~~ Snape, Snape, Snape!
May. 29th, 2004 08:16 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
reenkaYou know, for the first time like-- ever-- I was reading a decent H/D fic (`Phoenix Song'-- it's cute and well-characterized even if it's not necessarily unique), and I had this fleeting moment where I felt empathetic enough for Snape that I actually felt a pang of desire to stop and read H/S instead. o_0
Usually, I only read H/S for the porn, I guess, which actually makes little sense since I emphatically don't find Snape hot. It's just... something about the whole snarky dour-faced man losing composure (and clearly, Harry seems likelier than a lot of things to make Snape lose said composure) that tickles me. It's so interesting, because I never feel as if the pairing is realistic or desirable or good for either of them. It's more to do with me having some sort of rarely-indulged interest in Snape, I guess, and Snape in so far as he relates to Harry. Possibly, I should try reading `A Bittersweet Potion' after all, since from all the reviews of it it seems like it has my sort of H/S (without the all-important porn aspect).
I think I often stay away from H/S partly because so many people overdo Snape's vocabulary and make him an utter ponce who reminds me of a bad version of Henry Higgins from `My Fair Lady'-- completely stuffy and droll and ridiculously verbosely extravagant. Also, I reeeally dislike angsty-dark-woe!Snape and in-perfect-control-of-himself-as-well-as-those-insolent-brats!Snape. The other reason is that mostly, this pairing is played for angst (and smut), and I'm not willing to sit through that much angst when I'm not emotionally sold on the "happy ending" being denied me. I have to -care- about the happy ending to care about the angst, don't I?
The thing I liked about that glimpse of Snape in `Phoenix Song' is just how emotional and grumpy he's being, and how obvious it is that he's barely holding on to any sort of self-control. All he really wants to do is rant and rave and snap at people without waiting for actual provocation. It's so cute! I love seeing him as a quickly aging, put-upon man who hates his job and hates his life and hates everything (hate, hate, HATE). And then, in a way, you do have a Henry Higgins-type situation with Harry entering into it-- I mean, angst is predictable and less interesting, it seems to me, than Harry managing to make Snape smile or smirk or groan against his will. To make Snape start really kicking again (ahaha, who'd have thought he could be -more- mean!)
OoTP Harry isn't a ray of light by any means, of course, but he's passionate and young and he believes in things (well, in himself) strongly-- something Snape lacks-- and needs. From what I've seen, H/S often has Harry challenging Snape's world-view, yes, but my problem is that the Snape in question is usually so... stiff. So dried up and arrogant and sure of himself-- so "adult"-- that it's just not interesting to see his emotions close-up. It's like, Harry's passionate and angry and hormonal and Snape's... the "balance", generally, all bile and mockery and crusty sharp wit with a hidden layer of masterful passion (blergh). Meh.
Also, the whole focus on underage!Harry (when it's in school) and how Snape must be a lecher or a monster or just... the whole 'why' of it that overwhelms more plotty H/S fics.... I don't know why I don't see Harry & Snape together as a "perversion"; actually, I think maybe it's that it's presented as being sexually rather than emotionally motivated...? So Snape is wanting a "young boy" rather than just it being a pure singularity (unrealistic as that is). Just a -thing- with -Potter-. Some way in which -Potter- makes him -mad-, just overwhelms him, gets him angry enough not to care about consequences. I dunno, I can't justify ignoring the obvious consequences, of course, and yet... that's simply not what seems vital & interesting about the pairing, so I'm inclined not to want to focus on it. At all.
I can never quite wrap my brain around any sort of "realism" with H/S anyway, which is prolly why the whole "chan" issue passes me by completely. To me, chan has -nothing- to do with H/S because they do have a dynamic that's totally separate from the sexual and from which the sex could erupt like a geyser of a nose-bleed or something. They wouldn't even -want- each other, they'd just... go at each other in some sort of raving mad fury, I think. Not like H/D... it'd be deeper, actually, more heart-wrenching and devastating; less surface enjoyment and more almost gruesome. And yet, like I said, I'm not there for the angst, so it's... I dunno, I want to see the emotional weight being sublimated and channeled somehow. Worked through? Exorcised, perhaps?
In the end, I think Harry & Snape are really interesting together, but not in a romantic sense, so I shy away from the sturm-und-drang of having a "relationship", chan in nature or otherwise. In my mind, they don't (won't?) have a romantic or even sexual relationship; they just can't escape each other's presence and various things could result from that fact. They plague each other's lives & make them a living hell, and I find that fascinating, I guess. I wouldn't even say that it's a teacher/student relationship in the first place. I don't think Snape ever truly related to Harry as a student-- he was always "Potter", I think, James's son. It was always -personal-, is what I mean.
What would really be great to read is something (H/S but not all the way necessarily) that follows Snape from age 14 or so, with his early relationships with Lucius & the Marauders and then kinda skips over the Death Eater/pre-Harry years really fast ('cause bleh) and goes into Harry's appearance and the resurgence of all those old and never-buried feelings from school. Because his relationship with Harry has more to do with Snape's own school years than anything that happened afterwards anyway, doesn't it?
It'd be great if it wasn't even slashy back then-- I mean, I always had a soft spot for Snape/Lily anyway (though of course not enough to read any). I just really want something meaty and Snape-ish right now, but without the silly pairing or Death Eater angst (meaning, something Marauder-era). And yet I still want Harry and the porn fix later sometime, heheh. It just seems like there are a lot of fics that focus on Snape's alliances and choices and burdens or what have you, whereas I just want character-building stuff that'd rebuild and illuminate himself as an individual. He must've been a really sour, lonely, unhappy, morose teenager, with all this anger he was having to swallow all the time-- I mean, he didn't act out as much as Draco does, so he must've just -pounced- on the whole Death Eater thing at first. I can -taste- it.
I always thought I'd write adolescent!Snape if I felt I could write Marauder-era -or- Snape in general. I'm so drawn to his pain, isolation and anger-- the raw center of it all, when it was all -forming-. In a way, I can understand and empathize with that beginning more than I can fully empathize with Draco, 'cause Snape is more intelligent, introverted & probably more sensitive in a way. Not a bully, yet with a lot of similar issues as a Slytherin. What I'm saying is, adolescent!Snape is a lot more like me; I'm just uncomfortable 'cause I don't have enough background to go on, writing it, plus I don't know whom I'd have Snape bounce off of-- like, Harry and Draco have a lot of people to really interact with and Snape... well. I doubt he talked to the Marauders much, and even if he did... I dunno. My emotional grasp of James, Sirius & Remus as adolescents is kinda weak, even if I do "know" in theory.
I'm probably partly fascinated with H/S at times because it pokes at that center of him, that crucial period in Snape's memories. The problem I really have with H/S in a long-term sense is that I don't think it gets at -Harry's- issues, so much. It's not as transformative and transgressive from Harry's pov. I mean, clearly it would shake him up but I dunno what good would come of it. In H/S, for me, Harry is just the catalyst, whereas in H/D they're each other's catalysts.
My problem with a lot of the vibe I get from H/S is how it kinda sees Harry as the "victim", of a sort, and Snape as the (sexual or emotional) predator. To me, that doesn't work at all. I think the reason I kept talking about adolescent!Snape just now is because I see -Snape- as the victim, as the injured party who just kinda stews and broods and lashes out a lot. He's -hurt-. He's vulnerable. He's... desperate, even if he doesn't realize it.
See, Harry isn't the victim at all. I mean, Snape would be much harder to shrug off than Draco, but Harry's young and resilient (something Snape isn't), and he -can- shrug him off. -He's- not the obsessed, brooding one. For him, Snape's a pain in the ass, but he's something to overcome, to fight against. Snape's fight against his past-- and his own weakness & loneliness & impotent, left over rage-- is without an end in sight, so he's much more worn down & hopeless by now. Harry can leave & move on, but will Snape move on when Harry leaves? I doubt it. He'll just stew on it more.
I think Snape would be "disgusted" and even -more- harassed by his own emotions upon realizing he -wants- Potter, to top off everything else. Harry would acquire a new method of torturing him (unknowingly) this way. Snape would suffer, but it wouldn't be the suffering of an unrequited lover or of a dangerous pedophile-- I think it would just be the suffering of an aging, frustrated man whose mind & body & emotions are never at rest, and who just doesn't know what to do with himself or his desires. It's just another way for him to be at constant boiling point, so it wouldn't even be surprising when/if he really boils over. It's just a matter of time, isn't it?
Usually, I only read H/S for the porn, I guess, which actually makes little sense since I emphatically don't find Snape hot. It's just... something about the whole snarky dour-faced man losing composure (and clearly, Harry seems likelier than a lot of things to make Snape lose said composure) that tickles me. It's so interesting, because I never feel as if the pairing is realistic or desirable or good for either of them. It's more to do with me having some sort of rarely-indulged interest in Snape, I guess, and Snape in so far as he relates to Harry. Possibly, I should try reading `A Bittersweet Potion' after all, since from all the reviews of it it seems like it has my sort of H/S (without the all-important porn aspect).
I think I often stay away from H/S partly because so many people overdo Snape's vocabulary and make him an utter ponce who reminds me of a bad version of Henry Higgins from `My Fair Lady'-- completely stuffy and droll and ridiculously verbosely extravagant. Also, I reeeally dislike angsty-dark-woe!Snape and in-perfect-control-of-himself-as-well-as-those-insolent-brats!Snape. The other reason is that mostly, this pairing is played for angst (and smut), and I'm not willing to sit through that much angst when I'm not emotionally sold on the "happy ending" being denied me. I have to -care- about the happy ending to care about the angst, don't I?
The thing I liked about that glimpse of Snape in `Phoenix Song' is just how emotional and grumpy he's being, and how obvious it is that he's barely holding on to any sort of self-control. All he really wants to do is rant and rave and snap at people without waiting for actual provocation. It's so cute! I love seeing him as a quickly aging, put-upon man who hates his job and hates his life and hates everything (hate, hate, HATE). And then, in a way, you do have a Henry Higgins-type situation with Harry entering into it-- I mean, angst is predictable and less interesting, it seems to me, than Harry managing to make Snape smile or smirk or groan against his will. To make Snape start really kicking again (ahaha, who'd have thought he could be -more- mean!)
OoTP Harry isn't a ray of light by any means, of course, but he's passionate and young and he believes in things (well, in himself) strongly-- something Snape lacks-- and needs. From what I've seen, H/S often has Harry challenging Snape's world-view, yes, but my problem is that the Snape in question is usually so... stiff. So dried up and arrogant and sure of himself-- so "adult"-- that it's just not interesting to see his emotions close-up. It's like, Harry's passionate and angry and hormonal and Snape's... the "balance", generally, all bile and mockery and crusty sharp wit with a hidden layer of masterful passion (blergh). Meh.
Also, the whole focus on underage!Harry (when it's in school) and how Snape must be a lecher or a monster or just... the whole 'why' of it that overwhelms more plotty H/S fics.... I don't know why I don't see Harry & Snape together as a "perversion"; actually, I think maybe it's that it's presented as being sexually rather than emotionally motivated...? So Snape is wanting a "young boy" rather than just it being a pure singularity (unrealistic as that is). Just a -thing- with -Potter-. Some way in which -Potter- makes him -mad-, just overwhelms him, gets him angry enough not to care about consequences. I dunno, I can't justify ignoring the obvious consequences, of course, and yet... that's simply not what seems vital & interesting about the pairing, so I'm inclined not to want to focus on it. At all.
I can never quite wrap my brain around any sort of "realism" with H/S anyway, which is prolly why the whole "chan" issue passes me by completely. To me, chan has -nothing- to do with H/S because they do have a dynamic that's totally separate from the sexual and from which the sex could erupt like a geyser of a nose-bleed or something. They wouldn't even -want- each other, they'd just... go at each other in some sort of raving mad fury, I think. Not like H/D... it'd be deeper, actually, more heart-wrenching and devastating; less surface enjoyment and more almost gruesome. And yet, like I said, I'm not there for the angst, so it's... I dunno, I want to see the emotional weight being sublimated and channeled somehow. Worked through? Exorcised, perhaps?
In the end, I think Harry & Snape are really interesting together, but not in a romantic sense, so I shy away from the sturm-und-drang of having a "relationship", chan in nature or otherwise. In my mind, they don't (won't?) have a romantic or even sexual relationship; they just can't escape each other's presence and various things could result from that fact. They plague each other's lives & make them a living hell, and I find that fascinating, I guess. I wouldn't even say that it's a teacher/student relationship in the first place. I don't think Snape ever truly related to Harry as a student-- he was always "Potter", I think, James's son. It was always -personal-, is what I mean.
What would really be great to read is something (H/S but not all the way necessarily) that follows Snape from age 14 or so, with his early relationships with Lucius & the Marauders and then kinda skips over the Death Eater/pre-Harry years really fast ('cause bleh) and goes into Harry's appearance and the resurgence of all those old and never-buried feelings from school. Because his relationship with Harry has more to do with Snape's own school years than anything that happened afterwards anyway, doesn't it?
It'd be great if it wasn't even slashy back then-- I mean, I always had a soft spot for Snape/Lily anyway (though of course not enough to read any). I just really want something meaty and Snape-ish right now, but without the silly pairing or Death Eater angst (meaning, something Marauder-era). And yet I still want Harry and the porn fix later sometime, heheh. It just seems like there are a lot of fics that focus on Snape's alliances and choices and burdens or what have you, whereas I just want character-building stuff that'd rebuild and illuminate himself as an individual. He must've been a really sour, lonely, unhappy, morose teenager, with all this anger he was having to swallow all the time-- I mean, he didn't act out as much as Draco does, so he must've just -pounced- on the whole Death Eater thing at first. I can -taste- it.
I always thought I'd write adolescent!Snape if I felt I could write Marauder-era -or- Snape in general. I'm so drawn to his pain, isolation and anger-- the raw center of it all, when it was all -forming-. In a way, I can understand and empathize with that beginning more than I can fully empathize with Draco, 'cause Snape is more intelligent, introverted & probably more sensitive in a way. Not a bully, yet with a lot of similar issues as a Slytherin. What I'm saying is, adolescent!Snape is a lot more like me; I'm just uncomfortable 'cause I don't have enough background to go on, writing it, plus I don't know whom I'd have Snape bounce off of-- like, Harry and Draco have a lot of people to really interact with and Snape... well. I doubt he talked to the Marauders much, and even if he did... I dunno. My emotional grasp of James, Sirius & Remus as adolescents is kinda weak, even if I do "know" in theory.
I'm probably partly fascinated with H/S at times because it pokes at that center of him, that crucial period in Snape's memories. The problem I really have with H/S in a long-term sense is that I don't think it gets at -Harry's- issues, so much. It's not as transformative and transgressive from Harry's pov. I mean, clearly it would shake him up but I dunno what good would come of it. In H/S, for me, Harry is just the catalyst, whereas in H/D they're each other's catalysts.
My problem with a lot of the vibe I get from H/S is how it kinda sees Harry as the "victim", of a sort, and Snape as the (sexual or emotional) predator. To me, that doesn't work at all. I think the reason I kept talking about adolescent!Snape just now is because I see -Snape- as the victim, as the injured party who just kinda stews and broods and lashes out a lot. He's -hurt-. He's vulnerable. He's... desperate, even if he doesn't realize it.
See, Harry isn't the victim at all. I mean, Snape would be much harder to shrug off than Draco, but Harry's young and resilient (something Snape isn't), and he -can- shrug him off. -He's- not the obsessed, brooding one. For him, Snape's a pain in the ass, but he's something to overcome, to fight against. Snape's fight against his past-- and his own weakness & loneliness & impotent, left over rage-- is without an end in sight, so he's much more worn down & hopeless by now. Harry can leave & move on, but will Snape move on when Harry leaves? I doubt it. He'll just stew on it more.
I think Snape would be "disgusted" and even -more- harassed by his own emotions upon realizing he -wants- Potter, to top off everything else. Harry would acquire a new method of torturing him (unknowingly) this way. Snape would suffer, but it wouldn't be the suffering of an unrequited lover or of a dangerous pedophile-- I think it would just be the suffering of an aging, frustrated man whose mind & body & emotions are never at rest, and who just doesn't know what to do with himself or his desires. It's just another way for him to be at constant boiling point, so it wouldn't even be surprising when/if he really boils over. It's just a matter of time, isn't it?
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2004-05-30 09:51 am (UTC)Snape would suffer, but it wouldn't be the suffering of an unrequited lover or of a dangerous pedophile-- I think it would just be the suffering of an aging, frustrated man whose mind & body & emotions are never at rest, and who just doesn't know what to do with himself or his desires.
That's just really interesting. now I want to read fics like that. (Go write them!) :)
Usually when I come across something like this I end up writing it myself. I'm not sure I can with this one. Maybe just because I've not been in a writing mood lately. But I'd love to read this one.
no subject
Date: 2004-05-30 06:05 pm (UTC)I kinda get intimidated 'cause I thought I'd have to write the droll, snarky Snape 'cause it's not usually a facade the way it is even with (fanon) Draco. Most people write Snape as some sort of twisted, Slytherin gentleman who's tired of the stupid savages (aka students & Gryffindors) and so on... and I can't write that. I'd have to get used to the idea that I -can- write Snape (if I can, I'm still not sure). It's... a new concept :D I'm not good with adults.
I also assumed that if I wrote H/S, it'd have the same "point" as my H/D's-- getting them together-- and I just can't. Do. That. I can't even really get Harry & Draco together, forget Harry & Snape! It never occurred to me to write Harry&Snape gen :D :D Ahahahah!! Although I'm slightly intrigued with the idea of me (me!!) writing H/S pr0n. I mean, really >:D It would -not- be sexy but it'd be so -fun-!! Ahahahah!! The sheer... dirty inappropriateness of it!! Duuuude!
I just hate "Severus" (YECCH) and his "smooth voice" and his "sexual prowess" and his "experienced fingers". GAG ME NOW. *sigh*
All this time, wasted thinking I had to write fanon, ahahaha ;D