Harry Potter -- narritive analysis

[jack]

I notice people were very quick to blithely assure everyone that the most popular theories were unarguably true, but made absolutely no justification whatsoever to the analysis of it.

Which Snape theory is more likely, based on the style of plot?

* JKR likes mysteries and big reveals. At this point, in every other book, we've assumed Snape is evil and he's turned out to be good, so there's lots of precedent. OTOH, it would be a shocking surprise if that pattern changed.
* We *want* him to be good. Everyone likes him.
* JKR's described him as interesting and complicated, so he won't be stupid, whatever he's doing.
* There are many plots which are only revealed later, and which are kept secret from everyone, so a secret D/S plot would fit right in.
* D does make big mistakes.
* But it would kind of make him a joke if he was wrong about Snape all this time.
* Hmmm. It would fit, though, if Snape had mostly been working for us, but some complicated implausible thing happened at the end of the last book which made him suddenly change. (Eg. he'd been someone else drinking polyjuice for twenty years, but somehow still acts like himself.)

Comments

[yrieithydd.livejournal.com]

Everyone likes him.

They do??????? I can't stand him.

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

OK, maybe not like (though I think many people do -- I certainly like reading about him). But the idea of a Slytherin who's on the right side makes the universe a lot more palatable to live in

I know you can spell narrative

[mair_in_grenderich]

I don't want him to be evil. I'm curious to see how it will turn out.

I read the books a lot in little bits when I was revising for my MSc, and started noticing little inconsistencies and things. But then I read so much fanfic I started getting mixed up about what was canon and what wasn't...

[angoel.livejournal.com]

Further narrative logic - one of the themes that JKR has been pushing with Snape is that someone who you don't like can still be good. This all goes out of the window if he turns out to be bad in the end. Ergo..

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

Yes, indeed. It seems a shame, many books have wonderful good-but-bastard characters, but they're slightly missing here, when they're kind of important to the metaphysics.