...I now realize that the Harry Potter series that reappeared after the three-year-summer was a far uglier one than the one that had gone on vacation, and that perhaps it would have been better to remember the characters as they were.
That's interesting! and thanks for your extensive comments. This may be a bit off track; I was really only explaining why some of us love Snape (we identify with him, for one reason or another). But, in retrospect, the nastiness you point to was there from the very beginning. And I do mean the beginning; in a double murder and then the way the Dursleys are treated.
Coming at these books from the pov of an adult librarian, I actually liked OOTP better than the others because the characters seemed to be gaining some depth. Harry was at last having a reasonable emotional reaction to all the horrors that had happened to him, and we could see him struggling to behave better and to comprehend that there might be more to the world than his pov. In HBP, Harry took a long step backward. He was, once again, completely self-satisfied and self-absorbed - and he just got worse in DH. But I've had plenty to say about that elsewhere!
Now that the series is finished, I can't help finding a very ugly subtext in these novels as a whole - briefly, I think Raisin gal is on the right track, though we interpret some things differently. (I don't think it all boils down to homophobia, that is, although I think the homophobia is there.)
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Date: 2008-05-27 02:47 am (UTC)That's interesting! and thanks for your extensive comments. This may be a bit off track; I was really only explaining why some of us love Snape (we identify with him, for one reason or another). But, in retrospect, the nastiness you point to was there from the very beginning. And I do mean the beginning; in a double murder and then the way the Dursleys are treated.
Coming at these books from the pov of an adult librarian, I actually liked OOTP better than the others because the characters seemed to be gaining some depth. Harry was at last having a reasonable emotional reaction to all the horrors that had happened to him, and we could see him struggling to behave better and to comprehend that there might be more to the world than his pov. In HBP, Harry took a long step backward. He was, once again, completely self-satisfied and self-absorbed - and he just got worse in DH. But I've had plenty to say about that elsewhere!
Now that the series is finished, I can't help finding a very ugly subtext in these novels as a whole - briefly, I think Raisin gal is on the right track, though we interpret some things differently. (I don't think it all boils down to homophobia, that is, although I think the homophobia is there.)