[HPforGrownups] Re: Lupin & Snape as teachers/Sirius in Azkaban

[Monika Huebner]

No: HPFGUIDX 12044

On Fri, 09 Feb 2001 20:30:43 -0600, Amanda Lewanski <editor at texas.net>
wrote:

>Are you willing to make the choice to let your
>child run a life-endangering risk, on the basis of someone else's
>evaluation? Even a most puissant wizard?

>Snape's a very unpleasant, mean teacher. I'd probably be sending owls in
>Dumbledore's direction if my child were harassed in his class. But
>still--Snape may cause some psychological echoes down the line. But most
>of those can be overcome, or understood, or dealt with, without
>effectively making the affected person a pariah.

While I can see your points, I still cannot entirely agree with them.
Maybe you would send owls to Dumbledore to complain about Snape, but I
think a lot of parents wouldn't. In fact, nobody does. Maybe I have
had too many unpleasant teachers at school myself not to see the
problem here. My parents did never complain about a teacher because
they believed it wouldn't change anything or would even make things
worse. Teachers are still kind of "almighty" in the eyes of a lot of
people who haven't followed a higher education. It's sad, but that is
how I see it. And if you don't see the problem of what you call
"psychological echoes", you won't deal with it or understand it, let
alone help your child to overcome it. 

>There is no comparison between Lupin's actual, if small, severe danger,
>and Snape's snottiness.

Prolonged snottiness can be devastating, too, of course on a very
different level than lycanthropy.

>It is part of the tragedy of Lupin's character that he is such a
>wonderful teacher, and cannot teach. However, I'm betting that the
>burden of the lycanthropy is part of what has tempered him to be such a
>wonderful personality (I think one of those Greek drama terms covers
>this kind of irony).

I agree here. He has learned not to lose his temper and keep control
in every possible situation very early (except for the nights of full
moon). In this sense, he certainly is one of the most tragic
characters in the series.

>Well, for one, I'm not prepared to say Neville is *terrified* all the
>time. He certainly is in Snape's classes, but while he is uncertain of
>himself and insecure, I think terrified is a bit of a reach. 

Maybe "terrified" is a bit strong a term, but I really don't think he
is a very happy boy. Almost everyone is picking at him, including
sometimes his own friends. He may be more vulnerable to Snape's
snottiness than the other students are, but since nobody really cares
for the cause of his problems (and I don't think of the other students
here who don't know it until GoF), but even his family only tries to
treat his "symptoms" without getting to the root of the problem.


Stephanie, fred_and_george_weasley at yahoo.com wrote:

> All my other 
>girl friends who are fans think that Sirius is the sexy one, no, not 
>for me, Remus has far deeper problems than just jail, and he's still 
>so gentle (well, most of the time anyway)....

Although Lupin is one of my favorites, too and I certainly can see his
tragedy, I'll have to disagree here. Azkaban is not "just" jail, it's
pure psychological torture. It's not as if you are sitting in a more
or less comfortable cell with television, radio and books and go to
work with other prisoners every day. Think about it. Prisoners in
Azkaban are alone in their cells, with no one to talk to and nothing
to occupy themselves. Sirius was a high security prisoner and heavily
guarded, there were dementors in front of his door all the time. The
fact that he didn't lose his mind doesn't mean that they didn't affect
him. Dementors cause clinical depression; if you already have clinical
depression, they cannot make you much worse, but their presence will
prevent you of ever getting out of it. You may tell me that Sirius
managed to get out of it somehow, but it took him twelve years and he
needed a really strong trigger. I have compared Azkaban to the
concentration camps during WWII in an older post, and I maintain that
the effects of being held prisoner there would be similar.

Monika


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