Secrets (Long)

[Vicki Merriman]

No: HPFGUIDX 1108

--- In HPforGrownups at egroups.com, Peg Kerr <pkerr06 at a...> wrote:
> Another long-winded essay-post.
> Dumbledore also keeps Snape's secret, and Lupin's secret. 
(Incidentally, > the fact that  Dumbledore respects the integrity of 
Snape's secret, > whatever it is, is one of the most effective 
arguments to me that Snape > is Our Man Snape, truly allied with the 
powers of light,  as surly as he > is.)

I agree that he is "allied with the powers of light" but do not agree 
that that necessarily makes him "Our Man Snape."   What Snape does 
goes way beyond surliness.  I'm not sure when you starting reading 
posts so I'll try to summarize shortly.  1) Snape is not just mean to 
Harry, he uses his power as a professor to do some really 
unconscionable things.  2)  when he gave Neville a detention for a 
mistake (melting a cauldron) he made Neville pickle frogs.  Now we 
all know, as does Snape, that Neville has a toad.  To have to pickle 
creatures so close to your own pet is just horrible.  3) he is 
fixated on a childish grudge, as when he went almost literally insane 
over catching Black and completely refusing to consider any other 
result.  he was essentially irrational.  4) he is constantly taking 
absurd point deductions from Griffindor out of nothing but spite   
5)  When Hermione got the long teeth in GoF, he sneered "I don't see 
any difference."  This to me is one of the worst, if not the worst, 
thing he has ever done.  He used his power as a teacher to step on a 
vulnerable 14 year old girl and then punished Ron and Harry when they 
defended her.  Oh and don't forget that he took ten points each from 
Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff in GoF because a young couple were necking 
in the bushes during the ball.  Naturally he wouldn't simply break 
them up or gently suggest that return to the dance floor.  He broke 
them apart with his wand and gave them point losses.

Snape may not be allied with the forces of evil, but his behavior is 
unconscionable and I don't forgive him for it, even if supposedly 
some of it is to make him look believable as a spy. He's a nasty ugly 
piece of work, and I mean ugly on the inside, not the outside.

Brooks said it best when quoting Churchill (which I'll probably 
mangle) "If Hitler was storming the gates of hell I'd have something 
good to say about Satan."  About all is said and done the best we may 
be able to say about Snape is that he doesn't want Voldemort to win.  
But that still makes him a pretty horrible character in my book.

Vicki