The Hog's Head » Severus Snape

Snape’s Love

Travis Prinzi — Sun, 16 Aug 2009 14:24:01 +0000

Some time ago, a discussion sprang out of our Half-Blood Prince read-through about Snape’s love for Lily: is it a devoted, virtuous love that moved him to courageous self-sacrifice, or some sort of unhealthy, obsessive infatuation?

I think the discussion merits its own post. I’ve looked back to try to summarize all the arguments for and against, and it’s not easy to do. A lot of excellent points were made. I’m going to post the initial comment that sparked the discussion and make a few summary points, but it’s definitely best for you to go back to the read what’s already taken place. Conversation started here and also resumed here.

Red Rocker made the initial challenge to applying the term “obsessive” to Snape’s feelings for Lily:

Why are Snape’s feelings for Lily so frequently stylized as “obsessive love”? Why not “devoted love”? How about “selfless love”? Or “undying love” Or “love that transcends death?” How about “the purest love a man can have for a woman”?

Did JKR tell us that there was something morbid or pathological about Snape’s love? Was there some supra-textual comment I missed about how Snape’s feelings for Lily were really creepy?

Didn’t Snape’s love for Lily redeem him from evil and set him on a heroic course? Did he not daily risk his life in order to do the right thing for her sake? Did he not give his life for her son?

Doesn’t that make his love truly a thing to wonder at and admire and be moved by, instead of pathologizing it like the psychiatrists who would include “bitterness syndrome” in the new Diagnostic Manual of mental disorders?

My own struggle with the portrayal of Snape’s love has been his inability to love anyone other than Lily. If self-sacrificial love is ultimately a choice, then it’s a choice one should be able to make even against one’s inclinations, and for someone who is unlovable (in Snape’s view, Harry). I’m also fairly cynical about the power of eros, romantic love.

Contra this position, several good arguments have been made, along with Red Rocker’s:

Dadezzz argued that the “obsessive” love was love for the Dark Arts, which clouded his judgment, and love for Lily was redeeming, a la John Granger’s argument about the Lily/Beatrice parallels.
Lily Luna, agreeing that Snape only ever loved Lily, argued that he came to care for Harry by the end.
Red Rocker continued by saying that if someone is incapable of love, but finds it within himself to love one person, that love is not obsessive, but a healthy thing.
revgeorge strikes a via media by saying it’s still appropriate to call it an obsessive love, but it does motivate him toward good and courageous actions.
Red Rocker and revgeorge agree that Snape’s true motivations are shrouded in the mystery of his unpleasant behavior.
Hermione Luna, in her debut comment at The Hog’s Head (!), places Snape in the interesting position of being not the hero, but one who helps the hero on his journey, and looks at the whole question from a different angle.

Like I said, there’s more to this, so it’s best to go back and re-read. My own thoughts on Snape have been shifting, especially as a result of John Granger’s Lily/Beatrice argument. (It’s been out there for over a year, but I was too unfamiliar with Dante at the time to conclude anything one way or the other.)

There are still lots of questions to discuss and debate concerning Snape. Here are a few:

Snape’s capacity to love just one person: Is that a good and healthy thing, or an indicator that he’s unable to love entirely, and therefore his love for Lily was not love at all?
Are we observing an in-text tension, a clash between Rowling’s feelings about Snape (she doesn’t like him much and hesitates to call him a hero) and her symbolism – Beatrice’s green eyes pointing to Snape’s redemption?
Does Snape really not feel for anyone other than Lily? Or must he force himself not to feel (think of his Occlumency lessons) in order to be safer and more believable in front of Voldemort? Is it ultimately his double-agent role that causes him to not be allowed to feel (and therefore to heal emotionally)?

These questions, anything from the previous discussion, and anything new are all up for discussion.

Chapter One: The Dark Lord Ascending

Travis Prinzi — Tue, 04 Aug 2009 22:00:04 +0000

The first thing that struck me that I hadn’t noticed before was Voldemort’s response to Snape’s information about Harry’s departure from Privet Drive:

“Saturday … at nightfall,” repeated Voldemort. His red eyes fastened upon Snape’s black ones with such intensity that some of the watchers looked away, apparently fearful that they themselves would be scorched by the ferocity of the gaze. Snape, however, looked calmly back into Voldemort’s face and, after a moment or two, Voldemort’s lipless mouth curved into something like a smile.

The eyes fastening, the others looking away, and Snape’s calm response all suggest that Voldemort is in the habit of regularly performing Legilimency on every one of his Death Eaters, every time they bring him information. This says a few things to me: (1) Snape was a tremendous Occlumens; (2) Snape was in incredible danger every moment he returned to Voldemort; (3) Dumbledore was right not to divulge his entire plan to Severus.

The last of those three claims will be the most controversial, but the first two are important, however obvious. We’ve discussed a bit how much Snape’s identity – double agent, needing to fool a very skilled Legilimens – affects his need to maintain a harsh and cruel demeanor. This verifies that Snape was in danger, every moment he reported to Voldemort, of being “found out.” Snape, his most trusted Death Eater, was still examined every single time.

The second issue of importance in this chapter is the Malfoy foreshadowing. The Malfoys have been thoroughly rattled, and are not the arrogant practitioners of the Dark Arts that we met in earlier books. Allegiance to Voldemort did not work out so well for them. I’ve written elsewhere of Dumbledore’s strategy, rooted in his belief in the power of love, to “save the Malfoys” and in turn, save the world. The shaken Malfoys in this scene will become instrumental to Harry’s survival and victory at book’s end.

Finally, we have the death of Charity Burbage. I recall on first reading this that learning the prisoner’s identity was a bit anti-climactic, given the build-up of the mystery earlier in the chapter. But symbolically, it all works very well. Voldemort spews his racist message, and then, quite literally, kills “Love.” The cries for help from Snape are a foreshadowing of the exchange we’ll later learn he had with Dumbledore just a few weeks prior – that he’s only watched the deaths of those he could not save.

The White Tomb

Dave the Longwinded — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 14:30:43 +0000

Half-Blood Prince’s final chapter opens with a favorite device of Ernest Hemingway, the simple declarative sentence:

“All lessons were suspended, all examinations postponed.”

It really is one of Rowling’s finer moments as a writer, poignant and rich with subtlety. In this one statement, she wipes away all the carefree wonderment of childhood with pointed irony. Hogwarts shifts in symbolism from a place of comfort and safety where the worst worry was two parchments on werewolves for horrible Professor Snape, to a place in which parents are spiriting their children away as fast as possible because Snape has murdered the headmaster.

We see the Centaurs and Merfolk gather and pay their respects in ways I believe would have left Dumbledore deeply honored. His entombment is rich with symbolism, as Harry thinks “for one heart-stopping moment, that he [sees] a phoenix fly joyfully ino the blue.” Yet, the “next second the fire had vanished,” and a brilliant “white marble tomb” sits in its place.

In Dumbledore’s death, Voldemort has seemingly gained a devastating victory. Harry and Hogwarts no longer have their protector. The last bastion of paradise is now vulnerable — very vulnerable. Hogwarts has become, in one sense, a graveyard.

A palpable threat glares at us from the edges of this chapter, never clear and explicit, but there nonetheless. It peers at us from the Riddle mansion. The effect is amplified in the explicit declarations that our enchanting rhythm of nearly six long books has been broken. We’re no longer tied to time as it is dictated in school. Instead, everyone’s concerns take on much more urgent tones, emanating from a great emergency — war and death. Like the disjointed feeling new-minted graduates experience upon leaving school for “the real world,” so, too, with the Wizarding World as we’ve known it. Rowling is playing with an emotional realism like never before. Even as the Trio debate whether or not Hogwarts will be open in the next year, Harry makes it clear to readers that it doesn’t matter: “I’m not coming back even if it does reopen.” The chapter’s overriding emotion is not only sadness, but anxiety.

Harry understands his childhood is over. Yet, Rowling isn’t ready to declare him “ready.” To lift a line from another heroic opus, Harry must complete his training. In Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi, Yoda’s warning to Luke refers to a need to complete both a physical and mental training that prepares him to confront ultimate evil in the form of his father. The trope is a common one, and often serves as a way to remove our Hero’s wise mentor out from under him. In Half-Blood Prince, Dumbledore is taken from Harry so that Harry has to complete his heroic quest on his own.

I’ve always argued that HBP’s central plot thread is Dumbledore’s intense efforts to educate Harry in a more hazardous, yet consequential, way of engaging Voldemort — the fine art of speculation and inferrential reasoning. The Pensieve lessons are always about piecing together incomplete pieces of Voldemort’s past so as to anticipate his plans.

Yet, there are sharp indications that Harry still has much to learn now that he has been thrust prematurely into his adulthood. Trying to decipher who might be R.A.B, his feelings betray him:

He did not fell the way he had so often felt before, excited, curious, burning to get to the bottom of a mystery, he simply knew that the task of discovering the truth about the real Horcruxes had to be completed before he could move a little farther along the dark and winding path stretching ahdead of him, the path he and Dumbledore had set out upon together, and which he now knew he would have to journey alone. There might still be as many as four Horcruxes out there somewhere. … He kept reciting their names to himself, as though by listing them he could bring them within reach.

This picture starkly contrasts what we’ve seen from Harry before. Whenever confronted with a problem, excitement and curiosity have coursed through him, often uncontrollably. Philosopher’s Stone describes his first use of the Invisibility Cloak in terms of pure adrenaline: “The whole of Hogwarts was open to him…” Yet, in two years Harry has watched both Sirius and Dumbledore die as his intelligence and heroism failed him. His rash dash into the Ministry’s aptly named Department of Mysteries ends in tragedy. One year later, he can do nothing whatsoever to fight off Dumbeldore’s killers. In two crucial moments, Harry believes that his greatest attributes have betray him completely.

Now, harry must rely on the kind of reasoning (incomplete as its bases may sometimes be) in order to think through the journey in front of him. And we see examples of incomplete thoughts seeping forth from Harry:

Neville and Luna alone of the D.A. had responded to Hermione’s summons the night that Dumbledore had died, and Harry knew why: They were the ones how had missed the D.A. the most… probably the ones who had checked their coins regularly in the hope that there would be another meeting.

The ellipsis points the reader to something omitted here. Harry attaches a kind of childish need-to-belong to their loyalty. Yet, I don’t think it’s a stretch at all to add that Neville and Luna missed the D.A. the most because they believed in its cause. It was surely one of the first places either had experienced social acceptance, but they also chose what was right over what was easy. And Neville will prove it in grim and terrifying fashion at the end of DH.

Harry’s breakup with Ginny is another pointer that Harry hasn’t quite thought his plan through. As Harry laments what might have been, Ginny’s response is both knife-edged and sympathetic: “‘But you’ve been too busy saving the Wizarding World,’ siad Ginny, half laughing. ‘Well…I can’t say I’m surprised. I knew this would happen in the end. I knew you wouldn’t be happy unless you were hunting Voldemort. Maybe that’s why I like you so much.’” Without question she resents his choice here, but accepts it without too much protest. There’s a sense in which she seems to say to him, “Do you really think my safety is what matters now? Don’t you see my importance to you in all of this?” Harry hasn’t quite recognized in his friends and true love what we as readers see in John Granger’s eloquently explicated alchemical narrative. All of them are absolutely important for Harry’s efforts to overcome Voldemort’s plan.

In addition, we witness the Trio speculate on Snape’s motives by looking at the past hinted at in Harry’s illicit Potions book. Snape’s lineage leads Harry to conclude quite simply that Snape is “just like Voldemort.” As determined as Harry needs to be, this reads alongside what we learn in Deathly Hallows, as a warning against thinking dismissively. Admittedly, Harry is thinking emotionally. But, if we learned anything from Dumbledore in the last three chapters, it’s that facing a crisis with a calm mind and steady courage is absolutely important. Harry has to relearn this now that his challenges have grown more sinister.

Other moments Harry takes notice of are just as compelling in light of Deathly Hallows. The appearance of an anonymous Elphias Doge foreshadows his role in DH. Harry dismisses the man’s eulogy because “It did not mean very much. It had little to do with Dumbledore as Harry had known him.” Immediately, Harry flashes to his first vision of Dumbledore and his wonderfully odd welcome to Hogwarts: “Nitwit! Oddment! Blubber! Tweak!” What Draco and the other Malfoys want to construe as Dumbledore’s senility, Harry recognizes as Dumbledore’s playfulness. In light of Doge’s highly romanticized view of Dumbledore in DH, the one Harry so desperately wants to cling to, his entire performance here reads as a bright warning to Harry not to read too much into Doge’s sentiments.

Harry declares he is “Dumbledore’s man through and through,” but this final chapter is full of flashing warnings of Harry’s biggest fight to come. He’s faced down Voldemort multiple times on pure instinct, and he’s felt the warmth of victory and chill of defeat. He’s even forced Voldemort from his mind and body. Along with that metaphor in Order of the Phoenix, “The White Tomb” shows us that one of Harry’s greatest foes yet to come is his own self. Dumbledore has armed for this battle more than perhaps any other.

The Phoenix Lament

Travis Prinzi — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 00:39:21 +0000

Chapter 29 of our Half-Blood Prince Read-Through is brought to you by Arabella Figg!

Shock and grief define this chapter’s mood. In addition, we have three betrayals that took place before Dumbledore’s death on the tower.

We don’t get a Dumbledore denouement in Half-Blood Prince, but we still get a book-ending data dump in the hospital ward and Headmaster’s office, as the characters deconstruct the evening’s events.

As we move alchemically from white to red, moisture continuously flows—tears, blood, sweating, and ointment. Silver-haired Phlegm’s frozen expression upon seeing Bill melts in a red-hot passion as choleric as that of any Weasley. Rubedo elements abound: a lot of Hagrid, the Weasleys, Gryffindor rubies, bloody Bill, Gryffindor’s sword, Rufus Scrimgeour, battle blazes, and recounted wounds. In the heard but unseen presence of red and gold Fawkes throughout, and Dumbledore snoozing in a golden frame in the Headmaster’s office, there is promise.

Harry and White Hats

I see Harry as taking on the Dumbledore role here, especially in the hospital ward where he gives critical information and explanations, and questions the others about events. Though McGonagall presides in the Headmaster’s office, Harry interacts as an equal with the adults, refusing to give her information, and insisting on a Dumbledore funeral/burial at Hogwarts, so the students can say goodbye to him (in contrast to his own experience with Sirius).

It’s Ginny who leads dazed Harry away from Dumbledore’s body; only when he recognizes her “trace of flowery fragrance” does he realize whom he unthinkingly obeyed. What symbolism might be here?

Hagrid’s eyes may be blurry with tears throughout the chapter, but his vision is quite clear, and his devotion to Dumbledore steadfast and touching. And don’t you love Professor Sprout voicing Dumbledore? “If a single pupil wants to come…,” she says, the school should remain open.

Betrayal # 1: The White Hats by Dumbledore and Snape.

(While we, having read Deathly Hallows, know the truth, the characters at this point surely perceive their actions as betrayals.)

Stunned by Snape’s evil deed, the WHs are appalled by Dumbledore’s seeming naiveté when they learn his “ironclad reason” for trusting the former Death Eater. Disaster has ensued because they had put their unswerving faith in Dumbledore, and therefore Snape, though McGonagall says, “We all wondered….” Slughorn later says about Snape, “I taught him! I thought I knew him!” Curious reaction. Didn’t Sluggo see that the adult Snape was far removed from the boy he’d taught and Lily had loved? Does this betrayal foreshadow the betrayal Harry will feel in DH?

Upon learning that Dumbledore’s “ironclad reason” was Snape’s deep regret over James and Lily Potter’s death, Lupin is incredulous. “Snape hated James,” he declares. Again, no one makes any Lily/Severus connections, though some of them must have remembered the two as friends for most of their school years. (As Remus and Lily were same-year Gryffindors, and Remus was present at the event Harry refers to, wouldn’t Remus have known of it?) But Harry forestalls any speculation by bitterly adding, without explanation or context, that Snape “didn’t think my mother was worth a damn, either,” and had called her Mudblood. No one questions this.

What do you think of Harry, and how he takes command in this chapter?

The Black Hats

Betrayal # 2: Draco by the Death Eaters

We clearly see how Draco has lost any control he believed he had in his assignment. Not only do the Death Eaters attack and hurt students (and use killing curses!), they bring along the hideously violent Fenrir Greyback, known to prey on and eat children. However nasty he is, I can’t see Draco condoning this. He expected no WHs to be on watch, and perhaps naively believed the DEs were to secure the school borders, be his guard, and set off the Mark. Instead, there was a “fight-to-the-death battle.” Once Greyback emerged into the RoHT, I think Draco felt desperate and trapped well before ascending the tower stairs to his doom.

Also, we see how much Draco has kept Snape out of the loop to attain all the glory for himself (symbolized by carrying the Hand of Glory?); Snape only learns of the infiltration from Flitwick.

Romance

Amidst the anguished discussion over Bloody Bill’s bed, we have an interlude—the Tonks/Lupin romantic revelation/argument, and a brief discussion of love, referencing Dumbledore. Fire away.

Snape

Snape certainly never expected White Hat witnesses at the Dumbledore execution. When Flitwick came to fetch him, Snape Stupefied him. Was Snape sidelining a talented “foe” able to stop or report him, or protecting a fellow-teacher from harm? Remember that Snape, no matter how distasteful, has been a protective figure all throughout the books.

Betrayal #3: Snape by Draco and the Death Eaters

Draco betrayed Snape through exclusion, even though he knew his mentor had taken the Unbreakable Vow on his behalf. This exclusion and the mass DE attack made Snape’s position that much more difficult. Because of Harry’s witness (and surely Snape realized Hermione and Luna would tumble to Flitwick’s Stupification), he now had to flee the school, where Dumbledore intended him to stay. This put serious sand in the gears. In DH, we learn Snape was to continue his double agent work, protect Harry, and give him the Scarcrux information if LV stopped using Nagini. Also, Snape was to prevent the Carrows from taking over the school.

Fawkes

Fawkes the phoenix “flies somewhere out in the darkness,” singing a “stricken lament of terrible beauty,” heard within the hearer, rather than without, turning “grief magically to song that echoed across the grounds and through the castle windows.” While actively listening, everyone loses a sense of time (as did Harry when he kissed Ginny), not knowing why “it seemed to ease their pain a little to listen to the sound of their mourning.” Most of the chapter takes place in the hospital wing, a place of healing.

Harry, reflecting Fleur’s frozen shock, is himself numb with grief and shock at chapter’s end. Lying on his bed, he suddenly realizes the grounds are silent; Fawkes “had left for good, just as Dumbledore had left the school, had left the world…had left Harry” (another foreshadowing). Thoughts on Fawkes symbolism? How does phoenix Fawkes tie in with Dumbledore’s phoenix Patronus rising from his body (which seems to be three days later) in the next chapter?

Arabella out. As Stan Shunpike would say, “Take it away, Ern!”

The Flight of the Prince, by Lily Luna

Travis Prinzi — Sun, 12 Jul 2009 22:00:48 +0000

Another guest post by Lily Luna! Chapter 28 of our Half-Blood Prince Read-Through.

Tonight has been one adrenaline-pumping moment after another for Harry. He learns it was Snape who relayed the prophecy to Voldemort. Dumbledore gives him a ludicrous explanation of Snape’s remorse. He experiences Gothic horror upon Gothic horror in the cave. He is forced to torture and nearly kill Dumbledore by force-feeding him poison. They are nearly killed by Inferi. They return to see the Dark Mark over the Tower. Harry is forced to watch helplessly as Draco and Dumbledore confront each other, the other Death Eaters taunt Dumbledore and lust for his death, and finally, the ultimate horror: Snape blasts Dumbledore off the Tower with the killing curse. Harry then almost has his throat ripped out by Greyback, fears his friends are dead, duels Death Eaters, engages in a long tortuous foot race through the castle and grounds, ineffectually duels Snape who sneers at him while Hagrid’s hut is set on fire and Fang howls, and is tortured by Rowle. Is it any wonder that by this point Harry is crazed beyond reason or fear and tries to kill Snape?

That’s right, KILL. When Harry tries to use Sectumsempra on Snape, he is trying to kill, not just injure, the person he has come to hate as much as he hates Voldemort. He has seen what the curse did to Draco and to the bodies of the Inferi, yet he deliberately uses it “blindly” and therefore uncontrollably on Snape. Snape has just stopped Rowle from torturing Harry and saved Harry from being kidnapped and brought to Voldemort, but Harry does not even notice. He is intent only on destroying the man who has verbally tormented him for years and now has seemingly shown himself a traitor and murderer. Is Harry morally responsible for his actions at this moment? If Snape had not blocked him would Harry have been guilty of murder? Dumbledore with all his plotting very nearly saves Draco’s soul at the cost of Harry’s.

Snape is enraged at Harry’s attempts to torture and kill him, at his ingratitude, at the thought that he has been protecting a boy whom Dumbledore keeps praising and yet has turned to the Dark Arts in pursuing him, and at his own spell being turned against him. When Harry tries to use Levicorpus on him, to humiliate him like James did and throw him off balance thereby making him vulnerable to a repeated Sectumsempra, it is the last straw. Snape in that moment feels a hatred for Harry and for his mission equal to what he felt having to kill Dumbledore on the Tower. He tells Harry just who the Half-Blood Prince was, tells him he’s just like his “filthy father,” thereby denying Dumbledore’s assertions that he’s more like his mother, and blasts Harry’s wand away when he dives for it. Harry then pushes Snape over the edge by again calling him a coward.

“DON’T – ” screamed Snape, 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!”

For Snape, who has displayed tremendous courage ever since Voldemort first threatened Lily, this is the ultimate insult. For the third time in the series he loses his self control and his inner torment shows in his face. He looks like an animal in as much pain as the howling Fang, just like he made “a terrible sound, like a wounded animal” during his grief and remorse after Lily’s death.

There is a strong parallel between this scene and the scene in the Shrieking Shack in Prisoner of Azkaban, where Snape looked “suddenly quite deranged.” There, too, Harry threw the bullying that Snape had suffered in his face and called him “pathetic,” leading Snape to call Harry arrogant, “like father, like son,” and revile Harry for his ingratitude. There, Harry, Ron, and Hermione slammed Snape into the wall and knocked him out when they tried to disarm him. Here, the situation is reversed. Snape has already effectively disarmed Harry and now magically whips Harry across the face, slamming him into the ground so hard he is dazed and cannot breathe for a moment, lying there like Snape lay “lifeless” in PoA.

Buckbeak intervenes, slashing at Snape with his razor-sharp claws and chasing him off the grounds. A hippogriff and perhaps a symbol of Christ (per John Granger’s speculations in Unlocking Harry Potter, p. 124, 2007 edition), Buckbeak is doing more than protect Harry from Snape. He is protecting both of them from themselves and from each other. He prevents Snape from going too far and harming his own soul and by making Snape run as fast as he can, he protects Harry from finding his wand in time to try again to kill Snape. This passage reminds me strongly of the scene in C.S. Lewis’ The Horse and His Boy where the Christ-like lion Aslan chases Shasta and Aravis on their horses to make the horses run as fast as they can so that Shasta can deliver a warning in time. At the end of the chase, Aslan attacks Aravis, clawing her back to give her wounds like those she callously left a servant to suffer from a whip when she left home. Aslan is not trying to kill Aravis, only make her feel the servant’s pain. Here, Buckbeak claws but does not try to kill Snape, giving him wounds that make him feel the pain he has inflicted on others, including James, from his own use of Sectumsempra, as well as Harry’s pain from Snape magically “whipping” him and from the many cutting remarks Snape has made to Harry over the years.

There are additional parallels to other books in the series:

The chapter title “The Flight of the Prince” foreshadows the literal flight of the Prince from the castle in Deathly Hallows.
Harry hits Amycus (who has been trying to Cruciate Ginny) with an Impediment jinx, slamming him into a wall with a “piglike squeal of pain,” which foreshadows him hitting Amycus with Crucio in DH, slamming him howling in pain into a cabinet.
Harry is comforted by Fang’s warm body, just like he is comforted by the warmth of Fawkes in Dumbledore’s office at the end of Goblet of Fire. Hagrid rescues Fang from the fire; Fawkes lives in a cycle of fiery death and rebirth. At the end of this chapter Fang howls; in the next, Fawkes laments. Fawkes leaves; Fang stays. What are some other Fawkes and Fang connections and what do they mean?
What other instances of foreshadowing are there in this chapter (one is obvious)?

Some more questions to consider:

What meaning(s) do you read into Harry’s feeling that if he could just get Snape and Dumbledore back together the murder could be reversed?
What are some of the alchemical elements in this chapter? There are a number of symbols of each of the black, white, and red stages and a descent from the Tower down through a labyrinth of hallways, secret passageways, and stairs inside the dark castle (from the air to the ground instead of underground). Do we seem to go through more than one stage within this chapter and if so are the stages in the usual order?
Why is Harry able to catch up to Snape and Draco? Did Snape deliberately take the longer route so he could be around to protect Harry from the other Death Eaters?
Is Snape right to fear telling Harry the truth about his motivations or does his pride nearly get him killed?
What else can be said about Buckbeak and similarities between PoA and HBP?
Was the trip to the cave pointless as Harry believes? Did Dumbledore notice that the locket was wrong when he took it from the basin? What clues are in RAB’s note as to his identity?

Azkatraz Preview: The Life of Severus Snape

Travis Prinzi — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 02:04:14 +0000

Azkatraz is fast approaching, and I’m thrilled about it. One of the more challenging roles I’ll be playing there is moderator for the panel, “The Life of Severus Snape.” How do you cover Snape in a panel discussion in just 50 minutes? Well, you don’t. But you do cover as many interesting aspects of his character as you can. Below are two excerpts that will give you a taste of what’s to come for The Life of Severus Snape panel.

First, the summary, which is not yet on the Azkatraz website. Participants are Sophia Marquez, Amber Vitale, Elizabeth Wu, and Greg Gershman (from HP Progs!). The summary:

Even now that we know the end of the story, Severus Snape remains as fascinating a character as he was while we were waiting for the release of Deathly Hallows. What did Snape believe about himself? Did he believe he could find redemption? Did he live in guilt, and what effect did this have on him? Was he redeemed in the end? Was his love for Lily genuine devotion or creepy infatuation? What did Rowling think of her character, and how does that compare and contrast with fan response? Did fans have the emotional closure needed in Deathly Hallows? These and other questions will be addressed in this panel discussion as we focus on Snape’s double-agent role, his literary status as Gothic hero-villain and shapeshifter, and his own choices throughout the story.

Then, participant Amber Vitale sends along this summary of her experience as she got to know Severus Snape over the course of seven books:

I admit that Snape was not my favorite character. Like so many other readers, I found Snape to be exactly as Ms. Rowling intended: abrasive, bullying, nasty and just plain mean. He picked on Harry and Neville and he doted on the Slytherins. Throughout my virgin reading of the series, I knew that such an unlikeable character couldn’t possibly have any redeeming qualities. I couldn’t quite think that he was truly in league with old Voldy, but he was certainly not a “good” person.

Then we get the truth: Severus Snape was deathly in love with Lily Evans.

Shock of shocks.

After my initial reaction of denial, I realized how much sense it all made. Of course Snape was in love with her. Is there anything else that would cause a person like him to go against his own dark nature? Is there anything else that could’ve convinced Dumbledore of the sincerity of this man? Absolutely not.

The main theme of this series is love. How better to illustrate the power of love than by giving the man we all loved to hate an undying, terrible, and unrequited love that would redeem him from all the evil he had done?

And it’s quite amazing to me, looking back on the series and re-reading. Situations that I thought were quite clear weren’t what I thought. I know that Ms. Rowling intended to lead us all astray in the way we thought of Snape, but she did it so well that I end up kicking myself because I should have seen it.

From the first moment we see Snape gazing with loathing at our hero, Harry Potter, to the end of his life when he wants to see Lily so badly that he looks at Harry’s eyes, Severus Snape showed us over and over again where his loyalties were. And now that we know for certain, it’s time for fans and Snape-haters alike to look again at this wonderful, tragic, and misunderstood character.

Gonna be a great discussion! Look forward to seeing you there.

Sectumsempra, by Arabella Figg

Travis Prinzi — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 21:14:03 +0000

Our next guest post comes from Arabella Figg! ~ Travis

This is my first post here, and what a chapter to work on! So, no metaphorical Dung Bombs, please. (All page references are from the American edition.)

Sectumsempra could well have been titled Truth or Consequences, as deceit plays the starring role. Moreover, two events we’ve long-anticipated—a confrontation between Harry and Draco, and another kind between Harry and Ginny—occur.

The chapter begins with good news—Katie Bell’s return and the Ron/Lavender and Ginny/Dean breakups, Harry can now pursue Ginny, but fears Ron will disapprove; is he right (Ron has previously indicated how he would feel)? He returns Katie to the Quidditch team, displacing Dean who has played most of the year; was this fair?

Why do you think Slughorn stops holding Slug Club parties after telling Harry the truth about his Horcrux conversation with Tom Riddle?

Now we come to the heart of Sectumsempra: Harry’s bathroom encounter with Draco.
We have seen some amazing changes in Draco in this book—from brutish strutting to terrified crying. We also learn what drives him: if he fails, Voldemort will kill him. Is there any significance to Draco seeing Harry in a cracked mirror?

Throughout his many travails involving desperation, frustration or fear, Harry has never shed tears (except in grief over Sirius’ death). What does this say about him? How do you feel about Draco’s tears; do they diminish him? Though Draco has always been cowardly, do you feel differently about him in this chapter?
What follows is not Harry’s finest hour. We have to ask, who are the heroes and villains in the following sequence?

(Note: Sectumsempra is a favorite curse of Snape’s. He uses it nonverbally twice in the series: against the tormenting James Potter (OotP 647), and in trying to save Remus, instead accidentally severing George’s ear (DH 688).

Now, into the bathroom, friends. First Harry spies upon and then unwittingly humiliates his tormented enemy by watching him cry, thus engendering a duel. To counter Draco’s Cruciatus curse, Harry employs the Prince’s Sectumsempra curse, which he’s been itching to try, to disastrous results. What were his other options?

Snape seems to arrive at the bathroom quite quickly. Was he following Harry or Draco? If he was watching over Draco, should he have diverted Harry from entering?

Along with using his wand, Snape sings over Draco three times to heal his wounds, each pass a step of healing. What relationship to Phoenix song might this have? What about any symbolism in both blood and water drenching the scene (and Harry)? What do you make of this line: “There were bloodstains floating like crimson flowers across [the wet floor’s] surface” (523)?

When Snape orders Harry to wait for him in the bathroom while taking care of Draco, “It did not occur to Harry for a second to disobey” (523). Yet within minutes, he’s boldly lying to an expert Legilimens (quite familiar with his mind) about where he learned the curse. Though Harry knows Snape sees the Potions book in his mind, he continues lying, and disobys Snape’s order to give over the Potions book. Instead, Harry switches covers with Ron’s book (involving Ron in his deception), hides the Prince’s book in the Room of Requirement (now the Room of Hidden Things), and brings Ron’s book to Snape. Harry then “firmly” and with “defiance” (527) heaps lies upon lies to Snape about the book’s ownership and provenance. Snape calls Harry “a liar and a cheat,” (528) and gives him a Professor McGonagall-approved Saturday detention for the rest of the term, thus making him miss the rest of the Quidditch matches.

Who are the honorable and dishonorable ones (or is each person partly both) during this sequence and why? How did you feel about Snape calling Harry a liar and cheat? Consider Harry, throughout the series, cribbing Hermione’s homework to pass his classes, and lying in many and varied circumstances? Did you read this scene differently after having read DH? Has Snape always been truthful to Harry, no matter the cruel and self-serving the delivery?

Hermione later upbraids Harry, but Ginny defends his use of the curse. Both love Harry, in different ways. Who is right and/or honorable here?

The chapter closes happily. At long last, after a critical Gryffindor win, Ginny runs to Harry and…they kiss! Did you feel this hit the expectation mark? What about Ron’s reaction?

There’s so much more to ruminate over in this chapter, but I leave it to you. For example:

Why do you think Harry didn’t connect the curse and the Prince’s book with Snape, as Snape’s knowledge of this curse, questions and behavior were, as Rowling might say, “obvious”?
Truth or Consequence: what might have happened if Harry been truthful about the Potions book? Was he right to deceive Snape?
Draco knows that Snape has made the Unbreakable Vow (323), yet says Voldemort will kill him if he fails. Does this fit with the Unbreakable Vow as explained in Chapter 2?
Why do you think Moaning Myrtle (after what we learned about ghosts in OotP) remained a certainly unhappy ghost?
What does this chapter reveal about achieving access to the Room of Requirement? Why did Harry fail earlier and then succeed?
Did Harry’s viewing his father’s misdeeds during detention have any value, especially after his Pensieve experience in the previous book?
What setups for the last book do we find in the Room of Hidden Things?

Have fun!

Christmas Eve at the Burrow

Travis Prinzi — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 01:04:21 +0000

We’re halfway through Half-Blood Prince!

More Snape irony in this chapter: As Harry what he overhears to Ron, he’s convinced he knows that Snape is on Voldemort’s side, because “No one’s that good an actor, not even Snape.” Wrong! Funny that as Harry is being vindicated about Malfoy, he’s completely wrong about Snape.

Dumbledore really becomes a show-stealer on a re-read. Snape was the big mystery, and to some extent still is, of course. But as the Snape discussion progresses on Christmas Eve at the Burrow, Harry begins to challenge Snape’s status in the order: “But how do we know?”

“It isn’t our business to know,” said Lupin unexpectedly … “It’s Dumbledore’s business. Dumbledore trusts Severus, and that ought to be good enough for all of us.”

“But,” said Harry, “just say – just Dumbledore’s wrong about Snape – ”

“People have said it, many times. It comes down to whether or not you trust Dumbledore’s judgment. I do; therefore, I trust Severus.”

Wow. That’s a lot of trust from Lupin! And, as we all know, Lupin was right. But is there a disconnect between the extent of Lupin’s trust and Dumbledore’s actual character. Well, we could have quite the debate about that one. I would argue that Dumbledore was trustworthy, but here’s the darker question: did Dumbledore earn this kind of trust, or did he manipulate it? I’d lean toward the former; others here would lean toward the latter.

By the way: “I neither like nor dislike Severus Snape.” How’s that for typical non-committal on Lupin’s part? But Lupin ends up being 100% correct for the remainder of the discussion, which says to me his trust in Dumbledore, at the very least, is founded on something solid and reliable.

I love Harry’s “fierce” assertion that Lupin is “normal.” It’s the kind of thing that works as a great illustration in discussions about what is “normal” and what is “other” in social constructs concerning issues like disability.

We had a discussion in another comment thread about whether Lupin was correct in his assertion that Levicorpus was one of those spells that comes and goes; but the text in this chapter indicates that Lupin is doing little more than speculating. He clearly doesn’t know for sure.

Brilliant misdirection by Rowling on the Lupin/Tonks pairing: After telling the everyone that Tonks was spending Christmas alone, “[Mrs. Weasley] gave Lupin an annoyed look, as though it was all his fault she was getting Fleur for a daughter-in-law instead of Tonks…” The look itself is the clue to getting the interpretation right, but the Harry filter immediately misdirects us to the Bill/Tonks framework of thinking introduced back in chapter 5.

The remainder of the chapter is Harry’s discussion with Scrimgeour, which shows us just how awful the Ministry has become. I’ll leave analysis of that discussion to the pub, or do a separate post if no one picks it up and runs with it in the comments.

A Party and a Promise

Travis Prinzi — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 02:10:17 +0000

Harry was supposed to have been reading Quintessence: A Quest. Perhaps if he’d actually read it, he’d not have spent so much time wandering around and having to pass yet again through the three stages of alchemy in Deathly Hallows? “Quintessence” means:

the fifth and highest element after air and earth and fire and water; was believed to be the substance composing all heavenly bodies
the purest and most concentrated essence of something

Either that, or he would have been skipped the whole Voldemort quest to join a Finnish jazz band.

Rowling lays the irony on this again with Harry’s stubborn pronouncement that he’s learned more from the Prince than he ever did from Snape.

Re-reading the scene in the library, I can definitely see why many of us speculated that Irma Pince was an anagram for “I’m a Prince” (i.e., Snape’s mommy). Her “sunken cheeks,” her “long hooked nose” and that foul temper sound very familiar. I laugh every time she notices the writing in Harry’s potions book and calls him a “depraved boy.” I also cringe a little – I have much the same attitude about writing in books (and dog-earing the pages). Perhaps I need to re-evaluate.

I’ve often wondered if Rowling satirized fan speculation about her series right in her text. For example, was Xenophilius’s “Scrimgeour is a vampire” theory meant as a subtle shot at the many “Snape is a vampire” theories that were floating around at the time (and which she squashed in the very first post-HBP-release interview she gave)?

Lots of excellent humor in this chapter, what with Luna and Trelawney being prominent, as well as some fairly annoying teenage behavior, on the part of Hermione, no less. But all this moves us quickly to the conversation between Snape and Draco, which plunges Harry deeper into speculation about what young Malfoy is up to, with revelation of an “unbreakable vow.”

When Severus is pulled into conversation at the party, Slughorn begins praising Harry’s ability, and the former potions master expresses skepticism. The text says that Snape’s “eyes narrowed” and “were boring into Harry.” Harry ponders what might happen if Snape began “investigating the sources of his newfound brilliance in Potions,” as if that were something that might happen in the future. What Harry misses, I think, is that Snape has already begun, with the narrowed, boring eyes. Just moments later, in the conversation Snape has with Draco, moments of silence are following by statements of Draco’s practicing Occlumency, and then argument about what Draco is hiding from him. In other words, Snape, as he has done many times before and will do again, has cast Legilimens nonverbally.

Which might just mean Snape knew about the potions book as early as Slughorn’s Christmas party.

Snape Victorious

Travis Prinzi — Sun, 24 May 2009 03:11:59 +0000

Am I missing something, or does the artwork for this chapter in the U.S. edition have nothing whatsoever to do with this chapter?

It’s always fun to see Rowling playing with quick lines of foreshadowing after having read what was being foreshadowed. In the beginning of Chapter 8 of Half-Blood Prince, while Harry is paralyzed from Malfoy’s spell, he remembers that some wizards could cast spells without speaking, and attempts to summon his wand to himself. It didn’t work, of course. We’ll learn in this chapter that Snape is the new DADA teacher.

And then when we finally get to see him in action, he teaches them nonverbal spells.

We also get Snape’s snide remark about Tonks’s new, “weak” patronus, which we will learn way, way at the end of the book, was his way of isulting Lupin. Tonks’s patronus change – a wolf – is because of her unrequited love for Lupin. Snape, of course, who hated Lupin, would find a wolf weak.

These glimpses we get of Snape are fascinating to re-read and speculate about in light of the finale. I concluded in Chapter 10 of Harry Potter & Imagination that Snape was as much a shapeshifter in his death as he was in life. As we can see from even recent comments on this blog, there are still arguments both for and against his redemption, for and against his goodness or badness. So when Rowling makes the comment, “As though he had read Harry’s mind, however, Snape said …,” we know that’s a clue that the greatest legilimens in the series was, indeed, in Harry’s mind.

And what was he doing in there? Finding more things to ridicule Harry about (which he immediately does)? Trying to find out what Malfoy was up to, assuming Harry’s lateness might have been about that? Trying to learn whatever he can while in Harry’s presence to better protect the son of Lily Evans? All of the above?

This is also one of those brilliant scenes where Hermione answers all our questions, and we missed it on the first read. When she sees Dumbledore’s hand, she says, “It looks as if it’s died.” Which, we find out in “The Prince’s Tale” all the way at the end of Book 7, is exactly what it had done. Death was “stoppered,” contained in that hand for a short time. Hermione gives us more commentary: “But there are some injuries you can’t cure … old curses … and there are poisons without antidotes …”

And Dumbledore experienced both of those things – the “old curse” on the Peverell Ring, and the poison in the green potion protecting the locket Horcrux. If Snape’s AK hadn’t killed Dumbledore, either of these two things eventually would have.

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