Emotional Snape, Mrs Figg's cabbage aroma, genie Voldemort

[Tabouli]

No: HPFGUIDX 38184

Naama:
> Let's see if you can explain away, at one go, his treatment of Harry, Neville AND Hermione (not to mention his overall nastiness to practically 
everybody around him). <

Porphyria:
> Snape's scarred and angry personality is one of the reasons that I find 
it hard to believe that he actually is fond of Draco and that his 
evident kindness to him is not due to some tactical reason to keep 
Lucius happy, for example. I think the only genuine, undisguised, 
undiluted, unguarded emotion that Snape expresses in public is fury; 
everything else strikes me as a little suspicious.<

Mmmmyes, though in my experience that's not uncommon among men.  In fact, I believe the stiff upper lip which no emotion but anger can pass (except, perhaps, at sporting events) is considered a highly desirable state among the English, particularly the upper class English.  Showing weakness in public?  How common!  Notice, for example, that the boys in the Potterverse go to great lengths to avoid the shame of public tears, even Harry at the end of GoF, where you'd think he could cut himself a break and have a good bawl.

All the same, I'm not sure how well Snape fits the standard stiff upper lip bill.  The ideal of lofty, unruffled, understated disdain is hardly what Snape achieves.  Much as we get the impression he'd like to be cool, eloquent and forbidding (witness that poetic opening speech in PS/SS), he's a bubbling pit of emotions, battering against his stiff upper lip like tsunami, bursting out in the form of spite and menace and, occasionally (e.g. the end of PoA) shrieks of rage.  It could be that he wasn't raised to the stiff upper lip, and has tried to reconstruct it himself; it could be that the torment he has endured in his life is far in excess of the usual upper class woe, and the Lip just isn't enough to contain it.  Or both.

As for Snape's bullying ways, in my experience the most vicious bullies are those who have been bullied themselves.  Yes, the victim turned bully syndrome.  It lends support to my theory that Snape was badly mistreated by his carers as a child (witness all those curses he'd learned by *11*... who did he plan to use them on?).  Horrible business, being bullied and abused by people you're dependent on.  Not much to his credit if he has, indeed, subconsciously repeated the pattern by bullying his students as an adult.  But not impossible.  Not at all.

Then there's also the hint that Sirius may have been involved with bullying, or at least taunting Snape in high school.  Not that I see Sirius as a victim turned bully, far from it, different style altogether.  Sirius is more the cocky popular kid exercising his social dominance by picking on losers.


Nuri
>-I'm 27, from Argentina, just joined today!-

Welcome, welcome.  I'm sure the worthy listmembers will soon come forward with friendly offers of badges and shipping berths...


L. Terrell Gould:
> <<"Mrs. Figg's house smells of cabbage. Cabbage? Well, of course, 
this could just be to stress how old she is<

The most interesting cabbage theory I've heard is the one which revolves on Polyjuice Potion smelling like cabbage, implying that the old cat-loving lady is in fact swigging regularly to disguise her true identity, like all the best A.F.R.I.C.A.N. H.I.P.P.I.E.S.  (Arabella Figg, Redolent In Cabbage, Actually Needs Hourly Ingested Polyjuice Potion Invoking Elderly Shrew).

Barb:
> Um, is Voldemort a genie now? 

(Tabouli is snickering in unseemly fashion).  I like this idea.  In fact, it inspires a new, and, er, R rated acronym... V.I.A.G.R.A. (Voldemort Is A Genie Running Amok, no relation to FIAGRA, which is about Flitwick).  Adds a whole new dimension to "Lord Voldemort had risen again"...

Marina:
> Sprout and Lupin have both demonstrated that Neville can do good work
in a safe and supportive environment.  But Snape, no doubt, would be
thoroughly disgusted by the notion that a person might need the right
environment in order to do well.  "Competent people can work in ANY
situation, dammit!  None of this spoiling and coddling!  If you can't
work under a bit of pressure, you DESERVE to fail!"
>
>The proper response to this, of course, is to stick Snape in a bright
pink room full of teddy bears and frolicking bunnies, pipe in an
endless stream of "Hello, Kitty" songs, and see how well he works
*then*.  <EG>

Whistling innocently, Captain Tabouli glances around for Captain Charis of the Pink Barge ELGINMARBLES...

Tabouli.


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