Question...

[conuly]

Why is everyone theorizing that Snape and Lily were secretly in love with each other? Yes, he never insulted Lily to Harry's face - but the one time we see her stepping in to save him, he calls her a mudblood and she retaliates by calling him Snivellus. That doesn't seem very loving to me! At most, it seems like she didn't like James picking on people, no matter who those people were.

Yes, yes, they were both "brilliant in potions". And? All that means is that they were both brilliant in potions. It's certainly possible for Lily to have been independantly brilliant without needing the help of the Half-Blood Prince.

I find it unlikely that Lily had a crush on Snape, or was in love with him, but we don't know much about her.

I find it even less likely that Snape had a crush on Lily. If he did, it was most likely tainted with some degree of actual hatred (mudblood) or even self-hatred (OMG! NOT A PUREBLOOD! ANGST! ANGST!) because, really, Snape's got issues.

And I repeat, what I know of Young!Snape, I like. Bezoars... hee.

Oh, and another question: Wasn't Hermione going to get her comeuppance for being so manipulative? I sure hope that the comeuppance wasn't in the form of an entire book of angsty lurve, because if so, I think I'll have to kill something. And why don't the good guys get called on their bad behaviour? Wait, hold on....

Well, why not? The Weasleys are slightly racist. They're patronizing instead of hateful, but it's there. Remember Molly's words when we first met her? "Swarming with muggles", she said. Arthur is curious about muggles, but only in the sense of "look at the cute primitives". Frankly, I almost prefer the outright hatred of the Death-eaters. At least it's honest.

The twins are bullies. They shove a boy in a vanishing cabinet, and he nearly dies. They play tricks on people weaker than they are, including muggles, who by definition can't fight back. And it doesn't matter if Dudley is a "great, bullying git", he's terrified of them.

Hermione is manipulative. She really, truly is. Her behaviour, in fact, is unconscionable. What's worse is the matter-of-fact way in which she does it. "Oh, I picked him because I knew he'd irritate Ron the most." "Oh, I thought the centaurs could take care of our little problem for us." "Oh, even though I know they don't want this, I'll just trick the house elves into freeing themselves."

Harry is developing a scarily ambigious morality. Not ambiguous in the sense that "well, abortion can be right for some people, but wrong for others" or in the sense that "stealing bread is okay if you're starving", but ambiguous as in "it's fine to hex the squib just because I can" and "it's okay to practice jinxes on random passersby, even though I don't know what they do" and "maybe I'd do something nasty to somebody for no reason if they generally deserved it, like Malfoy". Sure, a lot of the time he's just a good-good person, but... those traits show up with disturbing clarity.

Dumbledore does twinkle altogether too much for his own good. He scares me.

So why doesn't this get commented on like it ought to be?

Comments

[feathered.livejournal.com]

Harry's ambiguous morality is one of the things I like best about him. Most readers probably don't notice it at all because we're so used to seeing everything through his eyes and thinking of him as the hero, but I love that it's there. It means he's not perfect. I HATE it when the hero is perfect and always right and has this unerring moral compass. That's the reason I really fear that she'll make Snape OMGTEHEVIL in the last book. It will reveal that H. has been right all along, and will almost give justification to all of his other actions. He really will be the perfect chosen one. He won't have distrusted Snape out of pettiness and generation-spanning rivalry; it will be because he somehow knew that Snape was bad all along. It would change the whole tone of the books and take away one of Harry's actual believable character traits.

[conuly]

It's not that I mind them, any of them, being not-perfect, it's that none of them ever pay for their mistakes. Not the good guys, anyway. Hermione has yet to learn that you can't just use people as objects and get away with it. The twins have yet to figure out that you can't just bully people who can't fight back. Molly still hasn't figured out that her parenting technique leaves something to be desired, but she may be a lost cause.

[feathered.livejournal.com]

Sorry that it took me a while to reply. I am bad with comments. It is because I am secretly very flaky.

But, anyway, I agree with you. The characters' imperfections are what keep me reading the series, but the blatant favouritism of the author and the implied moral issues are (part of) what keep the series from being truly good. (I won't say "great." Nope. Nabakov, Eliot, yes, they're great, but JKR? Nope.)

[leora.livejournal.com]

While I admit she left it ambiguous, I think book 6 leads much more readily to Snape being good than Snape being evil. But it could play either way.

[feathered.livejournal.com]

I agree, personally, but I'm not sure if I trust JKR enough as an author not to mess it up. I like to keep my hopes set low; that way I can be surprised when they're met and exceded.