Thoughts about 'The Prisoner of Azkaban'
Sunday, 16 January 2005 11:19![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
strange_complexI have now rewatched all three of the Harry Potter films. I can highly recommend the DVDs, especially for the numerous cut scenes included on each. Although you do generally have to leap through rather tedious hoops in order to get to see them, especially on the DVD of the first film where they are the reward you get for solving various puzzles. Great for hyperactive kiddies: merely irritating for adult film aficionados.
I have also begun reading The Prisoner of Azkaban, which is the first book in the series that I have not yet read. This, of course, means that I am reading it having already seen the film, so I have a couple of questions in mind which arose from seeing the film, and which I am hoping the book will either answer or, at least, illuminate.
Cuts follow for spoilers and rather excessive length:
Question one: Sirius Black and Azkaban.
Question one is fairly simple: it is, how the hell did Sirius Black escape from Azkaban, anyway? We're told a couple of times in the film that it's incredibly secure, and that no one's ever escaped from it before, and yet (unless I missed it) we never seem to be told how Sirius Black nonetheless managed to do it. I'm pretty confident this will be answered in the book: it's the kind of fairly obvious detail that must surely have been addressed by JKR, but then cut out of the film for the sake of time.
Question two: Alan Rickman, J.K. Rowling and Snape's legilimency.
Question two is a bit more complex, and I don't expect the book to answer it as such: I'm just hoping it will shed a little light on it.
To explain myself, although I have not read books 4 or 5 (or, as yet, the latter two-thirds of 3), I have read enough about them on various fan-sites to know a fair amount about the revelations contained therein. I have paid particular attention to details about Snape, since he's blatantly the coolest character in the books, so I do know all about things like his legilimency, his role as a Death Eater / spy, and his past history with the Marauders (as revealed through e.g. his 'worst memory' in the Pensieve).
Naturally, knowing all this casts a rather different light on Snape's behaviour in the first three films, as indeed in the first three books. I am also aware that J.K. Rowling took Alan Rickman aside when he was first cast for the role, and told him various things about the character of Snape which were not yet generally known, but which he needed to know in order to play the character appropriately. Some of those things are probably still top secret, but one of them will of course have been that Snape is able to read minds. So far as I can make out, this is revealed in Order of the Phoenix (published summer 2003) so was not yet known to the general public on the release of either of the first two films (winter 2001 and 2002), but would already have been known to Alan Rickman.
Once you know that Snape is a legilimens, its possible to identify plenty of scenes in the books where he is using this ability, as amply demonstrated here. And once you realise that Alan Rickman must have known all along that Snape is a legilimens, it's also pretty obvious that he played this as part of the character from the beginning.
The first book, for example, hints that Snape may be using (or trying to use) legilimency when confronting Harry, Ron and Hermione about how they came to be in a girls' bathroom with a mountain troll, rather than at the Halloween feast. And sure enough, in the film too, Alan Rickman here makes Snape give all three (and particularly Hermione as she lies to protect Harry and Ron) some pretty probing looks as he checks out their story. Nothing explicit comes of this, but in either the film or the book, this can be explained by saying that if Snape has realised through legilimency that Hermione is lying, then, although he may be surprised at such behaviour, ultimately he doesn't really care either way whether she takes the rap for the boys or not, since it's trouble for them all and points from Gryffindor anyway.
In the second book, too, there are a number of scenes where Snape's ability to mind-read is suggested. In this case, they aren't matched precisely in the film, but the film does provide its own apparent instance of Snape using legilimency, when Mrs. Norris has just been found, petrified, in the corridor. Harry, Ron and Hermione are once again having to lie to explain why they were in that corridor at all, without revealing that Harry is hearing weird voices, and Alan Rickman’s Snape stares penetratingly at them as they do so. Again, here, if Snape is supposed to be reading the truth from them that they are perfectly innocent of petrifying Mrs. Norris, he chooses to ignore it and to carry on insinuating that things look very suspicious, because although he knows this isn’t true, it suits him better than the truth, since it means our Golden Trio are in trouble again. It is only Dumbledore, apparently also using legilimency himself (in the film and in the book) to determine that the trio are innocent, and checking Snape with the words “Innocent until proven guilty, Severus,” that saves them from punishment.
Finally, in the third film, comes the scene I’m hoping will be further illuminated by the book: the scene in the Shrieking Shack. Here, Snape runs in in the middle of the (apparent) confrontation between Sirius Black and Remus Lupin on one side, and the Golden Trio on the other, and threatens Sirius Black (Gary Oldman) with his wand. At this point in the film, the audience do not yet know that Sirius had actually been wrongly imprisoned in Azkaban, and that it was in fact Peter Pettigrew who betrayed Harry Potter’s parents to Voldemort; and we have also not yet found out that Ron’s rat is actually Pettigrew. My understanding is that this is the case at this point in the book, as well, although I have not yet read it in enough detail to be quite sure about that.
Certainly, even if someone watching the film does know that Sirius is innocent, and that Pettigrew is both guilty and alive in the form of Scabbers, there is no reason to assume at this point that Snape knows any of this (although he probably did know that Pettigrew was capable of transforming into a rat due to his interactions with the Marauders at school). When he bursts in, then, he would appear at first to be performing, to the best of his knowledge, the same role he’s been playing for Harry in the previous two films / books: saving his life, albeit this time with the extra pleasure of getting his revenge on Sirius Black in the process (“Vengeance is sweet”, he hisses, as he first bursts in).
Later on, we all discover that Snape was misguided: Sirius was innocent, and Pettigrew was the one who needed to be handed over to the Dementors. But wait... did Snape continue to labour under an illusion throughout that scene? My reading of Alan Rickman’s performance there, based on the previous portrayals of Snape’s legilimency which he has incorporated into the role, suggests that he actually doesn’t. Yes: there is another probing glance, another narrowing of eyes, and it comes at the point when Gary Oldman is speaking the words which I have bolded and italicised in the following exchange:
SNAPE (to Lupin): ‘I told Dumbledore you’d been helping an old friend into the castle, and now here’s the proof’
SIRIUS BLACK: ‘Brilliant, Snape. Once again you've put your keen and penetrating mind to the task and, as usual, come to the wrong conclusion. [approaches Snape] Now if you'll excuse us, Remus and I have some unfinished business to attend to.’
Could it be that Alan Rickman is conveying to us here that Snape is reading Sirius Black’s mind as Black speaks to him, and that, as he does so, he can see perfectly well that Black is innocent and that Peter Pettigrew is the real traitor?
If so, this of course then casts a whole new light on the rest of the scene, since it would mean that, once again, Rickman’s Snape chooses to ignore the truth which he has uncovered through his legilimency, because the apparent, and widely-believed, scenario in which Sirius Black is guilty actually suits his purposes better. In other words, he is quite prepared to let Pettigrew go free, knowing that he, rather than Sirius, is really guilty, so long as he achieves his personal goal of having Black thrown back into Azkaban.
And this is what I want to discover from the book. Is this something which Alan Rickman has inserted into the film of his own accord (perhaps following discussions with the director, or even JKR herself), or is it something which can be supported by a reading of the original book? I know JKR won’t make it explicit that Snape is using legilimency in Prisoner of Azkaban, since Harry doesn’t seem (as far as I understand) to find out about this until book 5, and we only ever know what he knows. But is it hinted at? And if so, what can we make of it, especially as regards the pressing question of where Snape’s true loyalties lie? After all, Pettigrew, although dormant as a rat for 12 years, had been a servant of Voldemort’s. Could Snape, in ignoring Sirius’ innocence, actually have been trying to protect Pettigrew, as well as nobble Black? Maybe, but I think I prefer the idea that he is simply motivated by a personal grudge: it seems so much more like Snape as I understand him.
Maybe all of this is simply rather too much to read into one narrowing of Alan Rickman’s eyes? More reading is clearly required on my part, but I may well return to this question once I have done it.
I have also begun reading The Prisoner of Azkaban, which is the first book in the series that I have not yet read. This, of course, means that I am reading it having already seen the film, so I have a couple of questions in mind which arose from seeing the film, and which I am hoping the book will either answer or, at least, illuminate.
Cuts follow for spoilers and rather excessive length:
Question one: Sirius Black and Azkaban.
Question one is fairly simple: it is, how the hell did Sirius Black escape from Azkaban, anyway? We're told a couple of times in the film that it's incredibly secure, and that no one's ever escaped from it before, and yet (unless I missed it) we never seem to be told how Sirius Black nonetheless managed to do it. I'm pretty confident this will be answered in the book: it's the kind of fairly obvious detail that must surely have been addressed by JKR, but then cut out of the film for the sake of time.
Question two: Alan Rickman, J.K. Rowling and Snape's legilimency.
Question two is a bit more complex, and I don't expect the book to answer it as such: I'm just hoping it will shed a little light on it.
To explain myself, although I have not read books 4 or 5 (or, as yet, the latter two-thirds of 3), I have read enough about them on various fan-sites to know a fair amount about the revelations contained therein. I have paid particular attention to details about Snape, since he's blatantly the coolest character in the books, so I do know all about things like his legilimency, his role as a Death Eater / spy, and his past history with the Marauders (as revealed through e.g. his 'worst memory' in the Pensieve).
Naturally, knowing all this casts a rather different light on Snape's behaviour in the first three films, as indeed in the first three books. I am also aware that J.K. Rowling took Alan Rickman aside when he was first cast for the role, and told him various things about the character of Snape which were not yet generally known, but which he needed to know in order to play the character appropriately. Some of those things are probably still top secret, but one of them will of course have been that Snape is able to read minds. So far as I can make out, this is revealed in Order of the Phoenix (published summer 2003) so was not yet known to the general public on the release of either of the first two films (winter 2001 and 2002), but would already have been known to Alan Rickman.
Once you know that Snape is a legilimens, its possible to identify plenty of scenes in the books where he is using this ability, as amply demonstrated here. And once you realise that Alan Rickman must have known all along that Snape is a legilimens, it's also pretty obvious that he played this as part of the character from the beginning.
The first book, for example, hints that Snape may be using (or trying to use) legilimency when confronting Harry, Ron and Hermione about how they came to be in a girls' bathroom with a mountain troll, rather than at the Halloween feast. And sure enough, in the film too, Alan Rickman here makes Snape give all three (and particularly Hermione as she lies to protect Harry and Ron) some pretty probing looks as he checks out their story. Nothing explicit comes of this, but in either the film or the book, this can be explained by saying that if Snape has realised through legilimency that Hermione is lying, then, although he may be surprised at such behaviour, ultimately he doesn't really care either way whether she takes the rap for the boys or not, since it's trouble for them all and points from Gryffindor anyway.
In the second book, too, there are a number of scenes where Snape's ability to mind-read is suggested. In this case, they aren't matched precisely in the film, but the film does provide its own apparent instance of Snape using legilimency, when Mrs. Norris has just been found, petrified, in the corridor. Harry, Ron and Hermione are once again having to lie to explain why they were in that corridor at all, without revealing that Harry is hearing weird voices, and Alan Rickman’s Snape stares penetratingly at them as they do so. Again, here, if Snape is supposed to be reading the truth from them that they are perfectly innocent of petrifying Mrs. Norris, he chooses to ignore it and to carry on insinuating that things look very suspicious, because although he knows this isn’t true, it suits him better than the truth, since it means our Golden Trio are in trouble again. It is only Dumbledore, apparently also using legilimency himself (in the film and in the book) to determine that the trio are innocent, and checking Snape with the words “Innocent until proven guilty, Severus,” that saves them from punishment.
Finally, in the third film, comes the scene I’m hoping will be further illuminated by the book: the scene in the Shrieking Shack. Here, Snape runs in in the middle of the (apparent) confrontation between Sirius Black and Remus Lupin on one side, and the Golden Trio on the other, and threatens Sirius Black (Gary Oldman) with his wand. At this point in the film, the audience do not yet know that Sirius had actually been wrongly imprisoned in Azkaban, and that it was in fact Peter Pettigrew who betrayed Harry Potter’s parents to Voldemort; and we have also not yet found out that Ron’s rat is actually Pettigrew. My understanding is that this is the case at this point in the book, as well, although I have not yet read it in enough detail to be quite sure about that.
Certainly, even if someone watching the film does know that Sirius is innocent, and that Pettigrew is both guilty and alive in the form of Scabbers, there is no reason to assume at this point that Snape knows any of this (although he probably did know that Pettigrew was capable of transforming into a rat due to his interactions with the Marauders at school). When he bursts in, then, he would appear at first to be performing, to the best of his knowledge, the same role he’s been playing for Harry in the previous two films / books: saving his life, albeit this time with the extra pleasure of getting his revenge on Sirius Black in the process (“Vengeance is sweet”, he hisses, as he first bursts in).
Later on, we all discover that Snape was misguided: Sirius was innocent, and Pettigrew was the one who needed to be handed over to the Dementors. But wait... did Snape continue to labour under an illusion throughout that scene? My reading of Alan Rickman’s performance there, based on the previous portrayals of Snape’s legilimency which he has incorporated into the role, suggests that he actually doesn’t. Yes: there is another probing glance, another narrowing of eyes, and it comes at the point when Gary Oldman is speaking the words which I have bolded and italicised in the following exchange:
SNAPE (to Lupin): ‘I told Dumbledore you’d been helping an old friend into the castle, and now here’s the proof’
SIRIUS BLACK: ‘Brilliant, Snape. Once again you've put your keen and penetrating mind to the task and, as usual, come to the wrong conclusion. [approaches Snape] Now if you'll excuse us, Remus and I have some unfinished business to attend to.’
Could it be that Alan Rickman is conveying to us here that Snape is reading Sirius Black’s mind as Black speaks to him, and that, as he does so, he can see perfectly well that Black is innocent and that Peter Pettigrew is the real traitor?
If so, this of course then casts a whole new light on the rest of the scene, since it would mean that, once again, Rickman’s Snape chooses to ignore the truth which he has uncovered through his legilimency, because the apparent, and widely-believed, scenario in which Sirius Black is guilty actually suits his purposes better. In other words, he is quite prepared to let Pettigrew go free, knowing that he, rather than Sirius, is really guilty, so long as he achieves his personal goal of having Black thrown back into Azkaban.
And this is what I want to discover from the book. Is this something which Alan Rickman has inserted into the film of his own accord (perhaps following discussions with the director, or even JKR herself), or is it something which can be supported by a reading of the original book? I know JKR won’t make it explicit that Snape is using legilimency in Prisoner of Azkaban, since Harry doesn’t seem (as far as I understand) to find out about this until book 5, and we only ever know what he knows. But is it hinted at? And if so, what can we make of it, especially as regards the pressing question of where Snape’s true loyalties lie? After all, Pettigrew, although dormant as a rat for 12 years, had been a servant of Voldemort’s. Could Snape, in ignoring Sirius’ innocence, actually have been trying to protect Pettigrew, as well as nobble Black? Maybe, but I think I prefer the idea that he is simply motivated by a personal grudge: it seems so much more like Snape as I understand him.
Maybe all of this is simply rather too much to read into one narrowing of Alan Rickman’s eyes? More reading is clearly required on my part, but I may well return to this question once I have done it.
no subject
Date: Sunday, 16 January 2005 11:59 (UTC)1)
The Dementors feed on positive thoughts. Sirius had two advantages: a) the fact that he's innocent isn't a positive thought, and they couldn't take it, so he retained his sanity. b) he is an animagus, and Dementors are less sensitive to dog emotions, so he could spend time as a dog when being human was too much. He also could slip past them in dog form, both at Azkaban and at Hogwarts.
2)
At this point in the book, we know Black's innocent, but not that Scabbers is Pettigrew, IIRC.
I never looked at it in a legilimens way, but Sanpe just doesn't care whether Sirius is guilty or not: he hates him that much ("Snape's worse memory" is NOTHING compared to what Sirius did to Snape the next year, which we find out in Prisoner). I certainly don't think there's anything between Snape and Pettigrew...
Thanks for bringing this up.I'm going to have to read all the books again now from a legilimens PoV.
BUT... legilimens is quite a complex and forceful spell. It requires an incantation, and from Harry's experience in Order, it's pretty violent.
no subject
Date: Sunday, 16 January 2005 12:30 (UTC)"Snape's worse memory" is NOTHING compared to what Sirius did to Snape the next year, which we find out in Prisoner
On this, yes. I do know about the whole werewolf trick thingy, and James Potter saving Snape's life and so on. This is part of why I'm quite prepared to believe that Snape is happy to persist in trying to get Sirius put back into Azkaban, even if he does actually know perfectly well that Sirius is innocent.
I certainly don't think there's anything between Snape and Pettigrew...
No, you're right, it doesn't seem that likely. But I do know that I need to find out more about Snape's real loyalties and motivations to understand the full meaning of his actions in this scene: always assuming that I am right about him detecting Sirius' innocence, and it isn't simply that he is misguided.
BUT... legilimens is quite a complex and forceful spell. It requires an incantation, and from Harry's experience in Order, it's pretty violent.
Yup, I've gathered this too, mainly from reading this (http://www.hp-lexicon.org/magic/legilimency.html). Yet there are quite a few scenes in the books where Snape does nonetheless seem to be able to get at a fuller version of the truth than might be expected if he wasn't using legilimency, despite the fact that he doesn't seem to speak any incantation. I'm wondering if a fairly basic version of legilimency can be practised by Snape without any incantation: enough to detect basic truths and lies, anyway. There are various instances on the page I linked to above which support this, such as:
"Snape's eyes were boring into Harry's. It was exactly like trying to stare down a hippogriff. Harry tried not to blink... 'Malfoy is not having hallucinations...if your head was in Hogsmeade, so was the rest of you.'" (PA14)
no subject
Date: Sunday, 16 January 2005 13:41 (UTC)There non-incantation form of legilimens is probably a less-effective way. He can get some ideas, but not pictures. He never found out about the Polyjuice Potion is book 2, for instance, and had to threaten Harry with veritaserum.
no subject
Date: Sunday, 16 January 2005 14:01 (UTC)That's about what I was suspecting. Enough to detect Sirius' innocence, do you think?
no subject
Date: Sunday, 16 January 2005 14:04 (UTC)I don't want Snape to be the man who knows Sirius is innocent and wants him Kissed anyway. That's just too evil for me.
no subject
Date: Sunday, 16 January 2005 14:19 (UTC)