Two pennies for Potter.
So Chris Suellentrop slags Harry Potter a couple-three weeks ago, and blogging’s still in a tizzy. Lessee: Kieran Healy sorta found it interesting; Glenn Reynolds disagreed, and said Potter and George W. have a lot in common; Mark Kleiman rather effectively disagreed with Suellentrop, Healy, and Reynolds, though Healy disagreed with aspects of Kleiman’s disagreement; Barry Deutsch brought up the overarching subtext (or is that too mixed a turn of phrase?) of egalitarianism and free will versus the predetermination of one’s heritage that runs through the books; Sisyphus Shrugged thought Rowling’s pretty much put paid to the notion of predetermination; Deutsch said no, she hasn’t, dammit; Sisyphus challenged him to a duel; and Kevin Raybould thought a) the original piece was satire and b) at the expense of George W., thereby managing the neat trick of agreeing with both Suellentrop and Reynolds, albeit snarkily, and Kleiman agreed with Raybould.
Got all that?
Good.
Me, I think Suellentrop’s bit was a lightweight joke tossed off on a coffee break and, as is usual with professionally generated content on the web these days, not worthy of the amateur discussions it’s arguably sparked. Since I’m not an habitué of Slate (it crashes Mozilla 1.1 on my iBook without fail—funny, that), I first heard about it via a discussion over on Plastic, which focussed (fruitlessly, for the most part) on who’s the better moral agent, Harry Potter or Frodo (who’s stronger: Superman or the Hulk?), with a soupçon of the usual anti-intellectual refrain: “Why do all these critics have to spoil stuff by reeeeeading it? It’s just a freakin’ kids’ book!” But the Plastic discussion did call to my attention this older Slate piece, which insists the Harry Potter books are a repudiation of Thatcherism (and is as cheeky as Suellentrop’s, since it cites this essay in support—which posits Potter as a [Harold Macmillan and Iain McLeod] Tory, and Draco Malfoy as [delightfully] Harry Flashman); it also brought up this book, which argues that the Potter books glorify “that apex of class privilege, the English public school.” (Given that—as a Yank—most of my notions of English public schools involve books in which characters say things like “But just turn over for a moment, Jimmy, and let us have a look at your bottom. I’ve rather a fancy for nice bottoms,” this line of argument threatens rather rapidly to end up in places I don’t want to go.)
I just want to add two points to the Potter hootenanny: the first being something Michael Chabon said, in a Salon interview about his (fantastic) new book, Summerland, which I think gets at the resentment of Harry that simmers under Suellentrop’s fluff piece, and those who take it more seriously than not, what with the moral luck and the free will and the predestination and all. I’ll snip the relevant passage and exercise my Fair Usage rights:
I have a lot of respect for what J.K. Rowling’s done in her books. They’re very pleasurable and enjoyable, but if I had a criticism of them it would be that Harry is too good and too talented too quickly and seems to take to the idea that he’s the special one too easily. It’s always about Harry winning. That’s what he does again and again, and if he ever gets into trouble it’s not because he’s weak or ineffectual and not up to the task, it’s because his opponents are so evil, or someone betrays him so he doesn’t stand a chance. I couldn’t do that. I couldn’t imagine that character because it’s not enough my own experience of childhood.
Would Harry be more likeable (or less prone to prompt such a backlash) if he were weaker? If he were to fuck up once in a while? Are his troubles never the result of his own failing, primarily? Are there always mitigating rationales and extenuating circumstances in the narrative to excuse him from (or at least temper his) self-loathing? —I don’t think the answer’s a simple, binary yes-or-no, and I think Potter-philes and -phobes could each split hairs six ways from Sunday to prove the other’s full of fewmets, but I myself am going to come provisionally down on the side of yes, but. (I still like the kid. And the books. A lot. The movies, not so much. But.)
That said, let’s wipe Harry and blood and moral luck and free will off the table for a minute. There’s a character whose absence from any discussion of Rowling’s morality is sorely felt; who must be given his due if we’re to get a handle on the bigger picture in which these choices (or predestined events) occur. I’m speaking, of course, of Severus Snape. (Sisyphus Shrugged has alluded to theories regarding the parallels between Snape and Harry; I for one can’t wait to hear them.)
Snape, then.
Oh, he’s an asshole, all right. (You can hear it in his very name: Ssssseverus Sssssnape.) He’s mean and he’s rude and he’s spiteful and unjust, and he unfairly favors the students of his own house over the others. He plays favorites and abuses his power to punish those he dislikes and he holds a baseless, irrational grudge against Harry because of a long-ago schoolboy rivalry. Snape is a Slytherin, through and through; he’d never quibble over the means to his ends, and God only knows what he did to earn that Dark Mark on his forearm.
Of course, one could as easily say he merely protects his charges from the perhaps justified but nonetheless pernicious prejudices of other houses, and that when his Slytherins disappoint him, he can be has dangerously spiteful to them as he is to Our Heroes; one could observe that Professor McGonagall is similarly unfair in the protection and advancement of her Gryffindors—if not in the same fashion, or degree, well, the crime’s still something both are guilty of.
But all this smacks of moral relativism—which, I understand, is treason in this time of war.
So what are Snape’s ends, towards which he will use any means? (Mr. Vidal wishes to remind us that “there are no ends, only means.” Mr. Vidal is being a troublemaker again—could someone kindly show him the door?) —There is in this Potterverse a fully functioning society of wizards that allows them to live their lives, exercise their powers, explore their world, interact with each other to shape and mold that society, and pass along what they’ve learned to the next generation, with safeguards in place to keep from distressing the (overwhelming) majority of lumpen Muggles (“freaking the mundanes,” as we put it in college). That society is facing a threat it only barely withstood once before: the magical power and revolutionary ideas of one Voldemort, née Tom Malvolo Riddle, who is not content to keep the wizarding world safe from Muggles’ prying eyes, but would, instead, subjugate the Muggle world to the power of the few but mighty wizards—under his enlightened rule, of course. Standing against this threat? Folks like Dumbeldore, McGonagall, Hagrid, Sirius Black—and Snape.
They have their disagreements. They argue, Snape and Sirius and Dumbeldore, and even fight over where this society of wizards should be going, and what exactly they ought to be passing on to the next generation (and how)—but they all recognize the greater good of that society; they all understand the need to maintain some sort of framework within which they can tussle over their differences.
But we haven’t really dealt with the moral relativism. After all, the argument could be made that this is merely a struggle between two ruling paradigms; over whose vision of the wizarding society will reign supreme. The only reason to like Snape by this logic is because his proximate ends—maintaining the status quo—happen to synch up with those of our nominal heroes: the pampered jock, undeserving beneficiary of dollops of moral luck, his assorted sidekicks and hangers-on, and the white-bearded patriarch sitting at this very apex of class privilege. The characters the writer wants us to like. Snape—pallid, mean, spiteful, unjust Snape—merely shines, a little, in their reflected flattering light; this is no more a sound moral basis for judgement than watery tarts handing out swords.
Luckily, John Rawls is there in the clench.
The wizarding society, as we’ve seen, is unfair. It’s unjust. You can cheat and exploit others and do the wrong thing and still get ahead (in fact, sometimes it seems you must do so, a little, to advance at all). It’s far from perfect. It is, in fact, ripe for some sort of revolution—which is just what Voldemort is offering. But: I can’t think of anyone sane who could from Rawls’s original position choose Voldemort’s ideal over the wizarding world as it is, warts and all. Voldemort is trying to destroy that world—the framework within which the others have their disagreements—but he has nothing more waiting to replace it than “Full bloods only!” and “Loyalty to me!” He doesn’t even bother to cloak his ideology in Marxist world-saving rhetoric or distract the masses with stunningly stage-managed rallies; the best he can do is some lame-ass Skull-and-Crossbones sheets-in-the-graveyard games. Initiation ceremonies for the frat-boy elite. Lucius Malfoy and Wormtail and the other Death Eaters aren’t out to save the world, or make it a better place; they’re out for their own aggrandizement and profit. —Dumbeldore and McGonagall and Hagrid and Sirius and even, young as they are, Harry and Hermione and Ron, all see however dimly that greater good. They’ve all at least given some thought to that original position, if not quite in those terms, and in their own halting, stumbling ways, are working towards their own idea of a better world for all, or most, or at least a goodly chunk. And Snape, though he might have been tempted by Voldemort in the past, sees that greater good as well. And is doing some dicedly dangerous stuff to fight for it.
(Draco? Draco Malfoy? Well, he’s still young. Kids have a hard time seeing past themselves and their immediate circumstances; coming to recognize something like that original position—if not necessarily in those terms—is a pretty good benchmark for growing up. Harry’s starting to; Draco hasn’t yet, and that’s the big difference between the two of them, I think. There’s still time for Draco. Not that I have high hopes.)
Geeze. Ramble much? I could just as easily have pointed out that Snape fulfills the role of the Honorable Villain: you know, in the comic books, when Spidey has to team up with Doc Oc so their powers combined might defeat the truly alien evil that threatens their status quo, that daily round of relatively inconsequential fisticuffs and snappy banter. “We’ve got to work together to defeat it!” “Make no mistake, Spider-fool. This changes nothing between us. We are still mortal foes!” —Actually, that’s a lousy example. But you get my meaning. Right?
And if that’s not enough, we could go back to Snape’s protective instinct, and the care he takes of his Slytherin charges, the bulwark he presents against the slings and arrows of prejudicial others—including the author, Rowling herself, who insists on describing all Slytherins as thuggish and ugly and mean, shows their every action in the worst possible light, and gives them names like Millicent Bulstrode and Severus Snape and Crabbe and Goyle and Draco frickin’ Malfoy. It’s hard not to feel at least some grudging admiration for a character willing to stand up to his own author, and who does so with such panache that she herself can’t help but recognize how perversely honorable—how queerly cool—he really is.
Aw, heck. Maybe it’s just I have a thing for redemption stories; I’m a sucker for a guy with dark hooded eyes wrestling his own worst instincts on an ill-fated quest to make some sort of amends. We don’t know even now if he’ll pull it off.
But it’s going to be one hell of a show.
—Of course, it doesn’t hurt that Alan Rickman’s a hottie.
Wow. What a post! What could I possibly add? Only my crackpot theory about Snape, and why he hates Potter and is such a crud, and what Dumbledore occasionally alludes to as Snape's having been through some hard times or something like that. Are you ready? It explains everything. Here you go. Snape is dead. He's a ghost. He was killed while making a break from Voldemort et al, back in the day, and (because of details I haven't figured out yet) blames his death on Harry's parents.
Crazy? Yes. But just crazy enough to be true.
Heh. I like the Snape-as-ghost theory. On the one hand, we know a lot about the mechanics of ghosts in the Potterverse, since a number of them are minor characters (oh, Rik Mayall, why must thou languisheth on the cutting-room floor?); Snape would have to be a special exception. On the other hand, Rowling's none too shy about pulling such special exceptions from her machina (she does it well enough, so we excuse her). So.
Reminds me of the theory one fanzine put about after Empire Strikes Back came out. Darth Vader couldn't possibly be Luke's father. Too obvious. No--did you notice how Boba Fett deliberately pulled his shot in the hallway at Bespin? Obviously, Boba Fett must be Luke's father...
Giddy fandom. Gotta love it.
Really fascinating read, just wanted to add a few comments regarding Chabon's statement. I think he's making the mistake of generalizing on a 7 volume work while using only the first 4 volumes. Perhaps I'm reading too much into things but it seems like one of Harry's great flaws is on the cusp on becoming quite visible, Barty Crouch Jr. mentioned it. He's passive on occasion, almost to the point of arrogance. I almost wonder if it's as much a problem of trust as it it is anything else. Barty-boy was right, Harry should have been ferreting out info from avalible person on how to get through the second task and he didn't. He only went to those he trusted absolutely and if it hadn't been for Crouch's second intervention (the first being passing the info to Neville in the first place) Harry wouldn't never have been able to complete the task. He didn't use all his avalibe resources, he overlooked important details, and he cruelly underestimated his friend (as I suspect everyone does to Neville). As a matter of fact Barty does a pretty ugly anaysis of Harry, his mistakes, and his flaws. It might not be hammered home with complex metaphor and allusion as it is with the hero of "Summerland" but it's there and it's pretty clear. In book 2 as well, Harry could have avoided so much pain had be trusted Dumbledore enough to say "Ummm, Headmaster, I'm hearing voices in the walls." But he didn't. I'd say that's a pretty clear example of Harry getting into trouble because he was weak and ineffectual and it was damn near luck alone that kept someone from dying.
I have a strong suspicion (particularly with Barty's nasty personal insghts) that this tendancy to overlook the details and to fail to ask to the help of others either for reasons of trust or arrogance or a co-mingling of the two will come round to bite him in the rump-end and bite him hard and probably soon. It might well be be connected to the rumored "hard-to-write" death in book 5. Regardless, the fact that it hasn't yet happened does not mean that it won't, and just as it's unfair to stop 4/7th of the way into "Summerland" and declaim with certitude on the characters up to that point, I'm not sure that it's fair to do the same with the HP books.
And has Harry "accepted" that he's the special one? He's comfortable using the leeway he gets from his name to get away with things but he's pretty cavalier about the idea that people are putting their lives on the line to keep him safe and that there might be a reason for that, that what's going on is a deadly serious affair. Lupin tried to clue him in in book 3 and I'm not sure that Harry heard him. Maybe Cedric's death will be enough to make him, if not dramaticly more cautious, then at least a little smarter and a little more reasoned in his choices. I wonder though.
It would be tempting for some to then extrapolate that into the "Harry's just an a-hole jock" argument but it's damn few kids that age that have any sort of notion that they aren't immortal and Harry is, at least in that regard, being very much a real boy.
Also, I'm at a bit of a loss as to how the end of book 4 could be described as winning. Harry survived but I certainly can't count what happend as a win. I'm a little baffled as to why Chabon does, unless he's just indulging in another sweeping generalization that conveniently buttresses his argument.
Don't get me wrong, I liked "Summerland" but I don't think that Chabon is making an entirely fair assesment.
Just a few thoughts. Thanks for the enjoyable read.
Thanks, and points well taken, quercus; certainly, Rowling is a more subtle writer than a lot of people credit her for, and there's still time to "bite him in the ass," as it were. --But Chabon's point (and its application to Potter's-a-jerk screeds like Suellentrop's) is not so much that Harry always wins; no. It's that when he does fail, it's never primarily his fault. His fallibility is mitigated by the evil of others. It's a subtle distinction, and it's almost more a concern at the writerly level, of presentation and emphasis rather than Harry's actual moral calibre, but it is a criticism I think has some merit, even if it ultimately doesn't spoil the books. I just muddled that distinction in my summation paragraph, so apologies for that.
But enough about Harry! What about Snape?