I just read Harry as being a kid, but with more power than most and more pressures and attention. No more annoying than many teenagery kids, but with tons more emotional angst.

If Snape was a big nerd, wouldn't Hermione be the closest to him now and if James was an ass, wouldn't Draco be the closest.

If they named it properly, Hogwarts would be Dumbledore's Asylum for the Dubiously Competent.

Snerk! Betsy, may I tag?

Omigod. Now I must say that the Dumbledore is Ron scenario makes sense.

It's scarily convincing, sumi. I'll give it that. It'll be interesting to see if there's any truth to it.

Right. The chief problem with Rowling's idea of aging the readership of her books along with the characters is that certain things that fly in a children's book are absurd and nonfunctional in a book aimed at older readers. Snape being so emotionally involved with his students is something you can chalk up to the nasty teacher in a boarding school trope, but -- taken realistically, it's also creepy and not an attribute of career longevity. And I think the realistic take becomes more and more salient the older the characters and the readers get.

Actually the reason the Potter books really lost me was that blithe adherence to genre tropes, in a situation that made them feel monstrous to me. The whole thing with Rita Skeeter, and the involuntary tabloidization of children, rang real-world alarm bells with me, and I just couldn't get past it. Same again, when nobody stepped in and said, "No, this won't do" when the Goblet of Fire had Harry's name in it.

I think, if the characters (and intended readership) were still 7 or 8, or if the tone of the novels were consistently droll and unrealistic, I could have given it a pass, but because I was being asked to take seriously (in some ways, for the first time) the danger of Voldemort, I couldn't help but take seriously the increasing instances of adults failing to act like adults.

I am loving Ron-is-Dumbledore.

In some part, I confess, because it beats the hell out of Ron-is-Toast.

it's also creepy and not an attribute of career longevity.

There are always those teachers you can't hardly fire because of connections or tenure.

I am certain that it's going to turn out essential that Snape be kept around and that Dumbledore has made a point of doing so. Besides, what has he done that's so rotten? He gives one kid extra demerits while the rest of the world tip-toes around the brat. Sure, he has issues about Harry's parents and certainly over-shares, but the Dursley's aren't complaining so who is going to stop him?

Any teacher who over-shares with peri-pubescent kids is probably not long for his middle school. It doesn't have to be big pointy arrows of criminal activity; he just sets off all the creepiness alarm bells. He's the sort of guy who, IME, probably gets kicked upstairs into administration just to reduce his number of opportunities for being reportably creepy.

But, you know, Hogwarts isn't a school with any kind of professional review board, or for that matter safety laws. I don't actually think we're meant to take Snape seriously as a disciplinary case waiting to happen -- it's just that I can't not apply real-world knowledge to his protrayal, and in the real world, he looks pretty bad.

I'm also frighteningly convinced by that Ron is Dumbledore argument.

I'm half intrigued/convinced by Dumbledore-as-Ron, half want to smack the writer of the web site for taking a kid's book waaaaaaay too seriously.

half want to smack the writer of the web site for taking a kid's book waaaaaaay too seriously.

Which is kind of ironic, considering the board you're posting this on.