SNAPE-LIKE

OY VEH!

It's been one of those weeks that runs from one crisis to another. Time is exceedingly tight between Ash Wednesday and Easter, but a bunch of things turned up that demanded solutions immediately. Each step to provide solutions ran into hurdles and barricades. Who would believe that the price quoted to run a tiny help wanted ad in the local paper would be quoted at over $400. I think the same ad three years ago was only about $60. Are they nuts? And to top it off, I was at the dentist this week and someone backed their truck into my car smashing the bumper. So it's been hours with the insurance company and more hours still to run and fussing with a body shop, and on and on and on. As Snoopy would say, BLEH!

I needed some diversion, so I was browsing some Harry Potter sites when I came across one of those on-line quizzes, Harry Potter Character Compatibility Test. I could tell the test was very well constructed. It was quite like a Meyers-Briggs or even a MMPI personality test. So here are my results. (If I've put the code in correctly.)

Harry Potter Character Combatibility Test created with QuizFarm.com

You scored as Severus Snape You are Severus Snape. You are solitary, subtle, and secretive. Very few people truly know you. You do not give your loyalty easily. It is difficult for people to analyze you, for you refuse to betray your inner feelings. Severus Snape 75% Albus Dumbledore 72% Neville Longbottom 72% Luna Lovegood 69% Percy Weasley 66% Remus Lupin 66% Hermione Granger 56% Ron Weasley 50% Bellatrix Lestrange 47% Oliver Wood 38% Harry Potter 34% Lord Voldemort 28% Sirius Black 28% Draco Malfoy 28%

So I am most like Snape. That doesn't surprise me. Nor does my similarity to Dumbledore, Longbottom, Lovegood, or Percy Weasley. I am relieved to find I am unlike Draco Malfoy, Sirius Black, or Lord Voldermort. I knew I wouldn't be much like Harry himself, (I am not the heroic type.) I'm not at all sporty like Oliver Wood. I'm too much a loner to be the faithful, but stupid sidekick, Ron Weasley. I can see that I would have some characteristics like Hermione, but I was never a swot, and I hope I have never been as insufferable as she. The puzzling thing is that I am 66% like Remus Lupin, the Werewolf-teacher-outcast, and 47% like Belatrix Lestrange, the insane devotee of Voldermort.

Well, I have always admired Helena Bonham Carter who played Belatrix in the movie. No, let me rephrase that. I have liked some of the characters she played, especially Lucy Honeychurch in A Room with a View. I understand her true personality is quite different from the characters she played in the Merchant-Ivory films. Her portrayal of Belatrix was about as much over the top as possible. No subtlety in that performance.

Well, acting aside, I can't see the least connection between my personality and Belatrix. We should be about 0.1% compatible.

Remus is another story. He's a decent person–which I'd like to think I am. It's just that unfortunately he happens to be a werewolf. We are meant to have pity for him. Strangely, I think that was also true of the way Lon Chaney Jr. portrayed the werewolf in the old horror movies. It wasn't his fault he killed people. He didn't ask to be a werewolf.

Now, Severus Snape is an intriguing character. From his very first appearance in The Philosopher's Stone, Rowling tried to make him a dark, malicious character, but with a tiny hint of something better about him. Try as she might, however, most readers never believed he was as bad as he seemed. You'd never believe there was anything good about Voldermort, or the obnoxious Dolores Umbridge, or Lucius Malfoy, but Snape was different. As nasty as he could be, as much as he wanted to be completely in league with Voldermort, there was always something pulling him away from the dark side. Only late on do we discover it was his unexpressed affection for Lily, Harry's mother, that tugged at him emotionally.

The quiz characterizes Snape (and myself) as being solitary, subtle, and secretive. That's true. It also says, "You do not give you loyalty easily." What that misses is that once the loyalty is given, it is inviolable. Snape was completely loyal to Dumbledore. I think that is true of me, though maybe not so absolutely. I don't make friends easily or even willingly because I believe one owes a very high level of commitment to a friend, loyalty, if you will. I certainly don't have the emotional or spiritual resources to make a deep level of commitment to a whole bunch of people. Neither did Snape.

Isn't it interesting what you can find about yourself in fiction.

May the Lord God bless you on your way and greet you on your arrival.

Wayne