Writeups of more Terminus programming
Aug. 13th, 2008 07:13 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ravenna_c_tanTwo things I went to that I didn't crack out the laptop for were ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
fiona_fawkes roundtable on Controlled Substances in the Wizarding World and a great panel about Snape that featured goseaward, djinnj, bethbethbeth, and femmequixotic.
Actually, wait, I *did* write up the Controlled Substance one in my post about day four.
So, Snape... and his depictions in fanfiction.
The panel opened with a roar of agreement from the audience at the assertion that given what happens in Deathly Hallows, we can't be 100% *sure* that Snape is DEAD. There's no funeral, no portrait in the headmaster's office, etc... So even if we're deluded, we can continue to talk about the future of our favorite character.
Each of the four panelists recapped the information in the canon on a different subject, adding in their own insights and speculations and pointing out things we Just Don't Know For Sure, and also describing how the depictions of Snape changed in fanfiction as each book was released. That was really fascinating; I love history and hadn't really thought a lot about the history of fanfiction in this way before.
Beth started with a recap of Snape's career and education/training. Pre-GOF he was most often depicted as a pureblood, and when speculating what kind of future career he might have after the books were over he was often shown in some kind of potions research. And up until HBP, he was often depicted as becoming Headmaster of Hogwarts. After HBP came out, and we learned so much more about his background, including being halfblooded, and also him having fled the school, seemed to open up the possibilities for his future. Many fics have him going into potions, or creating spells, but the variations suddenly exploded. Florist, diva in a drag queen revue, bookstore owner, etc. etc.
But, as Beth pointed out, post-DH, many fics do not even bother to give him a job, "there's just happy he's ALIVE." So who cares what he does?
Goosey then looked into Snape as Death Eater and how our perceptions of the Death Eaters changed with each book. It isn't until GOF that we learn he spied previously, and we know he has been sent off on a mission. There was rampant speculation about the mission, and many fics where Snape is not only a double agent, but a triple agent, etc... We're not even sure in that book if what he's doing right then is spying, but most fics took him as spying on the DEs. Voldemort has his whole speech at the end of GOF about "the one who is loyal to me" etc... which set off much speculation, too.
Lots of hurt/comfort came about then, with Snape needing to be healed from either being tortured by Vold./DEs, or even just from suffering from their excesses. Many people were asking who the DEs were, and how many of them were there? Were all of Voldemort's followers considered DEs or only the inner circle? In this era there was a lot of fic as polemic, each fic standing as proof for an argument that a given interpretation could work.
Then in OOTP it's much more strongly implied that he has been accepted into the DEs, but now we have the concept of Occlumency helping make that possible.
OOTP also brought in a lot more "Dumbledore is evil" fics, but HBP just cut it into an obvious debate: is Snape good or evil? Het writers were onto the Snape/Lily thing starting around GOF.
Djinnj then covered the topic of Snape's Family Life.
When he was still a cipher, he was portrayed as just about anything, a vampire, Tom Riddle's half-cousin, descended from Merlin or Morgana, etc... but the more we learned about him the more narrow the depictions. In the early days it was presumed as a Slytherin he was probably a pureblood, and maybe there was even a Snape Manor.
The first major shift came when the idea of "ickle Snape" being an abused child came along. Sometimes he was still "abused Snape of Snape manor" but there were many many variations of abused Snape. Then, of course, came the revelation that he's not a pureblood after all! A quick recap of what we learn of his background:
Book 1: he knew a lot of Dark Arts already when he got to school
Book 2: all we learn is that he doesn't like Lockhart, is good at dueling
Book 3: he hated people at school and Sirius hated him back
Book 4: we learn nothing about his past
Book 5: arguments with Sirius drop hints about their schooltime, "Lucius' lapdog," Occlumency lessons reveal he is poor, unhappy parents -- this precipitates a major sea change and Snape Manor goes away
Book 6: half blood prince
What's interesting is that post-DH, people are ignoring the epilogue but are not ignoring Snape's canon background as a poor, potentially abused halfblood, even in fics that otherwise veer wildly from the canon. Eileen/Tobias is not disregarded the way the epilogue is.
We finished with Femme talking about our favorite subject: SEX.
She quoted Beth as saying that Snape is "the little black dress of fandom" for getting paired with everything!
People used to argue whether it was OOC for Snape to be able to love AT ALL.
Fanon Snapes of the past came in many types:
Slytherin Sex God -- esp. in a lot of older fic
BDSM Snape -- esp. in DE fics
Chan of two types -- pedophilic Snape/dark fics, and protective romance cross-gen fics
Snape as a child -- abused!snape in various forms, including being abused by someone at Hogwarts
Non-con Snape -- including raped!snape of various types (DE orgy, raped by Harry to prove a point, dark!harry, or to blame him for things, also raped by the Marauders) and then also the trope of Snape must rape someone else to save them.
Vampire Snape
Snape with prostitutes
Anonymous Sex Snape -- including glory holes, alley sex, doing it with Harry under glamour, etc...
Which leads to a whole genre of ROMANCE SNAPE fics.
There are the Snape romances in the shakesperean modes:
Romeo/Juliet = Gryffindor/Slytherin
Benedict/Beatrice
Taming of the Shrew trope
then the Jane Austen ones a la Pride & Prejudice, where wild misunderstanding drives the fic
Forced Bonding/accidental bonding
Virgin Snape & Celibate Snape
Emotional Rescue
Snape when paired with a Gryffindor tends to result in a fic with an overt power struggle, whereas Snape/Any Slytherin tends to be more subtle.
Snape/Draco and Snape/Lucius can be sort of flipped from each other.
That's where my notes trail off. :-)
I'll work on transcribing my drabbles next.
fiona_fawkes roundtable on Controlled Substances in the Wizarding World and a great panel about Snape that featured goseaward, djinnj, bethbethbeth, and femmequixotic.Actually, wait, I *did* write up the Controlled Substance one in my post about day four.
So, Snape... and his depictions in fanfiction.
The panel opened with a roar of agreement from the audience at the assertion that given what happens in Deathly Hallows, we can't be 100% *sure* that Snape is DEAD. There's no funeral, no portrait in the headmaster's office, etc... So even if we're deluded, we can continue to talk about the future of our favorite character.
Each of the four panelists recapped the information in the canon on a different subject, adding in their own insights and speculations and pointing out things we Just Don't Know For Sure, and also describing how the depictions of Snape changed in fanfiction as each book was released. That was really fascinating; I love history and hadn't really thought a lot about the history of fanfiction in this way before.
Beth started with a recap of Snape's career and education/training. Pre-GOF he was most often depicted as a pureblood, and when speculating what kind of future career he might have after the books were over he was often shown in some kind of potions research. And up until HBP, he was often depicted as becoming Headmaster of Hogwarts. After HBP came out, and we learned so much more about his background, including being halfblooded, and also him having fled the school, seemed to open up the possibilities for his future. Many fics have him going into potions, or creating spells, but the variations suddenly exploded. Florist, diva in a drag queen revue, bookstore owner, etc. etc.
But, as Beth pointed out, post-DH, many fics do not even bother to give him a job, "there's just happy he's ALIVE." So who cares what he does?
Goosey then looked into Snape as Death Eater and how our perceptions of the Death Eaters changed with each book. It isn't until GOF that we learn he spied previously, and we know he has been sent off on a mission. There was rampant speculation about the mission, and many fics where Snape is not only a double agent, but a triple agent, etc... We're not even sure in that book if what he's doing right then is spying, but most fics took him as spying on the DEs. Voldemort has his whole speech at the end of GOF about "the one who is loyal to me" etc... which set off much speculation, too.
Lots of hurt/comfort came about then, with Snape needing to be healed from either being tortured by Vold./DEs, or even just from suffering from their excesses. Many people were asking who the DEs were, and how many of them were there? Were all of Voldemort's followers considered DEs or only the inner circle? In this era there was a lot of fic as polemic, each fic standing as proof for an argument that a given interpretation could work.
Then in OOTP it's much more strongly implied that he has been accepted into the DEs, but now we have the concept of Occlumency helping make that possible.
OOTP also brought in a lot more "Dumbledore is evil" fics, but HBP just cut it into an obvious debate: is Snape good or evil? Het writers were onto the Snape/Lily thing starting around GOF.
Djinnj then covered the topic of Snape's Family Life.
When he was still a cipher, he was portrayed as just about anything, a vampire, Tom Riddle's half-cousin, descended from Merlin or Morgana, etc... but the more we learned about him the more narrow the depictions. In the early days it was presumed as a Slytherin he was probably a pureblood, and maybe there was even a Snape Manor.
The first major shift came when the idea of "ickle Snape" being an abused child came along. Sometimes he was still "abused Snape of Snape manor" but there were many many variations of abused Snape. Then, of course, came the revelation that he's not a pureblood after all! A quick recap of what we learn of his background:
Book 1: he knew a lot of Dark Arts already when he got to school
Book 2: all we learn is that he doesn't like Lockhart, is good at dueling
Book 3: he hated people at school and Sirius hated him back
Book 4: we learn nothing about his past
Book 5: arguments with Sirius drop hints about their schooltime, "Lucius' lapdog," Occlumency lessons reveal he is poor, unhappy parents -- this precipitates a major sea change and Snape Manor goes away
Book 6: half blood prince
What's interesting is that post-DH, people are ignoring the epilogue but are not ignoring Snape's canon background as a poor, potentially abused halfblood, even in fics that otherwise veer wildly from the canon. Eileen/Tobias is not disregarded the way the epilogue is.
We finished with Femme talking about our favorite subject: SEX.
She quoted Beth as saying that Snape is "the little black dress of fandom" for getting paired with everything!
People used to argue whether it was OOC for Snape to be able to love AT ALL.
Fanon Snapes of the past came in many types:
Slytherin Sex God -- esp. in a lot of older fic
BDSM Snape -- esp. in DE fics
Chan of two types -- pedophilic Snape/dark fics, and protective romance cross-gen fics
Snape as a child -- abused!snape in various forms, including being abused by someone at Hogwarts
Non-con Snape -- including raped!snape of various types (DE orgy, raped by Harry to prove a point, dark!harry, or to blame him for things, also raped by the Marauders) and then also the trope of Snape must rape someone else to save them.
Vampire Snape
Snape with prostitutes
Anonymous Sex Snape -- including glory holes, alley sex, doing it with Harry under glamour, etc...
Which leads to a whole genre of ROMANCE SNAPE fics.
There are the Snape romances in the shakesperean modes:
Romeo/Juliet = Gryffindor/Slytherin
Benedict/Beatrice
Taming of the Shrew trope
then the Jane Austen ones a la Pride & Prejudice, where wild misunderstanding drives the fic
Forced Bonding/accidental bonding
Virgin Snape & Celibate Snape
Emotional Rescue
Snape when paired with a Gryffindor tends to result in a fic with an overt power struggle, whereas Snape/Any Slytherin tends to be more subtle.
Snape/Draco and Snape/Lucius can be sort of flipped from each other.
That's where my notes trail off. :-)
I'll work on transcribing my drabbles next.
