-On Characterization-

The exposition of a person is no easy thing to write. Humans are complex thinking creatures, and what makes their clockwork tick, so to speak, in a particular instant is hard to define or pinpoint, based as it is on a combination of past reinforced programming (social and environmental) and a myriad of impulses of the nervous system.

Fight or flight, these are impulses that become ingrained into our psyche, so that our very past becomes the groundwork for our future. It is no wonder then, that one with a darker past will ever have even darker a future– light once denied will ever after be mistrusted for the folly it is. Even as a plant denied of much water and light and given salt grows stunted ever after, so it is with people; some people, simply but, HAVE no brighter future. This is the essence of the account that follows.

How erroneous that much of the western world should believe in such claptrap (that some triumph even when they have a bad start), when it is evident that life is an uncomfortable, rude, ungainly menace visited upon the surface of the indifferent earth. There are many stories of perseverance, but for my purposes, they are those of mindless stubbornness, not of any other particular quality of redemption. There is no redemption for some souls that are lost.

So much time then, is wasted for wanting better than what is for our characters in our stories. That is not to say labor, effort and ambition are bad– oh no. They are misused, when their use could be better guided toward an adequate ending. The world is not a Disney film, where everything comes up roses and bunnies.

Very often, a story will not have an ending at all–merely closure. It may not be happy– per se– or even satisfying, but for those involved, it has a sense of finality that is not frequently found, even in reality. Nothing more is needed, for the viewers matter little to those who live the written word– the story. Closure is not absolute. Endings are not always endings.

Life, real life is a tragi-comedy of error, an itchy sensation of unease, a triumph of uncertainty, lust and passion. To uncover the origins of an individuals behavior amongst all this, nuances of behavior must be peeled away, the past uncovered and seen in its stark entirety (and analyzed), tics traced, reactions pursued...and even then, determinations made on these are uncertain in accuracy.

To know a man–person or individual– no amount of analysis will allow the bare, predetermined thought process of the brain/mind to be entirely uncovered– which neurons are firing, like the scalded cat of Twain– the mind of man is complete in mystery, and replete with idiosyncracy. His actions are less complete and fully replete. They are all that we may truly observe, or guess at.

We shall examine these, instead, for they make far better reading than a treatise on the vagaries of mind over body... Suffice to say that no easy task lies ahead, reader— but perhaps in the end you will judge for yourself the nature of the man –natura animus– and be comforted in the fact that so bestial a species may still abide a bit of humanity and compassion even in the depths of its cruelty.

Or, you may be horrified to learn, it may not.

It all depends on how you read it...

Tuesday, September 22, 2004 9:11am ©Lanenkar ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

ALEA IACTA EST

And with that, we get into the story: Severus Snape, renowned potions master and educator of indifferent students. But what shaped the man? No man forms entirely alone in his habits, actions, reactions. No man is an island.

Consciously or subconsciously, we are shaped by every experience in our lives, building neural pathways in our brains, making connections and relations to every other bit of memory stored within. Every added memory shapes our future actions, much as a cat burnt by a hot stove will never sit on one again, or a child burned by an iron will forever after be wary of them... And chance can alter these things. A roll of the dice, and we change as our world changes, we fear that change even as it happens, with or without our sentient consent– without consulting our emotions.

We are social beings. We interact. We are not made to be isolated, alone. Many find that this drives them insane, makes them depressed. How then, can sanity be claimed if one is alone their entire life? It is a precarious postulate, at best.

Thus we come to the Nature of the Man: Severus Snape. Alone, disliked. How can one be so truly individual? Must they renounce the world? Must they not care, or disregard all others? Does this require overweening selfishness, or is it the result of cynicism and bitterness? And how well do we truly ever know each other, if we abhor the inanities of casual social contact but desire intellectual stimulation instead? How much is hidden from students about who Severus is?

Someday, we might begin to know.

©Lanenkar