Apologies for the spam, but to get a bit more meta about secondary canon and Snape, I think it's much easier for those of us who choose to write him as living than say...writing Harry as a chef immediately post war. I had a really fun discussion with melusinahp on a post at the HP Darkarts comm about secondary canon and characterisation, in the context of a broader discussion on Harry. It made me revisit a lot of my own 'death of the author' views, and I entirely understood Mel's rationale about how JKR interviews regarding Harry going on to be an Auror and so on, could be useful and important when writing Harry in fic.
What I think we have with Snape as far as secondary canon goes is a blank canvas. Because he's dead, isn't he? Yet canon never gives us the finality of seeing his body stretched out next to Remus, Tonks, Fred and all of the others. It doesn't give us the 'falling through the veil' scene. He is bitten by a snake, we believe fatally, because he stops moving completely. Harry dashes off to continue fighting the good fight and that's the last we see of Severus. As far as Epilogue compliant writing goes, Harry talks about Severus as if he is deceased just as Dumbledore is deceased, but we never see that final confirmation. For me, Severus living can be canon compliant without messing about with JKRs written words.
To avoid hijacking Birds post, the same is true of Lavender. We don't see her in the Great Hall. We don't have anything which acknowledges she has been killed, as opposed to maimed. Hence for me, she lives.
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timeasmymeasure
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Date: 2013-08-21 12:16 am (UTC)What I think we have with Snape as far as secondary canon goes is a blank canvas. Because he's dead, isn't he? Yet canon never gives us the finality of seeing his body stretched out next to Remus, Tonks, Fred and all of the others. It doesn't give us the 'falling through the veil' scene. He is bitten by a snake, we believe fatally, because he stops moving completely. Harry dashes off to continue fighting the good fight and that's the last we see of Severus. As far as Epilogue compliant writing goes, Harry talks about Severus as if he is deceased just as Dumbledore is deceased, but we never see that final confirmation. For me, Severus living can be canon compliant without messing about with JKRs written words.
To avoid hijacking Birds post, the same is true of Lavender. We don't see her in the Great Hall. We don't have anything which acknowledges she has been killed, as opposed to maimed. Hence for me, she lives.