Snape & the DEs

[ssk7882]

No: HPFGUIDX 35360

Porphyria wrote:

> In the end, of course, the interpretation that appeals to a given 
> person is entirely subjective, and I can only hope that I've sort 
> of answered her original question as to why a given speculation 
> appeals, if not in general, at least to me.

You have -- very much so -- and thank you for the discussion.  I 
agree with your implication that we seem to have pretty well wrapped 
up that particular line of exploration.  So on to the loose 
interpretive ends!

> See I tend to see intellect as the efflorescence of instinct: 
> simply put, people actually do tend to use their intellect to 
> justify their impulses. And there is some evidence that Snape has 
> protective instincts interspersed with his vicious ones. Not 
> sentimental instincts, but still protective ones. 

<nods>  I would agree with that.  And so I suppose I should mitigate 
my earlier description of Snape as a man whose instincts "all lead 
him in one unerring direction."  You're quite right: they don't "all."

On the question of whether or not he's got a taste for physical 
sadism, though...while I most certainly do read him as having one, 
and while I am unlikely to change my mind on that without canonical 
opposition, it isn't really an issue in which I have all that much 
emotionally invested (unlike, say, my insistence on reading the DEs 
as "greyer-than-black").  

I think that I tend to read him that way in part because he *is* such 
a larger-than-life character, and because he exists in a fictive 
universe that is in many ways far more exaggerated -- and far more 
savage -- than our own.  It just seems to fit, somehow, to me to read 
him as somebody who did indeed have a visceral appreciation for that 
sense of ultimate power over another human being.

The main reason, though, that I think I read him that way is this:

> Snape definitely has a taste for psychological torture and he 
> indulges himself in this whenever he has the chance. But I'm not 
> convinced that he doesn't make a qualitative distinction between 
> mental violence and physical violence. He's almost never the 
> latter...

The fact that he *does* indulge himself in his taste for verbal and
psychological cruelty every chance he gets, while never engaging in
the slightest bit of unwarranted (or at least, as you point out, 
*uninvited*) physical violence, is my main reason, I think, for 
suspecting that he genuinely does have a taste for the latter.

As I see it, Snape is somebody who works very hard at trying to do 
the right thing, trying not to descend into whatever it is that he
fears that he once was.  The fact that he shows not even the slightest
sign of *trying* to restrain himself when it comes to psychological 
sadism indicates to my mind that he really doesn't think that sort of 
thing very important.  To his mind, it doesn't count.  He's allowed
to indulge himself in that way, because that's not "real" cruelty, 
not "real" Darkness.

Which to my mind begs the question of what Snape *would* consider
"real."  What are the things that he would on some level like to be 
doing, or that he once enjoyed, but that he will never again allow 
himself to do?  

In short, I certainly agree with you that Snape makes a qualitative
distinction between mental violence and physical violence.  I would 
say that he considers the former acceptable, and the latter 
unacceptable.  But given what we know of his past, and given how 
readily and unhesitatingly -- and even *gleefully* -- he indulges 
himself in the former, my strong suspicion is that the latter is 
something that he once did enjoy, and that he fears he might still 
enjoy, even while believing it to be utterly morally unacceptable.

> I can't help but think if JKR had intended the reader to see him as 
> having a propensity for physical violence she would have found a
> way to depict that by now. . . . but if he does have a taste for it 
> he seems to have sublimated it quite effectively into it's 
> psychological equivalent.

Well, you see, to my mind JKR most certainly *has* depicted that 
propensity.  She's depicted it all along, through her (quite vivid, 
IMO) depictions of his sublimation. 

But clearly where I automatically read sublimation, others equally 
instinctively read preference, so perhaps not.

But at any rate, as I said before, it's not really all that important 
to me whether or not Severus Snape has an unfortunate taste for real 
live sadism.  I remain convinced that he does, but should it turn out 
that he never really cared for it at all, that would necessitate 
only a very minor revision of my reading of the character.  And 
honestly, I'm hoping that we never find out one way or the other.  
I'm not prepared for the series to get quite *that* dark.  I'd really 
just rather not go there at all, to tell you the truth.

<Is Snape really written as sympathetic?>

> > Well, of course he is!  

> See, in your post that I was replying to you stated that JKR
> "seems, overall, to like the character far less than many of her 
> readers do" and here I feel like you're chiding me for stating the 
> obvious. :-) 

I'm sorry.  I didn't mean to chide.  Sometimes I fall into the error
of assuming points of agreement before they've really yet been 
established as such, and when that happens, then the tone can easily 
go astray.  I didn't mean to sound obnoxious there.

To clarify, what I meant before about JKR liking the character less 
than many of her readers do was that she strikes me as impressively 
hard-nosed about him.  I do think that she likes him, but she never 
allows herself to get *soft* about him, if you know what I mean.  She 
doesn't smooth his edges, and she never allows the authorial voice to 
waver in its depiction of his less savory characteristics.  This is 
particularly impressive given the books' serialized nature: serials 
often have a nasty tendency to "soften up" harsh or ambiguous 
characters, particularly when these characters prove popular with 
fans.  JKR never does that.  She lets what's nasty about Snape stay 
nasty.

I seem to remember that we were talking about Snape's taste in 
companions back when I made that comment.  My point there, if I'm 
remembering correctly, was that I didn't think that just because JKR 
likes/understands/sympathizes/identifies with the character, she 
necessarily falls into the trap of thinking that he would like *her,* 
for example, or that he would care for the sorts of people that she 
cares for as companions, or that his preferences in human 
companionship would have very much to do at all with her own.  Which 
may seem dead obvious, perhaps, but given that Rowling is effectively 
a first-time author writing what has proven to be an immensely-
popular-beyond-any-possible-expectation series, it isn't necessarily 
a *given.*  Writers, particularly young writers, get sucked into that 
trap all the time.

I agree with you that Snape is written to be sympathetic, both on the 
dead simple "gets the best lines" level and on the more sophisticated 
human level.  I brought up the first there primarily because I had 
been assuming (incorrectly, it would seem) that we were in 
fundamental agreement on the second point already, and so wanted to 
take the opportunity to touch upon ways in which I felt that Rowling
laid the *groundwork* for reader sympathy for Snape.  I do think that 
she uses the "Villain With Style" phenomenon quite consciously and 
deliberately in PS/SS to prime the reader's sympathy from very early 
on in the game, and I think it rather clever, the way that she does 
that.  

> I mean real sympathy, the sympathy you'd feel for a guy who tries 
> in his own weird way to do the *right* thing and nearly always 
> winds up being construed as the bad guy on account of it. The 
> particular scene that I find wrenching is the staircase encounter 
> in GoF where, as we come to find, Snape is being quite viciously
> tormented by someone who really is a bad guy who is plunging for 
> the one raw nerve he knows Snape has. 

I find that scene wrenching as well.  There the poor man is, he's in 
a very vulnerable situation -- while we haven't hit Pensieve yet, or 
even Padfoot, there have been more than enough hints already dropped 
into the text at that point for the attentive reader to have quite a 
few ideas about what sorts of things might be troubling Severus 
Snape -- he's in his *nightshirt,* for God's sake -- he doesn't even 
have the psychological protection of being fully-dressed -- and 
Crouch is standing there nailing him on every sore spot he can find.  
It's terrible (and it only gets worse on re-reading), and I think 
that Snape's quite clearly written there to gain our sympatheties.

But for me, the end of PoA is infinitely worse.

> Snape's breakdown at the end of PoA is quite similar in that he 
> *thought* he was bringing a psycho-killer to justice, and somehow 
> that whole situation just didn't work out for him. You mention this 
> scene yourself...

> > I mean, really.  What sort of heartless monster *wouldn't* 
> > sympathize with Snape at the end of PoA, when he disintegrates 
> > utterly into his raving "Curses, Foiled Again, and Damn You, You 
> > Meddling Kids" hysteria?  You'd just have to be made of *stone,* 
> > wouldn't you?

> ...but I'm afraid I'm not quite sure if you're being facetious here 
> or not. :-) I'm arguing that one actually *can* read this scene 
> with a sympathetic eye to Snape without construing it as an 
> iteration of a Scooby Doo episode. Well, maybe it's just me.

Again, sorry about the facetious tone.  It clearly masked my intent 
there, rather than enhancing it as it was meant to do; and again, I 
apologize if I came across as sounding intolerably snarky.

You see, what makes the end of PoA so much more sympathy-inducing, to 
my way of thinking, then even Egg and the Eye *is* its very 
cartoonishness.  It's the fact that Snape, whose interpretation of 
events is perfectly reasonable under the circumstances, and who has 
behaved with extraordinary courage and commitment and even honor in 
trying to save Harry from murderous Black and his werewolf co-
conspirator Lupin, and who has found the children he was trying to
protect to be not only unappreciative but even downright hostile -- 
they actually *attack* him -- and who seems to be finally about to 
get some recognition for a change, should then have to degenerate 
into a form of hysteria that seems to conform so neatly to the very 
image that has led him to be so mistrusted and disliked and 
underappreciated in the first place.  

Snape's temper tantrum at the end of PoA *is* more than a little 
reminiscent of Snidely Whiplash snarling "Curses, Foiled Again!" and 
it has more than a touch of the "And I would have gotten away with it 
too, if it weren't for those meddling kids!" speech of every Scooby-
Doo villain ever poorly-animated for the small screen as well.  And 
to my mind, that's far more painful than anything in Egg and the Eye, 
because for Snape, that's a really profound failure.  

Snape doesn't fail in Egg and the Eye at all, really.  He's taking it 
on the chin, and he's flinching a bit, but while he may feel 
disappointed with himself for his reaction, he in no way humiliates 
himself.  He doesn't break, and he doesn't make himself appear 
ludicrous.  And perhaps even more to the point, his reactions are 
very...well, human.  Normal.  He's a person in pain, and he's acting 
like a person in pain.

By the end of PoA, we've been given more than enough information to 
understand that Snape really is a person in pain.  But his hysteria 
doesn't come across as "Normal" or "Human" in the least.  To Fudge, 
it comes across as "Madman."  To us (and, I think, to the kids), it 
comes across very much as "Cartoon Villain Destined Always To Be 
Thwarted."

And I think that this is deliberately intended to be sympathetic.  
It's a complicated dynamic, because it encourages sympathy for him on
the level of his *ostensible* literary function (constantly-thwarted 
villainous type) and on the level of his human status (poor Severus 
just can't catch a break, can he?) and then on the third level of his 
role as a person struggling to overcome his *association* with a 
certain literary type (as you said, he's always trying to do the 
right thing and being construed as a villain in spite of it; here 
he fails *dramatically* in his efforts to be perceived as something
other than a villainous stereotype).

And no, I wasn't being facetious at all when I wrote that you'd have 
to have a heart of stone not to sympathize with him there.  I find 
that scene agonizing.  It's just heart-breaking, far more painful, 
IMO, than anything he's forced to undergo in GoF.  


As to Snape's loyalty to House Slytherin, I think that we may be 
running into very much the same difficulties here as I've had earlier 
in discussions about Snape's relationship to his old DE colleagues.  
There sometimes seems to be very little middle ground in people's 
perceptions when it comes to issues of affection, loyalty or regard, 
and I often find myself reacting to this in some rather extreme ways.

For example, in regard to Snape's feelings towards the Slyth kids:

> Does this make sense? I'm saying that under normal circumstances 
> Snape's loyalty would not be an issue at all, but these are far 
> from normal circumstances and he'll have to make some kind of 
> ethical decision somewhere on down the line regarding his students. 
> And I don't think his choice will work to their advantage. 

And this certainly makes sense to me.  I agree: it will not work to 
their advantage, and in very much the same way that his decisions in 
regard to his old DE colleagues did not work to their advantage.

This fact does, however, often seem to get translated into a 
perception of hatred or loathing or contempt, and that's what I find 
difficult to understand, as I just don't see that in the text at 
*all.*  It gets back to that old issue of the possibility of liking 
or of having respect for or of feeling a loyalty to someone, while 
simultaneously working in opposition to them, a concept which seems 
perfectly natural and reasonable to me, but which others seem to find 
intrinsically nonsensical.  Perhaps I am merely treacherous and 
untrustworthy by nature?  ;-)

Of course when the chips are down and it becomes a matter of battle 
lines being drawn, I think that Snape's primary loyalty is to the 
same cause that he risked his life for fifteen years ago.  But that 
does not, to my mind, have strong bearing on the question of, say, 
whether or not he shows favoritism to the Slyth kids when it does 
*not* particularly matter, or on whether or not he identifies with 
them, or on whether or not he acts on behalf of their welfare when it 
does not conflict with his primary loyalty, or on whether or not he 
feels any regard for them.

Snape's motivations in regard to the Slyth kids often seem to me to be
dual.  His sycophantic smirk when Draco tells him that he should 
replace Dumbledore as Headmaster, for example, is obviously 
duplicitous -- Snape has no interest in seeing Dumbledore removed 
from his position -- but I don't read it as completely insincere 
either: he *is* genuinely pleased, I think, to hear the kid say so.  
Similarly, his favoritism of his own House strikes me as far more 
extreme than it needs to be simply to stay in the good graces of all 
the Slyth kids' Daddies.  It is duplicitous in that the secondary 
motive is present, but it is also genuine in that I think that he 
*likes* showing favor to his own House, that he would be doing so 
even if the extenuating circumstances were not present, and that he 
does so even when it is not strictly necessary to maintain his image 
or his position.

The original question here, though, I seem to remember was one of 
primary motive -- "why does Snape favor the Slytherins?" -- and 
really, that's an impossible question to answer.  I think that he 
does so for multiple reasons, and that the question of which is 
the "primary" and which the "secondary" motive is probably not only 
completely context-dependent, but also ultimately unanswerable.  I 
doubt that Snape himself knows how he prioritizes such considerations.


I asked:

> > Has he cracked down on Draco's bullying within House Slytherin 
> > (assuming, that is, that Draco does bully the younger Slyth kids, 
> > which I'm sure that he does, if he's allowed to get away with 
> > it)? 

Porphyria wrote:

> Hey, I thought you were the one arguing that there was a lot of in-
> group loyalty among the Slytherin? ;-) 

Hee!  Clever Porphryia!  Ah, but the thing that nobody noticed (or at 
least, that nobody called me on at the time, although I was terribly 
afraid that somebody would) about all of my proofs defending that 
thesis was that nowhere could I find a single instance of Draco 
himself actually going out of his way for another one of the Slyth 
kids.  All of the examples that involved Draco at all were examples 
of the other Slyth kids defending *him.*

I think that Draco's a lousy Slyth, myself.  Old Salazar would smack 
him upside the head, if he were still around.

Seriously, though, I do think that there's strong suggestion that the 
House places a high value on in-group loyalty -- I stand by that 
notion -- but I also think that Draco himself is a terribly selfish 
boy who would be most unlikely to uphold that principle in practice.  
It would be nice if we'd seen any evidence at all to the contrary, 
but we haven't.  Should he ever take a bullet for Crabbe or Goyle, 
I'll happily eat my words...but I'm not going to hold my breath 
waiting for that to happen.


> ...I think whatever affection he genuinely feels is eclipsed by the 
> complex set of loyalties and deceptions he's caught up in. It's at 
> best a complicated and at worst a deceitful sort of liking going on 
> here.

No disagreements here.  But I tend to view that dynamic as less 
an "eclipse" than a...a waltz, perhaps?  An interweaving?  A tangled 
convoluted mess?

Like I said, it's much as I perceive his entire emotional
relationship to his old DE colleagues, really: as far *far* more 
complicated than either "he hates them but just pretends to like 
them 'cause that's his job" or "he adores them without reservation or 
any need for duplicity" can possibly allow for.  


Both Serpensortia and the Dark Arts I've pulled out to address 
elsewhere, largely because they seemed likely to be of somewhat more 
general interest than our general Snapish ramblings.  ;-)


But as for assorted weird speculative theories...

> And please sign me up for the Fourth Man Theory, I'll take the 
> smorgasbord of options: Imperius, SHIP and remorse, with the full 
> complement of perverse possibilities. 

Yay!  *Now*, verily, there is a drove.  Four people surely a drove 
doth...

<startled look>

Hey, Porphyria!  Do you realize that this makes *you* our Fourth Man?

I'm partial to the Number Three Combination Special -- Imperius, 
SHIP, and Remorse, with assorted perversions on the side -- myself.  
But then, I've a nasty little mind.

> I'd also like to apply for membership to Cupid's Snitch -- that's 
> the most forehead-smackingly convincing theory I've heard in nearly 
> two years of speculation. I second all the gushy posts you're 
> getting.

LOL!  Thank you.  How would you like to defend it for me?  Because 
the sad fact of the matter is that *I* can't force myself to believe 
in Cupid's Snitch for even a second, which makes the prospect of now
being called upon to defend the damned thing a little bit...well, 
dismaying, really.

I do like the idea of Mr. Lestrange calling his wife "Flo," though.  
It's just so terribly incongruous.


-- Elkins, obviously hopelessly out of touch with the zeitgeist.