I think I mentioned, I only entered HP fandom after DH--before then I trusted JKR to resolve all issues and was content to wait on her. Then when DH was published, I had a wound to staunch.
Kind of weird, to read the Red Hen and Swythyv's brilliant speculations first only AFTER half of them had been canon-shafted!
But yes, this essay and Rex Luscus's on the significance of the silver doe (I think it's called "Snape's Supposed Great Love") were the two that I found that most--guided, and gelled, my own thoughts of Snape. I've read both of them three times at least; I kept going back and rereading, as I firmed my own understanding of Severus Snape.
So thank you, in case I haven't said that directly, for writing and posting; without you, what I write myself would have been poorer. (And anyone who gets me to reread the Young Wizards series has done me a favor--where's your essay comparing Snape to Ed the Shark?)
It's interesting to compare HP to LOTR-- I wrote my own LOTR fanfic when I read it when I was a teen, but it was pure Mary-Sueism and I acknowleged it as such--I just wanted to find a way to insert myself (perfected) into JRRT's world. But what he did himself was right, it worked; even when it was painful and terrible it was right. I wanted to join that, is why I wrote teeny fanfics--and I had no interest in reading anyone else's in that world.
Then reading CT's publications of his father's notebooks--JRR didnt' know until 2/3 of the way through that it was Gollum who would finally destroy the ring!--and it became clear the JRR was willing to let his work, his characters, the moral complexity grow. He knew about where he was taking it--or where he thought he was taking it--but he was willing to let his work teach him otherwise.
On a small scale my own fanfic has done that: in "Betrayals", when Severus realizes that Voldie is homing in on the Potters, he has to decide whether to save Lily against her will--but then I realized (while the fic was almost done being beta-read) that his dilemma was much worse than that: he has to choose directly whether to save Lily herself (his highest good) or Harry (hers).
I (very anxiously) asked my beta reader if it was a mistake to change it at that late date.
I think that was JKR's mistake at the end: she decided to force everything back into the plot she'd settled on a decade earlier, while her characters and universe had grown without her noticing.
One should blunt the criticism: she wrote characters who could grow.
Re: great essay
Kind of weird, to read the Red Hen and Swythyv's brilliant speculations first only AFTER half of them had been canon-shafted!
But yes, this essay and Rex Luscus's on the significance of the silver doe (I think it's called "Snape's Supposed Great Love") were the two that I found that most--guided, and gelled, my own thoughts of Snape. I've read both of them three times at least; I kept going back and rereading, as I firmed my own understanding of Severus Snape.
So thank you, in case I haven't said that directly, for writing and posting; without you, what I write myself would have been poorer. (And anyone who gets me to reread the Young Wizards series has done me a favor--where's your essay comparing Snape to Ed the Shark?)
It's interesting to compare HP to LOTR-- I wrote my own LOTR fanfic when I read it when I was a teen, but it was pure Mary-Sueism and I acknowleged it as such--I just wanted to find a way to insert myself (perfected) into JRRT's world. But what he did himself was right, it worked; even when it was painful and terrible it was right. I wanted to join that, is why I wrote teeny fanfics--and I had no interest in reading anyone else's in that world.
Then reading CT's publications of his father's notebooks--JRR didnt' know until 2/3 of the way through that it was Gollum who would finally destroy the ring!--and it became clear the JRR was willing to let his work, his characters, the moral complexity grow. He knew about where he was taking it--or where he thought he was taking it--but he was willing to let his work teach him otherwise.
On a small scale my own fanfic has done that: in "Betrayals", when Severus realizes that Voldie is homing in on the Potters, he has to decide whether to save Lily against her will--but then I realized (while the fic was almost done being beta-read) that his dilemma was much worse than that: he has to choose directly whether to save Lily herself (his highest good) or Harry (hers).
I (very anxiously) asked my beta reader if it was a mistake to change it at that late date.
I think that was JKR's mistake at the end: she decided to force everything back into the plot she'd settled on a decade earlier, while her characters and universe had grown without her noticing.
One should blunt the criticism: she wrote characters who could grow.