[HPforGrownups] Re: Justice, Wisdom, Snape, etc.

[porphyria at mindspring.com]

No: HPFGUIDX 38514

Ah, Cindy has read my Job/HP essay, 
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/files/Essays/job.html , and posted some interesting questions about it, which I shall attempt to answer below. 

First off, I want to thank Cindy and point out how much I appreciate her commentary. Cindy is, while far from a fan of Snape, a keen Snape observer, and I welcome her sharp eye. My essay argues that, since Harry's initial status of hero is unmerited and in question, he and the text need Snape's objections in order to have the chance to prove Harry worthy and deserving after all. In much the same way, I as a fervent defender of Snape need Cindy's constant objections to him in order to make my case heard. Catch that Cindy? I just made a favorable comparison between you and Snape. ;-)

Oh, and while composing this, Pippin has come to my defense on some of the questions below. In order to make my opinions clear I'm just going to post this reply as I had originally written it, even if it overlaps some of what Pippin has already posted. And thank you too Pippin! I love your info about the Schlimazl and the Potter's Wheel (how appropriate!). That's so totally what I was after.

*********************************

So, let's get on with it.

<<
Right up front, I have to acknowledge that I was quite intrigued by 
the idea of Snape as satan.
>>

Knew that would catch your attention. ;-)

Cindy recaps my argument... 


>"In her book An Adversary in Heaven Peggy L. Day explains that the 
>Hebrew word "satan" is best translated as "adversary" or "accuser" 
>and that this often has the strictly forensic sense of a 
>prosecuting attorney or the opponent in a legal case."

and basically agrees with it:

<<
All kidding aside, this really is Snape's role, or part of his role, 
throughout the HP books. Snape is acting, as Porphyria noted, in 
the role of public prosecutor as well as a loyal member of the 
divine counsel. Again and again, Snape accuses Harry of misconduct, 
allegedly in Snape's role as loyal servant of Dumbledore. 
>>

But objects:

<<
But the parallel might not be perfect, because Snape's loyalty is 
far from perfect. In PoA, Snape openly questions Dumbledore's trust 
of Lupin, eventually disobeying Dumbledore's instruction that 
Lupin's werewolf status remain confidential. In GoF, Snape may have 
played a role in allowing a dementor in the castle, despite 
Dumbledore's express wishes. 
>>

I agree that the analogy is not perfect. I would say my argument is strongest when it concerns Snape's relationship with Harry. This is, after all the Book of Harry, not the Book of Remus. :-) To my knowledge Snape never defies Dumbledore's direct orders where Harry is concerned. I guess I added the evidence of Snape's investigation and prosecution duties against Lupin, Sirius and other as supplementary evidence. In other words, Snape sticks his (long) nose in various people's businesses because he's like that. As if that needed arguing. 

I think Snape is still loyal enough to Dumbledore for jazz. I see their fractious moments as the sort of thing you'd expect in a father-son relationship with its concomitant resentments, misunderstandings and unconditional love. 

You and I disagree on the dementor issue. I tend to forgive him for it, or at least see it as an 
issue of misjudgment rather than disloyalty. I can't see any evidence that Snape wanted to see Crouch Jr. soul-sucked and let Fudge have his way in purposeful defiance of Dumbledore. Snape is no friend of Fudge at this point. However, since Fudge outranks Dumbledore I can see where Snape would have consented to the Dementor-as-bodyguard thing until he realized too late what was happening. I can't imagine Snape being able to summon up a happy memory at a split second's notice and thus fire off an effective Patronus. :-) I suspect Dumbledore realizes this.

As to the Lupin-outing thing, yes you have me there. I can defend Snape quite a bit along the lines of arguing that he still considered Lupin a threat to Harry and the general student body blah blah blah, but even so, it would appear he was flouting Dumbledore's authority here. Hmm. As I believe I crammed into a footnote somewhere, Snape, you see, is a *complicated* character and his various roles in the text do occasionally impinge on one another. This is one instance. 

Cindy goes on to ask:

<<
But what exactly is the meaning of the malfeasance Snape is trying 
to establish? In CoS, it is perhaps an attempt to prove Harry is 
evil. In PoA, during "Snape's Grudge," it is that Harry has 
endangered himself by going to Hogsmeade. In CoS, Snape raises the 
possibility of expulsion as punishment for Harry's ill-fated flight 
to Hogwarts, purportedly for damaging the Willow. In GoF, it is 
that Harry has endangered himself by placing his name into the 
Goblet. 
>>

Interesting points. I'm not sure I ever expected Snape to have particularly coherent reasons for prosecuting Harry. I think the analogy is strongest if we take it on the level of worthiness, merit, and potential heroism. In the bible, if Job's praise of God is only conditional on God's good treatment of him, then he's not very worthy by their standards. Given that Harry is a schoolboy, his unworthiness would be realized more in breaking rules for selfish reasons, being arrogant, etc., all the things that Snape usually accuses him of (rightly or wrongly).

I thought of Snape as being a bit more analogous to a Real World prosecuting attorney who will look for whatever weaknesses in a defense he can find. If he gains an advantage by harping on the motivation, he will; if the physical evidence favors his case, he'll harp on that instead. In each case you mention above I think Snape's function apropos to my argument is to point out how Harry has, or seems to have, broken the rules in some way (flying an illegal car, damaging a tree, sneaking off to town, entering a contest forbidden to him). I'm not convinced Snape is trying to prove Harry is evil in CoS; I agree that he is probably pretty worried about what effect LV's curse might have had on him, but I don't recall that he implies that Harry is evil. Harry certainly worries about it, but more because of what Tom Riddle has to say. With the Mrs. Norris thing I think Snape was more trying to hold him in contempt of court for lying on the witness stand. I think when Snape threatens H!
arry with expulsion, gives him the evil eye or that sort of thing it's mostly to frighten him and discourage him from whatever mischief he's doing. 

I do agree that Snape is very often motivated by a desire to protect Harry, which has nothing to do with the satan of Job. Again, all I can say here is that's yet another role and another essay. :-) Except to add that this is another ironic instance of Snape really being on Harry's side and acting in his best interest despite his seeming antagonism. Still, not exactly the same as in Job, I admit.

Similarly, I don't think that Snape consciously desires to test Harry's loyalty or allegiance (although it might be on his mind in CoS). However, I would say that Snape has that effect whether he wants to or not. In other words, it's his function, his role as a written character, rather than whatever it is he actually desires (which we don't really know at this point). 

The satan of Job basically wants to provoke Job to the point of making him crack. Snape performs the same function, for instance, when he provokes Harry so much that he imagines performing the Crucio on him (much as he occasionally imagines cursing Dudley). I could be wrong, but I think this is the sort of thing that will come back to haunt Harry afterwards. It sounds like the sort of blind rage we can expect him to grow out of as he matures.

Snape also makes Harry think hard about what allegiance and loyalty mean, even if it's to raise more questions in Harry's mind than answers. Certainly Harry is put in the position of whether to trust him because he is a teacher, because Hagrid vouches for him, because Dumbledore vouches for him, because Hermione (eventually) defends him -- all this and Harry still hasn't really decided. So if the satan of Job represents God's dark side, the unpleasant aspects of his will, Snape also represents the tough part of being on Dumbledore's team. The leap of faith Harry will have to eventually make to embrace something he hates in order to embrace the whole package, to do what is right rather than easy, to remember everyone's supposed to be on the same side despite their personal differences. Snape is the bitter pill, erm, potion that Harry has to swallow.
 

In my essay I mentioned God as defense:

>"Here we can also see how the satan has the duties a divine 
>prosecuting attorney; he states the opposing case and casts 
>aspersions on the hero, while God's argues for the defense."

Cindy comments:

<<
Yes, that makes sense. But if Snape fulfills the role of the satan, 
then who in HP fulfills God's role, the role of arguing for Harry's 
defense?

Oddly, it often seems to be various Hogwarts teachers. 
>>

I would say that the role of defender is fragmented and diffuse, just as it is in Job, just as it was in the ancient world and just as it is in the trials in the Pensieve. The role of defense attorney isn't quite developed either in the bible or the Potterverse. Despite what I say in the essay, God is really not the ideal defense attorney of Job. While he does verbally defend him to the satan, he does nothing to really help him until after he's suffered for a long time. In fact there are some brutally ironic moments in Job where he cries out to the heavens for an intermediary to discuss his case with God. What he doesn't know is that he has one...the satan. Be careful what you wish for. :-)

So no one of the teachers fulfils this role. McGonagall is pretty random about it. There are times when she defends him heavily, as you point out in GoF. There are times when she only defends him when Snape provokes her, as with Filch's cat. There are times when she acts like she wants to strangle him herself, as in PS/SS after the Norbert incident, and times when she gets livid and then relents a bit (after the Anglia scrape). Similarly, Lupin, who doesn't want to be caught agreeing with Snape in front of Snape, defends Harry at first, but chides him in private and refuses to ever lie for him again. And Fake!Moody obviously only defends Harry when it suits him. So Harry's defenders come on a case-by-case basis. 

I think there are times where it can be said that Dumbledore implicitly sides with Harry. I know he seems neutral sometimes, but you can often see where his loyalties lie. 

<<
Further, if the various teachers seem to fulfill the role of God 
more completely than Dumbledore, then what role, if any, does 
Dumbledore play? Is he part of the composite of characters who 
fulfill a small part of the role of God to oppose Snape's satan, or 
is there another parallel that can be drawn?
>>

I think the problem here, which I might not have made clear enough in the essay, is that God's role in Job is complicated and weird. He sort of defends him, sometimes more verbally than in action, but very neutrally lets him suffer a lot. Dumbledore does all this to Harry as well. He oversees all this injustice and steps in only occasionally, and sometimes awkwardly, to assist Harry (like with the point-awarding at the end of PS/SS, which people agree was contrived).

I'd say the stronger analogy is between Dumbledore and God when they work in strange ways, when they allow bad things to happen but, we presume, for an eventual good. 

In my essay I point out that Snape is one of Dumbledore's most loyal adherents, thus intriguing Cindy's inner anti-Snape. She argues:

<<
Yes, it is true that Snape is frequently present at pivotal moments, 
as Porphyria points out. But he is curiously absent at other 
moments -- moments when one would expect Dumbledore's inner circle 
to be accounted for. Significantly, Snape is not present when 
Dumbledore makes his first important decision about Harry's future --
when Harry is left with the Dursleys. 
>>

This is not a good example of when Dumbledore's inner circle should be accounted for. McGonagall is there out of her own curiosity. He didn't ask for her to show up, he doesn't want her advice and he doesn't listen to it. D. has his mind made up about Harry, he doesn't want a committee to figure it out for him. Plus, we can only guess what Snape was doing at this point. He might have had some other crucial job to do then. I like to think he was slitting his wrists over letting the Potters die, but hey. We have no idea whether he was officially employed by Hogwarts at this point either. All my examples of how Snape is important to Dumbledore occur in the four years that Harry is going to school, during which we can best judge the situation. 

<<
Snape is also inexplicably 
absent during all three of the tasks in GoF. In fact, Hagrid (who 
is not a fully qualified wizard) is selected to monitor the third 
task instead of Snape, despite Dumbledore's apparent concern about 
Harry's safety and the meaning of several mysterious events 
throughout the school year. 
>>

I think Dumbledore's choice here has to do with Hagrid's facility for magical beasts. Just because Dumbledore has roles for his other trusted servants doesn't mean Snape is not important. 

<<
Can Snape be more than a prowling 
nuisance if Dumbledore does not seek his counsel during Dumbledore's 
most difficult decisions?
>>

Of course we don't see everything. We don't know what Snape was doing during the tournament. Maybe he was "preparing" for his inevitable task while everyone else's attention was distracted. I think the text suggests that he and Dumbledore have a lot of off-stage discussions. I still think the weight of my argument supports the idea that Snape is very often very important to Dumbledore if perhaps not every single moment in time. 

<<
One final question about the parallel between Snape and the satan. 
I assume that the satan in the story of Job is the supreme adversary 
to God, that there is no entity more powerful than the satan other 
than God. I think it is clear in HP, however, that Snape is far 
from the most powerful wizard in the books. I assume Voldemort is 
more powerful, and it is beyond dispute that Snape is quite 
intimidated by Moody. Even Dumbledore is likely more powerful.
>>

Here I'll have to attack your premise. The satan in Job is just an angel. OK, maybe an archangel. But from my research I'd say there's no indication he's supposed to be particularly powerful. My research suggests that not only is "satan" not a name but it's not even an official title (like "Prime Minister"), it's more of a role. The satan was the angel who drew the satan-duty straw that morning. It's not necessarily the same guy from book to book. Plus, like Snape, the satan in the Hebrew bible gets shot down a lot. He loses the argument in Job and so too in Zechariah where he tries to contest Joshua. He doesn't need to be more powerful than any other divine entity, he just needs to perform his adversarial duty well. Same with Snape. He has to be good at being a nosy git. I'd say he's great at it. 

<<
So, Porphyria. Is there anything about the satan in Job or in other 
Biblical references that can explain some of Snape's vulnerabilities?
>>

By no means all. But I see the satan as a figure of cynicism, born of a sort of outrage at the concept of injustice. This is an idiosyncratic reading of the satan, I suppose, but I think his purpose in the text of Job is to introduce the idea of injustice and hone the concept of piousness. Snape is the figure of unforgiven injustice, given his lasing bitterness at the prank and whatever else it is he's bitter about. As Elkins has pointed out, he's the dark side of memory; grudges, jealousy, resentment. This all contributes to what I see as Snape's vulnerabilities. The points where he really loses control are when he's feeling unjustly accused or musing on some injustice from his past. So in a way he represents the dark side of not being able to rise above the world's injustices. He's the image of rancor that Harry needs to overcome (and usually does) in order to think straight. 

Thanks for playing!
~~Porphyria