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sunnyskywalkerThanks to torchedsong for bringing up the topic of character complexity (or the destruction thereof). JKR's desperate attempts to force characters that had grown beyond her control back into simpler, Really Good vs. Really Bad boxes in DH always gets me thinking.
Some HP characters I used to love disappointed me so much once I'd processed DH that I lost sympathy for them for a while. JKR excusing some characters’ flaws and not others also makes it tempting to blame her pet characters and dislike them forever more. Now, I prefer a complex cast of characters who might have sympathetic motivations and flaws which inevitably bring them into conflict over what I felt JKR wrote in DH, so I’ve been trying to re-examine the HP books with a view toward finding some sympathy for all the characters, even the really terrible ones. (No luck so far with James. I’m not sure I’ll ever manage that.)
This led me to Prisoner of Azkaban, where Snape is responsible for brewing Lupin’s medication and making sure he takes it. Even Dumbledore ought to have noticed that this is a no-good, horrible, very bad idea. Snape will be freshly reminded of the time Lupin nearly killed him at regular intervals. Lupin will be freshly reminded of the time he nearly killed Snape because his good friend Sirius set him up (and possibly react by trying to minimize it all to avoid a debilitating guilt-spiral), plus will face the anxiety that maybe the guy he bullied for years and nearly killed will poison him in revenge. Why on Earth would anyone set them both up for this? Yes, Snape is one of the few people talented enough to brew Wolfsbane… but Dumbledore is supposed to be a genius at everything magical, and he studied alchemy, which surely has skills that translate to potions. Why can’t he brew the Wolfsbane and deliver it with a twinkle? Even if he can’t, why can’t he deliver it instead of Snape? Forcing them to deal with each other directly over such a fraught subject is guaranteed to make them both suffer.
*headdesk* Probably because that’s the point. This is part of Dumbledore’s war strategy. Snape is probably in on it to some degree—not that it makes it any less miserable for him.( Read more... )
Some HP characters I used to love disappointed me so much once I'd processed DH that I lost sympathy for them for a while. JKR excusing some characters’ flaws and not others also makes it tempting to blame her pet characters and dislike them forever more. Now, I prefer a complex cast of characters who might have sympathetic motivations and flaws which inevitably bring them into conflict over what I felt JKR wrote in DH, so I’ve been trying to re-examine the HP books with a view toward finding some sympathy for all the characters, even the really terrible ones. (No luck so far with James. I’m not sure I’ll ever manage that.)
This led me to Prisoner of Azkaban, where Snape is responsible for brewing Lupin’s medication and making sure he takes it. Even Dumbledore ought to have noticed that this is a no-good, horrible, very bad idea. Snape will be freshly reminded of the time Lupin nearly killed him at regular intervals. Lupin will be freshly reminded of the time he nearly killed Snape because his good friend Sirius set him up (and possibly react by trying to minimize it all to avoid a debilitating guilt-spiral), plus will face the anxiety that maybe the guy he bullied for years and nearly killed will poison him in revenge. Why on Earth would anyone set them both up for this? Yes, Snape is one of the few people talented enough to brew Wolfsbane… but Dumbledore is supposed to be a genius at everything magical, and he studied alchemy, which surely has skills that translate to potions. Why can’t he brew the Wolfsbane and deliver it with a twinkle? Even if he can’t, why can’t he deliver it instead of Snape? Forcing them to deal with each other directly over such a fraught subject is guaranteed to make them both suffer.
*headdesk* Probably because that’s the point. This is part of Dumbledore’s war strategy. Snape is probably in on it to some degree—not that it makes it any less miserable for him.( Read more... )
