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gmonkey42I have to read this whole chapter on reptiles even though the class is on mammals, birds and turtles, only one of which is a reptile. So I'm skimming the non-turtle parts. But the snake part got me thinking about what Nagini might look like. I figured she was a viper but the size of a python. One of the biggest vipers is the Gabon viper. 174cm is pretty big. And check this out:
Following a strike, they tend to hold on to their prey until it is dead. Prey is also lifted off of the ground to prevent it getting hold of anything. Anything large enough to pose more of a threat is released and searched for after a few minutes.
That sounds like her to me.
Except I think the blood loss would have killed Snape even if the venom didn't. She was several meters long, wasn't she? The fangs would easily have been long enough to puncture his carotid artery. Arterial bleeding is pretty distinctive and could be described as "gushing."
I don't know a lot about snakes (the snake parts of the reading don't talk that much about their bites anyway) but it seems like they wouldn't want the prey to bleed out, if it's going to die from the venom anyway. HOWEVER, 1) Nagini is some kind of crazy giant magical snake and the same rules don't necessarily apply and 2) maybe Nagini-snakes in the wild strike the body rather than the neck, but Voldemort trained her to strike the neck when she's in assasin mode instead of feeding mode because, uh, it's more dramatic? She didn't have a lot of options for where to bite Snape anyway, the neck was probably the most fleshy part she could get at.
Besides, Snape didn't have symptoms of snake-bite-poisoning (swelling, blistering), which I guess also supports the idea that he had already taken steps to protect himself from the venom in case Nagini bit him and therefore isn't dead. (Except he is.)
Following a strike, they tend to hold on to their prey until it is dead. Prey is also lifted off of the ground to prevent it getting hold of anything. Anything large enough to pose more of a threat is released and searched for after a few minutes.
That sounds like her to me.
Except I think the blood loss would have killed Snape even if the venom didn't. She was several meters long, wasn't she? The fangs would easily have been long enough to puncture his carotid artery. Arterial bleeding is pretty distinctive and could be described as "gushing."
I don't know a lot about snakes (the snake parts of the reading don't talk that much about their bites anyway) but it seems like they wouldn't want the prey to bleed out, if it's going to die from the venom anyway. HOWEVER, 1) Nagini is some kind of crazy giant magical snake and the same rules don't necessarily apply and 2) maybe Nagini-snakes in the wild strike the body rather than the neck, but Voldemort trained her to strike the neck when she's in assasin mode instead of feeding mode because, uh, it's more dramatic? She didn't have a lot of options for where to bite Snape anyway, the neck was probably the most fleshy part she could get at.
Besides, Snape didn't have symptoms of snake-bite-poisoning (swelling, blistering), which I guess also supports the idea that he had already taken steps to protect himself from the venom in case Nagini bit him and therefore isn't dead. (Except he is.)
