Regarding DTCL's frequent attitude toward two certain HP characters

[star-dragon5.livejournal.com]

You're all familiar with the Draco in Leather Pants and Ron the Death Eater tropes, right?

After seeing the way some--not all--members of this comm treat Snape and Dumbledore, I'm seriously tempted to rename the tropes "Severus in Leather Pants" and "Albus the Death Eater."

I'm sorry if I've offended anyone, but I joined DTCL under the impression it was about analyzing the more problematic parts of the HP books, not about glorifying characters you like/bashing characters you don't like. It looks like I was wrong.

Comments

[penguinsuzie.livejournal.com]

I've no doubt some do, but maybe the rest of them just don't like seeing a perfectly good character stripped of all his canon depth and complexity, which is what the Snape apologists do, not the true Snape fans. You like Snape, fine. You think he's good-looking, fine. You start making excuses for him and insisting that the morally-questionable things he does in canon aren't really that bad, we have a problem on our hands. Which, if you'll click that link again, is the essence of the Draco in Leather Pants trope, not merely finding someone attractive.

I've never seen anyone on this forum act like Snape is some kind of saint, he's a seriously damaged bitter person who lashes out at people.

The difference though is that the crappy things he does are called out, unlike the actions of characters that are designated as "good": Dumbledore left Harry with the Dursely's even though he knew they were abusive, Minerva locked Neville out in the halls as punishment when she thought there was a serial killer prowling the halls, Lupin kept Hogwarts' secrets to himself because he didn't want to let Dumbledore down even after he believed that Sirius had used them to sneak into Harry's room and attempt to murder him, Hermione kept Rita as a prisoner for several months, the Twins almost killed a student and showed zero regret when he was hospitalized for months (we never even find out if he actually recovered), Harry regretted almost killing Draco for a short while before deciding that it was completely unfair that he got detention for it. It goes on and on and these things are barely mentioned. Dumbledore is treated like the golden mentor, Minerva as if she's actually strict but fair, the Twins like good natured tricksters, and Harry as some kind of martyred Jesus figure.

I like these characters but the double standard bothers me. IMHO Snape is a strong example of Good is Not Nice.