Oooops! I guess I really meant THIS kind of troll…
Yes, it has happened. Death-Eater-wannabe roleplay has invaded Pottermore. And it started in the Dungeon.
At first, it was a minor and occasional annoyance. But when Slytherin effectively banished all the “mudblood” talk from the Common Room, it migrated to the Great Hall. And it wasn’t even clever. I mean, “Die, Mudblood scum hahahaha”?
It was a troll. From the Dungeon. No self-respecting Slytherin would show up in the Great Hall with ZERO House points and launch into such literacy-challenged tirades. Even Malfoy would first have earned some emeralds!
Consequently, a large number of non-trollish Slytherins led the charge to vanquish the troll and clean up the Great Hall… showing, I suppose, that Slytherin solidarity sometimes takes second place to the Greater (Slytherin) Good. After all, we need the good will of the other Houses in order to win the House Cup! (And, of course, most of us just don’t hold with the anti-Muggleborn nonsense!). Which brings me to my main point…
As a result of this incident, a Ravenclaw friend told me of some Death Eater roleplay coming out of the myHogwarts Beta. But those DE wannabes have actually put a little bit of thought into their position. For them, the Wizarding Community remains in essentially the same position as that of the Jews in Nazi Germany. Here is a bit of their argument:
Could one not argue that Witches and Wizards, as a race, were treated the same as the jews, and were, and still are well within their rights to battle muggles and supporters of muggles until the days when witches and wizards are free to walk across this planet as themselves?
To which I reply:
It’s true that the DE hatred of of Muggles and Muggleborns originated in the centuries-long genocidal campaign of Muggles to wipe out all Wizards. But that is still no justification for the MEANS the DEs used to redress the wrong. If we use the analogy of Jews in Hitler’s Germany, Voldemort merely reversed the roles… and attempted to turn the Muggles and Muggleborns into the Jews.
Salazar Slytherin’s suspicions of Muggleborns resulted from fear. He thought they were potential spies who would place loyalty to their Muggle families ahead of loyalty to the Wizarding community. Given that the Muggles were at that time engaged in genocide, his fear was not entirely unfounded.
The problem (quite apart from Salazar’s Basilisk!) is that even after centuries of proof that Muggleborns were loyal to the Wizarding community, some Purebloods maintained their fear and suspicion of Muggleborns.
Regarding the Muggles themselves, it seems to me that the Wizarding community was faced with two options: non-confrontation and invisibility OR deciding to organize an effort to wipe the Muggles out. IMO, the Statute of Secrecy was as much about the virtue of the Wizarding community (i.e., deciding not to counter one genocide with another genocide) as it was about self-protection. In other words, it was as much about protecing the Muggles as it was about protecting the Wizards. IMO it is one of the most extraordinary feats of moral heroism imaginable.
However, after centuries of persecution it is hardly surprising that not all Wizards were on board for it. Hence, Dumbledore’s flirtation with Wizarding dominance. Hence, the appeal of Voldemort to many Pureblood families. One of the key attractions of the Wizarding dominance ideology was that Wizards would no longer have to hide. Also, my assumption is that the Purebloods are the ones whose ancestors suffered most under the Muggles… and were the least inclined to forgive.
So the DE wannabe argument itself is not entirely out of left field. However, there is never any justification for genocide, even in its incipient rather than fully realized form. And there is never any justification for the use of dark magic. So Voldemort’s entire project was fundamentally flawed at its base.
But first… I draw your attention to the new Pottermore CEO’s comments on Pottermore’s future. You can stream or download Charlie Redmayne’s remarks and listen to them for yourself. But here are a few key points:
We will see new books on Pottermore in the “next few weeks and months.”
Content, rather than functionality, will become the primary focus in the next few weeks, and there will be a considerable amount of new JKR content added to the site.
“New interactives and community functionalities will be added in the coming weeks.”
Pottermore will be looking to port the Pottermore experience to other platforms, including tablets and phones – and to make greater use of Facebook and YouTube. (No timeline given on this)
The future may include enhanced ebooks from the Pottermore Shop. (No timeline given on this)
One thing to realize: Redmayne took over Pottermore in November. Apparently, not having the site up and running by October – as originally promised – and needing to migrate to an entirely new platform did not play well for the previous CEO.
So… what this means is that Redmayne was not involved in any of the Beta problems. His job was to fix them. And actually, dueling came up in December (a month after Redmayne took over) – after it had been down since August. Not a bad start!
Anyway, it sounds like Redmayne has the vision for Pottermore that previous leadership lacked. He wants to make Pottermore “amazing”… and he recognizes that it’s not close to being there at this point.
Now, on to some content…
A couple of weeks ago, I made my first purchase from the Pottermore Shop. Actually, I bought all 7 ebooks all at once and put them on my Kindle.
One nice thing about the Kindle is that you can see popular highlights. And the most popular highlight in PS/SS is this one:
Mr. and Mrs. Dursley, of number four, Privet Drive, were proud to say they were perfectly normal, thank you very much.
That sentence has been highlighted by 7 people.
7 books, 7 highlights… interesting. But I digress.
Now, much as I love the opening line, and love its whimsical quality, I’m not sure I would have highlighted it. It’s not like it’s possible to miss it! After all, it’s the first line in the Harry Potter series!
Yet it is important… and JKR’s content on Pottermore gives us a little bit of insight into the thought process that went in to assigning that address to the Dursleys. The privet bush is, apparently, the quintessentially suburban British hedge bush. And that alone would make it remarkably Dursleyish.
But what I found curious is what she says about the number four in the “exclusive JKR content” for the very first scene in Pottermore. There, she claims that she has always found four to be a “rather hard and unforgiving number” – which is why she gave it to the Dursleys.
Okay.
Obviously, four is the number of the square – and perhaps JKR does not like being boxed in. But in addition to the box, four is the number of letters in the Tetragrammaton (YHVH) – the Hebrew name for God. A considerable amount of Western music is composed in 4/4 time. There are four Gospels, four temperaments, four humors, four suits of cards, four seasons, four Beatles, four elements, and yes…
There are Four Hogwarts Founders, and Four Hogwarts Houses!
So JKR did not give the number four only to the Dursleys. She gave the number to Hogwarts itself.
In tying the four Houses to the the four Elements and claiming the necessity of each, was JKR trying to move beyond her antipathy to the number four?
In showing the conflict between the four Houses throughout the series (or at least between the three Houses and Slytherin), was JKR playing to her antipathy to the number four – and illustrating the hard, unforgiving nature of the number four?
Is the conflict between the four Houses necessary in order to arrive at the uneasy reconciliation at the end, when Harry offers his son a more enlightened, adult view of Slytherin House?
Or is it just oddly coincidental that the number four is both the number of the hard, unforgiving Dursley home and the number of Hogwarts Houses?
Sorry I’ve disappeared into Pottermore for the past couple of days. I will be back tomorrow, I think – or possibly Monday – to write up my general thoughts.
In the meantime, I just wanted to let everybody know that on Pottermore, you will have an opportunity to solve Snape’s Logic Puzzle. And when you get to that point in the story, you will find that one of my two final solutions is correct. :)
If you have visited Solving Snape’s Logic Puzzle, then you will know that figuring out the single final solution is impossible without actually seeing the layout of the bottles. You can only narrow it down to two potential positions for the “Forward” potion. (No such problem exists for the “Backward” potion).
I’m not going to reveal right now which one of my two solutions is the correct one. I’d like to give you an opportunity to solve the puzzle for yourself when you get to Pottermore. But I will say this: while it was a solution I anticipated, it was not the solution I expected… though I think it was kind of the solution I was hoping for.
Feel free to use my Logic Puzzle notes when you get to Pottermore. Goodness knows I did!
Today, though, Pottermore demonstrated that it has finally heard the rumblings from the fandom and offered answers to a few of them. Here are a few salient points from Pottermore’s communication:
In answer to complaints about not yet receiving the Welcome email…
We know that waiting can be frustrating but the good news is that, as the Beta progresses, we’ll be increasing the number of emails we send out at any one time.
_______
In response to a question about whether Pottermore can post a schedule of when emails are sent…
Beta phases are fluid and it’s important to watch and see how a site reacts to increasing amounts of users and activity.
Every time more people are added to Pottermore, we take a pause and look at how the site is responding to see if everything is working as we expect it to and whether we need to make changes before we let more people into Pottermore.
We are planning on giving more people early access over the next week or so and then we will pause sending Welcome emails for a while so that we can see how things are going.
Unfortunately, we can’t create a schedule to share, as we need to respond to what we learn with each group of new users. That’s also why there are gaps between the batches of Welcome emails; it all depends on what we’re learning from those who are currently on the site.
_______
In response to a question about whether Pottermore ever sends out emails without first announcing them…
We always announce on the Insider and @Pottermore when Welcome emails are sent out, but sometimes these can take a while to arrive in your inbox, so you might get yours after the announced time. It’s always best to wait for your email to arrive before you try to log in.
_______
In response to a question about whether everybody who registered will actually gain early access…
The Magical Quill campaign identified who would have access to the Beta. Everyone who found the Magical Quill will get the chance to give us their feedback on Pottermore.
_______
So there it is… They will always announce when emails are going out. Everybody who signed up will gain early access. And the big news… they will be increasing testers as the test progresses, and they will, in fact, be significantly increasing testers over the next week or so. Essentially (as I predicted), Pottermore is scaling the test. :)
It appears that Pottermore has already started increasing numbers in the Beta. According to MerryLore (a credible source who comments on this blog), Pottermore enrollment has increased to nearly 47,000 students. Just one or two days ago, the number was about 32,000. I think the latest increase means that we can now expect email batches of at least 15,000 rather than the earlier 5,000.
Pottermore’s latest communication does clarify matters a bit. What I find curious, though, is that the Pottermore communications team waited until they had a burgeoning PR crisis on their hands before playing a bit of defense and trying to deflect criticisms and rumors (criticisms and rumors, I might add, that would never have spread so widely and rapidly if Pottermore had simply been communicating clearly and proactively all along with both the Beta testers inside Pottermore and those outside waiting to gain entry).
When I edited a business magazine, one thing I learned is that companies need to be proactive rather than reactive in their communication. Pottermore has finally reacted. That reaction is not ever going to be set side-by-side with Tylenol in the annals of outstanding crisis management response strategies. But at least it’s something.
A fifth batch of emails has been sent out, and there’s still not one for me.
So with that in mind, Expecto Patronum! continues the “Waiting for Pottermore” series…
Note: While we continue the never-ending wait for the Pottermore email, we carry on bravely with our discussion of the DH2 movie…
“Severus Snape wasn’t yours,” said Harry. “Snape was Dumbledore’s. Dumbledore’s from the moment you started hunting down my mother.”
I, and a lot of people, waited for that line in the movie…
and it never came.
After thinking about it, though, I have a theory about why the filmmakers cut it.
It was redundant.
In the book, Harry needs to say it out loud (or think it internally) so that the reading audience gets the point of what he sees in the Pensieve. Yet even with several pages of Harry circling around Voldemort, proclaiming that Dumbledore planned his death with Snape, there remains a tiny contingent of readers who still insist that Snape was truly working for Voldemort and that Harry was merely taunting Voldemort with Snape’s loyalties. He didn’t really mean it. *shrug*
In the movie, though, it’s kind of impossible to miss, or explain away, Snape’s true loyalties. Film is a visual medium, and here is what the viewers (and Harry) get to see…
"You have your mother's eyes"
"... and you're special"
"He doesn't need protecting..."
"So... the boy must die?"
Sure, Severus cradling Lily’s body at Godric’s Hollow is extra-canonical. And sure, Severus never actually says “You have your mother’s eyes.” But movie-only viewers don’t have the advantage of reading the text… over and over and over again… and thinking about its implications. They need to have things spelled out visually. And this approach to the backstory does have JKR’s highest blessing:
“They do it perfectly in the film, that was a place I was very glad they were faithful to the book. Snape’s journey is important, it’s such a lynchpin of the books, the plot can’t function without Snape.” ~ J. K. Rowling
After witnessing the series of images from Snape’s demise through the Pensieve memories, the viewing audience has no question that Severus loved Lily from the time he was a child or that he had been working for Dumbledore – and against Voldemort – ever since the Dark Lord started hunting her down. Viewers don’t need Harry to tell them that. And so, in the movie, he doesn’t.
I’m disappointed, of course, to find one of my favorite moments missing. But I’m appeased by the recognition that it was not necessary to show it. How about you?
Professor Snape (or Colonel Brandon/Alexander Dane/Hans Gruber/ Sheriff of Nottingham) VS. Sherlock Holmes.
and…
Mr. Darcy VS. Barty Crouch, Jr. / The Tenth Doctor
Yikes! Those are choices that really hurt – probably at least as much as the choices the filmmakers had to face in translating the second half of Deathly Hallows to the screen.
Choices that hurt
Let’s say you’re doing a book that fans are passionate about. There are moments that fans have been dying to see…
Fred’s death, for example. Or Snape’s loss of Lily’s friendship. Or Dumbledore’s backstory. Or Snape saving Lupin’s life and telling the portrait not to say “Mudblood.” Or Harry taunting Voldemort with Snape’s true loyalties and giving Riddle one last chance at remorse.
But you’ve got this other audience to account for… the audience that never reads the books and only sees the movies and that could care less about the intricacies of wandlore.
How do you make a movie that gives the book-fans enough of what they want to see and is still comprehensible for the movie-only fans? That’s the dilemma that the filmmakers were faced with. And they left every single one of those “dying-to see” moments out… yet managed to leave most fans feeling satisfied.
Let’s talk about a few of those choices…
The Mudblood Incident
One of the key complaints I’ve heard from one small corner of the fandom is that the film’s portrayal of “The Prince’s Tale” makes Severus Snape look like an innocent victim by failing to present the “Mudblood” incident or its aftermath.
Okay, I personally wanted to see this material on the big screen, but after giving it some thought, I realized that it presents a devil’s snare of potential difficulties. Here is what I wrote about it on the CoS forum:
I would have liked to see them include the “Mudblood” incident too, but in thinking it over, I realized that its inclusion is fraught with all sorts of potential difficulties for other characters – difficulties that I doubt the filmmakers wanted to unleash, particularly given the raw emotional power of Rickman’s overall performance.
As soon as Rickman’s Snape starts showing the depth of his pain, he’s got the audience in the palm of his hand. If the pain had started sooner, beneath the portrait of the Fat Lady [when Lily cut off their friendship], it could have swayed movie-only audience opinion in directions that the filmmakers would not have wanted – like against Lily, for instance. That wouldn’t be fair, since he used the word [Mudblood] on her, but film is an essentially emotional medium, and film audiences love redemption stories – especially when a character is in love. Film audiences generally want to see all but the most monstrous characters given a second chance after they’ve blown it in a big way.
In that context, the filmmakers probably made the right decision to cut the incident. They could not really tell which character(s) would get hurt the most by showing it, and filmmakers like to know exactly what audience impact will be.
There are additional problems with its inclusion as well. David Yates used a portion of SWM (“Snape’s Worst Memory”) in the OotP movie, but he did not incorporate the “Mudblood” incident. Adding it for DH2 would require re-shooting the earlier scene or working some digital magic to insert Lily into it. And that, of course, would mean casting a third actress to play Lily’s part – and getting Alec Hopkin (Teen Snape) back to utter the unforgivable word. (ETA NOTE: The additional material with a third Lily that was originally shot for OotP and then cut would not help since Harry is in the frame – in completely the wrong clothes and without all of the battle grime and gore that we see in TPT).
In addition, I think that the complaint that the exclusion of the Mudblood incident makes Snape look like an innocent victim is a product of very short-sighted thinking. What is most visually striking about the incident (and film is a visual medium) is watching James Potter and the Marauders launch an unprovoked attack on Severus Snape. In all likelihood, including the incident in the film would make Snape look even more like a victim.
Little James is puckishly cute as he runs through the halls tipping over his “victims’” school books.
This James, though, is hardly “cute” as he attempts to remove “Snivelly’s trousers”:
I would humbly submit that the filmmakers just didn’t want to go there with James, particularly given that they will later need to present him sympathetically in the Forest… and there’s really very little story to get the movie-only crowd to buy in to that sympathetic portrayal once the filmmakers re-unleash SWM. It’s hard enough already for many book readers to make the leap of faith into believing that James simply changed, and book readers have information that the movie-onlies don’t possess.
The choice the filmmakers made, then, was to make nobody look very much like the victim, and nobody look very much like the perpetrator. For purposes of the film, it was probably a wise choice.
Weasley Loss and Gain
Some book fans are angry at not seeing Fred die. And one big question many fans have asked is, “How the heck did Percy get there?”
That’s a good question! But there are actually other people whose return is a bit confusing – for instance Cho Chang (what’s she doing there in the Room of Requirement when she graduated the year before?) and Luna Lovegood (how’d she get there ahead of Harry, when she’d last been seen at Shell Cottage?). In the case of the Ravenclaw girls, my assumption is that they are there mainly to answer Harry’s question about the lost diadem. And yes, they are supposed to be there, even if the film never quite lets us know how they arrived.
Percy, though, has one of the book’s more dramatic entrances into the Room of Requirement, and we never see that drama in the film. I do think, though, that the filmmakers’ decision (while perhaps making Percy’s sudden appearance confusing for book fans ) actually makes matters less confusing for the general movie audience. Percy’s estrangement from his family has never become an overt plot point in the films. We do see Percy doing Ministry duties at cross-purposes to Harry and Dumbledore, but that’s about as far as that subplot goes. And let’s face it, without the subplot, many movie-only fans probably don’t really remember who Percy is anyway.
So, that nixes Percy’s big entrance because the big entrance would simply not make sense. And sorry, but if we nix Percy’s big entrance, we also nix witnessing Fred’s death. Yeah, we could still see Fred die, but we wouldn’t see it in the context of his welcoming Percy back into the family and later Percy throwing himself on Fred’s dead body.
If we remove Fred’s death from the context of Percy’s return, we may as well see Fred lying already dead in the Great Hall. And that is the choice the filmmakers made. Rather than go for overkill by showing Fred die on the screen and then show his family mourn, the filmmakers went the more subtle route of showing him already dead, surrounded by his family.
Whether we actually see Fred die or not, this scene still has tremendous emotional impact. I have not gotten past it once without breaking into sobs.
Dumbledore’s Backstory
King’s Cross is a big disappointment to many people. The wandlore, the backstory, Dumbledore’s remorse – all of it is missing.
Most of the essentials, though, were presented in DH1. And when the filmmakers decided (ACK!!!) to negate Grindelwald’s big moment of defiance and remorse, they couldn’t exactly go deeply into the Grindelwald plot in King’s Cross. In fact, I predicted in November that this would happen.
At least Ciaran Hinds’ fabulous performance – bringing to life Aberforth’s hundred years of bitterness – implicitly verifies the depth to which Albus Dumbledore had sunk in his youth. If we want to know more detail about the manner in which Albus’ choices sacrificed his sister’s life, we can always consult the books – or at least the nearest Potter fan. :)
Honestly, though, I did miss the King’s Cross wandlore. I suppose I experienced a bit of it vicariously through the interaction between Harry and Ollivander at Shell Cottage. But after all we’ve seen of the wand, would it truly have been too much information for the general movie audience if Harry had briefly discussed the Elder Wand with Dumbledore?
Well, at nearly 1500 words, this post has now gone on too long (thanks for making it this far with me!). So I think I’ll devote my next DH2 post entirely to the element I missed the most… and why I think it made sense for the filmmakers to cut it.
Note: While we wait for the Pottermore email, we are talking about the DH2 movie…
DH2 covers my favorite half of my favorite book in the entire HP series.
We have the heist at Gringotts, the trip into Hogsmeade, the Battle of Hogwarts, the dip into the Pensieve, Harry’s walk into the Forest, the final duel with Voldemort, and 19 years later.
When I saw this film – 3 times in its first 10 days – my mind, and my emotions, were so completely blown that I couldn’t even write coherently about it. I mean, how do you write about this? …
This spare musical theme plays over the opening title, drawing us into a Hogwarts surrounded by Dementors while a solitary Snape overlooks regimented rows of Hogwarts students marched grimly into the courtyard. Headmaster Snape – one of the “abandoned boys of Hogwarts” – oversees a Hogwarts that is no longer his, but Voldemort’s.
That much I got on first viewing. Then I learned the music’s name: “Lily’s Theme.”
The woman’s voice rising above the drone on the fundamental tones = Lily’s.
Her voice serves as the music of Severus Snape’s soul – his inspiration, the thing that keeps him going despite the darkness surrounding him. And it connects him with Harry Potter, Lily’s son.
In Snape, the Lily theme resembles the echo of a memory, but a memory very much alive inside him. When the lush, full-bodied string section picks up the theme at Dobby’s graveside, though, we see the theme’s full embodiment in Harry.
Lily’s voice returns, growing stronger as Severus Snape slips from life. And her voice again marks Harry’s victory over Voldemort, a victory set in motion by his mother’s sacrifice.
There is an inexpressible quality to all of this. The effect cannot be captured in words – at least not by a writer of my own meager skills. And the movie has inexpressible moments like this in abundance – that stark opening, Snape’s demise, the Pensieve memories – all underscored by Alexandre Desplat’s powerful, often impressionistic score.
This is why it has taken me this long to write about this film. I do analysis, but how do you catch hold of and dissect these moments of the sublime?
I shall attempt to come down to earth in my next DH2 post and just talk about what I liked and didn’t like… and then why the filmmakers may have made some of the choices they made.
Until then, I hope you enjoyed the music I linked to in this post. It truly sets the mood for much of this film.
This is the first time I’ve blogged live during the registration period, and wouldn’t you know that the Magic Quill site would have technical difficulties?
Here’s what we learned today:
They weren’t kidding when they said the clues would start to get easier on Day 4!
How many students take part in the Triwizard Tournament during Harry’s fourth year? It’s the same number as the Clue number! (My theory is that the reason they are making the clues easy is that now the books get so much longer).
The pattern of 7 books * number of days/chances remaining holds!
As predicted, we needed to multiply by 28. This means that tomorrow’s number will almost certainly be 21.
Pottermore seems to be partnering with a limited number of third party sites.
Today, we were supposed to be redirected to the Sony website (again), to click on the Magic Quill (again).
Pottermore does have a backup plan if something goes wrong with the Magic Quill.
This is the best news of all. The Magic Quill didn’t work – just as email verification didn’t work very well on Day 1. But this time, the Pottermore team was on top of the situation and quickly started redirecting people who solved the clue to the Congratulations page so that they could register. The Pottermore Tech team even posted information about the problem about 15 minutes into the registration period. I wonder if we’ll learn more about this technical glitch on the Pottermore Insider website this afternoon.
Catching the Magic Quill is fun. But what people really want to do is get registered. And the Pottermore Tech Team made that possible. So Kudos to them for quick thinking in a high-profile crisis management situation.
So… now that the Day 4 challenge is complete, let’s share some usernames in the Comments thread! I’ll go first. :)
Note about the Comments thread: If you’re new to the blog and have never commented before, there may be a small delay in getting your comment posted.
Man! North and South America took only about 40 minutes to close down Registration. But congratulations to everybody who got in on Day 4. :)
UPDATE:
The Quill is apparently not loading. I entered the number again, and this time it directed me to a Pottermore page saying “Congratulations, You have found the Magic Quill.”
So basically: TRY AGAIN. If you get a page telling you that you found the Magic Quill, click on the “Register Now” button.
Additional info: If you do get to the Quill page (someone did and showed it to me), it’s the same as the first day’s challenge. You’ll see a bunch of brown quills floating by. You need to click on the magic quill (it’s pretty obvious which quill this is).
If you don’t get to the Quill page, you should just be redirected to the page congratulating you and allowing you to register.
Day 4 clue Can you find The Magical Quill?
How many students take part in the Triwizard Tournament during Harry’s fourth year?
Multiply this number by 28.
I won’t give you the answer, but I will give you a clue: It’s one more than it should be.
Here’s what you need to do once you’ve figured out the clue and multiplied by 28:
Put http://quill.pottermore.com/
in your address bar, put the number you’ve derived from multiplying the clue times 28 after the slash, and hit enter.
This will take you to the Magic Quill.
I will go try the challenge myself right now (but not register), so that I can give you more information on what to do with the Magic Quill.
ETA:
This clue redirects to the Sony site. Apparently you need to find the Quill. I’m looking. If anybody has any hints, please add them to the Comments section.
Today is Professor Snape’s birthday. If he had survived the Battle of Hogwarts (and the intervening years), he would have been 51 years old today.
Last year, when I inserted the Silver Doe graphic for the Professor’s 50th birthday, I was still excited about discussing the Harry Potter series, and still very excited about talking about Severus Snape.
In the year since, I have participated in debates on the Chamber of Secrets forum and have grown weary of being told that if I like Snape, it means that I am confusing him with Alan Rickman. If I like Snape, it means that I hate Harry or I hate Neville or I hate… (the list continues onward). If I like Snape, it means that I think everything is all about Snape all the time. If I like Snape, it means that I am an immoral, delusional loser.
I have learned that Harry was correct about Snape throughout the series and only wrong at the end, that Snape was lazy for not writing a Potions text, that Snape had it coming to him when James Potter assaulted him in Snape’s Worst Memory. Most importantly, I have learned that every objectively good thing Snape ever did was actually something evil.
I have never witnessed such a systematic skewing of a literary text or a literary character. Harry’s final judgment could not have been clearer when he named his son “Albus Severus.” Yet I have learned that Harry’s final judgment is actually either muddy, irrelevant, or just simply delusional.
I have no idea why it’s so important to spend hours and hours locked behind closed doors dreaming up previously undreamt-up reasons to hate a character, or why anyone would want to boast about being less forgiving than Harry. All I know is that the Snape discussion often feels like an assault by Dementors, attempting to steal all the joy (or suck the soul) out of the Harry Potter universe.
I have learned that my only defense against being sucked into that world of hate is to cast a Patronus and shield my mind.
At any rate, this is no time for depressing ruminations. This is Professor Snape’s birthday. So…
