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

[arclevel.livejournal.com]

I once commented on this fairly extensively, and unfortunately, I can't begin to remember where. I suppose this is why I need to occasionally post on my journal rather than simply wandering in to everyone else's conversations. Anyway, my theory is that the arts are largely undervalued in the wizarding world because the day to day practice of magic itself stunts the imagination -- there's not many places left to go. There's a book industry, yes, but notably, we have never seen *any* wizard, not even Hermione, reading a novel. The only fiction mentioned is one French play and a comic book Ron used to read. Art has more to do with *actually* capturing a person or scene than with the aesthetics of such; who cares if your ocean is the right shade when the waves are going to be crashing against the rocks, or if your subject's eyes reflect her personality when she's going to be chatting with you? There is music, but I have a hard time believing there's much *good* music if only based on the size of the society -- look at how much of what we have is awful! Also, that has to take into account the fact that Muggle influences come in, but are slow to catch on; Muggle music has changed so much within the last century that it's hard to say what most wizards, even those relatively in touch with Muggle society, know about it. If they catch a few jazz pieces, some Elvis, and a Beatles tune, that will hardly prepare them to listen to Evanescence, for example. All of which makes it rather stunning to me that there are rock bands at *all* in the wizarding world, though there's clearly at least one. Do we happen to know if any or all of the Weird Sisters are Muggle-born?

And switching from one complete tangent to another, I was a hideous writer when I was eleven, and I was better than most of my classmates. Are the poor professors attempting to teach composition skills along with their subjects? They certainly don't seem to be, but I expect McGonagall and Snape, at least, would go insane attempting to read misspelled, badly worded, transition-less essays from all seven years' worth of their classes. We'll also hope that the non-fiction writers learn these things at some point.

[straussmonster.livejournal.com]

my theory is that the arts are largely undervalued in the wizarding world because the day to day practice of magic itself stunts the imagination

I've plugged that idea myself, in the sense of wizards not seeing the *point* of art when they can reproduce real life. They wouldn't be impressed with the machines of French Baroque opera that are so wonderful when you're in tune with their aesthetic. :)

I can see the Weird Sisters as Muggle-born, though. But again, I wonder whether this is all a meaningful omission or not. I think so...