Just a little Snape musing...

[valis2]

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.

Comments

[rickfan37.livejournal.com]

often, they're glued-on characteristics written by writers who wouldn't know chamber music if it smacked them upside the head.
Exactly, and that's the problem. While I personally don't see him in that way, it certainly doesn't gall me when I read it in other's work if it's well done, and they obviously know what they're talking about. Sadly, that's rarely the case.

[pen-and-umbra.livejournal.com]

Ah, yes, very true indeed. Same thing with me and kinks -- whenever non-con Dark Revels rapefics are labelled as BDSM, I shall rail, because the author obviously doesn't know what s/he is talking about.