The question I would now ask...

[heidi]

Ms Rowling - you've now slammed on people who think draco is redeemable and those who think Snape has layers and/or hidden depths. How do Snape and Draco differ, personality- and attitude-wise, from James Potter in his fifth year, or Sirius who was busy being a rebel?

And can anyone come up with other words for personality-wise and attitude-wise?

Comments

[noblerot.livejournal.com]

And can anyone come up with other words for personality-wise and attitude-wise?

How about rephrasing it to read: How do Snape and Draco differ, in personality and attitude...

[erised1810.livejournal.com]

yeah..that was bit blackandwhite-ish to mee too. I've seen it before and also the thign of beign abit discomforted/unsettled with peopel calign themselves slytherins.


'how do they differ in behavioru and character?"

[anjenue.livejournal.com]

I thought she'd said that Draco doesn't become a DE?

[mmichelle.livejournal.com]

James and Sirius weren't up to their ears in the Dark Arts. :)

And I still think Draco's a bigger prat than James and Sirius ever were (or Snape, for that matter). And remember, I'm speaking as someone who thought Draco was redeemable. Besides, Draco's just a flat character. No depth whatsoever (and I wish so much that there was depth to Draco, because he would be so interesting-- that's why I like writing him). We don't know much about Sirius and James at that age-- all we know is what we've glimpsed through the pensieve. There was probably a lot more to them than we know.

[moony]

How in the world can she expect us to believe that Snape has redeemed himself and is a trustworthy member of the Order if she continues to enforce the notion that all Slytherin are evil? Are we supposed to buy that a hat dictates a person's true nature? Are we supposed to dismiss someone based on the House they were Sorted into? Because I was under the impression that it is action, and a person's choices, that reveals who they are, truly.

How can she put Snape in the position he is in and then act surprised that people might like him? We're not all idiot ten-year-old girls, Joanne, and we don't all judge books by their covers.

Lucky for her, eh? -.-

[moony]

Well, Sirius was up to is ears in it, even if it were involuntarily, and I would bet money that he knows as much if not more about the Dark Arts as Snape does.

[anjenue.livejournal.com]

Hence the reason Peter and Percy were in Gryffindor and yet turned into Slytherinesque beings, mm?

That aside, when I was reading the transcript, I got the impression that she was just saying Snape is not a nice man. That doesn't mean he's EVIL, just that he's mean. I don't equate the two. But that's my personal opinion.

[mmichelle.livejournal.com]

Hmmm. True, but it was made very clear in Book 5 that he didn't like his family and their connections to the Dark Arts. He didn't take pride in the Dark Arts and didn't support them the way Draco does and Snape did.

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

What exactly does that mean, that someone is "up to their ears in the Dark Arts?" What are the Dark Arts and what makes them different from anything else? Seems to me the good guys have no problem with any art, dark or otherwise, either.

[shusu.livejournal.com]

*pops in* I'm also curious if there's a drain in using the Dark Arts as opposed to just knowing it. That seems to be hinted when Bellatrix tells Harry about the intent needed to do a Crucio. Like there has to be evil in one's soul in order to frequently cast evil spells. So it may have nothing to do with the personality that we see (and through an unreliable narrator) and much to do with the characters' internals.

If that's not the case, then it is a creepy pattern of JKR's. A world without true redemption is a rather bleak one.

[moony]

Right, and that's where choice comes in - the same thing Dumbledore said to Harry, about his being Sorted into Gryffindor when the hat initially wanted him in Slytherin. I think something very similar happened to Sirius, because he chose not to be what his family wanted him to be. Snape, obviously, embraced it for whatever reason, but look at him now - a spy for the Order. Showing that mistakes can be made as easily as choices.

[moony]

I suppose if you show an interest in it, you are 'up to your ears in it,' so to speak. And really, how on earth can anyone expect to defend themselves from the Dark Arts if they know nothing about them, I ask you?

[mmichelle.livejournal.com]

I'd say the "good guys" definitely have a problem with the Dark Arts, since they teach Defense Against the Dark Arts at Hogwarts.

And what qualifies as a Dark Art-- actually, that's an interesting thing to bring up, about where you draw the line. I'd say they're different from other things because they're spells, charms, etc. that are used with the purpose of harming others. But that's just me.

And by "up to their ears" I mean that Snape and Draco are not only knowledgable in the Dark Arts (because, as maybethemoon pointed out, the same could be said for Sirius, who is definitely not a "dark wizard"), but they also support them and take (or took, in Snape's case) pride in them.

[moony]

INDEED.

I'm reacting more to how she dismisses the people who show interest in Slytherin as being merely Tom Felton/Alan Rickman fangirls, and nothing more. That to me is so deeply offensive - it's not a very nice thing to say about a huge chunk of your fanbase, IMO.

[mmichelle.livejournal.com]

I get your point. When I said "up to your ears" I meant it more as them actively supporting the Dark Arts, not just knowing about them.

[anjenue.livejournal.com]

Oh, I absolutely agree. She's like, "Don't be cunning and ambitious and interesting, folks - the only way to go is to be BRAVE AND PREJUDICED!!!"

*facepalms*

[casirafics.livejournal.com]

Consider it this way.

She's coming at this from a different perspective than her readers are, yes, and it's a perspective pretty much closed to the kind of endless debates and ponderings and analysis we do, because she knows what's going to happen. It's her story, not ours. And I'm not saying that what we're doing isn't legit or fun or whatever, but it's our own thing, not hers. And as a person who (this is just me personally, I'm not knocking anyone else here) would really rather stick as close to canon as possible (teh Rampant and Explicit Gay Sex Fics notwithstanding *grin*) and not overanalyze everything to death, I sorta sympathize with her on the whole "why is everyone so fascinated with this character I made out to be an evil git?" thing.

Clearly she meant for James and Sirius to turn out all right (but still flawed), and we've already seen that progress accordingly, even if they had their obnoxious (or worse) phases. Clearly Snape's still something of an enigma to the readers, but JKR knows what his progression over that same span of years was even if we don't, and so as far as she's concerned, there probably isn't much to plumb with Snape, per se, just to reveal. Draco -- we're still following him along, but she's given no canon evidence I can see that he's going anywhere but worse, her reaction in interviews seems to indicate the same, and I sorta wish people were willing to take her at face value on that, because she knows what she's talking about -- he's her character, after all.

The basic fact is, the story is what she writes, and if she doesn't intend for Draco to be redeemed, etc, and KNOWS HE WON'T BE, even if we haven't read the endpoint yet, I'd start sounding like this in interviews too.

She's got all the facts. We don't. That's why the analysis and so forth is fun -- but from her perspective, we're probably bewildering sometimes. ;)

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

And what qualifies as a Dark Art-- actually, that's an interesting thing to bring up, about where you draw the line. I'd say they're different from other things because they're spells, charms, etc. that are used with the purpose of harming others. But that's just me.

Which are all things that are used by the good guys all the time.

[casirafics.livejournal.com]

...or, y'know, you could just look at the whole thing as one big fat red herring.

*grin*

imo

[shusu.livejournal.com]

We had this discussion in our RPG. Personally I don't think the "good guys" started using Dark spells until OP. There was the foreshadowing of the alerting-coin being like the Dark Mark, and then Harry goes and tries a Crucio.

If there is to be a distinction from jinxes and hexes (and the curriculum suggests as much) then it seems to be JKR makes a distinction between petty evil and evil that takes joy out of harming others. Wizards are far more durable than their Muggle counterparts -- being in a snit and throwing a punch is not the same as throwing a knife. (I'm suddenly thinking of Pratchett's 'gonne' in... Men at Arms?) There is something that snaps when you pick up a knife or a gun that is several levels away from picking up something more innocuous to use as a weapon.

Of course like all things, petty evil can add up -- the 'prank' on Snape, for instance -- but to me, JKR makes it clear that there is a line to be crossed between using a harmless spell for guileful purposes and casting a Dark spell out of the darkness of one's heart.

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

Creepy is right, especially the Crucio thing. What could possibly be dark about wanting to torture someone, as long as it's out of righteous anger and not..."evil." Why, people never do evil out of righteous anger! It's like all those terrorists. It might be a bad thing that they wanted to blow up people in that pizza parlour, but since they're doing it out of righteous anger, they're going straight to heaven.

I also can't understand this nonsense about "choice" the way it's used in the books. Right, cause Harry made a real difficult choice in saying, "Oh, Mr. Hat. I don't want to be in the house of the guy who killed my parents, and the one that the kid I rejected on the train because he's a big jerk and spoiled besides. Not the one my new best friend told me sucked." Yeah, that's a choice between good and evil alright.

It's just ridiculous. Everybody makes choices based on similar things, but if you wind up on the good side it's twisted into something noble, and if you wind up on the bad side you just made the wrong choice. All those 11 year olds who didn't know enough to say they didn't want to be Slytherin like their parents were? Just making the wrong choice. Clearly evil.

[thistlerose.livejournal.com]

James and Sirius were both jerks at fifteen, but James at least antagonized his equals whereas adult!Snape torments children. And Sirius recognized that his family was wrong and rebelled against them, whereas Draco appears to hero-worship his father and seems to do very little independent thinking. James and Sirius also went very far out of their way to help Remus Lupin. Their hearts were always in the right place, even if they did some pretty rotten things when they were younger. I'm not sure we can say the same for Snape or Draco.

Re: imo

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

True, but I don't really see how this applies because, for instance, the Twins hurt people all the time because it's funny. And I tend to think of most hexes thrown as being a lot like throwing punches, which I wouldn't do either, you know? To me it all seems like petty cruelty, and the only difference is the Slytherins usually do it with words and people like the twins do it physically. And once the Slytherins give anybody a reason to "fight back" everybody piles on and gets joy out of hurting them.

It just seems like having to use a description like, "the darkness of ones heart" means you have to be very vague. And, as you said, the good guys in OP seem to be using at least a few things that are defined as Dark Arts--Hermione's coins and presumably parchment, Harry's crucio...and don't the Twins raid the Black house for good materials for jokes?

Also Hermione seems to support and incredibly specious argument about how "counter-hexes" aren't really hexes because they're so useful in self-defense. This is troubling to me because first, why are you pretending they're not hexes? And second, what's "defense" exactly? Because it clearly doesn't mean the other person has to be hexing you first.

[kmai.livejournal.com]

i think what she is saying is that from what we have seen of the characters, they are not "dateable"(nice, friendly, kind) guys (neither was james at 15. lily has the sense to brush him off). I think she expresses concern over people wanting to date them/loving them/etc. when they are clearly not nice people. (whether they have layers or whatnot does not cancel out their bad qualities). This is probably from her own past experience of dating jerkish guys and doesnt want people following that example.

Liking them as characters is another thing, JKR expresses that Snape is one of her favorite characters to write (probably because he is complex, who knows).

[blacksatinrose.livejournal.com]

I've always thought that was basically where she was coming from as well. She knows things we don't, and furthermore she cannot divorce herself from them and look at these characters objectively from the outside because the information is saturating her brain. So if she knows, for example, that Draco is going to turn out an evil bastard then she's going to have trouble figuring out why people keep thinking he can/should/might turn out to be a fabulous guy.

The comparison between Snape and/or Draco and Sirius and/or James never quite made sense to me, though. James and Sirius were assholes at 15, but so are a lot of people who turn out fine. Snape, on the other hand, is now in his late 30's and not only still picking on people but still picking on children. There's a world of difference between a 15 year old picking on another 15 year old and a 37 year old picking on an 11-15 year old. Even Sirius didn't do that, although it could be argued that he never had a chance. Then again it could also be argued that he was, realistically, still 15 until the day he died for obvious reasons.

Draco is a better comparison, but I think her judgement of him falls under the category of playing to theme. One of the strongest themes in HP is that the quality of one's intentions and heart are what counts: Voldemort has never cared for anything or anyone, or he couldn't turn out the way he did. Lily's love protects Harry. Remus does bad things but is forgivable because he means well... and most explicitly, crucio doesn't work unless you want to make someone hurt and like the idea.

So with Draco vs. Sirius or James, I think what's happening is that she's basing her statements on her knowledge of the "quality" of Draco's metaphorical heart. James and Sirius were gits as teenagers (well, Sirius kept right on being a git) and caused behaved like one, but they had good hearts under all that rubbish. Draco, presumably, doesn't, and is therefore irredeemable even though he hasn't actually DONE all that much.