[HPforGrownups] "Why Excuse Snape"

[Margaret Dean]

No: HPFGUIDX 34472

sing2wine wrote:

> Just as Uncmark asked "Why does everyone hate Hagrid?" (..one of MY
> favorite characters...) I ask "Why is everyone trying to excuse
> Snape?" Why is everyone (even Marianne - who like me, professes to
> dislike Snape!) looking for childhood trauma and unrequited love to
> excuse Snape for ever having become a DE and for the inexcusable way
> in which he treats Harry and Neville and Hermione - and that whole
> class of Gryffindors? 

Well, think carefully.  Are the posters in question really trying
to =excuse= Snape, or are they simply trying to =understand= him
and his motivations?  There's a difference.  The first would be
saying, "I know Snape acts like an awful person, but because of
this and this and this reason, you can't really blame him 'cause
it isn't his fault."  The second is more, "Snape acts like an
awful person, but it appears he's on the Good Guys' side,
anyway.  Man, that's really interesting -- how did THAT happen? 
How does a person come to be that way?"  (The second position is
closest to mine, I'd say.)  Of course, you can ask similar
questions about any character, good or bad, and the answers are
likely to be interesting either way!

One more thing I'd like to point out is that excusing an action,
or the person who did it, is not the same as forgiving it. 
Excusing means that you find or see extenuating circumstances
that put the action in a different light so that it doesn't look
(as) bad anymore.  Forgiveness means saying, "Yes, that was an
awful thing that person did.  There was no excuse for it, it
really was bad.  However, it's in the past, I am not (any longer)
going to hold it against the person; our relationship is off to a
fresh start, beginning now."  Of course, this is only really
effective if the person you're trying to forgive is sorry for
what they did.


--Margaret Dean
  <margdean at erols.com>