Snape's Isolation (Was Re: Sirius and Snape frozen in time)

kiricat2001 Zarleycat at aol.com
Fri Feb 1 00:38:54 UTC 2002


No: HPFGUIDX 34428

--- In HPforGrownups at y..., "gypaetus16" <elfriede.schaden at c...> wrote:
 
> Snape does not have friends to discuss his problems, he does not 
have 
> social contacts to overcome the happenings of his Hogwarts time and 
> also of the time as a Death Eater in discussions. IMHO it is only 
> possible to digest and to analyse problems when you speak about 
them 
> with other people who are interested in these problems and if this 
is 
> not the case then you can only discuss your thoughts with yourself 
> which causes rather strange discussions and which does not always 
> provide solutions (in particular when you have to do 
these "yourself-discussions" for ages).
> Obviously Snape was and is not speaking about his problems even 
with 
> Dumbledore, who, I am sure, could help him a lot to change and 
develop 
> his patterns of behaviour.


This is an interesting take on Snape (just when I thought no one 
would find anything new!)

And also a good illustration of the parallels between Severus and 
Sirius.  Severus seems to maintain professional relationships with 
the other Hogwarts' teachers, but doesn't appear to be particularly 
friendly with any of them.  So, yes, he may also have been living in 
isolation, as has Sirius, but a different type of isolation.  

Maybe he's felt that people will always be suspicious of him because 
he was a DE.  Maybe Dumbledore had to pull strings and call in favors 
and jump through hoops to hire Snape because of these suspicions.  On 
the other hand, maybe no one has ever had problems with Snape's past, 
but Snape can't bring himself to believe that.  Maybe Snape does not 
feel worthy to try to interact on a more personal level because he 
carries some sort of guilt for his DE activities, whatever they may 
have been.  So, he both punishes and protects himself by sweeping 
through the halls of Hogwarts in a perpetual cloud of sneering 
disdain, keeping everyone at arms' length.


Marianne, who after all that can almost find herself liking 
Snape...Nah!





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