Byronic heroes in Harry Potter?

[sweettalkeress.livejournal.com]

So, I've been poking around various websites and the like to gather characteristics of Byronic heroes, in the hopes of maybe writing a few into some of my own stories. One thing that several sites said which was kind of interesting was that Snape was a Byronic hero. I wasn't quite sure what to make of this; on the one hand, it does seem like he has many traits in common with the archetype, but on the other, it isn't clear to me if simply having the traits makes him a Byronic hero or if there'd need to be something more subtle involved.

So what are your thoughts on that? Could Snape qualify as a Byronic hero? Could anyone else in the series?

For futher reading, you can find the Wikipedia page on Byronic heroes here. My home dictionary, for the record, defines a Byronic hero as "a lonely, handsome, melancholy, flawed man, fatally attractive to women, as popularized by Lord Byron."

Comments

[sweettalkeress.livejournal.com]

On the other hand, one argument that could be made against the notion that Sirius is a Byronic hero could be that I don't know if Sirius has the hypersensitivity or brainpower that really characterizes a Byronic hero. I don't think there are too many "Byronic hero" types that get regular comparisons to dogs, for example.