Just a little Snape musing...
Mar. 19th, 2005 02:55 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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rickfan37 did her own build-a-snape here and mentioned this really excellent point: Here’s the Urbane!Snape myth again. I don’t know, and we’re given no clue in canon. I simply don’t believe he’s a closet opera buff and spends his spare time humming along to great arias, or that he can quote Dante or Shakespeare at will.
It really made me think of something new. I've always been a bit apprehensive about fics where Snape quotes Byron and listens to Bach.
I think what really is happening is that giving Snape these "pretentious" hobbies is a way for an inexperienced writer to "shorthand" their characterization of him, because in just a sentence of quoting/playing classical music, they set him up (in their minds) as a certain sort of character, aloof, mysterious, educated, etc. It's a short-cut.
The thing is, the sort of character they're trying to develop is not canon. Snape is a pure-blood, and would most likely know very little, if anything, about the Muggle world (his matchbox comment notwithstanding). And I'm certain that most pure-bloods wouldn't want to involve themselves in any sort of Muggle-world scrutiny.
So authors who attempt this short-cut are really doing canon a disservice, when what they really need to do is discover what would make him an aloof, mysterious, and educated character in Rowling's world.
Just my little musing for the moment.
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(no subject)
Date: 2005-03-19 08:24 pm (UTC)*headdesks*
random tangent
Date: 2005-03-19 08:52 pm (UTC)Everyone knows it is Blue Oyster Cult!!!!
and Skid RowOh man butt rock Snape, I can't stop laughing! Eighteen and Life to Go!
You know what Billy Joel reminds me of? Did you ever see the sitcom Bosom Buddies w/Tom Hanks in drag??? Hahahahaha! What if Snape had to live in an apartment for women? And Ron is his roommate, because they're the only people to wear drag in canon.
Re: random tangent
Date: 2005-03-20 08:07 pm (UTC)Yeah, he's even still got the haircut from when he used to be a roadie all those years ago! In the off-season. Cause Death Eating doesn't actually pay that well.
Re: random tangent
Date: 2005-03-20 08:34 pm (UTC)And you don't get half the ass.
Re: random tangent
Date: 2005-03-20 09:56 pm (UTC)Not according to some of the fics I've read...
o noes
Date: 2005-03-19 09:08 pm (UTC)Re: o noes
Date: 2005-03-19 09:34 pm (UTC)Re: o noes
Date: 2005-03-19 09:41 pm (UTC)Re: o noes
Date: 2005-03-20 01:22 am (UTC)Re: o noes
Date: 2005-03-19 10:01 pm (UTC)Re: o noes
Date: 2005-03-19 10:12 pm (UTC)Re: o noes
Date: 2005-03-19 11:28 pm (UTC)*falls about laughing her ass off*
Re: o noes
Date: 2005-03-20 01:21 am (UTC)Re: o noes
Date: 2005-03-20 08:23 am (UTC)You are a sick puppy.
Re: o noes
Date: 2005-03-20 11:27 am (UTC)