Snape and Javert and Eponine! (was Authority and rule-breaking)

[Amanda Lewanski]

No: HPFGUIDX 16341

catherine at cator-manor.demon.co.uk wrote:

> It's a few years since I've read the book/seen the musical, but
> doesn't Inspector Javert commit suicide, partly because he realises
> that his behaviour and regard for crime and punishment has lead to
> obsession and miscarriage of justice (or at least not proportionate
> justice), and that ultimately his behaviour has been inhumane?
>
> I always saw his character as very black/white, which is how I've
> considered Snape - and I think it's the realisation that things cannot
> be assessed in that way which will force Snape to take stock. This way
> of living could also be construed as a form of cowardice - it is very
> easy not to have to think about things and live within the confines of
> an ordered society with a defined set of rules - it takes
> more guts to know when these are not apppropriate and to try and act
> accordingly.

I've been pondering, as I threatened. Javert "broke," I think, because
he spent his whole life in that black/white rules mode. He rejected his
birth and upbringing violently, by adhering with fanatic loyalty to the
law. It was the realization of the validity of mercy, a sudden awareness
that justice alone is not enough, that shattered him. It was his whole
world, his whole being, and to understand that your modus operandi is
not only fallible, but also not the only correct way, was too much. Yes,
it can be perceived as a kind of cowardice; for Javert, it was armor,
and it failed him.

Okay. Snape. I think he has not always been so rules-oriented. I think
he's in some sort of "pause" mode. His reliance on the importance of
rules seems to me not on the same scale as Javert's. Snape is sitting
back enforcing rules and taking points like a tired man sitting in an
easy chair. It's not his armor, so much as what he happens to be doing
right now. He just doesn't feel as inflexible as Javert.

Rules and such seem important to Snape, but on a more intellectual, less
"gut" level than they do to Javert. For Javert, they are the fabric of
the universe. For Snape, they are a non-emotional means to view and
interact with the world. I think in his past he was not the contained,
controlled man we see now; it is always an invoking of the past, of old
associations or old relationships, that provoke the emotion in him,
including the insane emotional scene in PoA.

I was surprised that I came up with the thought that Snape has
resonances with Eponine's character. But I think he does. I think there
was a lost love interest, whoever she was and whatever happened to her.
I think it likely that his position as a Death Eater and his inability
to reveal that he was a spy (for both of their protections), lost him
that love. And he had to see her go to someone else. And let her go--for
the good of the ultimate goal, for the worth of his word to Dumbledore,
for her safety, for her happiness, for whatever reason. And clamped
firmly down on the emotional side, the side that is most open to "gray,"
and sat back in that easy-chair Rules mode. I don't think he'd stirred
from the mode much in the intervening years, until here came Harry, and
started old emotions percolating.

His is the personality who would have hated anyone else that the object
of his affection chose (whether it be James' taking Lily, or any other
man taking another woman he loved). And if his role as spy, which might
have cost him that love, also required him to act to protect the hated
person, and he did it anyway out of love for the lady, why, there you
have a very sulky, nasty, mean Eponine. Who did not die, but who might
as well have, for all the emotion he lets show anymore.

I hope that made some kind of sense; I'm trying to take intangibles and
put them into words. But I sense some sort of sacrifice in Snape's past,
some sort of deliberate choice to be what and where he is, which cost
him something he wanted. I don't think Javert ever opened himself to any
sort of emotional pain; he'd cut off his emotions before he really
learned to use them. I think Snape had had more and made a choice to
lose it, for whatever reason, and has accepted emotional pain. Thus the
resonance to Eponine.

I don't, for the record, think the main irritant to Snape was ever a
lack of public recognition. Snape has never indicated that he assigns
the slightest importance to what anyone else thinks, saving probably
Dumbledore and McGonagall (and perhaps a few other teachers). The people
he values know his choices and worth; I doubt he gives a tinker's damn
for the opinions of people he doesn't value. His ambition, I think,
follows such private avenues, and does not actively seek public acclaim
(although he, like most of us, probably wouldn't mind...).

--Amanda, longwinded on her favorite subject


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