Canon Draco // Snape & Personality Disorder // Only Children

[catlady_de_los_angeles]

No: HPFGUIDX 37996

In which quite a few of the things I say have already been said by 
other people.

Manda R[ickman?] Cleveland wrote:

<< First, when Malfoy enters their compartment, he and his buddies 
are described as looking "more pleased with themselves, more arrogant 
and more menacing, than Harry had ever seen them." In the next 
paragraph, it says that Malfoy has a smirk "quivering on his lips" 
(both quotes GoF, US Edition, p 729). Perhaps it's just the word 
choice there, but I'm a bit confused as to how a "quivering" smirk 
leads to the appearance initially described. To me, quivering 
indicates a *lack* of confidence, not an excess of it. >>

I interpreted a smirk "quivering" on his lips as meaning that he was 
trying unsuccessfully to suppress the smirk and keep a straight face 
and look dignified and intimidating. Your suggestion, that he was 
faking the smirk, is encouraging, because the thing that troubles me 
MOST about canon Draco is that that crack about "Mudbloods and 
Muggle-lovers first! Well -- second -- Diggory was the f--" is so 
STUPID! You just DON'T nitpick and correct yourself in the middle of 
making dramatic threats (or warnings).

Marina Rusalka wrote:

<< But if Cedric Diggory's death hasn't made him start questioning if 
Voldemort is really good, then what the heck will it take? Cedric was 
not a Mudblood, and while he may have been a Muggle-lover, we don't 
see him conspicuously hanging around with any Muggle-borns the way 
Ron and Harry do. >>

Unless Cho Chang is, as I believe, Muggle-born. But I imagine that IF 
he had been thinking of Cedric as a Muggle-lover, he wouldn't have 
felt any need to correct his statement "Mudbloods and Muggle-lovers 
first, well, second". 

<< He's a nice, pureblood wizard from an inoffensive house. There's 
no indication that he ever had any problems with Draco. Now he's dead 
just 'cause he happened to be standing next to Harry at the wrong 
time -- and Draco doesn't seem to see anything wrong with that. >>

I find it all too easy to believe that Draco had enough grudges 
against Cedric to feel vindicated by his death. First, he may well 
have been raised to hate the Diggories as much as the Weasleys: the 
Diggories may not be as impoverished as the Weasleys, but Amos's 
accent seems even lower class, and Amos (maybe his ancestors as well) 
was fighting on the side of the MoM and Arthur against the Dark Side. 
Second, Cedric and Draco competed directly against each other in 
Quidditch, as both were Seekers: maybe Cedric had beaten Draco to the 
Snitch. The frequent mention of Cedric's good looks suggests a third 
possiblity: that some girl (or boy) who had rejected Draco was making 
goo-goo eyes at Cedric. If he really believed in purity of blood (to 
me it is obvious that he believes not in purity of blood but in 
primacy of Malfoys) but let his personal spite blind him to what an 
excellent recruit to the Dark Lord's cause the pureblooded and 
talented (he must be both talented and powerful, to have been chosen 
Triwizard Candidate) Cedric would be, that would be yet more 
canon-Draco stupidity.  

Which is a pity, because it would be a more interesting situation if 
Draco had had to resolve his cognitive dissonance by persuading 
himself that it was HARRY who had killed Cedric, perhaps by pushing 
Cedric in front of him as a human shield.

Steph Merlyn Sherlock wrote:

<< Is it possible that Snape may suffer or may have suffered from any 
sort of mental or personality disorder? >>

Who doesn't? 

Besides, probably everyone who lived through the Voldemort Years is 
suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.

<<SCHIZOID PERSONALITY DISORDER
Personality disorder characterized by at least 3 of the following: 
(a) few, if any, activities, provide pleasure; 
(b) emotional coldness, detachment or flattened affectivity; 
(c) limited capacity to express either warm, tender feelings or anger 
towards others; 
(d) apparent indifference to either praise or criticism; 
(e) little interest in having sexual experiences with another person 
(taking into account age); 
(f) almost invariable preference for solitary activities; 
(g) excessive preoccupation with fantasy and introspection; 
(h) lack of close friends or confiding relationships (or having only 
one) and of desire for such relationships; 
(i) marked insensitivity to prevailing social norms and conventions. 
>>

Definitely not THAT one! The first four points are SO unlike him that 
the others can't matter. (a) Besides getting enough pleasure from 
Potions that he writes love poetry about them ("the beauty of the 
softly simmering cauldron with its shimmering fumes"), he also 
greatly enjoys taunting Gryffindors (and Lockhart). (b) and (c) A 
person who can fly into such staggering rages (as in The Shrieking 
Shack) doesn't have flattened affectivity nor limited capacity to 
express anger. (d) He shows such a desperate craving for praise that 
he *fawns* on the unworthy Fudge in hope of getting the Order of 
Merlin. Such an objection to being criticised at all that it drives 
him into rages.

<<PARANOID PERSONALITY DISORDER:
Personality disorder characterized by at least 3 of the following: 
(a) excessive sensitiveness to setbacks and rebuffs; 
(b) tendency to bear grudges persistently, i.e. refusal to forgive 
insults and injuries or slights; 
(c) suspiciousness and a pervasive tendency to distort experience by 
misconstruing the neutral or friendly actions of others as hostile or 
contemptuous; 
(d) a combative and tenacious sense of personal rights out of keeping 
with the actual situation; 
(e) recurrent suspicions, without justification, regarding sexual 
fidelity of spouse or sexual partner; 
(f) tendency to experience excessive self-importance, manifest in a 
persistent self-referential attitude; 
(g) preoccupation with unsubstantiated "conspiratorial" explanations 
of events both immediate to the patient and in the world at large. >>

With the possible exception of (e), that's dear Sevvie, all right. 
Grudges, unjustified suspiciousness of other people's motives, 
conspiratorial explanations ... 20 years later he is still blaming 
Lupin for the Prank... he got angry at Hermione (on the first day of 
class first year) for answering his questions; God only knows what 
evil motive he attributed to her, when it's obvious to the rest of us 
that she was trying to *please* him.

<<DISSOCIAL (Antisocial) PERSONALITY DISORDER
Personality disorder, usually coming to attention because of a gross 
disparity between behaviour and the prevailing social norms, and 
characterized by at least 3 of the following: 
(a) callous unconcern for the feelings of others; 
(b) gross and persistent attitude of irresponsibility and disregard 
for social norms, rules and obligations; 
(c) incapacity to maintain enduring relationships, though having no 
difficulty in establishing them; 
(d) very low tolerance to frustration and a low threshold for 
discharge of aggression, including violence; 
(e) incapacity to experience guilt and to profit from experience,  
particularly punishment; 
(f) marked proneness to blame others, or to offer plausible 
rationalizations, for the behaviour that has brought the patient into 
conflict with society. >>

I'm not convinced that Snape's behaviour is GROSSLY disparate with 
prevailing WIZARDING social norms. Remember, even calm, gentle, kind 
Remus is about to kill Peter in cold blood until Harry tells him not 
to. Revenge and (justified) killing seem to be part of the norms. 
He's not (b) irresponsible: he teaches the full curriculum of Potions 
and he grades fairly: when Lucius was bawling out Draco, he said a 
girl of no wizarding blood whatsoever (that would be Hermione) had 
gotten better marks than him in every class (that would include 
Potions); he is (g) supremely skilled at feeling guilty about his 
Death Eating days (I don't think I can PROVE that by canon, but isn't 
it obvious?); and I would say he's the OPPOSITE of (c): I don't see 
him establishing non-hostile relationships easily, but he seems to 
have maintained his various collegial relationships with Filch, 
McGonagall, etc, over the years of his teaching career. (Filch whom 
he trusts to bandage his leg bitten by Fluffy. McGonagall who backs 
him up instantly when he invited Lockhart to rescue Ginny from the 
Basilisk.)

Jamie Lipton wrote:

> Why do so many wizarding families seem to have only one child? 

Maybe they only have one child AT A TIME. Wizarding folk live a lot 
longer than Muggles, maybe twice as long (JKR said Dumbledor is 150, 
McGonagall is 70), so it could be that a witch's child-bearing years 
are age 18 to 80 instead of 18 to 40. So a couple could space their 
children 20 years apart and nonetheless have 4 children.