you're finding in Snape is either not stated in book 7, or it's explicitly undercut by what little is there. Given how brilliantly the redemption theme is set up for Snape in these books, it's puzzling how Jo throws that away.