Snape, the DEs and the Longbottoms

[ssk7882]

No: HPFGUIDX 33892

--- In HPforGrownups at y..., "Allen, Rebecca" <Rebecca.Allen at t...> 
wrote:

 > Welcome to the list! 

Thanks!  It's good to be here.

 > 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.

But of course.  That's the name of the game, isn't it?  Fire away.

<I asked: do we have difficulty imagining even a younger and 
less bitter Snape as a social creature?>

 > 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. 

Neither do I.  But as it happens, I do think that Snape was 
probably moody and snappish and temperamental and prickly and 
unpleasant from a very early age.  Less bitter, perhaps, but 
still hardly an easy personality.  After all, what other sort 
of person arrives at school at the tender age of eleven with 
an unwholesome fascination for the Dark Arts and a wicked 
repertoire of curses under his belt?

But he can't have been all *that* much of a loner.  Sirius 
says that Snape "was part of a gang of Slytherins who nearly
all turned out to be Death Eaters."  You don't get identified 
as "part of a gang" unless you hang out with the gang's other 
members on a fairly regular basis.  

(BTW, that "nearly all" is interesting, isn't it?  Not all of 
them, but "nearly" all of them.  Who, one wonders, were the
abstainers?  And how do *they* feel about all of this?)

 > If he'd been having so much fun with his friends he might 
 > not have had such a (solitary) obsession with the Marauders.

True.  And really, while being the guy in your circle who 
knows all of the really scary curses may be intensely 
*gratifying,* in a creepy Slytherinesque sort of way, it is 
unlikely to have been very much *fun.* 

But then, I was never trying to argue that the other members 
of Snape's gang provided him with a warm and loving environment 
that fulfilled of all of his emotional needs.  I think it quite 
clear that they did not do that.  He'd be a very different 
person if they had, and I daresay he wouldn't have been so 
creepily obsessive about the Marauders either.  

I just see no reason to believe that Snape hated or loathed
or despised his classmates, or that he never enjoyed their 
company, or that there was never any bond of affection or 
loyalty or respect between them.

We're talking about people who hung out, attended classes, 
ate meals, and slept in the same room together for seven years, 
from the age of eleven to the age of seventeen, in a school 
environment which actively encourages students to think of
their housemates as their "family."  Even if their
relationship was deeply ambivalent -- and it probably was --
there's still got to be a strong bond there.

<I asked why people seem to find it impossible to imagine the 
future Death Eaters ever having formed friendships>

 > Maybe because JKR has yet to portray a sympathetic Slytherin 
 > other than Snape....Let's face it -- JKR's Slytherin is the 
 > House of Bad Guys. Snape is the only exception so far.

It's very hard for me to imagine a Wizarding Britain in which 
a full quarter of the population is composed of murderous
sadists with little or no redeeming qualities.  Let's face 
it -- if the Slytherins really are all like that, then the 
entire society is *doomed*, no matter what Our Heroes might 
or might not accomplish.

 > Killing and torturing is hard to relate to. 

I'll go you one further and say flat-out that I consider
killing and torturing people to be evil.  My, how morally
daring of me! 

But you know, in the real world, people who kill and torture
others *do* generally have friends, and loved ones, and people 
they care very deeply about.  Life is complicated that way.    

We hear a great deal about Rowling's statement of intent to
show how genuinely *bad* evil is in these books, and I laud 
that sentiment.  But evil is also *complicated,* and there
are times when I find myself wishing that Rowling would run
a little further with that particular ball.  


 > And they betray their friends too. 

Well, some of them do.  But by no means all of them.  
Avery and Malfoy both managed to evade justice by claiming 
to have been under the Imperius Curse, yet as far as we know, 
neither of them ever named names.  Nott, Goyle, Crabbe and 
MacNair would all seem to have managed to make it through 
their trials all the way to acquittal ("You are merely repeating 
the names of those who were acquitted of being Death Eaters 
thirteen years ago!")without succumbing to the temptation to
cut a deal with the prosecutors by squealing out their comrades.
The Lestranges certainly didn't tell any tales, and neither 
did poor little Barty Crouch (although perhaps he just didn't
know enough about the organization to do so).

>From the way that Sirius talks about the other prisoners crying 
out in their sleep about Karkaroff's betrayal, and from Moody's 
particular contempt for Karkaroff in the Pensieve scene, I got
the impression that Karkaroff's plea bargain was unusually
dastardly, even by Death Eater standards.  

And Harry's generation of Slytherin kids seem loyal enough 
to each other, don't they?  Pansy exhibits genuine concern for 
Draco's well-being when he is attacked by the Hippogriff, and
Crabbe rushes right over to pick up ferret-Draco during the
Bouncing Ferret Incident, in spite of the fact that the entire
situation must have been pretty terrifying -- Moody is *scary,*
and his use of transfiguration as a punishment marks him as
a loose cannon.  For that matter, when Draco makes his 
nasty "Mudblood" comment on the Quiddich pitch in CoS, Marcus 
Flint shields him _with his own body_ -- and continues to stand
in the path of fire even after wands have been drawn.  They're
not nice kids, no.  But they do seem to have a strong sense of
in-group loyalty.


 > See, if we are to imagine Snape really liking these people, 
 > we have to have some reason to imagine them as likable. 

Well, the issue here isn't really what *we* find likable.  It's 
what *Snape* finds likable, which may not be at all the same 
thing.  

But leaving that aside for the moment, I guess I just don't 
have a problem imagining this.  People who do dreadful things 
usually do have friends and associates and colleagues who 
consider them perfectly likable, worthy of affection and
respect.  People are more than the sum of their rap sheets.


 > 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. 

They were very young, yes.  Depressingly so.  And I strongly
suspect that none of them really understood completely what 
they were getting themselves into.  Not at first, at any rate.


 > > 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. 

Heh.  Indeed.  The more he suffers, the more we like him.  It's
sick, really.


 > 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. 

Good lord, no!  Did I give the impression that I was imagining
them as lovable types?  That wasn't at all my intent.  "Lovable"
and "not altogether devoid of redeeming qualities, capable
of forming normal human relationships" are not at *all* the
same thing!

Nor did I mean to imply that I think that he misses them, 
per se.  I hardly imagine that he has fond memories of his 
schooldays, or that he looks longingly back on those fine
old nights spent practicing Cruciatus on the lab rabbits 
up in the Slytherin dormitories after lights-out (or whatever 
other unsavory nastiness he and his cronies used to get up 
to), or that he's just dying to take Avery out to lunch so 
that they can reminisce about old times, or anything like that.

I do think that he feels wretched about them getting 
themselves killed and imprisoned, and that he would have
far rather they had all escaped unharmed, promptly abandoned
their wicked ways, and then disappeared from his life
altogether.  (As, indeed, Avery would seem to have been
quite obliging in doing.)  But that's not really at all 
the same thing.

<the "Severus Snape is Peter Pettigrew through the looking glass"
comment rises ire from Rebecca>

 > Whether or not one likes Snape, I think this last statement 
 > is completely unsupported by the text. 

I adore Snape, and I don't think that it is at all unsupported
by the text.  Just look at how Snape reacts to Sirius, when he 
thinks that Sirius, rather than Peter, is the traitor.  

For that matter, look at how he reacts to Quirrel in PS, when he 
comes to suspect Quirrel of infidelity to Dumbledore.  Or how
he reacts when Crouch/Moody implies that Dumbledore doesn't 
really trust him.  Issues of trust and betrayal are serious
hot buttons for Snape.  He's exceptionally sensitive there; 
they're sore spots.

 > 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.

Er...no.  The mirror reverses that which it reflects.  In order 
for Snape and Pettigrew to be *reflections* of each other, what 
they need to do is to be the same in certain respects, 
while "reversing the image" in others.  Which I think that they
do quite nicely, myself.

I don't really think that you're in disagreement with me here.



             -- Elkins