I find it ironic when I think of who exactly got me to start reading the Harry Potter series in the first place. But that’s all I’ve got to say about that.

I am once again obsessed by Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. I keep ruminating about the relationship between Severus Snape and Lily Potter. It is also ironic that I didn’t see it coming. I’m so totally into the whole unrequited, tragic love thing, and I love characters who never get the girl, who never even had a chance, and who die hopeless and alone. I can’t believe that I had no clue whatsoever what exactly it was that bound Snape to keep Harry safe, and what made him so trustworthy to Dumbledore. You would’ve thought that I’d’ve been all over it.

It just dawned on me that the whole Severus & Lily subplot is so very Wuthering Heights. As Alyssa deconstructs it, Severus is Heathcliff and Lily is Catherine. The Brontë Blog has more literary analysis (and also compares Harry Potter himself to Jane Eyre.)

(As an excursus, my sister recently told me about a book that is a re-imagining of Jane Eyre, told from Bertha’s point-of-view. Bertha is recharacterized as a woman who comes from a non-Western culture, and what is described as madness in the original book is really just Bertha experiencing (1) a communication barrier and (2) culture shock. Or was my sister just describing The Wide Sargasso Sea?)

It makes me curious as to what was going through Snape’s mind the entire time. Did he think his life was pretty much over, and that to give his life in protection of Harry was, to paraphrase yet another tragic hero, Sydney Carton, a far, far better thing that he does, than he had ever done? Or was he in it for vengeance against the people who destroyed the one person whom he ever trusted, and whom once actually genuinely cared about him? I can only imagine the black hatred that he must have for Voldemort and the Death Eaters for killing Lily. And like Iñigo Montoya, perhaps he had never really thought of what life could be like once he had achieved his aim. (What’s even better is that he dies probably believing that he may have failed in his only remaining two reasons for living (1) to keep Harry safe and (2) to defeat Voldemort and the Death Eaters. For one thing, Snape died believing that Harry had to really die to be able to beat Voldemort, and in the final analysis, there was good chance that all of his and Dumbledore’s careful planning could end up going horribly wrong, with Voldemort winning after all.)

I really can’t wait until “The Deathly Hallows” hits the silver screen. If it’s done right (and, knowing Hollywood, that’s always a very big “if”), it should totally break my heart.

Wow. This puts a different spin on ”Happy Ending” by Mika.

How much of your destiny is truly predetermined? How much of it is self-fulfilling prophecy? (There are technical terms for these things, I think, except I can’t remember them. Confirmation bias? Forer effect?)

Somewhat sadly and quite pathetically, I’ve come to identify myself with an unusual type of literary protagonist: the hero who doesn’t get the girl. Off the top of my head, there are only really three stories I can think of where this happens unambiguously.

Though I actually have never read it, the first one is Wuthering Heights, in the character of Heathcliff. My friend was reading Wuthering Heights at the time and told me that I reminded her of this character. (Great.) But I actually probably first ran into this character in Michael Penn’s song ”No Myth” which is, naturally, a song about a guy who isn’t able to hook up with the girl that he loves. But I think it definitely ranks up there on the list of obscure literary references made by a pop song. (Interesting bits of trivia: Michael Penn is the brother of the actor Sean Penn, and married the singer Aimee Mann) While this song came out in 1990, the most striking memory I have attached to this song is driving up 880 in Milpitas in 1998, although I don’t particularly remember where I was going.

Another character to which I’ve been likened is Sydney Carton, the doomed alcoholic barrister who falls hopelessly in love with Lucy Manette, and for whom he eventually sacrifices his life for. I didn’t read this book until my junior year in college, during a trans-Pacific plane trip to the Philippines. My sister had just read it for high school at the time. What struck her about the character was the aura of wasted potential that clung to this character.

Lastly, and perhaps less literary, is Severus Snape from the Harry Potter series. The love of his life, Lily Evans, ends up marrying a guy Severus totally hates, James Potter. Lily is eventually murdered by the Dark Lord Voldemort, providing the driving force for Snape’s hidden-yet-unwavering opposition to the bad guys, although he is eventually killed as well (for what I feel were rather arbitrary reasons, but I guess an author has got to do what an author has got to do when a deadline is looming.) He kind of combines the increasing bitterness and vengefulness of Heathcliff driven by losing the woman he loves first to marriage to a rival, and then to death, with Sydney Carton’s aura of wasted potential, total despair and wanton self-sacrifice, dying what seems to me, a meaningless death, since he does not get to find out that Voldemort was successfully vanquished and that Harry actually lives.

When I first read the dénouement to Snape’s subplot, I was astonished. Here was an actual character who could hold the torch for a lost love some 15+ years after the fact, and who ends up dedicating his entire life in memory of her, without hope or ambition of ever finding love again. As far as he was concerned, it seemed to me that he considered his life pretty much over. Finally. A character that I could relate to!

The astonishment soon turned into a mild depression, with the realization that the probability of me dying alone and unloved is pretty high, and ever increasing with time, and while it doesn’t seem like a good way to go, I’m in no mood to really do anything about it. It is, to put it bluntly, fucking hopeless.

But then again, there are far worse things in life than to be alone and unloved. For some unknown reason, the depression managed to snap a few days ago. While nothing has changed with regard to my non-existent love life, there seems to be something that has changed in my perspective.

My current attitude seems to range somewhere between “oh well” and “I don’t give a fuck.” I haven’t exstinguished hope entirely, but I’m pretty much gearing myself up for a continued solitary existence for however many more years I may have left. (I am utterly convinced that I am going to die young, for pointless reasons, and in quite possibly a violent manner.) Odds say, given my personal and strong family history of depression, anxiety, and just general insanity, I am most likely to end my life in suicide. Still, you can never rule out the random drunk driver going the wrong way on the freeway. Or early-onset coronary artery disease, the way my diet is. Suicide by hamburger. What a way to go.

Then I read about this metaphor about life, and I have to say, “Yeah. That’s it.”

Life. You do with it what you can. The faster your realize the things you can’t or won’t do, the less time you waste living with regret. I guess. Something like that.

It’s ironic, really. While I have thoroughly enjoyed the Harry Potter series for the past 7 years (I was gifted the first three books in 2000), I never really held it in high regard, especially in terms of literary merit. To me, it was the fantasy equivalent of a romance novel: lots of fun to read, but not something you would read again. As I’ve mentioned before, the only books that I’ve managed to read more than once have been The Lord of the Rings, The Last Unicorn, and The Wizard of Earthsea. (Actually, digging around in my memory, there are a few more: some of Madeline L’Engle’s books, in particular A Wrinkle in Time, A Wind in the Door, A Swiftly Tilting Planet, and Many Waters; and The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy trilogy series by Douglas Adams.)

The concept of a supernatural world embedded in our mundanity has been well exploited in literature. Leaving aside comic book heroes, several authors have done good work with regards to magical realism. The most prominent and lyrical to come to mind is Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman, which takes place in London, where a parallel supernatural world co-exists. He does something somewhat similar in American Gods, where gods from various pantheons roam around American cities. (The action starts off in Chicago, for example.)

Interestingly, I first ran into the concept of pagan gods wandering around modern cities in Douglas Adams’ lesser known Dirk Gently series.

Other examples of this type of magical realism that I’ve read include So You Want to Be a Wizard published in 1982, where a thirteen year old girl finds a library book that instructs her on how to become a wizard, and leads her to a parallel version of NYC. Then there is Tom Holt’s entire series depicting the office of H.W. Wells, a company dedicated to getting supernatural things done. My favorite novel of his, however, is not related to H.W. Wells. Entitled Who’s Afraid of Beowulf?, it describes the reawakening of an entombed Norse king and his champions, who resume their ancient war against the Sorcerer-King, who has managed to become a high-powered CEO ensconced in London.

And in terms of a wizard school, I still feel like not enough credit has ever been given to the Isle of Roke in Ursula K. Le Guin’s Earthsea.

But nevertheless, after reading Deathly Hallows, I am stunned. The character of Severus Snape just leaves me in awe. My heart is seriously breaking. Who’d’ve thunk that what seemed like a throw-away fantasy series would actually generate a character that I can keenly relate to?

Snape seems to exemplify a phenomenon similar to what happened with “Star Wars.” For example, while in the original trilogy (Episodes IV-VI), Luke Skywalker is clearly the main character, it becomes eminently clear by the end of “Return of the Jedi” that the series is really about Anakin Skywalker and his redemption from the Dark Side of the Force, a theme which George Lucas eventually bludgeons his audience with when he came out with the prequels (Episodes I-III.) (It ought to be realized that when “A New Hope” was written, no one had any idea that (1) Lea was Luke’s long-lost twin sister and (2) Darth Vader was actually Anakin Skywalker, the presumed-to-be dead father of the twins.)

In the same way, while the Harry Potter series is ostensibly about, well, Harry Potter, by the end, it becomes clear that the overall plot hinges on Severus Snape and the reasons for his repudiation of the Dark Arts.

We seem to always be intrigued by the anti-heroes, the bad guys who end up doing good. The simplistic way to look at it is that we are people who are intrigued by evil. But a more nuanced way to look at it is that we realize that the most fully formed characters are neither entirely bad or entirely good.

But what haunts me the most about Severus Snape is his enduring love cum obsession with Lily Potter neé Evans. He had been in love with her since they were like 9 or 10 years old, where apparently they lived in the same neighborhood. She seemed to be his only true friend at Hogwarts, and from the brief snippets that J.K. Rowling cobbles together near the conclusion of the book, it seems that she genuinely cares about him—I suppose in a platonic way—but she nevertheless does love him. Certainly she cares about him more than anyone else ever does, including his parents.

But, I guess, just like Anakin Skywalker, Snape turns to the Dark Side, only Snape realizes his mistake when the Dark Side threatens to harm the woman that he loves. (I seriously cannot wait until 2010 to watch Alan Rickman depict these scenes from the pensieve. I can’t imagine how it wouldn’t be heartrending.)

But Lily is killed anyway, and Snape endeavors for the next 17 years to keep her son safe from harm, in concert with Dumbledore, only to have his actions seemingly become meaningless when Dumbledore reveals to him that Harry must die to vanquish the Dark Lord. And Snape dies without knowing that Good indeed triumphs over Evil.

Who, except for Harry, and except for thousands of adoring fans, will mourn the passing of Severus Snape?

In the final analysis, it’s kind of pathetic. Here you are, a powerful wizard, mooning over a woman who just doesn’t look at you in that way, and who ends up marrying a guy you can’t stand. And this stays with him for, what, almost 20 years? Living alone in a run-down shack in a sleazy part of town, hated by pretty much all the students at Hogwarts except for the Slytherins, and even they probably fear you more than actually love you, your only friend who ever gave a crap about you dead.

And so you dedicate your entire life to protecting the son of the woman you love, who was your only friend in the entire world, only to die realizing that he has to die anyway. Talk about feeling like a miserable failure.

But I’m glad that I’m not alone in feeling this way about Snape. Just check out YouTube for all the Severus and Lily tributes, and the heart-felt comments that people have been posting.

(Oh, but to know, truly and deeply, that you are loved. That someone has a part of their heart staked upon your existence, your triumph, your failures. To know for a fact that, yes, someone actually gives a damn. It’s been a long time. My heart quails at the loneliness yet to come….)

I can’t seem to get over Snape’s forlorn and hopeless devotion to Lily. On one hand, it’s really sad and pathetic. On the other hand, it’s heart-wrenchingly awesome.

In a way, the last thing Snape sees before he dies (quite horrifically and with much gore) is Lily’s eyes.

I suppose the thing that really gets me is that I can relate.

Carrying a torch for a lost cause for 10+ years? (And in Snape’s case, it really is a lost cause, considering that the woman he loves is dead.) Sure. It happens. Like I said, it’s sad and pathetic.

Sacrificing your life—not just dying, but giving up your every waking hour as a sacrifice—in the name of your unrequited and yet enduring, impossible-to-quench love? Oh, man.

I can’t wait to watch this part in the movie theaters, in three years or so. I hope they don’t cut it. This entire scene should be perfect.

“You never saw Snape cast a Patronus, did you, Riddle?”

Voldemort did not answer. They continued to circle each other like wolves about to tear each other apart.

“Snape’s Patronus was a doe,” said Harry, “the same as my mother’s, because he loved her for nearly all of his life, from the time when they were children. You should have realized.”

(P.S. No, Harry is not the product of an affair between Snape and Lily Potter.)

I:

“If she means so much to you,” said Dumbledore, “surely Lord Voldemort will spare her? Could you not ask for mercy for the mother, in exchange for the son?”

“I have—I have asked him—”

“You disgust me,” said Dumbledore…. Snape seemed to shrink a little. “You do not care, then, about the deaths of her husband and child? They can die, as long as you have what you want?”

Snape said nothing, but merely looked up at Dumbledore.

“Hide them all, then,” he croaked. “Keep her—them—safe. Please.”

“And what will you give me in return, Severus?”

“In—in return?” Snape gaped at Dumbledore… but after a long moment he said, “Anything.”

II:

“I have spied for you and lied for you, put myself in mortal danger for you. Everything was supposed to be to keep Lily Potter’s son safe. Now you tell me you have been raising him like a pig for slaughter—”

“But this is touching, Severus,” said Dumbledore seriously. “Have you grown to care for the boy, after all?”

“For him?” shouted Snape. ”Expecto Patronum!”

From the tip of his wand burst the silver doe: She landed on the office floor, bounded once across the office, and soared out of the window. Dumbledore watched her fly away, and as her silvery glow faded he turned back to Snape, and his eyes were full of tears.

“After all this time?”

“Always,” said Snape.