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!
More information about the HPforGrownups
archive