Commentary: "The Hall of Heroes"

[dolorous_ett]

Here's a commentary of "The Hall of Heroes", as requested by saralinda and aerama.

[Bad username or unknown identity: The original text of "The Hall of Heroes" can be found here.]

I am indebted to aerama for this story. While reviewing "Furious Wielder of Storms", she took issue with me killing off Snape in half a sentence. Never mind, I replied - imagine him in Valhalla, quaffing ale and feasting with all the other heroes. That sparked this whole thing off.

This fic was canon-shafted before it was even finished. When I first read HBP, I assumed HOH was done for - but reckoned without the fandom, who cheerfully supplied many excellent reasons why Snape could not possibly be bad. It seemed that there might be hope for the tale - and I wanted Snape to be on the side of the angels - so I went for it. Grawp was going that way anyway, after all - I didn’t even have to get the carriage out especially.

For the record, I’m far from convinced of Snape’s innocence. But I wanted to finish my story - and I quite like Snape. And the fic was astonishingly easy to adapt in the light of HBP - I just had to change a few names and bad excuses, that’s all.

The title is from "Furious Wielder of Storms" - the reward of heroes who die in battle - the most honourable death of all. I was simply going to call the hall Valhalla, until I did a bit of research into Norse legend and realised that, while heroes did go to Valhalla and were escorted by Valkyries, they were actually preparing to fight giants… so I just had to improvise.

Curiously, there’s a real Hall of Heroes - it’s in the Wallace Monument near Stirling. I was very excited when I climbed the tower to find it - but actually it’s tiny, and there are only a few busts of worthies like John Knox and David Hume in cold marble - never a roast ox or a horned helmet to be seen! I like my version much better.

__________________

"Bugger off, Bellatrix."

A strong hand grasped his shoulder, and tried to roll him onto his back. He resisted, burying his nose in the blood-soaked earth. No hexes - not Bellatrix, then. The other side must have won. That left…

"Get lost, Granger."

Even before HBP, I felt Snape’s alliances were going to be complex things, subject to change at a moment’s notice.

… even Snape, who was notoriously unmoved by physical beauty, having so little himself, had to admit she was quite a spectacle: eight feet tall, heavily muscled, with the fluid grace of a panther, clad in gilded breastplate and winged helmet with a sword and a battleaxe stuck carelessly through her belt and a large wooden shield strapped to her back. Where had he seen her before? Snape considered the woman (if woman she was) in silence for a moment before he realised that she reminded him not so much of one person as of several people: the broad, ruddy cheeks and strong arms were not unlike those of Madam Hooch; the small, shrewd, kindly eyes were pure McGonagall; the untidy hair poking out of the helmet in ragged, wavy hanks was quite as wild as that of Hermione Granger; and the large, round breasts beneath the beaten metal breastplate reminded him very much of Kate Sprout.

In the eyes of some critics, any OFC is liable to Suism. Lesser authors create Mary Sues. I, on the other hand, have created a Valkyrie Sue!

I know now that Sprout’s name is Pomona, not Kate. But it was Kate in the pre-HBP "Furious Wielder of Storms" - so she’s Kate here. I still don’t think it was unreasonable to expect to have one ordinary name among all the Filiusses and Albusses and Minervas. Still, JKR’s the boss, and I promise never to call Sprout Kate again.

"Don’t worry," she said. "It’s a glamour - part of your welcome to the Hall of Heroes. We never look quite the same twice over - it’s part of the fun, actually. Now if you don’t mind, we really ought to get a move on. This carriage only takes two passengers, you know." She paused, looked doubtful, cleared her throat and continued in an altogether more portentous voice: "I mean, let us haste, for time presses, and you are called to the halls of your fathers. Come!"

In the first draft the registers were the other way round. Logically, mythic creatures who think in Runes should find it easy to declaim portentously, and hard to speak casual English. But every time I started to write that way it just sounded wrong.

"For heaven’s sake get up, you self-indulgent ninny!" he shouted. "Time for that later - students are in trouble just over there - grieve for him when you’ve saved them if you must, though goodness knows stupid heroics have no place at a time like this…"

This is Snape’s idea of a pep talk. No wonder so many Slytherins ended up going to the bad.

Though in fact Hagrid seems to have heard him. Perhaps he’s more used to Snape than we are.

Snape noticed the corpse’s boots. They were a particularly good pair, made to order from the finest Norwegian Black hide, sinfully soft but completely waterproof and impervious to all spells, embossed around the ankles and toecaps with the Prince family crest of Arctic hares carrying cowslips, their only flaw a tendency to leave blisters on the right heel if not rubbed weekly with salamander lard to keep them supple… Snape knew a great deal about these boots because they were his own. In fact, they were still on his feet. He was the dead man in Hagrid’s arms.

This is one of the few things I had to amend for HBP - the boots started out marked with the Snape family crest.

I’ve no idea what the hares and the cowslips represent. I just didn’t want anything too heraldic or macho - no lions or snakes. Anyone who wishes to find symbolism there, just let me know what you found, and I’ll probably OK it.

Under normal circumstances, the thought of that vulgar, preening sadist Lucius Malfoy helpless on the ground, perfect hair ground into the mud, brought low by a half-human, would have been irresistible to Snape. But now it seemed that he could not muster so much as a smirk. He strode over and delivered a shark kick to a sensitive region of the fallen man’s anatomy, but the boot passed straight through Malfoy’s body, and there was absolutely no response.

This was pure self-indulgence. I can’t understand why people get all gooey over Lucius Malfoy - he’s just what Snape says he is. He deserves far worse than messy hair and a non-corporeal kick in the nuts.

When Snape woke from a deep and dreamless sleep, curled up in the back seat of the chariot and covered in a thick bearskin rug, the sky was dark, broken only by large, lamp-like stars, and the horses were galloping alongside the Milky Way. The giant in the middle seat was snoring gently; otherwise there was no sound apart from the creaking of the axles and the rattle of galloping hooves.

"Are we nearly there yet?" asked Snape muzzily.

"No, not for ages yet," the driver replied. "Go back to sleep."

This owes a lot to winter car journeys as a small child - spending half the time asleep in the dark, moving fast but completely secure. Not that my parents took me to the Milky Way or anything, of course.

It’s not a coincidence that Snape spends most of his journey sleeping. If ever I saw a textbook insomniac it’s Snape. He has (or is in the process of losing) a whole variety of other psychosomatic complaints too at other points in the story - some are mine, some just sound nasty and are known to be stress-related.

Like many people who risk their lives on a regular basis, Snape had never really contemplated the Afterlife, being far too busy attempting to keep it at bay for as long as possible. Inasmuch as he had given the matter any thought, he had assumed that it involved a more or less instantaneous judgement, followed by summary dispatch to a place of torment or reward - and his mind had always quickly veered away from that subject, suspecting as he did that torment was a likelier outcome for him than reward.

For once in his life, Snape is about to be pleasantly surprised. But nothing in his life to date has led him to believe that death is going to be anything but more trouble and humiliation. Aerama was right - I needed to give the man a break.

The huge woman laughed hugely.

"I won the right to come here, just as you did. We Giants pay no heed to such trifles as that. It is sad that your parents never taught you our ways or our tongue - but there will be time enough later. As to your first question, my name is Ungh-gruh-zrann." She saw Snape’s baffled expression, and smiled. "But I have an English name: you may call me Gunilla. Hush now - we come!"

No-one’s ever asked me why I gave a Giant an English name - was it relief at not having to call her Ungh-gruh-zrann all the time? This is a missing bit of backstory - "Gunilla" was part of a progressive group of Giants who thought that the way to save their diminishing people was through Human knowledge. She and some of her comrades set up a school in their settlement, and set about teaching English, maths, science, Human history and the rudiments of Magical theory to the young of their tribe, in the belief that if they could talk to Humans then they’d all get on swimmingly. Unfortunately the local Wizarding communities didn’t see it that way at all - they torched the village and destroyed the school. "Gunilla", who all her life had been mocked as a nerd by her peers, died a hero’s death - much to her surprise - protecting her pupils from powerful Wizards, armed with nothing but a blackboard, a schoolroom chair and a bag of chalk.

She gave all her pupils English names, and a few of the brighter ones learned quite a lot of English. Her star pupil was a female called Fridwulfa.

Soon they were driving along the side of the great hall, which was roofed not with gold, but with shields, laid in rows like slates, all of the brightest bronze that glimmered in the light of the torches. Many doors, great and small, were set in the wall, and these were all closed and barred, but for the largest of all, which had been left standing ajar.

Most of this is pinched straight from Norse legend.

"Silence, comrades, cease your feasting," he sang, "and let your ears be opened to my words. I sing to you of valour hidden by honour’s cloak, of a mind as sharp as a sword to pierce the hearts of his enemies. Though mean in stature, he went where mighty men dared not, and gave his life for friendship’s sake - silence for the Lay of Severus Snape, the Half-Blood Prince!"

Now this, I consider my greatest coup. This was the part of HoH that was written - and posted on LJ - well before HBP came out.

It was supposed to be a joke.

With a final triumphant chord, the song drew to its thundering conclusion. There was a long, charged pause, and Snape experienced a stomach-churning moment of doubt. Had the giants seen through this pretty fiction to the unpleasant man behind it? And if they had - what then? Would he be turned out of the Hall of Heroes, to wander forever in the cold dark outside?

Heaven for Severus Snape is a place where no-one will throw him out. Ever.

Guilt is a terrible thing, isn’t it?

The next ten minutes were a blur, as Giant after Giant came up to pound him on the back and shout unintelligible words of congratulation in his ear. One thrust an enormous horn of ale into his hand; another plucked a horned helm from its peg on the wall and dumped it unceremoniously on his head, where it shrunk at once to fit him amid good-natured cheers. Utterly nonplussed at this complete lack of derision, sarcasm or even suspicion, Snape allowed himself to be led to one of the benches, where more Giants plied him with great, dripping slices carved from a huge roast from the central firepit, and toasted him with horn after horn of mead

This to me smacks of George R R Martin - though it’s not directly stolen from anything he’s done. And I resisted the temptation to use the phrase "meat and mead" verbatim, or describe the meat as "rare and bloody". Though of course it was.

"You mustn’t mind them," Gunilla said. "It’s going to take some of the older ones a while to get used to you, you being only half blood and all…"

"Half blood?" blustered Snape, aware that he was on shaky ground. "Have you any idea who I am? My mother, Eileen Prince, could trace her family back ten generations, and every one of them a pureblooded Wizard! My father’s origins are shrouded in mystery and could very well be magical!"

This part, however, is post-HPB. Like a lot of his fans, Snape is still in denial.

Snape shut his eyes and waited for death.

In the scrum that ensued, it took Snape several minutes and a particularly loud-voiced interpreter to realise that the mob of Giants were attempting not to beat him death but to clap him on the back. He was picked up from the middle of the scrum, huge hands dusted him off, the horned helmet was returned to him and a horn of ale thrust into his hand. It appeared that his nerve under pressure and the cold desperation of his last stand had met with approval, and the Giants were particularly fascinated by his magic wand - or, as they insisted on describing it, "his tiny stick" (Unfair! thought Snape, it’s a full twelve and a half inches - a very respectable size for a wizard of my age!).

Snape’s being praised - nay, admired - for just being himself. No wonder he didn’t want to leave

Rawh-turrh-guugg, famous composer of drinking songs, was improvising a new piece:

The Ballad of Severus the Small and his Tiny, Tiny Stick. He translated the words for Snape as the song progressed - by the time Gunilla showed up at the table it had reached a total of seventeen verses, twelve of which were very rude.

This serves no plot purpose at all - it was just a silly idea I had - and after that it just had to go in.

People have asked me what the words to this song are. Sadly, like classical Chinese, it loses a great deal in translation. But anyone who feels like rewriting an English version is most welcome to do so.

They passed a battle-scarred warrior with a shield strapped to his back watering a bed of superb peonies, a Giantess in a leather apron beating out a red-hot sword on an anvil, and a delicate wind chime that tinkled and rustled as they passed.

This - and the previous paragraph with the libraries, theatres and laboratory - are pure self-indulgence. I’m sure JKR never intended anything of the kind. But any being intelligent enough to learn to read is going to want to leaven the fighting with other pastimes in the end.

"…No, my dears," [Dumbledore] was saying. "Poor Severus was never an easy man - we all know he could be very trying at times - but everything he did was done at my command."

Praise indeed - and he’s the only one who sticks up for him at all. Can you see why Snape decides to stay in the Hall of Heroes?

I think I’d leave, wouldn’t you?

Cedric says this, but the originator of the line was Draco Malfoy, back in Harry Potter & the Philosopher’s Stone.

"And that’s it, then?" said Snape, feeling obscurely let down. "All clear, all understood? No more mystery, no intriguing moral ambiguity? No more is-he-evil-or-isn’t-he? You must appreciate that this comes as something as a shock to the system. I did kill a kindly old man who was fighting to save us all when he was sick and disarmed, you know - really I did."

It must have come as a great shock to know that the Giants simply didn’t care about all that stuff. And also as a great relief.

I’m not going to bother to quote the description of Voldemort’s hall - but I tried to make it sound as tacky as I could - the creation of a person who’s heard of taste, and knows that it involves classical things and marble, but doesn’t know what taste actually is. For the record, half the runes of power carved on his chair are upside down or back to front.

"Drink, my lord!" she cried. "Taste the wine of victory that is rightfully yours!"

…

"Canapé, O great one?"

Voldemort is not just evil, but vulgar and tasteless. He probably thinks prawn vol-au-vents are really classy.

And over there was Messalina Edgecombe, who in life had ruled over the Department of Internal Strife at the Ministry of Magic with a rod of iron, serving sausages on sticks to Walden McNair, who had started his career as her tea boy. She had schooled her face to a mask of dutiful politeness, but the expression in her eyes was murderous. If they had been still alive, Snape would not have given a Knut’s worth of Leprechaun gold for McNair’s life.

This is meant to be Marietta’s mum. I’m convinced there’s a very good story to be got out of Marietta’s mum.

In my mind, a lot of Pureblood women in her age group are called Messalina, because all the mothers of that generation of witches spontaneously decided it was a pretty name for a girl. Rather like being called Melissa these days.

"I agree with you. And despite all my years of study, I do not understand your race. For this, they were prepared to turn against your human morality and duty? Not for glory, honour or valiant death, but for sparkling wine and dainty seafood nibbles?"

I just put in this line because I liked it.

"That hall

is technically classified as a hell, after all - and that means of course that it is not supplied with exits of any kind. Still, after a few hundred years of internal feuding and rebellion they may yet make something of it - it’s happened before."

I was going to leave them in there forever, with no chance of redemption at all. But in the end I couldn’t bring myself to condemn anything to an eternity of torture - not even in a story.

"You mean, one of

our fellow-residents," corrected Gunilla with a smile.

"Indeed," said Severus the Small.

I was going to have Gunilla explain about the school on the way back to the Hall and Monster of the Deep fish supper. But when I’d written this far, I decided this was the best place to stop.

And this is a good place to stop the commentary too.

Comments

[saralinda.livejournal.com]

It's so wonderful. Ahhh. Just what I needed.

[dolorous-ett.livejournal.com]

Glad you liked it! Hope it makes up in part at least for the absence of skiing... (though the reason for this is great news - congratulations!)

[aerama.livejournal.com]

Ahh...I do enjoy this one.
And to have it focus so sharply on Snape was an extra treat.

Valkyrie Sue!
That's a slogan I'd stand behind.

Hares and cowslips - I love this image, though when you mentioned symbolism, all I could think of was "Watership Down." And there I stick!

I liked the name "Gunilla." It just seemed right, to me.

silence for the Lay of Severus Snape, the Half-Blood Prince
Joke, indeed. You're a SEER, you are! *ducks*

Heaven for Severus Snape is a place where no-one will throw him out. Ever.
This just struck me cold. How very true.

I don't think Snape is innocent, either, or moral, or perhaps even good, but he's not bad, either. He's...something else. I suddenly find myself thinking that it would be interesting to see him emerge as the victor out of the series, but that might make it an entirely different book!

Thanks for doing the commentary for this one as well. That was pretty great.

[dolorous-ett.livejournal.com]

I don't think Snape is innocent, either, or moral, or perhaps even good, but he's not bad, either. He's...something else.

That's why he's best off in the Hall of Heroes, where Giants judge each other on ferocity and valour, not innocence and guilt.

I suddenly find myself thinking that it would be interesting to see him emerge as the victor out of the series, but that might make it an entirely different book!

A completely different one... but it would be interesting. Are you going to write it, then?

[aerama.livejournal.com]

*imagines project that will take up years and suck the soul outta me*
Then again, who knows? At that moment, I'd have liked to see a Victor!Snape fic, but...the mind boggles at what would have to go into it.

[dolorous-ett.livejournal.com]

Well, no pressure. But do make sure I know if you ever decide to do anything with it.

[dolabellae.livejournal.com]

I do like this meme - it teases out little gems like Gunilla's backstory, the origin of Cedric's line about leaving, which I'm afraid I missed completely, and things like this:

In my mind, a lot of Pureblood women in her age group are called Messalina, because all the mothers of that generation of witches spontaneously decided it was a pretty name for a girl.

Marvellous.

[dolorous-ett.livejournal.com]

I'm glad you liked Gunilla's backstory. My big regret is that I never got a chance to shoehorn it into this peice - but there was just nowhere for it to go without it sounding irrelevant - and worse, preachy.

And I'm also very happy that someone else got the Messalina thing!