Snape essay.
Aug. 18th, 2004 09:49 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
icarusArticle on Snape by ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
cordelia_v
I was scooped by![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
daily_snitch, but this is one very interesting article, thought-provoking - and timely, considering the recent furor of Snape-love after JKR's comments (which I have not read and am not going to read :D ). I'm sort of uncomfortable rec-ing it, because, well, she's very kind to Primer to the Dark Arts. *checks head* Nope. Not swelled. *goes on to discuss*
When I first came to fandom, I was a Harry/Ron shipper, but was quickly lured into Snape Genfic, namely the unfinished The Long Road To Damascus by Morrighan.
After that, I was in search of the "perfect Snape," fascinated by the variation in portrayals, from the very sympathetic to the quite nasty.
While I don't enjoy Morrighan's portrayal of Lily (too idealised for me) her Snape seethes with vitriol, and her teenage version is the most convincing I've ever read. Particularly impressive as the story was written in 2001. Her Snape is almost absolved from his "light" side by the saintly presence of Lily, which gives Morrigan free reign to have Snape be truly vicious, even after his transformation.
I found I had a preference for the nastier "uncool" portrayals (although I enjoyed the rebellious young Snape in Arithmancy & Flowers which, ahem,schmevil took down, but ha, ha, I still have a copy). For the most part, every Snape I read, I thought, "darker, he's darker than that." Whether that's from the books or Morrigan, I can no longer tell. cordelia_v makes a point that someone who's made Snape's choices would not feel a great deal of guilt. That says better than I ever could my feeling about the many portrayals of Snape I read.
To reviewers who felt Snape was more noble than portrayed in Primer to the Dark Arts, what I answered was that Snape ranked sleeping with a student very low on his list of crimes.
I have to say that A Wizard Song, If You Are Prepared, and Civil War didn't have any influence on Primer to the Dark Arts -- for the simple fact that AWS and IYAP (the third part where the story really took off) were both written after Primer was published in Dec 2002 (I posted the beta'd version on FA after it was complete on ff.net).
As for Civil War... er. I was a Harry/Ron reader when I joined this fandom. My angst tolerance was low. I didn't read (couldn't read) Civil War until after I read IYAP. (After IYAP, well, I was immune.)
You see, I was new writer in 2002, but my second HP fic ever was Primer to the Dark Arts.
But I read all of Sushi's humour short fiction, Telanu's Tea series up to Corresponding (and the Coffee series, and...), as well as everything I could lay my hands of Cybele's (which, since I didn't have her website, was limited to what was on Walking The Plank). I also read all of Minx's works, though Jade I didn't discover until much later, along with JayKay and Diana Williams.
The Snape that really influenced Primer to the Dark Arts is not who you'd expect. It wasrushlight75's Rite Of Passage and Through A Shattered Mirror (as she well knows; I wrote pages upon pages of email praise as soon as those stories were posted on Walking the Plank, and read them while I was writing Primer). I felt her Snape struck just that right balance between darkness and pragmatism (particularly in Rite Of Passage). Her Snape is a real person one could actually get to know, though you may or may not like him, who's no more moral than anyone else.
Did I say no fandom tonight? Ha.
cordelia_vI was scooped by
daily_snitch, but this is one very interesting article, thought-provoking - and timely, considering the recent furor of Snape-love after JKR's comments (which I have not read and am not going to read :D ). I'm sort of uncomfortable rec-ing it, because, well, she's very kind to Primer to the Dark Arts. *checks head* Nope. Not swelled. *goes on to discuss*When I first came to fandom, I was a Harry/Ron shipper, but was quickly lured into Snape Genfic, namely the unfinished The Long Road To Damascus by Morrighan.
After that, I was in search of the "perfect Snape," fascinated by the variation in portrayals, from the very sympathetic to the quite nasty.
While I don't enjoy Morrighan's portrayal of Lily (too idealised for me) her Snape seethes with vitriol, and her teenage version is the most convincing I've ever read. Particularly impressive as the story was written in 2001. Her Snape is almost absolved from his "light" side by the saintly presence of Lily, which gives Morrigan free reign to have Snape be truly vicious, even after his transformation.
I found I had a preference for the nastier "uncool" portrayals (although I enjoyed the rebellious young Snape in Arithmancy & Flowers which, ahem,
schmevil took down, but ha, ha, I still have a copy). For the most part, every Snape I read, I thought, "darker, he's darker than that." Whether that's from the books or Morrigan, I can no longer tell. cordelia_v makes a point that someone who's made Snape's choices would not feel a great deal of guilt. That says better than I ever could my feeling about the many portrayals of Snape I read. To reviewers who felt Snape was more noble than portrayed in Primer to the Dark Arts, what I answered was that Snape ranked sleeping with a student very low on his list of crimes.
I have to say that A Wizard Song, If You Are Prepared, and Civil War didn't have any influence on Primer to the Dark Arts -- for the simple fact that AWS and IYAP (the third part where the story really took off) were both written after Primer was published in Dec 2002 (I posted the beta'd version on FA after it was complete on ff.net).
As for Civil War... er. I was a Harry/Ron reader when I joined this fandom. My angst tolerance was low. I didn't read (couldn't read) Civil War until after I read IYAP. (After IYAP, well, I was immune.)
You see, I was new writer in 2002, but my second HP fic ever was Primer to the Dark Arts.
But I read all of Sushi's humour short fiction, Telanu's Tea series up to Corresponding (and the Coffee series, and...), as well as everything I could lay my hands of Cybele's (which, since I didn't have her website, was limited to what was on Walking The Plank). I also read all of Minx's works, though Jade I didn't discover until much later, along with JayKay and Diana Williams.
The Snape that really influenced Primer to the Dark Arts is not who you'd expect. It was
rushlight75's Rite Of Passage and Through A Shattered Mirror (as she well knows; I wrote pages upon pages of email praise as soon as those stories were posted on Walking the Plank, and read them while I was writing Primer). I felt her Snape struck just that right balance between darkness and pragmatism (particularly in Rite Of Passage). Her Snape is a real person one could actually get to know, though you may or may not like him, who's no more moral than anyone else.Did I say no fandom tonight? Ha.
