arcanetrivia | On the nature of Snapes

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On the nature of Snapes

lilyevans_snape posted an interesting question in her deviantART journal recently: Snape Fanfiction - What is Left to Say...? This was my response, and a response to a response from her.

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It's always been a little dismaying to see comments like "OMG, he's not a Byronic hero, get over it" because to me he's definitely got more than a whiff of that about him. (I wonder if people are misunderstanding "Byronic".) To me he is definitely a dark-romantic character; I understand the problem with excessively romanticizing him (there are parts of his past and his character which are, simply, ugly), but it's not right to just make him a simple bastard without that compelling aura. And you may have seen me rant before about how I don't get or like how "emo" is used as an insult. True he is not the weepy mushy type but it so often comes across to me like people are trying to deny him feeling, deny him the deep passionate heart that makes him him (how else do you carry a torch like that all those years).

I've had a hard time finding my way in Snape fandom over the past couple years actually because I don't know what's okay to think anymore. Every time I think I've settled on an expression or version I feel comfortable celebrating or sharing, I see people I consider friends saying "don't you hate it when people ____?" "Oh god, I know, right? how can they think that way?" and I'm like oookay, well, better keep my mouth shut then. Time and again I get the message "it's not okay to think the way you do", from all sides of the map, and I just don't know what to do.

As far as fic and what is left to say: It's not so much that I'm out of things to say, or at least not that I am bored of saying the same things over and over again, because I love them and I am not tired of them (as *ls269 said elsewhere). It's more that I don't know how or where to start or how to continue. Or something. I can get vague scraps of ideas; there's a private "ideas" tag in my journal with various bits of bunny fur, and I have like four unfinished fics in various stages in my WIP folder. But mostly I just sit there afraid of doing it wrong, and/or just don't have the energy ("spoons") because I'm so brain-fuzzy these days I can hardly do more than read the internet. Drabble prompts and the like spark no response, not because I think there's nothing left to say about Severus, but because of some fault or empty place in myself.

I went way off the original question there didn't I.

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The ones [qualities of a Byronic hero] which definitely fit him from that list all fit so obviously that I would wonder if people who disagreed had even read the same books:

Cunning and able to adapt

Cynical

Emotionally conflicted, bipolar, or moody

Having a troubled past or suffering from an unnamed crime

Intelligent and perceptive

Jaded, world-weary (at least later on)

Mysterious, magnetic and charismatic

Self-critical and introspective - self-critical, certainly (witness his self-directed vitriol about "fools who wear their hearts on their sleeves")... whether he's introspective, that is, highly self aware, probably can't be demonstrated in canon since we're not in his head, but I think probably he is

Struggling with integrity (isn't this, like, the entire point of his character arc?)

Treated as an exile, outcast, or outlaw

Having a distaste for social institutions and norms - he seems to me to approve of them where they benefit him (such as what's attendant on the authority of a teacher), and dislike them where they result in problems for him (such as the social pecking order that produces people who can act like James and Sirius do, without repercussion).

Self-destructive - for certain values of "self-destructive", possibly. Not in the sense of "woe is me, I shall cut myself to release the pain" (ugh, now there's a stereotypically "emo" Severus I can't stomach), but maybe echoed in how he doesn't give a lot of attention to his physical appearance.

Arrogant - one could possibly make an argument, although I think really it's justified pride in his case.

Disrespectful of rank and privilege - quite the contrary in his case I think. He probably has a bitter taste in his mouth about privilege one is born to rather than earns, but he certainly seems to want his own position respected, and whatever his personal feelings about Dumbledore, the Minister, etc. respects their positions as well.

Seductive and sexually attractive - Depends on the beholder, of course, but I've put it here because in a strict canon interpretation he is definitely not presented as such.

Socially and sexually dominant - ok, obviously not this one. He's not a downtrodden victim but he certainly started out "disadvantaged", and he is often put, or lets himself be put, in more submissive or "follower" kinds of positions. As for sexually dominant, there's certainly no evidence either way in canon. It's interesting how people can arrive at all kinds of different conclusions in that arena: some are sure he's dominant, some submissive, and some that he has had bloody well enough of that in "real life" and would prefer sexual relationships that are mostly equal, which happens to be my own stance. I can see him enjoy passing moments of dominance as he certainly likes to be in control and feel powerful, but submission from him just rings the wrong bells for me.

Sophisticated and educated - he's definitely put out effort to make himself well-spoken, and he does seem like the kind who has learned things you might not expect him to just because he likes being learned, but while I have a certain occasional taste for cultured!aesthete!Severus who can enjoy the pleasures of poetry or plays an instrument of some kind - one of those hidden softnesses - I don't think you can fairly describe what we see in canon as "sophisticated and educated" in the sense meant here. He's quite rough around the edges. He's highly educated in a wizarding sense, but not refined and high-cultured.

So, ten out of seventeen; I'd say he's more than faintly Byronic.

I don't see him as all soft and squishy, almost without flaw, someone to be pitied because the bitch Lily broke his heart, and the asshole James Potter bullied him mercilessly.

I do pity him the latter, much as I'm sure he hates it. Or at least I feel compassionate, sympathetic, and like James Potter desperately needed taking down a peg or five. I doubt he wants succour from anyone but it's what I have the urge to give. Lily did break his heart, of course, but not by deliberate "bitchy" action in my view. They were both insensitive to each other in various ways. She might have got to a point where she probably felt he deserved whatever he got since he'd chosen dark ways, and if she hurt his feelings well he'd brought it on himself by hurting hers and that's his own damn problem, *grumble mumble Death Eater wannabe*, but it's not the same as being the "queen bee" people sometimes make her out to be.

I can't justify and forgive his mistakes and flaws because of his suffering.

I probably can't say "justify", but I guess I do overlook and forgive if not exactly "forget". Certainly not keep reopening those wounds, which I sometimes get the feeling what people who are not keen on Severus want to hear: never to give him praise or love but what it's tempered with scorn (not unlike Dumbledore in some scenes) and if you try to let his past alone and focus on better things then it's "woobifying" him. (I don't mean erase them entirely - of course he himself is still aware of them and it affects his character. I mean just putting down the damn punishment stick and not having to say "but let's remember he joined a terrorist organization that wanted people like Lily dead!" in every second breath.)

"Because of" isn't quite the right connecting verb for me - the causality doesn't work like that in my head ("he did XYZ but he suffered, therefore it's ok"). It definitely is a factor though. He suffered partly as simple consequences and partly because he voluntarily took on more suffering; it's the latter that has an atoning effect, I think.

I think that takes away personal responsibility, and again paints him as a victim.

He is certainly not just a blameless victim. Obviously his choices were his own and hypothetically he could have made others. But I sometimes find myself going "hey, I might have done something similar if I were in his particular rock and a hard place", and empathizing with how he must have felt he could not realistically make another choice (if indeed options occurred to him).

slashpervert has/had a sign up in her bathroom with some daily meditation kinds of things, and one of them is that "Everyone is doing the best they know how to with the information they have." I find it kind of unfair when people blithely say "oh, but he should have had the strength to do differently" -- well perhaps, but when you tot it up it sounds like they were expecting him to be a saint from the start and damning him when he doesn't make all the perfect choices right as they come up, for letting pain get to him and making choices that aim to relieve that pain even though they are "wrong". (How many of us do not do likewise? Even on a daily basis? The urge of the organism to avoid pain is very, very strong!)

Worse yet (to me anyway), is the view of him as this muscled, wavy-haired, dashing character who is sexually dominant, seductive, magnetic, etc. There are so many people who paint him like that.

To borrow a line from OotP, "I may vomit." (Fabio!Snape for the lose!) You and I probably know as well as one can that he can be sexually magnetic, sure - his eyes may be described as cold, dark tunnels in canon, but even cold can burn. I have no problem with a Severus who knows his power well and applies it with finesse (and that's canon, certainly, if not sexually expressed). But he's not Don Juan, or de Sade for that matter. The words "dashing" and "suave" do not apply and he hasn't the temperament to be a "ladykiller".

seducing young and/or wealthy girls (Narcissa, Hermione, or the like) with his suaveness and flawless sexual technique. He is cruel, merciless, powerful. [...] I just can't wrap my head around that characterization at all!

I agree! He can be intense and passionate, sure - but he doesn't romantically sweep people off their feet and carry them away in the tide of his sexual prowess. He has a tendency to perfectionism that I think would lead him to quickly learn what pleased a lover and deliver it to the best of his ability, but while he would try to appear comfortable and in control it would crack, perhaps a lot more often than he'd like. Sometimes he might be able to pull off the kind of ~~sickening~~ thing you often see in SS/HG fic [to be clear, I am not hating on this ship on principle; it was previously brought up as an example of a ship where it's not uncommon to find that kind of fare] - he has a taste for the theatrical, after all - but I wouldn't put "cruel" or "merciless" on it at all and it's just ... gah, rant off, suffice it to say I know what you mean and I dunno how they squeeze that particular blood out of our canon turnip either! Even old-school pureblood!Severus needn't have necessarily implied that he's some kind of dark-haired caricature of film!Lucius (look at the Weasleys, for instance, or the Gaunts, for Merlin's sake).

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It bothers me when you say that you "don't know what's okay to think anymore" and "you'd better just keep your mouth shut, then". GAH! Please don't do this! Each person presents a different, unique side of Severus, and it's neither right nor wrong -- just different. Your version is just as relevant as anyone else's, and damn it, I'M interested in reading YOUR version, and fuck those who think that everyone MUST think like them! Why don't you finish these stories anyway, and just post them to a minimized list instead of at large, if you are worried about these particular people? Though, quite frankly, I think it's more to your benefit to BE YOU and write what you like, and let the chips fall where they may. At least you know that when people like you, they like YOU... not someone who's been sanitized to fit into their view of things. For what it's worth, I've always enjoyed your prickly snarkasm.

~Each person presents a different, unique side of Severus, and it's neither right nor wrong -- just different~

I completely agree :-)

It bothers me when you say that you "don't know what's okay to think anymore" and "you'd better just keep your mouth shut, then". [...] Your version is just as relevant as anyone else's, and damn it, I'M interested in reading YOUR version

I was speaking more of discussion there, rather than fanfic, although I guess it does apply in both cases. Although with fics there's the separate problem, as I've said many times, that there just isn't anything inside that can generate the content.

I used to be more bothered by some of the opinions expressed by fen regarding the unforgivability of Snape and how unfathomable it was that people liked/romanticised/gave two shits about him. It still annoys a bit but for other reasons. A lot of what you wrote reflects my position on him, and I've just come to appreciate just how different and varied people's interpretations of the same text and character can be.

At the same time what you wrote here: "don't you hate it when people ____?" "Oh god, I know, right? how can they think that way?" and I'm like oookay, well, better keep my mouth shut then. Time and again I get the message "it's not okay to think the way you do", from all sides of the map, and I just don't know what to do. really struck and saddened me.

I hate this position, and I hate when I realize I've made such a stupid silencing blanket statement like this whether in jest or frustration or out of a sense of revenge. To me, that's a far more reprehensible behavior than liking a flawed character because it does silence and shut down conversation. Perhaps in matters of more serious business, there can be a place for it (although the more I encounter it and its outcomes, the less useful it appears) but in fandom circles, it's unnecessarily silencing and alienating.

It's fine not to take fandom too seriously, but for many people who are struggling with developing their own identity, grappling with deep personal issues, and understanding of the world, engagement with a text and conversations around that text can be extremely meaningful and illuminating and to shut down that conversation is to shut off that avenue for growth.

This may not have been your primary point, but it is one that I needed to respond to. And I know that my interpretation and appreciation of Snape is different from yours, and I want to say that no matter what nonsense comes out of my moth on LJ or on

snapecast, I think it's perfectly fine for anyone to believe whatever they want about Snape. I just love that people still enjoy talking about him, slashing him, shipping him, criticizing him, and spiritualizing him.

I hate this position, and I hate when I realize I've made such a stupid silencing blanket statement like this whether in jest or frustration or out of a sense of revenge.

And yet, ironically, some of the content of this post falls into that kind of category... like the "what on earth are they thinking"-ness of the complaints about Fabio!Snape. It's exactly the reverse position, that maybe someone who likes that would feel they had better keep their mouth shut if they wanted me to like them (not that my esteem is a valuable commodity in the marketplace!).

It is a fine road to walk. I do see a distinction between what you wrote and what I see that I most object to that looks something like, "Anyone who thinks xyz about Snape is obviously pdq" where pdq is something illegal, insulting, or otherwise unacceptable.

Well said, Penns. I know we both write in totally different ways, but I respect your writing and art so much. I love that the character of Severus Snape still holds fascination for so many (see there, Jo Rowling?) and while I'm not a fan of SS Slash, I'll staunchly defend yours or anybody's rights to interpret the character in any myriad of ways.

Let the character live, and let us who love him write him in the way that we see fit. It's not my place to say what the character should do in yours or any other fics. Hell, I have enough problems keeping the snarky bastard in line in my own work.

Without going into all the dreary details, but I was writing a fic and while it was posting, someone posted a very pointed comment about a certain plot point that, in my mind, could have only been about what I was writing (my posting was only 15 minutes old at the time). It was too much of a coincidence because of the way it was said, and I very nearly pulled the story.

Everyone has their opinions, of course, but also, everyone is writing in a different way, a different interpretation. By all means, disagree, yes, give me concrit, by all means, but it's the same feeling of walking by in a blue dress and having a bunch of girls standing by while one says, "Don't you just hate the way some girls look in blue?" It's not going to help anyone, and it certainly doesn't make me a better writer. After I got over that queasy 'they're talking about me' feeling, I thought, hang on, they've got their opinion; it isn't mine, so well, okay.

Sorry, didn't mean to meander around like this. It is past my nap-time, you know.

Drabble prompts and the like spark no response, not because I think there's nothing left to say about Severus, but because of some fault or empty place in myself.

I think this might be the crux of everyone at the moment. Between DH2 which left us all a little off balance, the long hot summer, the Exchange, and LJ's woes, I think we're all in a bit of a funk. I wasn't around when the book came out, but I wonder if the same thing might have happened then as well.

I've just finished two big fics for HG/SS Exchange, and I'm just blank. But I don't think I'm done, or that there's nothing left to say. I'm just waiting for the dust to settle so I can hear what I'm supposed to write next.

I think we all have our interpretations and we enjoy what we write and hope that others do as well. I don't write just for myself, personally, but hope that others will enjoy it.

I also don't think too much about what I write philosophically; I am an instinctual writer, and some things work for me and others don't. I have my own thoughts about Snape, and I write them. I take of canon what I can use and I discard from canon what I can't, because, let's face it, canon gives me precious little to work with other than a corpse.

I'm not very deep; I'm as shallow as a coffee saucer at times, and perhaps so is my Snape, but I will continue to write him the way I'm led to write him, and when that doesn't work, I'll know I've said all I need to say. In the meantime, he's there in all of myriad interpretations with all of his myriad love and friendship interests, and as long as there are people out there who want to read them, I guess I'll want to write him.

Drabble prompts and the like spark no response, not because I think there's nothing left to say about Severus, but because of some fault or empty place in myself.

I think this might be the crux of everyone at the moment. Between DH2 which left us all a little off balance, the long hot summer, the Exchange, and LJ's woes, I think we're all in a bit of a funk.

I don't know about anyone else, but that's a lot more temporary than it feels in me. After coming into fandom in the second half of 2007, I had a burst in 2008 when the fanfic world seemed oysterlike, but it almost immediately dried up and for the three years since, if I manage anything at all, it's a giant struggle. I was surprised I managed to get a few things out for

fandom_stocking last Christmas and thought hey, maybe things are looking up, but then I choked big time on my Wankfest fic a few months later. I used to write drabbles for just about every prompt at

snape100 but I just can't anymore. I stare at the prompts and no ideas, no words come to mind. "Just write what's in your heart" is meaningless instruction because my subjective experience is that I have none, I don't have that place inside where stuff comes from.

Well, it is all very subjective. I have just come into the fanfic world less than a year ago, and I don't know what I have left to say. Are you writing other things or other fandoms? Maybe just the HP fanfiction world isn't singing to you anymore. Maybe your interest is moving elsewhere.

If not, it's hard to say - are you saying that your heart isn't in writing anymore period, or just this universe? If you still have something in your heart to write, maybe it's for somewhere else, or something original.

No, I'm not in any other fandoms, at least not in the sense that I am in Harry Potter fandom, trying to create any fanworks. (Well, MST3K, but that's video production, not fanfic.) It's not at all that Harry Potter is no longer interesting to me. I am as obsessed as when I fell in love with Severus four years ago (I'd been reading the books since 2001 but didn't seek out fandom until after DH).

are you saying that your heart isn't in writing anymore period

The first thing to understand is that I am not "a writer", driven to do it because I can't not do it. I wish I were. But the really important thing to grasp here is that the question is meaningless, because I was not saying "my heart doesn't seem to be in it anymore" but rather "What heart? You all seem to have one, but I don't." That's how I feel anyway.

I really loved this analysis comparing your reading of Snape to the Byronic hero archetype!

I've been writing fan fiction for about six years, and I have gradually lost the strong drive to just write a ton. I've written two stories so far this year! I don't think that means there's nothing left to say about Snape or any other character in any other canon. It's just that fan fiction has a certain genre aspect to it. Yes, it gives us a lot more latitude for experimentation than trying to write publishable original fiction. I think one reason it's compelling to read other people's stories is that they reflect so much about the writers and their values, beliefs and passions--sexuality, beliefs about love, what they value in human beings.

I don't mind when other writers have a different view of the characters than I do. I've come to value even the stories where they seem way off base to me, because of what the fan writer has invested.

I know you'd rather put your heart into fic, but putting it out here in meta is wonderful. Even though depression has you feeling decentered, pithed, hollowed out--you still have that heart of creativity. This character is important to you for some reason.

I don't mind when other writers have a different view of the characters than I do.

I don't mind that they do, although it annoys me when someone with an obviously antagonistic view comes into a space I view as "mine" (or "ours", people who generally think similarly to myself) and where we're just trying to have fun and starts something up. It gets wearying, if one hasn't gone out to seek that kind of confrontation.

I know you'd rather put your heart into fic, but putting it out here in meta is wonderful. Even though depression has you feeling decentered, pithed, hollowed out--you still have that heart of creativity. This character is important to you for some reason.

Hm, interesting. When you put it that way I kind of see a parallel with

lilyevans_snape's original post: what's left to discuss? Some days I feel like I could talk about him all day (he's definitely very important to me); others I feel like "aren't we done with defending him yet? can't we just get on to the fun parts?"

Beginning with the premise that I don't agree with everything that is now canon (I mean, I had different expectations for book 7 Snape, and I don't quite agree with the over-importance of Lily), I'd say that one of the most interesting aspects of Snape is exactly that his character is complex, still mysterious in many ways, and that surely fans stick with him also thanks to this possibility of interpreting his character in different nuances. I mean, re-interpretations and adaptations are the way characters survive in collective memory - think of Lancelot-as-hero // Lancelot as Arthur's rival // Lancelot as victim // etc, just to make a very lame example.

I don't know what's okay to think anymore

I'd agree, exactly because I believe that Snape is not a linear character in canon, that JKR had many unresolved issues in her way of describing him, and that not necessarily OotP Snape makes sense with HBP Snape or DH Snape. IMHO, at least.

I agree with him having a deep passionate heart, and with that being the reason why he tries so hard to hide it and to protect himself from being wounded again because of his sensitivity.

The parallel with Byronic features was very interesting, thank you.

I've always disliked simplistic interpretations of Severus's character - one way or the other - because, if anything is true about him, he is complicated from the word go, and the more JKR told us about him the more complicated he got. Your comparison of him to the classic traits of a Byronic hero is just wonderful. Almost against her will, JKR created a genuine anti-hero. His resemblance to Heathcliff is astounding for someone who claims never to have read Wuthering Heights, with perhaps one crucial difference: there is no evidence that Charlotte Bronte despised her own creation, whereas Rowling most certainly does (or did - I think we fans are having something of an influence on her. She has been much more equivocal in her pronouncements about him lately). She patterned him after a teacher she hated in school, whom she thought bullied her and made her school life a misery, and Snape's character was meant in some ways as an act of revenge. But then she gave him that tragic backstory, and undid, for a lot of us, the ability to see him in a purely jaundiced light.

As much vitriol as gets thrown at Severus, it always astonishes me that the Malfoys are never painted as even more horrible, even though, objectively, they are. You never hear anyone spouting at length about what an evil character Lucius Malfoy is, do you? The Malfoys have power, money, beauty, and sit at the pinnacle of Wizarding society. Yet that power and privilege was used for evil; he was taught to despise those not from his own class and blood status, he joined up with a wizarding supremacist organization in his youth where he participated in atrocities, lied and bought his way out of the consequences of that when it went pear-shaped (and he could do this because of his standing in society), continued with his misguided beliefs even after Riddle's first downfall in spite of public professions to the contrary, abused and maltreated his house elf, attempted to use a *child* to continue Voldemort's work at the school (there's no evidence that he knew what he'd given Ginny was a horcrux, but he understood that it would possess her and cause her to open the Chamber of Secrets), knowing that children would die and that the child of a pureblood family whose political opinions were contrary to his own would be blamed for it. When Voldemort came back, he was among the first to return to his side, leading his wife and son right into the cesspool with him, whereas Severus returned only to work for Voldemort's defeat. When Voldemort turns on him and his family in the wake of the fiasco at the Department of Mysteries, we're supposed to feel a bit sorry for them.

Draco is tasked with killing Dumbledore specifically because Voldemort believes he will fail, and Draco loves his mummy and daddy so he'll do his best to try to save them even though he doesn't really have it in him to be a killer, and Narcissa loves her son so she begs Severus to put his life on the line to see that he succeeds, and Dumbledore begs Severus to put his soul on the line both to save him from the consequences of his own folly (the putting on of the horcrux/resurrection stone) and to save Draco's soul. (Btw, the only one who seems to have a care for Severus's soul is Severus himself. Not the sort of thing one associates with someone who is supposed to be a "deeply horrible" (JKR) person). But of course, this only means that Voldemort can treat them worse since they failed. Oh how the mighty have fallen! Voldemort takes over Lucius's house, strips him of his wand, generally treats him the way he treated Dobby and while there is supposed to be a little bit of 'see how that feels now that the shoe is on the other foot' going on, there is also an undercurrent of sympathy. Narcissa cares only about Draco (and we're supposed to admire that), Draco will go with whichever side appears to be winning, and when the air clears after the battle, there are the Malfoys, left to themselves, everyone alive and uninjured, apparently having redeemed themselves by their love of family and (according to JKR) suffering very few consequences for their actions. Severus pays with twenty years of indentured servitude and his life for having gone with the wrong person in his youthful attempts to find somewhere to belong and to earn the respect he craves. The Malfoys endure some discomfort for their sins and then go on as usual. Twenty years later, there is Draco standing on Platform 9 3/4 with his wife and son as if nothing ever happened. Nice message, that. Would there be more sympathy for Severus, if, in fact he had turned out to be a privileged pure-blood with an estate and lots of money? If he were better looking? Because those seem, at least to me, to be the reasons why the Malfoys walked away from their crimes without consequence.

Oops, I guess I got kind of carried away up there, but my point is, the morals of the Wizarding world are twisted by any standard, and Rowlng herself, never seems certain of what she wanted us to believe of him. As a character, Severus Snape can't be reduced to simple good or evil by either world's standards, and because of that, there will always be something new to say about him, at least as evidenced by the high quality of fan fic that is still being written about him. Like you, I am not really a writer, and so I don't really feel distressed when I look at prompts and don't feel the inspiration myself. Someone will, and I'll keep reading as long as the best writers keep writing. :-)

Would there be more sympathy for Severus, if, in fact he had turned out to be a privileged pure-blood with an estate and lots of money? If he were better looking?

I don't know about the former (sympathy from readers, I mean), but I suspect the latter might have been the case.

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On the nature of Snapes

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Carried Away, part 1 ::g::

Re: Carried Away, part 2 ::g::

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