Hog’s Head PubCast #20: The Snape Surprise

I believe that the surprise won’t be necessarily that Snape is “good”, the surprise will the logic or evidence behind such a conclusion. Even though some argue that “good Snape” is expected and thus too predictable, she probably knows that having him be “just evil” would be dissatisfying to the majority of readers. Sure, she is trying to write unpredictably, but she is also trying to write a satisfying story.

How do we know that his loyalty will ever be resolved? Well, personally, I believe that for the story to have some sort of closure we need to know Snape’s loyalty. We are too wrapped up in his loyalties to be happy if we discover there is no answer. Then again, it is possible. I’m wondering if the story will be concluded with the readers knowing that Snape helped Harry but Harry himself never discovered it. Eh. That wouldn’t really work if we want Harry to be hatred-free when he confronts Voldemort, though. He should resolve his hatred for Snape before the final confrontation.

This certainly is a puzzle.

Hi, Travis! After discovering, to my relief, that I did *not* fry my good, trusty little iMac last night* – I have Helen Ketcham’s essay saved on my hard drive. It’s in two parts, in Word 2004 format, and I could probably send them to you, if you will let me know how I should do it. I won’t be able to until latish Sunday, however. Had asked for her permission to cite her essay in mine, and had downloaded it to make accurate cites possible. Let me know!

About Rowling setting up a huge surprise – yes, I think she may be doing that, but the “what” doesn’t matter anywhere nearly as much as the “how” – and the “why” at this point, matters more than anything. I think THAT’S likely to be astonishing. We really, really, need to know why Snape is what he is, (whatever that is). And I do think we will find out.

Also, I can’t quite agree with you about the pattern in the books. It’s not really the case, is it, that people we think evil are proven good, and vice versa? If that were truly so, Dumbledore, Hagrid, and McGonagall would have been proven evil, and Greyback, Bellatrix and Luciius would have been proven good, to give a few extreme examples. But that’s not really what Rowling has done. For the most part, people are pretty much as Harry sees them. So far, there has been only one reversal (Sirius) and one apparent reversal (Severus). And-

To the people in the books, Sirius was definitely evil at the beginning of POA, and as definitely good by the beginning of OOTP (I mean all our beloved characters, not the MoM or the Wizarding World at large.) To all these characters, Snape is definitely evil at the end of HBP. And *they* will be astonished if he is proven good at the end of DH. We readers will be astonished at “how” and “why’ more than at “what” Snape is – but, if I’m right, I think a lot even of the good Snape crowd will be quite surprised at “what” he is, too. ) And I do hope I’m right!

For exactly what I think Snape is, please read my essay. I asks – I asks nicely – and if that’s not nice enough, I begs!

(*about the iMac, I put it to sleep and covered it thinking I’d turned it off. It doesn’t have a fan. Poor thing!)

If “good Snape” was an “obvious, utterly predictable and widely expected ending to the Snape saga” as per Seriously_Black, then why are you all still conjecturing about it?

For myself, the scene in the tower, and the subsequent exchange between Harry and Snape made Snape’s loyalties clear. Whatever he feels for Voldemort and Harry (and I wouldn’t be surprised if he hates both of them), he is Dumbledore’s man, through and through.

The dramatic and character tension created by these conflicting loyalties is very satisfying to me as a reader. I don’t need a surprise in HP7: all I ask for is a satisfying “back story” for how Snape came to betray the Potters and then repented and committed himself to protecting Harry / defeating Voldemort. And I bet you that “back story” will have quite a few unexpected twists and turns and maybe even a major knock-out blow.

And if there are to be surprises, who’s to say they concern only Snape? I eagerly anticipate some surprises concerning Sirius Black (as Harry’s spirit guide on the other side of the veil, perhaps), Aunt P. (not a witch nor a Squib but not entirely Muggle), Neville Longbottom (the Unchosen one?) and of course Harry and his scar.

I posted somewhere, I forget where, that I was curious as to whether Snape could actually produce a patronus. When Lupin is instructing Harry in performing the patronus spell he said that you need really joyful memories to empower it (or something like that). Snape is not a happy person and seems consumed by hate, unforgiveness and a whole bunch of no fun. The patronus is a manifestation of joy and light- quite the opposite to Snape. All patronus’ are described as light and usually huge or large. Snape couldn’t fire one off without alerting someone even if it looked like a vulture or spider.

Hermione? says that many adult wizards cannot produce a patronus. Maybe Snape’s one of those.

Matthew

Well, if Rowling has said we’ll find out what Snape’s patronus is, he certainly can.

But being able to cast one is not a given for a member of the Order. They are certainly used for communication within the Order but I hardly think that Dumbledore would giev any potential member a test to see if he/she could. Membership in the order is on Dumbledore’s say so and nothing else. Even if he couldn’t cast one, Snape could recieve messages from other members. Anyway, that’s by-the-by if Rowling has said he can. Can you give me any information as to where she has said this?

I’m interested.

Matthew

Travis, that was a great PubCast. You summed up all the debate that’s been going on concerning Snape since HBP came out.

Mary, I want to add a bit to the character-turns-out-to-not-be-what-Harry-thinks.

1. In Philosopher’s Stone, Harry thinks Quirrell is a bit odd (most of the students do), but he is presented as good, by no less than Hagrid. When Harry finds that it’s Quirrell trying to steal the Stone and not Snape, we see the first instance of Harry being wrong about two characters.

2. Chamber of Secrets, it’s not only that Harry is wrong about Tom Riddle and mistrusts Hagrid’s innocence, he is also mistaken about Lockhart. He does think Gilderoy is a git and annoying, but the shock for Harry is that Lockhart lied about all of it. Harry was also wrong about who opened the Chamber, thinking it was Draco, only to learn that it was Ginny. But Rowling handled that in a way that it’s only obvious it was Ginny once you’ve read the book and then re-read it.

3. Prisoner has several of the same sort of switches of characters with, obviously, Sirius, whom he thought was trying to kill him, when he was trying to save Harry. But then he also learns that Scabbers is Pettigrew and it was Pettigrew who was the villain in the betrayal.

Lupin, who seems good from the beginning, turns out to be a werewolf which seems evil when he’s helping Sirius, and then he turns out to be good after all. He’s the first hint that a character can be good without being perfect, but I don’t think he’s the last one in that catagory.

4. Goblet has Fake Moody, and while I’m not a fan of the whole Polyjuice thing, I do like the way that character is written. He’s creepy enough so that when he laughs at odd moments or does things in class that wouldn’t be Ministry approved, it’s not a red flag, because what he says really does hold some useful information and sounds like Moody cares about Harry or Neville, etc. I love rereading all of Fake Moody’s comments, knowing that he is really evil and seeing how he fooled them all.

5. Phoenix is full of Harry finding out that what he thought was true, just wasn’t. It’s not so much a specific character that seems good but isn’t, but their actions that lead him to believe something that turns out to be the opposite.

Batty old Mrs. Figg is a squib and communicates with Dumbledore.

Aunt Petunia knows a lot more about the wizarding world than she ever told Harry. There is that moment when she talks about “that awful boy”, which Harry assumes referred to his father. However, that’s never confirmed and I think that’s going to be one of Rowling’s twists and it will turn out that Petunia saw Snape when Snape, for whatever reason, came to visit Lily.

All along, Harry has thought Trelawney is a fraud but then Harry learns that she actually made a real prophecy and he’s living it out.

He also learns there is more to Snape than just the mean horrid Potions master who makes his life miserable: Snape is a spy that Dumbledore trusts; Snape is accomplished at Occlumency and in teaching Harry (or trying to), inadvertantly reveals his own unhappy childhood; through Snape’s Pensieve memory, Harry sees that James and Sirius weren’t just fun-loving pranksters, but had a real nasty side to them.

Harry also learns about Sirius’s family history, which he didn’t suspect previously.

And all those visions that Harry thought were the real deal turn out to be sometimes real and sometimes false. So where Harry thinks it was a waste of time to try to learn anything from Snape, it would have been better if he’d tried a bit harder and managed to close his mind to Voldemort.

Harry also thought that Dumbledore was perfect, and learns at the end of Phoenix that he is not.

This book really opens the door to the idea that a character can be good, in that he or she does the right thing, but might not be nice or even good in all aspects of their actions (Mundungus comes to mind here as well as Snape.)

Rowling also takes on institutions that should be good because they are supposed to operate in the best interest of the people they serve–the Ministry and the school itself. Both turn toward the evil side but only because of the people who are in charge.

6. And in HBP, the whole book is full of people seeming to be one thing and turning out to be something else. Again, it’s not that Harry thinks Draco is evil and up to something and Draco is, but it’s the way it’s done–Draco is being blackmailed by Voldemort or Greyback or someone in order to protect his family, and is far from being as blatantly evil as Harry thinks. (Given one more minute with Draco, I think Dumbledore would have convinced him to come to the “right side”.)

We have Harry, who is on the good side, doing some really nasty things when he decides to try out spells without knowing what they even are. That’s not the behaviour of someone who is wholly good.

So by the end of HBP, it seems that we know who is good and who is evil because Harry tells us. However, it’s all through Harry’s eyes, and as he himself hasn’t been so pure in this book, it’s hard to believe that his opinion is that accurate or trustworthy.

Slughorn is still a grey character, as is Snape. Percy seems to be a good characterwho has turned bad, rejecting his family, but going about doing what he thinks is right, with a result that is decidedly not good.

Rowling has done a brilliant job of setting the whole thing up to show that even good characters (who are pure of heart) can make mistakes and poor choices. Characters that seem evil because they aren’t nice might turn out to be good. Jumping to a conclusion without all the evidence is a risky business, and that’s just what Harry was doing in his interpretation of all the events that happened on Dumbledore’s last night. No one clearly saw all that went on, but Harry took all those pieces and stated them as fact. By the end of HBP, many people were right in step with Harry, and that’s where I think we need to remember that Rowling even said that book 6 is really the first half of the end of the story.

We can’t say who was bad or good, because we don’t have the information to do that.

I think with Snape, or at least I hope so, that Rowling will give us his back story that will explain, as Travis said, why he is the way he is, just what his motives are and how that all fits in with Harry needing to be pure of heart so that he can defeat Voldemort.

Travis, sorry to go on so long, but you have really touched on my favorite enigma of the whole series. I’m so glad we only have a few more months to wait for most of our questions to be answered.

Pat (eeyore)

Thanks for that Pat.

Not trying to be a pain but that quote does not say that all members of the order can do a patronus.

It would be interesting if Rowling couldn’t reveal Snape’s patronus because she really couldn’t ie. he has none.

I am not trying to definately say that Snape has no patronus but the quotes that people are using to say he does are much too ambiguous in the typical Rowling way.

Matthew

Thanks, Travis. I do hope that Helen is OK with your posting her article here. It’s a shame that it’s not readily available.

korg20000bc, I think that quote put together with the other one does say that Snape has a Patronus. What’s more, it implies that Hagrid does also, and I’m betting that his is a dragon or something equally interesting.

If Snape were unable to produce some sort of Patronus to send messages, wouldn’t Sirius have used that bit of information to taunt Snape during one of the times Snape was trying to make Sirius feel so useless? I just don’t think he would miss the opportunity.

I have to look it up, but I thought in HBP in one of the few DADA classes we get to see or hear of, that there was some reference to Snape disagreeing with Harry on dementor protection–but maybe it was something else. Does that ring a bell with anyone?

Pat (eeyore)

Haven’t listed to the podcast yet, but I thought I’d mention that Janet has Helen’s essay in two parts on her blog circa September 2005.

Haven’t had a chance to listen to the pubcast yet, but here is the link to a Good Snape is not a Square Cirlce.

http://www.hogwartsprofessor.com/docs/GoodSnape2.html

Helen Ketcham is updating/revising her essays, and it will be posted at HogwartsProfessor.com in the next couple of weeks. Till then, thanks for the links from everyone else!

Hello Travis , any French Bistrot is better than your Hog’s Head Pub !

In Harry Potter’s books, we didn’t learn many things about main characters childhood, expect about Voldemort, Harry and … Snape. What Harry has seen through Snape’s mind is certainly a clue and maybe misdirection.
I will be happy to read your comments about my little Snape’s childhood theory.
My thought is that the young Severus was a victim himself of what could be named a rape of his mind by the Imperius Curse. Maybe Voldemort or a DE had tried, by this way, to influence his mother, or to get something from her (potions?)
In HPB, p 428. Bloomsbury – Hermione is reading The Prophet’s: « …oh, and how horrible, a nine-year-old boy has been arrested for trying at kill his grandparents, they think he was under the Imperius Curse… »
P436 – Harry talking with Tonks about the news: « …That little kid trying to kill his grandparents…
- The prophet’s often behind the times, said Tonks. »
The information seems no significant, but it appeared twice in the same book, titled HBP…I bet that JKR gave us more clues that we think.
If Severus tried to kill his muggle grandparents, Tobias Snape became certainly mad when he heard about what his son had made. Maybe, Severus’s mother tried to protect him and was sent to Azkaban. Severus wanted to keep this story secret, but perhaps he shared it with DD and later, Lily (Petunia’s quote about the awful boy and dementors).
The young Snape wasn’t good or bad, he was alone, eager to learn the Dark Arts. He wanted to be stronger because he hoped to be able one day to defeat Voldemort himself.
A Snape’s true story is maybe less the redemption of a turncoat than the struggle in an injured mind to find the way (with DD help) from vengeance to justice.

Hi, Carla – me again. This -

“I think it’s very likely that we’ll discover that Snape made an unbreakable vow to Dumbledore -”

is an interesting idea, and I wouldn’t put it past Snape to suggest such a thing to Dumbledore. But I truly don’t think Dumbledore would ever accept. Why not? Because the Unbreakable Vow is an evil instrument. It’s black magic. And I don’t think Dumbledore would ever make use of black magic with a young man – hardly more than a kid – whom he was trying to rescue from the dark path.

You might wonder what makes me so sure the Unbreakable Vow is black magic. Well, first, it’s just the feel of it, and what it does. It essentially enslaves another person and makes them your tool – that is what Narcissa does to Severus. The only way you can be free is by dying. That brings me to my second point: the Ueber-villain in these books, Voldemort, has become a villain because he is terrified of dying . He can’t accept death as a natural part of life. Dumbledore does accept it, though. So why would he use a vow that seems to force someone to do his will through their fear of death?

Finally, this is only the second magical ceremony we see in the books. The first one – Voldemort’s rebirthing – was very definitely evil, and took the form of a corrupted baptism; there was also some communion imagery (brrr!). The Unbreakable Vow takes the form of a wedding (I think maybe John Granger was the first to note this). As Madeleine L’Engle says in “The Other Side of the Sun”, black magic always makes use of something that has previously been blessed; it is corrupted ritual.

Those are the factors that make me sure the UV is evil. I simply don’t see Dumbledore imposing such an evil instrument on a young man he was trying to rescue. Just my two cents!

oriflamme, interesting thoughts on Snape. I agree that he was “alone” and taken advantage of in many ways, driving him towards the Dark Arts. Not sure about the specific details of the theory, but a young, imperiused Snape forced to do something against his will…it’s fascinating, though I’m more inclined to think that would turn him against the Dark Arts rather than toward it.

mary, I don’t think Dumbledore is the UV kind of person either, but for a different reason – he’s a trusting person. I think he is more concerned with people’s integrity (as well as their choices!) than he is with securing a particular end. And I’m not so certain the UV is entirely dark magic – after all, Fred and George tried to get Ron to make one when they were all really young.

Wow, Travis! Fred and George are your favorite characters, after Dumbledore and Snape? What a combination! Mine are Snape, Luna, Neville, and Hermione, which I guess is also pretty odd.

But, seriously, the twins are disturbing. I had noted their roughness without thinking about it much until I came across this essay by Pharnabazus on livejournal. It’s really, really good (and, like mine, compares the potterverse to the Inkllings). You have read and linked to so many fine essays that I’m (almost) sorry to be throwing another one at you, but this really is worth a look. Here is the link:
http://pharnabazus.livejournal.com/4468.html

Travis, did you read the comments? I know the movies are not canon, but do you think the books about quidditch and care of magical creatures are meant to be? If so, do you remember Ron’s comment about his pet puffskein, and how his brothers used it for bludger practice? Here’s the Muggle equivalent: Guinea pig – I used to have one of those until the twins used it as a hockey puck.

Not nice. Not nice at all. In fact, the twins are consistently horrible to Ron (whom I rather like, even though he also has his rough side). They are also fairly awful to Ginny during her first year – do you remember Tom commenting, sneeringly, on how poor Ginny confided to him how miserable her brothers were making her?

I cannot like the twins. They are popular bullies, but bullies for all that. That they are loyal to Harry proves litle; in the Wizarding World, he is both rich and famous, and the twins *know* this. The fact that they never criticize Harry, unlike Ron and Hermione, also doesn’t impress me; the best kind of friends are the kind who *will* criticize you when you are wrong. And what help (other than jumping on Draco in a three-on-one fistfight?) have they ever given Harry, really?

Oh – I don’t like Sirius, either. But I can see his good points, and why others like him, and I have no particular interest in arguing about him. Lupin – I used to like him a lot, but there is something about him that disturbs me. He’s a moral coward, for one thing, both as a boy and as a man.

But haven’t I hijacked this thread? Isn’t it supposed to be about the Snape surprise, and whether it’s possible, and to what extent it matters? I think, personally, Rowling will do a lot of things that will surprise us. And, if she does what I hope and expect she will with Snape, I *will* be surprised – and delighted – even if I have managed to partly anticipate her. I *know* I will not be able to completely anticipate her. She’s always managed to surprise me, one way or another, and that’s one of the things that has kept me reading.

Mary, I’m going to disagree about the Unbreakable Vow. It’s certainly not something to be entered into lightly. I agree it has a sort of wedding imagery…but that can be positive as well as negative.

Remember Dumbledore knows there are worse things that death. For Harry it may be enough merely to give his word, but perhaps Snape’s *faith* needs a more tangible reason. The unbreakable vow in that instance is not so much for Dumbledore’s peace of mind as it is a tool for Snape’s *redemption* to help him fight off temptation.

Dumbledore’s faith in Snape may be such that he does not believe such a vow would endanger Snape’s life. If they made an unbreakable vow, I’m sure that Dumbledore worded it *very* carefully.

Okay, Carla, we’ll just have to differ here. To me, the UV is utterly evil, because it denies free will and therefore negates all possibility of true trust and growth. Dumbledore ‘trusts’ Severus because he knows the young man will die if he does not obey him? Ugh! I simply cannot see Dumbledore ever doing anything like that. In my eyes, that would make him no better than Voldemort.

But free will is paramount in my tradition, and so I tend to see anything that negates it as immoral. Remember – Dumbledore says he *trusts* Severus Snape. Trust (I believe) is something given, not something coerced. And the UV coerces. It makes both Severus and Dumbledore less than they could be – it dehumanizes both of them, IMHO.

Thanks for the response, though! So – what’s your theory on magic? I don’t really have one yet; I’m puzzled by what Rowling *means* by it.

Mary wrote: “So – what’s your theory on magic?”

Depends if you mean Biblical sorcery or J.K.’s use.

I’m fine with agreeing to disagree, but I also value free will. I don’t think UV negates free will…but then, like Dumbledore, I think there are things far worse than death.

And if there is a UV, I’m sure it’s worded *very* carefully, so that Snape is not in constant danger of keeling over from every small mistake.

In my fanfic, I had Dumbledore’s reason be that Snape cried, but I wonder if something that simple would be unsatisfactory at this point.

I think you’ve hit the nail on the head as far as Rowling’s magical theory. She has a few limits on what magic can and can’t do, but those are mainly narrative limits.

I believe Rowling is using magic as metaphor for imagination (or wonder/potential). So it has the same boundries as Fantasia.

Rowling is simply recognizing, and rightly so, that most trappings of magic are “made up”.

Oops, I also meant to include that I see the UV as a perversion (a huge one) of a covenant. Sorry, for that omission.