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Why do we love Snape?
This was a question asked over on the whysnape board, and here was my answer. I have expanded it a bit as a result of the bitter word's excellent essay on Dunbledore and the comments that resulted. It is an informal essay/meditation, g-rated and probably about 500 words.
Why love a fictional character? In what sense do we *love* characters in books?
Some people will never understand this love because it has never happened to them. When I was in library school, I learned about the levels of engagement and understanding children - and teenagers, and adults - go through in their reading. First it's just basic comprehension. Then you get lost in the story; you are caught up in the adventure you are reading. Then you come to the stage where you "find yourself in a book". Then, as a young adult, you begin to see layers of meaning in the story and the characters. You begin to read on more than one level. It's my guess that all Snape fans are reading on at least the third level and more probably on the fourth. Many readers never get there. They read for information and amusement, and don't necessarily identify strongly with the characters, never mind analyzing them! That's a perfectly reasonable way to read these books. It's also true that not everyone who "finds him/herself" in the potterverse will find themselves in Snape. Why would any reader identify with him, rather than with more (apparently) likable characters such as Harry or Hermione or Sirius?
Yet many of us identify with Snape more than any other character in these books. I certainly do, and here are some of my reasons. For one thing, Severus Snape is a bullied geek, and, as Jodel remarks, many of Rowling's adult readers self-identify as geeks or nerds. I dare say quite a few of us were bullied by people like James, Sirius and Lily; as a result, we may well have strong fellow feeling for young Severus when we see him in the same situation. He is also, very clearly, a man in mourning. His irritability, poor grooming, choice of clothing, and apparent insomnia all point to clinical depression, and anyone who has ever been even slightly depressed can't help but feel for him. Most of all, I find him fascinating because he is the most morally and emotionally complex character Rowling wrote, and because he (like Neville, and unlike Harry) is truly on a hero's journey. He is the only character she wrote who actually chooses to change. This is compelling. But that's true of characters in other books, isn't it? There are certainly heroes who become better people by their own efforts and who love without being loved in return. Then why is Snape so fascinating?
I think Snape's grip on the reader's imagination is so strong because of the dissonance between what Rowling apparently intended and what she actually did. As I've said so many times before, in Severus, Rowling had the chance to write one of the greatest characters, and greatest heroes, in all of English literature. It's all there on the page - the courage, loyalty, intelligence and capacity for love*. And yet, she makes it clear in the adjectives she uses about him, in the torments and humiliations she puts him through, and in Harry's viewpoint, that she doesn't want him to be seen as a hero. Never mind what she says in interviews, which is even worse!
So, those of us who, for whatever reason, identify with Severus want to see justice for him. We want him to achieve some peace and happiness, and that never happens in the text. This is frustrating, so we can't let go. We keep struggling to affirm his heroism and discover other possibilities for him.
*He's got a great sense of humor, too. That helps.
Why love a fictional character? In what sense do we *love* characters in books?
Some people will never understand this love because it has never happened to them. When I was in library school, I learned about the levels of engagement and understanding children - and teenagers, and adults - go through in their reading. First it's just basic comprehension. Then you get lost in the story; you are caught up in the adventure you are reading. Then you come to the stage where you "find yourself in a book". Then, as a young adult, you begin to see layers of meaning in the story and the characters. You begin to read on more than one level. It's my guess that all Snape fans are reading on at least the third level and more probably on the fourth. Many readers never get there. They read for information and amusement, and don't necessarily identify strongly with the characters, never mind analyzing them! That's a perfectly reasonable way to read these books. It's also true that not everyone who "finds him/herself" in the potterverse will find themselves in Snape. Why would any reader identify with him, rather than with more (apparently) likable characters such as Harry or Hermione or Sirius?
Yet many of us identify with Snape more than any other character in these books. I certainly do, and here are some of my reasons. For one thing, Severus Snape is a bullied geek, and, as Jodel remarks, many of Rowling's adult readers self-identify as geeks or nerds. I dare say quite a few of us were bullied by people like James, Sirius and Lily; as a result, we may well have strong fellow feeling for young Severus when we see him in the same situation. He is also, very clearly, a man in mourning. His irritability, poor grooming, choice of clothing, and apparent insomnia all point to clinical depression, and anyone who has ever been even slightly depressed can't help but feel for him. Most of all, I find him fascinating because he is the most morally and emotionally complex character Rowling wrote, and because he (like Neville, and unlike Harry) is truly on a hero's journey. He is the only character she wrote who actually chooses to change. This is compelling. But that's true of characters in other books, isn't it? There are certainly heroes who become better people by their own efforts and who love without being loved in return. Then why is Snape so fascinating?
I think Snape's grip on the reader's imagination is so strong because of the dissonance between what Rowling apparently intended and what she actually did. As I've said so many times before, in Severus, Rowling had the chance to write one of the greatest characters, and greatest heroes, in all of English literature. It's all there on the page - the courage, loyalty, intelligence and capacity for love*. And yet, she makes it clear in the adjectives she uses about him, in the torments and humiliations she puts him through, and in Harry's viewpoint, that she doesn't want him to be seen as a hero. Never mind what she says in interviews, which is even worse!
So, those of us who, for whatever reason, identify with Severus want to see justice for him. We want him to achieve some peace and happiness, and that never happens in the text. This is frustrating, so we can't let go. We keep struggling to affirm his heroism and discover other possibilities for him.
*He's got a great sense of humor, too. That helps.
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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.)