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. [click to continue…]
It seemed pretty evident in the first book that Severus Snape was going to be an intriguing character. This is a post dedicated to the greasy potions master. Several questions for consideration and comment:
- In what clever ways did Rowling set up the Snape plot in book one?
- Any Snape foreshadowing that you missed in the discussion from Day 2?
- Reflect on your initial encounter with the character of Snape in reading book one for the first time compared with how you read him in book one now.
- Anything else you want to discuss concerning Snape in Sorcerer’s Stone.
by Dave
A standard literary trope is to set characters against each other, playing one’s personna in relationship to another. Typically, we find the “arch”-nemesis, especially in adventure or heroic stories. The main character is opposed by a primary antagonist, and the juxtaposition of these characters reveals something about one or both to the reader. For Harry Potter, the primary juxtapositions are fairly obvious:
Harry vs. Voldemort
Harry vs. Snape
Dumbledore vs. Voldemort
Dumbledore vs. Grindelwald
The nature of these juxtapositions often relies on the narrative distance between characters. Characters that don’t share much narrative space (i.e. rarely appear in the same scene) can reveal much about each other. But, the characters that often do share space create the more compelling narrative because the conflict is much richer and more immediate to the reader’s experience. The conflict most recognizable from these books is the eternal, perhaps transcendent, clash of good versus evil, and the characters listed above generally fall into some definition of those two categories. [click to continue…]
Joivre on 
Red Rocker on 
Arabella Figg on 
korg20000bc on 
Travis Prinzi on 
PotterMom05 on 
Loading ...
