This essay was sent out to e-subscribers this morning by Sightings, an online journal of The Martin Marty Center at the University of Chicago. File it under, “Why Harry Potter is Important.”
Severus Snape and the Transparency of Evil
– Elizabeth Musselman
On July 21, children across the country will stay up all night reading as the narrative of Harry Potter draws to a close. Many adults will also stay up all night reading the final chapters in J. K. Rowling’s imaginative epic of teenage wizards negotiating the forces of good and evil. Perhaps if Martin Luther were alive today, he too would find himself drawn into the textual world of Harry Potter — for Harry’s world bears some striking resemblances to Luther’s theological realm. Appearances are deceptive, and human reason is not to be trusted; spoken words carry the power to defeat danger; and the ongoing struggle between good and evil finds no easy resolution.
One of the most contentious questions in the online world of textual interpretation (blogging, fan fiction, and the like) concerns the moral status of Severus Snape, Harry’s “Defense Against the Dark Arts” teacher. Snape is the only character whose moral status has remained unknown through the series: while this greasy-haired teacher appears on the surface to be more evil than good, by the end of the sixth book the reader is still left questioning Snape’s motives and disposition.
Perhaps this is why in February Borders/Waldenbooks offered customers who pre-ordered the final Harry Potter text a choice between two bumper stickers: “Trust Snape” or “Snape is a very bad man.” Posters in stores pose the question: “Severus Snape: Friend or Foe?” The moral status of Snape has turned into an extravagant marketing campaign, and helped launch Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows to the top of bestseller lists months before its publication.
But the mystery of Snape’s moral status is more than a clever marketing strategy. In the face of our cultural discourses regarding good and evil, the answer to the Snape question matters deeply. If Snape’s story ends as a narrative of redemption — a narrative pattern that Northwestern University psychologist Dan McAdams believes most Americans seek in the face of the contingency and tragedy of human existence — it will serve as a reminder that the human condition is marked by moral ambiguity rather than the Manichean flatness of an axis of evil; that goodness and sin exist simultaneously in all of us; and that the post-9/11 American predilection toward regarding evil as utterly transparent is unrealistic in light of the noetic effect of sin. If Snape’s story concludes as a narrative of pure evil, it may provide hope that in the end, with much struggle, evil can be defeated by good. But it will fail to reflect the struggle that each individual faces between sin and redemption in this post-Fall world.
The fact that so many people are so profoundly invested in the Snape question also matters deeply. Many of us desperately want Snape to be good not only because we believe that fiction has the power to reflect and to shape reality, but also because we hope on some level that people have the capacity to be better (as well as worse) than they appear; we know that the legacy of sin hanging over us calls for humility in our assessment of what is good and what is evil; and we believe that we will live less dangerously and more ethically if we acknowledge this fact.
Of course, the text has already been written, and Snape’s final moral status has been determined once and for all — it only remains for readers to discover in the early morning hours of July 21st. This reader is hoping that Severus Snape will, in the end, be trustworthy even in the face of his status as a very bad man — that he will, like all of us, prove to be, as Martin Luther put it, simul iustus et peccator, at once righteous and a sinner.
References:
Dan P. McAdams, The Redemptive Self: Stories Americans Live By (New York: Oxford University Press, 2005).
Links to images of the February Borders marketing campaign may be found at http://blogs.nypost.com/potter/archives/2007/02/snape_–_the_ma.html. The current shape of the Borders Snape marketing campaign may be seen at http://www.bordersmedia.com/harrypotter/.
Elizabeth Musselman is a PhD candidate in theology at the University of Chicago Divinity School.
———-
Sightings comes from the Martin Marty Center at the University of Chicago Divinity School.
{ 9 comments… read them below or add one }
I really loved this article, it is coming at the last hour and yes, the time for theorising is over. It is time to accept the fate for all the characters. But Snape is special, I loved him as the comic relief and now he is moved into a powerful and dramatic role-I’m preparing to have my heart broken finding out his backstory because I’m sure it is just as tragic as Harry’s life.
Being myself a Lutheran Christian I have enjoyed reading this essay. I most strongly agree with the conclution: That Snape as at the same time very bad, but also one of the good guys, would be an excellent illustration of the Lutheran dogma of «simul justus et peccator», «at once rightious and a sinner».
Lutheran theology also focuses strongly on the themes of redemption and reconciliation (cfr Rom 5,10-11, 2 Cor 5,18-21, Eph 2,11-22 and Col 1,19-22). An (alchemical) reconciliation between Harry and Severus would be a marvellous solution to hope for.
It was also fascinating to consider the introductory idea: That Martin Luther himself would have enjoyed reading Harry Potter if he had been alive today. I am sure he would. I have read a few of his books (but only a minor part of the enormous library he authored). And I am sure he would have recognised Harry as a typical child of the Heavenly Potter (Jer 18:1ff).
Odd Sverre Hove
Bergen, Norway
(PS: Accio .. you know ..)
John Hedley Brooke in “Science and Religion: Some Historical Perspectives” (CUP, 1991) claims that Luther wrote:
The science of alchemy I like very well, and indeed, ’tis the philosophy of the ancients. I like it not only for the profits it brings in melting metals, in decocting, preparing, extracting, and distilling herbs…; I like it also for the sake of the allegory and secret signification, which is exceedingly fine, touching the resurrection of the dead at the last day.
This is exactly what interests me most about DH–the manner in which good triumphs over evil (assuming it does) will say volumes about the entire HP worldview. The Luther connection is quite useful, actually; I’m preparing a senior thesis on this topic (evil in HP). Augustine’s theology of privative evil is the only particularly striking parallel in Christian thought I’ve noticed up until this point.
(My hypothesis, by the way, is that the HP worldview is essentially a Christian one, and in particular a “high church,” sacramental worldview, and that the depiction of evil fits that worldview.)
This is the kind of essay that makes theologians like myself happy. Yes, for a couple weeks now, I’ve been thinking – a redeemed Snape is Lutheran theology illustrated and vindicated. Brilliant work, Ms. Musselman!
RenaBlack–
I totally agree w/ you re the “high church” sacramental world view in HP. This is one reason, IMHO, that extreme Protestants, the heirs to the more Radical bits of the Reformation, are less likely to “get” the theology in HP compared to more “Catholic” types. Not that none do, but it’s much more of a stretch for them, say, than it is for our host John Granger, Orthodox Reader.
To “get” what JKR is apparently doing w/ her alchemy and w/ her symbolic realism you need to have a relatively high doctrine of the material world and of human nature. The material must be able to be a vehicle for the divine. Consubstantiation rather than mere sign. Theosis has to be a possibility. All of this is stuff w/ which a scholastic Calvinist is less likely to be comfortable. (Note that I differentiate between scholastic Calvinism and what Calvin himself wrote, which was much more open to a sacramental world view than was the thought of some of his heirs and interlocutors!)
At least that’s what think–Anglo-Catholic that I am.
I am sure John’s quotation from Martin Luther on alchemy must be authentic and correct, (although I have not seen it checked in the Weimar Edition of Luther’s Works). I believe it is authentic because it «tastes» authentic, and «smells» authentic to me.
When I was a student of theology at the Free Faculty of Theology in Oslo at the end of the 1960′s, my teacher of church history lectured on the great theologians of the Lutheran Orthodoxy period of the 17th century, and eventually came to Johann Valentin Andreae. In the year 1614 somebody anonymously authored the book «Fama Fraternitatis Rosae Crucis» («Rumor on the Brotherhood of the Rose Cuceans»). It was a symbolic novel, intended to mirror and criticize life in those days. But it described a secret society of «brothers of the Rosy Cross», being secretly represented everywhere, and only visible through the secret letters RC (= «Rosea Crux»). And people started to believe they really existed.
My teacher said (including most church historians): «We believe now that that novel was written by Johann Valentin Andreae, the famous Lutheran Orthodox dogmatic. And when everybody misunderstood his book, he simply shut up and told nobody he was the author.»
My point is: I think I have seen somewhere that that book was marked by «Lutheran alchemy». Can somebody verify this (or falsify it)?
Odd Sverre Hove
Odd, I have written “Hans Andrea” himself, the nom de plume of the expert on the Alchymical Wedding who hosts the Harry Potter for Seekers website, to share your question, one outside my area of competence. It’s a busy day but I’m hopeful he’ll respond soon.
What a wonderfully cogent and thoughtful essay about Snape and why readers care so much about his ultimate choices. I’m very glad you posted this!