Snape's Eyes (Lumos 2006 Material)

by Dr Edmund Kerr This was a really popular talk, but I managed to miss the original presentation and the line was massive for the "encore" performance that they scheduled after the original was so popular... fortunately they had CDs of it at the table :) Anyway, this should be less cumbersome than the one I just did on mental illness in HP, because I'm not really trying to explain a point of my own on the material ... I just really enjoyed it. First, this guy was really thorough, I could not even begin to re-present the numbers he compiled and his percentage analysis of the textual occurrences of different words in connection with "how Snape uses his eyes... and what his eyes do" (which was his way of noting that in certain settings you see Snape using his eyes as part of his more whole facial disposition and in other places his eyes seem to "act on their own," as he put it) ... so I won't even try, and I'll rather focus on his main points. The main point of his talk is that there is a whole lot more going on in the text with Snape than a cursory glance picks up and that much of it has to do with occlumency. His base is the vocabulary and descriptions used in the occlumency lessons in book 5 (noticing when the eyes "narrow" and when they "glint" etc) and then scouring Snape's other textual presences for the same language. For instance, from the "inscrutable" look on Snape's face when Harry says "they have Snuffles in the place where it is kept" in Book 5 you can see that Snape is continually practicing occlumency against Umbridge. Likewise, in "Spinner's End" it seems pretty sure that he is guarding his mind against Bella, whose eyes he never meets with his ... remember that eye contact is important legilimency (and remember from what was said in the HBP conversation Harry overhears at the time of the party, "ahhhh ... Aunt Bellatrix has been teaching you occlumency"). Which also indicates other times Snape has been practicing legilimency on Harry, in fact from Harry's first presence at the school, when Snape looks directly into eyes from the staff table. Kerr also suspects that, while Snape has a genuine animosity for Harry, he is completely and loyally Dumbledore's man, and thus has a genuine concern for Harry's safety, and thus suspects Lupin as a possible bad influence for Harry because it seems (based in the same textual analysis) that Lupin is practicing occlumency against Snape (like when Snape catches Harry out of bed with the Marauder's map in POA and Lupin keeps his eyes on the map when talking to Snape). I still don't know what I think about the loyalty to DD making Snape using the AK curse "all right." I still think that the unforgivable curses are not merely defined by subjective disposition and that there is an objective quality that can taint the user and that DD would be concerned about this for Snape (I base some of this in the similar background between Rowling and Tolkien and the latter's instance of when Aragorn is healing Eowyn after she has killed the Witch King of Angmar, leader of the 9 Nazgul ... he says the shield arm, which was smashed by the witch-king's mace, is bad, but the main damage came through the sword arm, with which she killed him: it's a more medieval moral concept, but any interaction of the will with evil, even in fighting it, wounds the will). But Kern states pretty well and convincingly the argument I know others have used too, of the close connection in description between Harry forcing the green potion down DD's throat, loathing and hating himself as he does it, and Snape's loathing and revulsion as the green killing curse flies from his wand. I'm still not sure, but it's plausible ... even if it is objectively "not a good idea" for Snape to be using the AK, DD is only a Christ symbol in places, and (as he admits in book 5) not above making mistakes (noting that, being more clever than most, his mistakes, when he does make them, tend to be more drastic than those of others). (BTW, Pauli has noted before the similarity between DD in the cave and Christ in the garden saying "if it be thy will, let this cup pass from me, but not my will but thine be done" ... and there is a lot more possible Biblical imagery here. In my post on the 4 tasks and 4 cups in GOF I described the "4th Cup" explanation of the Eucharist, where the cup in the upper room was the 3rd cup of the traditional Jewish Seder meal and the 4th cup was taken on the Cross. Dumdledore would be drinking the upper room cup in the cave [this is a pretty loose theory though, lots of crossovers] and the 4th cup is on the tower, with that "rag-doll" image having cultural echoes of the words "and I, if I be lifted up, will draw all men to me." And of course, the Old Testament foreshadowing of this was Moses putting something up on a pole for the people to look on and be healed ... a bronze serpent. In this case Snape's green death-curse may become like the spear in the hands of the Roman who then makes the famous public profession of faith, "surely this man was the son of God," especially if it really is an AK curse but DD was already all but dead, just like it was not the spear that killed Christ, it was noted that He was already dead, but it still took some "institutional malice" for the soldier to thrust the spear to make sure He was dead.) In the end, Kern has a really nice closer. He thinks the reconciliation between Snape and Harry will be when Harry finally really looks into Snape's eyes. I had heard some people talking about this in the hall and, not having heard the talk myself at that point, thought it sounded kind of romantic or melodramatic. But if it involves a magical instance like a legilimency "look" I can see it happening and being gripping and really good (but I still agree with Granger that Fawkes will play a role too). Good talk.