School! Snape the bully? (was: Is Draco worse than James Was?)

[Kewpie]

No: HPFGUIDX 77809

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "jwcpgh" <jwcpgh at y...> wrote:
> --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "princesspeaette" > 
> <lots of snipping> 
> Now wait a minute.  We read in canon more than once that James and 
> sirius were popular.  Bullies tend not to fit that description.  So 

There are different types of bully, and obviously James and Sirius 
are very similar to the "jock-type" bully based on canon. They are 
popular, everyone (including teachers) loves them, they're usually 
the sport stars of the school, some are good in grades, they usually 
became president of the student body. When this particular type of 
bullies pick on someone, it's usally the lonely social outcast people 
they pick on. Usually they pick on people in the public when there 
are lots of people around. That only add on their popularity. The 
crowd would urge them on and sometimes they do it as a show. They 
know they can get away with it because everyone loves them. Your 
school never has these type of bullies? Then you're either lucky or 
from a very different school than I was. I've know these type of 
bullies in the schools I went to all my life as well as the schools 
all the people I know went to. I have almost fallen into the status 
of the "outcast victim" before and I know people who are victims of 
these popular bullies, I can tell you lots of personal stories and 
some are quite similar to what happen to Snape.

> would deduce that their bad behavior was directed at people who 
were 
> out of line in some obvious way.  And we know that James 

For popular bullies, pick on "people who were out of line in some 
obvious way" is one of the reasons they became (and remain) popular 
in the school. Of course they pick on the outcast nobody likes, if 
they pick on another popular student, they'll lose their popularity 
wouldn't they? that's the logical thing to do. 

> We just don't have the whole picture of the James/Sirius-Snape 
> relationship.  And now it looks like we never will.

I thought the Pensieve scene show the Bully/victim dynamics between 
James+Sirius/Snape very clearly. The rivalship is no way balance. Not 
everything have to be completely spelled out to be understand. I 
think there are enough facts in canon right now to conclude that 
Sirius and James WERE bullies back in their school days. JKR 
deliberately wrote that scene with clarifications too (ex: the whole 
thing start out only because Sirius is bored, Harry even got this 
confirmed later from Sirius himself, Lily asked "what has he ever 
done to you?" James "becoz he exist", more lily saying "hexing anyone 
who annoys you just because you can", the "snape reacted so fast it 
was as though he had been expecting an attack". the "Like a dog that 
has scented a rabbit"...etc). I don't see much ambiguity in her 
writing to suggest the other way at all. I guess people just cannot 
believe James and sirius are bullies and that their bully ways must 
have reasons since they're suppose to be "good" people. Well those 
popular bullies I've encountered not necessary evil/bad either, I'm 
sure they turn out to be decent people by now. 


J