Halloween Obits

For fun.

‘What will your obituary say?’ at QuizGalaxy.com

Howling Out Loud

So I got this in an email from Candace and immediately had to go walkies through the internets until I found the original.

I am so glad that I am alone in the house right now, and can actually howl out loud with laughter.

You must — absolutely MUST — check out this blast from the past, a vision of the 1977 JC Penney’s catalog, complete with commentary.

But to make sure you take me seriously, I will give you this tantalizing glimpse of what awaits you:

Here’s how to get your ass kicked in elementary school:

Just look at that belt. It’s like a boob-job for your pants. He probably needed help just to lift it into place. The belt loops have to be three inches long, for god’s sake. And way to pull your pants up to your armpits, grandpa.

 

Warning: Visions of chest hair may prove hazardous to your health.

Enjoy. And happy Halloween.

 

Just When I Thought It Was Safe…

I really thought I’d exhausted all my thoughts about Harry Potter.

But then I stumbled across this, and simply had to post it here.

Sorry.

I will start posting about other things, promise!

But, too good to pass up:

The Real Snape

Excerpt:

 

“The first I knew was when a reporter from a national newspaper knocked on the door seven years ago and said: ‘You’re Professor Snape aren’t you’,” said the former head of science.

“I suppose I was quite strict as a teacher, but I said to my wife, ’she thinks I’m Professor Snape’. She said ‘of course you are, but I didn’t want to tell you’.

Now isn’t that just too perfect?

The Traitor (possible Deathly Hallows Spoilers)

I recall reading this before Deathly Hallows came out, and thinking it was so effing brilliant that I would die a happy Pooks if became true.

Um, you might notice that in hoping Snape was Truly Evil and in thinking this is the Best Theory Ever, I like having the rug yanked out from under me, but only when it’s truly well done.

So travel back with me to a time when we had no idea how the series would end, and check out The Harry Potter Theory to End All Harry Potter Theories:

The Truly Wicked Witch

A sampling:

* In Book 1, before we even meet Harry for the first time, she is waiting–as a cat–at the Dursleys. She is surprised, ruffled, to see Dumbledore at the Dursleys, and did not know he’d recognize her as a cat. So, why was she there? How did she, of all people, know that Harry was going to his uncle’s, and she questions Dumbledore about whether Voldemort is really gone. P. 9-11.

Remember also her reaction to the celebrations of Voldemort’s death: she’s cold, sharp, and angry. These are odd reactions, no? And she finds it “astounding” that Voldemort couldn’t kill a little boy and wants to know how. P. 12.

Intriguing, isn’t it? And there’s so much more.

Even now that we know it didn’t happy that way.

And in case you’re wondering why I’m suddenly talking Potty again, it’s because we finally got around to listening to Jim Dale read us a story, so all things Deathly Hallows are fresh on my mind again, and this time I was able to do a lot more pondering rather than turning-pages-to-see-what-happens-next.

Obsession (Deathly Hallows Spoilers Ahead)

(Also read this.) 

Well.

I’ve become obsessed with Severus Snape.

When I first started reading Half-Blood Prince, and as I finished it, I was embracing the delicious possibility that he was Really and Truly Evil.

And I loved it. I absolutely loved that possibility.

I loved it so much that I didn’t really look for alternative meanings of his actions.

I wanted him to be really and truly evil, you see.

Because if he was, then that meant that JKRowling had pulled one over on us. That she had artfully set us up and yanked the rug out from under us.

Because up until that point, despite the magic of her magical novels, there was always a certain underlying frustration for me (and I think for most of us, if we’re honest).

Harry never going to Dumbledore when he should. (Oh, don’t be an idiot, Harry. Of COURSE you should go tell Dumbledore what’s wrong; there’s this little war going on and you’re in the middle of it and how bad a war can it be if an 11-year-old, 13-year-old, 15-year-old boy is honestly supposed to be figuring this shit out by himself in order to win it?)

And just as frustrating, the golden trio’s refusal to believe that Snape could possibly be working on the side of the good guys, even though Dumbledore explicitly trusts him.

These are actually false conflicts. As readers, we all knew that Harry should go to Dumbledore, damn it, but of course if he did, the stories (as constructed) wouldn’t work. We all knew that Snape had to be a good guy, and for the most part the Snape/Harry conflicts seemed juvenile. (I say all of this in hindsight and if I stopped and reread all the books I might have a different spin, but these are the feelings I carried away from the books.)

And so, the very idea that Snape might Truly Be Evil was delicious and tantalizing and oh how I wanted it to be true, just so that the arc of the epic would have tricked me, surprised me, brought me howling to my knees with “oh my god I can’t believe she did that, wow oh wow oh wow!”

She didn’t do that.

On the other hand, she did something much more profound.

You see, in the long run, Severus Snape is the moral center of the books and Dumbledore the manipulating, scheming villain. Snape is the one who is out there risking all again and again and again to protect ungrateful children, to right the mistakes he has made in his life. Snape is the one who is tormented by doubt and by rage but continues to put one foot in front of the other, doing the Right Thing because once he did a horribly wrong thing.

Snape is the most witty and intelligent character in the series. When confronted with the horrible truth that Dumbledore expects Snape to kill him, to kill his beloved father-figure (not to mention accept the hatred of the wizarding community for doing so) — his response slayed me:

“Would you like me to do it now?” asked Snape, his voice heavy with irony, “or would you like a few moments to compose an epitaph?”

When handed the most devastating task of his twenty years of servitude, there is that graceful moment where he uses his wit to shield himself from the horror of what lies ahead.

And, it is Snape who experiences and expresses the true horror of Dumbledore.

“I thought … all these years … that we were protecting him for her. For Lily.”

Followed by…

“You have kept him alive so that he can die at the right moment?”

And finally …

“You have used me.”

I clearly haven’t been obsessed with the world of Harry Potter or I’d already have delved into the fandom of fanfic, and if I’d done that, I would have known that many of the writers in fanfic have seen and explored the truth for many years and books. That Dumbledore wasn’t a benevolent father/grandfather figure with the best of the children at heart. Rather, he was a master manipulator and evil genius who willingly sacrificed pawns for The Greater Good, any pawns.

In fanfic I find a long history of acceptance that Severus Snape served two masters — and neither was a Good Guy.

And that Severus Snape is an unsung hero.

By the time I finished Deathly Hallows I wondered if JKR actually intended to reveal at the end that Snape was the hero and Dumbledore the villain all along. I wondered if she recognized that fact.

And I find myself wanting to scrawl it on concrete abutments and in alleys and in the darkest depths of the tubes, for people to stumble across and nod in understanding that at the end, there has to be hope:

“Snape lives.”

Because in the final analysis, I have to believe the most gracious gift she gave us was that no mention of body or funeral was ever made.

And Severus Snape was too intelligent a wizard to serve his two evil masters for twenty years without being prepared.

To spend months watching the Dark Lord feed enemies to Nagini without being prepared.

To be a potions master without having a vial of antidote with him at all times.

And I have to believe that when it was all said and done, he found a way to release his humiliating memories for the last time and let go, to let the stupid, idiot children step up to the plate and finally fulfill their destinies.

While he finally let go of the past and, having made his final sacrifice (his dignity), created a new life for himself.

I have to believe that somewhere…

Snape lives.

Source of art.

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