[HPforGrownups] Re: Snape, the DEs (long, of course)

[Allen, Rebecca]

No: HPFGUIDX 33930

Hi folks. I'm replying here to Elkins (and indirectly some other posters) on
Snape's attitude towards his old friends.

I'd like to make a brief preamble distinguishing between an interpretation
based on canonical evidence and one based on ones own experience,
imagination, influence from other writers and real world probability. Now if
anyone tries to write a fanfic, which was Elkins original example, they must
draw on all these things. A fanfic based strictly on canon would be boring
and awfully short. But I'm trying to make a distinction between the way a
reader imagines things ought to be (and here everyone can and should make
their own interpretations) and what is actually suggested by the text (which
we can still disagree on, but there's a difference). Examples of this
below...

Elkins and I were speculating on the degree to which Snape was a loner, and
Elkins said:

> 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.  

OTOH hanging out with a gang doesn't necessitate really feeling a part of
them, really feeling like a virtual family. It just seems to me that not
only does the Snape of the books appear to be an irritable loner, but given
the degree to which he seems to act alone and insist on handling things
himself, it strikes me that it would be reasonable, based on canon, for
someone to imagine that he never *felt* a part of any group as a youth. I'm
just defending the people who would imagine it that way -- it seems like one
of many possible ways someone would take the canon and extrapolate.

> (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?)

I thought "nearly all" meant all but possibly Snape -- Sirius isn't sure if
Snape actually became a DE when he spoke this. Still, if there was more to
the gang than the six of them, I'd like to meet them too.
 
> <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.

All I'm saying is that JKR has portrayed them like that so far. Yes, it
seems unreasonable and I'm not crazy about it either. Here again, I need to
make a distinction between canon and real-world reasonability. In canon the
decency deck is stacked against the Slytherin grads.

I do concede your description of how the current Slytherin students exhibit
loyalty toward each other, maybe they aren't all so bad. You make a better
case than I've heard so far. But if we are talking about Snape's attitude
towards the former DE's then we only have the adults to go by, and if we are
talking about his attitude towards his former schoolmates, then we have even
less to go by.

>  > 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.  

I agree, but I'm defending the type of person who imagines that he never
liked them. And I stick to my original point that if one imagines Snape to
be contemptuous and dismissive of his old friends, then I suggest that JKR
gave them the idea. *She* is contemptuous and dismissive of most of her DE
characters. Even if they have charismatic (Lucius) or intriguing
characteristics (Mrs. Lestrange, for sure) they still seem like villain
archetypes. And Snape is contemptuous and dismissive of Karkaroff, there's
no love lost there, so you wonder about the other people. Unfortunately this
does not support my argument because Karkaroff was not one of Snape's old
classmates and neither was Lucius. So all we have to go on is Mrs.
Lestrange, who, however defiant and loyal, still seems like a standard
villains, evil-witch type, and Avery who seems to be a groveling toady. My
argument is that JKR has portrayed them this way so far, with few or no
humanizing, 3D qualities, so it's not out of whack for a fanfic writer or
anyone else to imagine that Snape might have found them that way too. Again,
it's one of several convincing ways to extrapolate from canon; diverging
ways can be convincing too, but I'm defending this one.

By the way, a few people have brought up lately whether or not Snape knew
about how bad Lucius is, to which I can only say, how could he not? Everyone
knows! The Weasley's know, Dumbledore knows, even Fudge practically admits
Lucius bribed his way out of prosecution. Granted, Fudge may not realize
that this is what he says -- if anyone in this series is guilty of cognitive
dissonance it's Fudge. But in CoS, Dumbledore is completely unsurprised to
discover that Lucius masterminded the whole evil diary plot. How could Dumby
not mention this to Snape? I'm quite sure that Snape's "sudden movement" at
the mention of Lucius' name is more one of fury than surprise.

> 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, quoting you out of order:]
> 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 agree this is true in the real world. But also in the real world it can
work the other way. I have witnessed more than once adult siblings, who were
close in age and had lived together for 18 years who turned their backs on
each other permanently and with no remorse after a falling out (in one case
is was an inheritance dispute, but in other cases even more trivial fights).
My point is that while blood or a sense of familial belonging can be thicker
than water, it's not always the case. Some people blow off their old friends
without looking back. If one of my friends became a murderer I'd consider
our friendship null and void. So I'm only saying that both interpretations
are based more on real life experiences than what JKR depicts with Snape and
his old DE friends, which is quite slight.

> 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.  

Again, I'm trying to look at what interpretations have canonical evidence,
and I think she's pretty dead set on portraying L.V.'s stance as just plain
evil.

But on the other hand, and regarding familial loyalties, I found her
portrayal of Crouch Sr.'s dilemma really interesting. I wish we could have
heard his account of how it felt to have sent his only son to jail, and why
he wound up listening to his wife to help him escape in the end. I would
think this must have been gut wrenching for him, even for a guy who
mistreats his house elves. But of course we never hear his story...sigh. But
I find it hopeful that she even dreamed up this subplot; maybe we will hear
more about whether Snape had some of the same loyalty problems himself.

> <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.  

Well, we already know he hates Sirius for the prank and it could be he hates
Sirius for simply causing the Potter's death as he imagines. I don't see how
this makes Snape parallel to Peter.

> For that matter, look at how he reacts to Quirrel in PS, when he 
> comes to suspect Quirrel of infidelity to Dumbledore.  

I'm not sure what you mean here. Snape does get riled at the thought that
Quirrel's "loyalties" might be to the wrong party, and has been observed on
this list, he even seems to give Quirrel the chance to think it over and
change his mind. But to me this just means that a) Snape would find it
traumatic if history repeats itself and another Potter dies when he could
have protected him and b) he maybe wants to give Quirrel the same chance he
had to change his mind. Again, I'm not sure how this makes him similar to
Peter.

> Or how
> he reacts when Crouch/Moody implies that Dumbledore doesn't 
> really trust him.  

Her certainly acts like he has a guilty conscience, and/or the idea of not
having Dumbledore's trust is unbearable for him. But Crouch/Moody accuses
him of not being trustworthy to the good guys because he was a DE in the
past. 'You were a criminal' is a different issue of guilt than of 'you are
the type of guy to turn in your friends.' 

> Issues of trust and betrayal are serious
> hot buttons for Snape.  He's exceptionally sensitive there; 
> they're sore spots.

I agree with this, and he might be totally obsessed with whether or not he
is a trustworthy person. But I guess it's a question of what exactly does he
feel untrustworthy about. Snape might have real live blood on his hands, he
might be a lot more worried about what crimes he himself committed as a DE
while his old friends might be least on his mind. Maybe. ;-)

>  > 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 appreciate that you clarified this, it seems that what you meant and what
I went off on arguing against were two different things. Still, I'm
uncomfortable with the looking glass metaphor. I still think a looking glass
implies that there is some kind of symmetry or balance between the two
parties, and I don't see this with Snape and Peter. Now if Sirius really had
turned out to be the spy, then we could say they are both intelligent,
powerful, fearless and impulsive, and thus seem to reflect each other. But
Peter is just too incongruous to Snape to make an easy comparison. Of
course, as Catlady reminded me in her post, Snape has thought all along that
Sirius actually was the spy, and to the extent that Snape might recognize
some similarity between them (but does he?) then he might have felt they
were uncomfortably alike. But I feel that he and Peter just don't have
enough in common except for being very different sorts of spies.
> 
> I don't really think that you're in disagreement with me here.

Less so than I thought!

Well, this is long, so I'll pipe down for now. Thanks for the chance to chew
on this,
Rebecca