[HPforGrownups] Re: Defending a Snape Rant

[Porphyria]

No: HPFGUIDX 34594

Since I'm defending everyone today, it's Snape's turn...

On Sunday, February 3, 2002, at 10:42 AM, cindysphynx wrote:
> I would match Lupin's error rate with Snape's any day.  Snape
> mastered the art of screwing things up long ago.  Here are the Top 10
> reasons Snape is a champion, Grade A, first-class, Number One screw-
> up:
>
> 1.  Snape wants to tip the students that Lupin is a werewolf, but he
> can't get the point across well enough.  He is finally reduced to
> just telling the kids outright:  "Hey guys, did I ever mention that
> Lupin is a werewolf?"  Not very impressive.

This isn't really a screw-up. I always admired Snape's cunning in his 
assignment of the werewolf essay. He's in sort of a bind halfway through 
PoA; he's promised Dumbledore he won't tell anyone about Lupin, but he 
is convinced that Lupin is untrustworthy and perhaps he feels the 
students ought to at least have the pertinent information about 
werewolves in general (and Lupin in particular) on hand. Sneaky and 
slimy to assign an essay, yes, but smart. It wasn't his fault if 
Hermione was the only student smart enough to take a tip.

I don't think his blurting out the truth about Lupin at the end of the 
book is an extension of the same action as assigning the essay. Halfway 
through the book Snape only suspects Lupin's guilt; at the end of the 
book he is sure of it -- mistaken, but sure. When he finally finds Lupin 
in the shack with Sirius he states "I've told the Headmaster again and 
again that you've been helping your old friend Black into the castle, 
Lupin, and here's the proof." He never witnesses anything to make him 
change his mind. So IMHO he justifies spilling the beans this way, and 
he no longer needs to make the ethical trade-off of dropping hints. He 
just wants to make the truth known, he's not trying to be clever, and so 
blurting it out has a different motive than assigning the essay.

> 2.  He picked the Forces of Evil instead of the Forces of Good by
> becoming a DE in the first place. 

Would you call this a screw-up? Tragic mistake, yes, but given what we 
know about his early childhood (precocious familiarity with curses) he 
might have come from a family of DE's who considered it very logical and 
appropriate for him to join up with them. Not everyone can be born good 
like James. :-P

> 3.  A ten-year old girl solved Snape's potions obstacle in about 1
> minute.

But that was the coolest of all the protections! Hermione states herself 
that lots of wizards lack logic, which would make this challenge a bit 
of a trick question; for someone counting on relying on their magical 
power, they might wind up a little stumped. Or poisoned. Also, I seem to 
remember the Devil's Snare and Fluffy were just as easily dispatched if 
you knew the trick.

[The potions protection always reminded me of the sort of question one 
finds on an LSAT, which is the exam that one takes to gain admission to 
American law schools, or the analytic portion of the GRE, which one 
takes for admission to most other American graduate school programs. Is 
there any equivalent in the British system?]

>
> 4.  Snape, a fully-qualified wizard, can't figure out the Marauder's
> Map, but Fred and George, underage students, could.

For one thing, Snape had already figured out that the parchment is 
"instructions to get into Hogsmeade without passing the Dementors." It's 
an educated guess, but one which is confirmed by Harry's blinking. Then 
Snape only spent a minute poking at the map before he knew all he felt 
he needed to know, which was it's source, the manufacturers. (I think 
Snape knows who MMWP are because Lupin kind of confirms this when he 
talks to Harry afterwards; Harry asks Lupin why Snape thought he got it 
from the manufacturers and Lupin replies that it's because the mapmakers 
would have thought it funny to lure him out of school. This might be a 
lapse in Lupin's logic, but I interpret it to mean that the nicknames 
MMWP are known to Snape, and Lupin realizes this.) In any case I think 
Snape sniffed out an amazing amount of information in a short time -- if 
he'd kept the map for himself he might have eventually cracked it.

>
> 5.  Snape lets Moody intimidate him into not investigating who had
> burgled his office.  He also used a locking charm that Moody broke
> rather handily, not once, but twice.

I wouldn't underestimate the extraordinary cunning of Crouch Jr. to use 
Snape's guilty conscience as a weapon against him. Few things can derail 
Snape from his obsessive detective work, but this does with terrible 
effectiveness. Crouch puts Snape in a terrible bind; right off the bat 
he implies that Snape is already guilty of stocking illegal substances 
(or some incriminating evidence) in his office, then he inserts a 
metaphorical knife into Snape's ribcage and twists it around by implying 
that Dumbledore doesn't trust him and bringing up Snape's DE past, then 
to top this off Crouch implies that if Snape is prowling around after 
dark it's with the purpose of doing some harm to Harry. Quadruple ouch! 
Snape has to back down to simultaneously keep "Moody" from betraying the 
secret of his past to random people (like Filch) and from getting him 
framed for intending harm to Harry. Crouch absolutely does a number on 
Snape here, but it requires quite an effort.

Snape as much as admits that the locking charm on his office is 
breakable by a wizard; evidently he only intended to keep out Peeves and 
less talented students. His lapse was in trusting his fellow faculty, 
not in being incapable of a better locking charm.

>
> 6.  An 11-year old girl crept into Snape's office and stole more
> potions ingredients again.

This I admit was a brilliant move on Hermione's part; she was actually a 
lot smarter to do it right under Snape's nose during the middle of class 
than Crouch Jr. who did it late a night just like any other burglar.

>
> 7.  Snape can't prove that Harry went to Hogsmeade, when all he had
> to do was threaten to burn the map unless Harry came clean.

Ron ran in at exactly the right moment and provided an alibi for them 
map; plus Lupin was already there and appropriating the map for himself. 
There wasn't much else Snape could do at that point; it was one against 
three. Plus, burning the map would in no way guarantee that Harry would 
tell him the truth.

>
> 8.  Snape may have allowed Fudge to bring the dementor to Moody's
> office, where it promptly sucked out Crouch Jr.'s soul, making him as
> responsible or even more responsible than McGonagall.

Other people have argued a lot about this in past posts; suffice it to 
say that Snape probably didn't see this one coming, and contradicting 
the Minister of Magic's demand for a bodyguard might have been way above 
Snape's authority. Fudge can probably fire Dumbledore if he wants to; 
Snape has little recourse.

>
> 9.  He is responsible for Peter's escape, and as a result,
> Voldemort's re-birth.  Had he listened in the Shrieking Shack, there
> would have been an additional wizard there to keep control of the
> situation. 

Peter's escape *is* the result of a mistake on Snape's part; although 
even Dumbledore admits that Snape's assessment of the situation (that 
the children were confounded) is more convincing, and that Sirius hasn't 
been acting like an innocent man. Snape was still doing what he thought 
was right, however misguided. I have an impish inclination to blame the 
others in the shack for not reviving Snape (maybe binding him up, then 
reviving him) when they should have -- it would have helped matters 
quite a bit.

Since there are several other factors responsible for Voldemort's 
return, I'd say Snape bears only a small part of the blame here.

  <Snape also might have Crouch Sr.'s blood on his hands for
needlessly detaining Harry as Harry searched for Dumbledore.>

Oh, but it was only for a few seconds! I'm sure Crouch Jr. would have 
found a way to kill dear old Dad no matter what.

>
> 10.  Experienced dueler that Snape is, he allowed three underage
> wizards to disarm him.  This occurred because Snape didn't have the
> good sense to disarm the kids right away (note that Lupin did disarm
> the students when he arrived in the Shack).   

Probably because he was convinced he was *on the children's side* and 
didn't expect that they'd attack him for trying to save them. (When 
Lupin came rushing in it was for the purpose of stopping all activity 
until he found out the truth about Pettigrew, and when he came in he 
found Harry already with his wand raised, so no, he wasn't taking any 
chances until he found out what was going on. Which was prudent, yes.)  
Plus, for Snape it was three against one, and we know that combined 
spells are proportionately stronger than single ones. I don't think 
dueling is usually so uneven. :-)

OK, Snape is vulnerable, but I wouldn't call him a screw-up. He's more 
unlucky than untalented.

~~Porphyria




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