Snape and Petunia - Ancestor/Descendant - Chess pieces

[Amy Z]

No: HPFGUIDX 41174

SNAPE AND PETUNIA

Oh dear.  Jenny from Ravenclaw is indeed virtuous,
eloquent, and wonderful, but even if it is true that
Petunia's behavior toward Harry is worse, that doesn't
in any way excuse Snape's.  So I must differ from
Amandageist when she writes:

> While
> it appears a reasonable comparison on the face of
> it, the two are completely
> different motivationally.
> 
> It seems to me that Snape has an internal integrity
> and code which he
> adheres to, even against his preferences and
> possibly to his personal
> detriment. 

Motivation I'll leave up to the method actors.  All I
know is that Snape's integrity doesn't extend to being
remotely decent to Harry.  From their very first
encounter, Snape treats him with the utter contempt
and vitriol that most mature adults would reserve for
their worst enemy (or better yet, keep to themselves).
 And this is an eleven-year-old boy!  Harry can dish
it out as well as receive it, as becomes clear, but
that doesn't excuse or explain Snape's original
treatment of him.

Like Vernon and Petunia, Snape suffers from Dahl's
Syndrome, in which adults are fantastically cruel to
children because it makes for good reading, but if
we're going to take these characters with a grain of
fiction, let's do so when we're defending them too. 
If I had had a real live Snape as a colleague I would
have been sickened by the way he treated some of the
children.

DESCENDANT/ANCESTOR

Thanks for the British women's viewpoint, Eloise--that
explains a lot.

CHESS PIECES

Kangasboy wrote:

>How did Quirrell get past it? In the book, there is
no suggestion 
>that the board has already been played across (ie, no
broken chess 
>pieces etc)

Rita beautifully demonstrated that the smashing of
chess pieces is only in the
Celluloid-that-Must-Not-Be-Named.  But even if they
were smashed:  presumably one's chess pieces put
themselves back together after the game, so
McGonagall's pieces could do the same.  Likewise, in
the book the Trio finds the pieces set up to play, not
limp on the sides, because after Quirrell played his
way across, they set themselves up again for the next
comer.

Amy Z
who thinks "I'd rather be in Snape's class" would make
a good bumpersticker

----------------------------------------------------
"Even underage wizards are allowed to use magic if 
it's a real emergency, section nineteen or something 
of the Restriction of Thingy..."
                     -HP and the Chamber of Secrets
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