[HPforGrownups] Re: Snape, the DEs and the Longbottoms

[Allen, Rebecca]

No: HPFGUIDX 33867

Elkins wrote

> Hello.  Newbie here, bleary and dry-eyed and trembling from weeks
> of staring at the computer screen reading old posts, and now
> finally ready to de-lurk with a few comments on Snape, the DEs,
> and the Longbottoms.

Welcome to the list! You've presented some interesting arguments, and seeing as some people support you in this, I feel I can get away with making some arguments in the opposite direction.

<some snippage>

> The general attitude seems to be: "Oh, 
> well, Sevvie never really could stand any of those guys in 
> the first place, you know.  And even if maybe he did once, he 
> sure loathes them now."
> 
> Why do we believe this?  Snape did join the DEs of his own 
> free will, after all.  He went to school with these people; 
> he worked with them; we can probably safely assume that he 
> risked his life alongside them.  He did eventually choose to 
> betray them, yes.  But that doesn't mean that he never really 
> *liked* them.  Why is it so important to us to believe 
> otherwise?
> 
> Is it perhaps because the Snape we see in canon strikes us 
> as so profoundly anti-social that we simply find it 
> impossible to imagine him ever having had any friends?  

Well, yes. If he were really gregarious he'd probably have recovered a little by the end of several years and made new friends. I don't think it's irrational to assume that his moody, contemptuous personality hasn't been with him since he was really young. If he'd been having so much fun with his friends he might not have had such a (solitary) obsession with the Marauders.

> Or 
> is it, perhaps, because we as readers find the DEs so 
> utterly and completely loathsome -- they are the *Baddies,* 
> after all -- that we are unwilling to humanize them even to 
> the extent of conceding that they might ever do anything so 
> sympathetic as form friendships?  Do we think them incapable 
> of it?  And if so, then why?  Because they're Dark Wizards?  
> Because they're Slytherins?  Because they're bigots?  

Maybe because JKR has yet to portray a sympathetic Slytherin other than Snape. If Mr. Crabbe or Goyle were shown coming to Hogwarts to have a chat with his beloved son and he seemed nice but misguided (instead of just as stupid as his progeny), if Mrs. Lestrange wasn't portrayed as Lady MacBeth or Maleficent(I'm assuming it's her in the pensieve too), if Lucius were something other than evil incarnate...maybe I'd imagine Snape missed his old buds too. But I don't. Let's face it -- JKR's Slytherin is the House of Bad Guys. Snape is the only exception so far.

> Because they're the sort of people who dehumanize their 
> enemies?

Well, there is that. Killing and torturing is hard to relate to. And they betray their friends too. Karkaroff turns in all his old friends; Crouch Jr. wants vengeance on everyone who escaped. See, if we are to imagine Snape really liking these people, we have to have some reason to imagine them as likable. 
 
> Or is it, perhaps, that when push comes to shove, we just
> don't really believe it possible to continue to care for 
> people personally once one has broken with them politically,
> ethically, and spiritually?  Do we reject out of hand the 
> possibility that one might hate the sin while loving the 
> sinner?

I agree that Snape might be messed up over the idea that he turned against all his old friends. But it might not be simply 'oh, I really loved those guys and then how could I have later betrayed them.' It might be instead, or also, 'oh how could all my old friends have turned out to be so bloodthirsty or cowardly that they insisted on staying with V.' I *totally* agree it must be an agonizing position to be in in any case.

Also, as Marina pointed out today, they probably all joined when they were in their teens, so none of them might have known exactly what they were doing. I'd hold off judgment on who *led* them into it until we know more -- it could have been their own parents, the old head of Slytherin house, we just don't know.
 
> Or, alternatively, might the unwillingness to concede the 
> possibility that Snape might have truly cared for his old 
> friends and colleagues be really nothing more than a ploy 
> we as readers have devised to ensure our *own* psychological 
> comfort with the character?  Perhaps in order to redeem Snape 
> _to ourselves_ we must first place him in an emotional context 
> from which he was *not,* in fact, betraying his friends when he 
> defected to Dumbledore's camp?

As a big fan of Snape, I'd say this isn't true. We like him angsty. Betraying old friends is ugly; no one should have to do it. I just don't see *why* we should imagine why they were such lovable types and that he misses them so much. I do agree that he might not trust his own judgment and that he might keep most people at bay because his relationships have been traumatic so far. But that defense mechanism might have started with his earliest upbringing, and was only reinforced by bad experiences later.

> So is that it, perhaps?  Do we tell ourselves that Snape 
> never really liked the DEs in the first place because we 
> are unwilling to acknowledge the extent to which Severus 
> Snape is just Peter Pettigrew, seen through the looking glass?

Whether or not one likes Snape, I think this last statement is completely unsupported by the text. In order for them to be reflections of each other you have to overlook some barn-door sized issues like, oh say, good vs. evil, cowardice vs. courage, etc.

I mean come on. The conflict between Voldemort and Dumbledore has clear moral boundaries. This isn't some real-world war where equally sleazy factions are battling over control of some throne, territory or sphere of economic influence -- in which case one spy might be as good as another on the other side. On the contrary, this is one guy who wants to kill off a whole category of people, torture others and generally take over the world, versus the humane, ecumenical forces trying to stop him. Yes, I know the Ministry has some moral issues, but Dumbledore really doesn't, and I'm assuming Snape was spying more or less on behalf of Dumbledore, seeing as D. had to remind the ministry officials at Karkaroff's hearing of this very fact. So my point here is that the choice of which side to work for is not incidental and meaningless, and Snape's final choice was one for good, Peter's was one for evil.

Also, lets look at their motivations. When Sirius confronts Peter in the Shrieking shack, he accuses him of being inclined to follow the strongest person he can find out of cowardice. Peter's reply pretty much confirms this; he explains that he followed Voldemort because V. threatened to kill him, to which Sirius replies that he should have let him; the rest of the Marauders would have died for each other. Peter is a sniveling coward -- that's canon. He doesn't even really seem to have much remorse over betraying his friends.

Now, granted we don't know a whole lot about Snape's motivation for switching sides. However, I find it hard to believe that one day Dumbledore turned invisible, headed over to a Death Eater's BBQ, dragged Snape out by they hair and commanded him 'spy for our side or I'll kill you.' Given Dumbledore's trust of Snape and the fact that he stresses that Snape risked life and limb to spy for their side, it would seem that what Snape did took enormous courage and conviction -- the opposite of Peter.

So yeah, until more information surfaces, I'll continue to imagine that Snape's relationships with his 'old friends' were always at least a little ambivalent, and that he might regret that these friendships didn't develop differently more than he regrets that he's not still friends with them now.

/Rebecca


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