Snape as teacher

[lea.macleod at gmx.net]

No: HPFGUIDX 17318

I just love how everytime someone mentiones Snape on this board, you 
can rely on a handful of certain people immediately to come up with 
either a wholehearted defence or a wholehearted condamnation!

Here´s another condamnation by Magda:
 
> I don't think Snape knows anymore what his emotions are.  Of all the
> adults in the book (and I'm including Uncle Vernon and Aunt 
Petunia), Snape is the most child-like.  Not to be confused with 
childish, although he is that occasionally too.  
> His feelings are right under the surface, just like lava under the
> weakening rock of a volcano's rim, and when they surge, everybody
> better be out of range to avoid flying projectiles. 

That´s true regarding his behaviour in the shrieking shack and 
afterwards. But emotional eruptions are only part of how he deals with 
difficult situations. 

He doesn´t strike me as a "loud" person at all - on the contrary, 
Snape getting really dangerous means Snape going almost silent. His 
voice is reduced to whispering, if he finds it necessary to speak at 
all - like curling his lip at Lockhart at the duelling club and then 
knocking him out - clean and quick and never a word too much.

He´s a modell of self-control even in extraordinary circumstances - 
that´s as long as he´s the one in control of the situation.

"Give me a reason", he whispered. "Give me a reason to do it, and I 
swear I will."

That´s Snape at his best, Snape at the height of his power, and I find 
nothing childish or uncontrolled in that (except Severus couldn´t 
resist putting as much pathos into that phrase as he could).

He gets a bit loud when he feels things are getting out of hand, 
though, like in the shrieking shack in PoA or with Moody in "the egg 
and the eye" in GoF. But that´s hardly surprising.

> LIke a child, his likes and dislikes assume a huge significance in
> his own eyes and he is totally incapable of any perspective on the
> matter.

Come on Magda, that´s *human*.

 >>Even the "swooping around like an overgrown bat" (as Quirrell put 
it) is more child-like than grown-up.  He's trying to make an effect; 
he thinks he does.<<

I heartily disagree. Snape likes to put on a bit of effect when it 
comes to assuring his authority over the students - like his sudden, 
startling appearance outside the castle at the beginning of CoS. Makes 
me jump everytime I read it.

But as soon as there is someone more important around (like Dumbledore 
or Fudge), Snape very readily steps back into the shadows and lets the 
others do the talking, until it is time for him to come up with 
something important again. Take a look at the "parting of the ways" 
chapter in GoF. Snape is present throughout, but you don´t even 
realise it until he steps out of the back row to show Fudge the Dark 
Mark (mark that *this* is what really puts an end to the discussion 
Fudge has maintained up to that point).

>>Can anyone  even imagine Snape in a crowd of people outside of 
Hogwarts?  Does he ever go anywhere there are large numbers of adults 
around?  He didn't go to the Quidditch World Cup.  Does he go down to 
Hogsmeade occasionally to kick back a Flaming Dragon's Blood (hold the 
cherry) at the Three Broomsticks?<<

There may be a hundred reasons why he doesn´t (or why we don´t know 
whether he does, to be exact). Maybe Hogwarts is a kind of exile for 
him, a hiding place from angry DEs. Maybe he just isn´t interested in 
Quidditch, or he´s a prohibitionis. All I´m sure of is that he´s not 
lacking social contacts because he fears he won´t be noticed properly, 
but because of other reasons. Bad experiences, I´d say. The same goes 
for the girls question. Blasting rose-bushes out of his way and 
reading out Rita Skeeter articles in class could  be a sign he doesn´t 
really know anything about it, but it could just as well mean he´s had 
enough of it to last him a lifetime. That´s even more probable, IMO.

> And what kind of a teacher would you have if you put a child in
> charge of a class?  One that would delight in his ability to torment
> people he didn't like, knowing they couldn't respond, but who would
> refretfully acknowledge that there were boundaries he couldn't pass;
> one who would take pleasure in other kids' also tormenting those he
> didn't like and who would show his favour to those kids without any
> sense that favourtism is inappropriate.
> 
> In short you would get Snape, the biggest kid at Hogwarts.>

This is about teaching qualities again so I won´t comment on it.

> His bullying of the students has always struck me as the restrained 
and sulky actions of a man who knows he's not allowed to do anything 
REALLY bad; A sign of  powerlessness, actually, rather than power. >

Can´t resist here, though.
Maybe Snape is not allowed to do something really bad, but I´m sure as 
well he doesn´t want to.
There must of course be a reason for his meanness, and I think we can 
agree that part of it is hiding his inner weaknesses, fears, lack of 
self-confidence, whatever.

But Magda´s comment seems to assume generally that Snape is at heart 
an *evil* person. I on the contrary am convinced that he is at heart a 
*good* person, only it´s buried so deep somewhere under the events and 
experiences in his past that he  really will have trouble digging it 
up again.

 I´d even go as far as saying the only person we can be *sure* about 
not to go over to the dark side (apart from Harry, maybe) is Snape.