Snape the Iconoclast

[bluesqueak]

No: HPFGUIDX 78547

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "abigailnus" <abigailnus at y...> 
wrote:

<Snip> 

Abigail:
> I've been thinking for several months about Snape's past, and OOP 
> has only served to cement my belief that Snape, though his 
> wizarding credentials are no doubt impeccable, does not come 
> from money.  In fact, I am absolutely certain that Snape's family 
> was poor.
> 

I am also convinced that Snape was poor. However, I think Severus 
found himself on the bottom rung of the wizarding world for quite 
another reason.

> In order to explain how this relates to Snape's decision to join 
> Voldemort, I'd like to first look at Voldemort himself, and at the 
> changes that he sought to bring to wizarding society.  And in 
> order to do that, I'd like to first take a look at wizarding 
> society itself.
<Snip arguments that Hogwarts is not class based..>

Agreed. Hogwarts accepted the poverty stricken half blood Tom Riddle 
from the Council Orphanage. That's strong evidence that the basis 
for acceptance is talent, and has been since Salazar Slytherin 
walked out.


> However, I do find quite acceptable the idea that the 
> wizarding world is class-conscious as well as blood-conscious.  
> Time and time again we see that respectability and power in the 
> wizarding world follow the trail of money even more inexorably 
> then they follow the trail of pure wizarding blood.  

Ah, but are the Snapes of pure wizarding blood? Snape's blood must 
be pureish, or alternatively he must be have sufficient wizarding 
credentials that the Malfoy's of this world will associate with him. 
But...

Molly Weasly (the pure but poor) is related to the Blacks by 
marriage. Arthur Weasley (pure blood, but from a notoriously poor 
family) is related to the Blacks. The Snapes are never mentioned as 
appearing on the Black tapestry.

Interesting. Of course, Sirius could have left them out because he 
hates Snape so much - but then, he mentions quite a few relatives he 
despises.

Maybe the Snapes weren't pure-blooded enough for the Blacks to marry?

If the senior trio (Dumbledore, McGonagall, Snape) mirror the junior 
trio, then they are composed of a pure-blood, a mixed blood and a 
muggle born.

Dumbledore's names, authority, and the respect accorded to him by 
people like Fudge (who value blood highly) all suggest that he is 
from an old pureblood family.

Muggle-born - Snape is very unlikely to be. There's no mention of 
muggle style clothing in any of the memories Harry takes from Snape. 
Snape was brought up in the wizarding world. His first name is 
distinctly odd by muggle standards (unless you're an Ancient Roman).

But there is one of the Senior Trio who could be muggle born.

When Harry sees Minerva McGonagall coming to Grimmauld place, he 
thinks how strange it is to see her in muggle clothing.

The implication we are given is that Professor McGonagall is wearing 
muggle clothing as disguise. But perhaps not. 

'Minerva'. An obvious wizardly name, no? 

No. Go to Google or any search engine. Pick a typically Scottish 
name (McDonald, McDougall, Morrison...). Place 'Minerva' in front of 
it.

I can guarantee you'll get hits from the ones above. I've tried 
them. Minerva was actually not an uncommon name for Scottish girls 
in the late 19th and early 20th century. Most commonly it was the 
middle name, but it appears as the first name often enough.

Minerva McGonagall is a Scottish muggle name. Minerva McGonagall 
wears muggle clothes in the summer holidays because she is muggle 
born, and that's what she's always worn in school holidays.

So, in this 'reflection' theory, we have the pure blooded Dumbledore 
(Ron), the muggle-born Minerva (Hermione). Which leaves Snape and 
Harry as mixed blood.

Note that neither are true half and half. Harry is born of two 
wizarding parents; *not* a muggle partnership  with a wizard or 
witch. But one of his parents was not a pure-blood; instead, Lily 
was muggle born.

More below.

<Snip>
> Voldemort's dream of a return to ancient wizarding values is 
> about as true to the form of wizarding society as Hitler's claim 
> that the Third Reich was a return to the Golden Age of Germany.  
> In truth, what Voldemort was trying to do was to overturn society, 
> tear it down, and erect in its place an entirely new social order, 
> one with himself and his followers at the top.  Hatred of muggles 
> and muggle-borns is as incidental to this plan as Hitler's hatred 
> of the Jews and other "inferior" races.
> 
> WIthin this atmosphere, being the progeny of an old, wealthy 
> wizarding family might be more of a hindrance then an asset. <Snip>

>Voldemort was proposing anarchy.  That he meant to make them all 
> his servants, that made these old families reluctant to support 
> him openly, and that makes me believe that Voldemort's greatest 
> supporters did not necessarily come from those families.
> 
<Snip>
> 
> In short, while being a pure-blood wizard is a requirement to join 
> Voldemort's ranks, being a member of a wealthy family might very 
> well count against you.  Voldemort is looking for iconoclasts.

Hitlers minions were frequently not pure blooded (though there were 
always sneers about the ones who weren't). I forget the exact level 
before you became `pure enough' – something like a doubtful great 
grandparent -  but this is possible for the DE's and for Slytherin 
house. 

It is currently believed that Tom Riddle was in Slytherin. That 
means either *pure* blood isn't required nowadays; or Tom Riddle 
wasn't in Slytherin after all, but in some other house (Ravenclaw, 
anyone?). If Slytherin house does accept the `pure enough' then 
Riddle becomes eligible – and we have no evidence at all that the 
Snape's are a pure-blood family.

<Snip>
> According to this theory, 
> Snape became disgusted with Dumbledore, seeing his claims of 
> fairness and impartiality as hypocrisy, and rejected Dumbledore's 
> ethics.
> 
> I'd like to fold this theory into a new theory, which I'd like to 
> call Iconoclast!Snape.  I think Snape came from a poor wizarding 
> family, and that his experience in the wizarding world taught him 
> to despise the social order as her perceived it.  Dumbledore, to 
> this Snape, would have been a saviour - his philosophy seems to be 
> one of judging people by their merits.  

There is the interesting point that in GoF Dumbledore talks about 
Snape `rejoining our side' (The Pensieve chapter). This agrees with 
your argument, Abigail. At one point the boy Snape shared 
Dumbledore's views quite closely. Enough for Dumbledore to consider 
him `on our side'. 

> Then the Prank happens, and 
> Snape sees what he perceives to be Dumbledore aligning himself 
> with the wealthy, entitled James and Sirius.  Is it any wonder    
> that Snape then turns to the next anarchist on his list?

James and Sirius are not only wealthy and entitled, they are fully 
paid up members of old pure-blood families. Quite possibly, so is 
Lupin, since his parents (plural) tried to get him into Hogwarts.

So Snape could easily have seen it as a case of (pure-blood) 
Dumbledore sides with (pure-blood) Potter, Black and Lupin. Even 
given a clear case of attempted murder, entrapment, and a dangerous 
werewolf, the pure-bloods side with each other. Whatever views they 
spout.

Tom Riddle, on the other hand, is *not* pure blood. Oh, he doesn't 
tell people like Bellatrix that. But he can see people's memories – 
he would know that this was Snape's weakness. The pure-bloods stick 
together. But you don't have to fear that from Lord Voldemort, 
Severus, because I too am not pure blooded. I truly understand that 
you can despise your filthy muggle ancestors.

 
> In support of the claim that Snape come from a poor family, I'd  
> like to reexamine the parallel that I drew between him and Harry a 
> few days ago.  It occurred to me, thanks to Laura's comments on 
> that post, that Snape and Harry can be described as opposites as 
> well as equals, and then I realized that this is because there are 
> in fact two Harrys.  
> 
> Muggle Harry is the one without any friends.  He is bullied by his 
> cousin and is too weak to fight back.  His family hates him, and 
> his home life is miserable.  He is a virtual nobody.
> 
<Snip> 
>	And Muggle Harry is poor.

And a half blood. Don't forget that. Muggle Harry is despised simply 
because he's one of them. A wizard. His blood is impure. 

The fact that the Dursley's see it from the opposite direction to 
wizards doesn't change the fact that they despise Harry because of 
his *blood*.

> I think Snape's life was the same (in fact, I'm waiting to find 
> out that the shouting man we see in Snape's memory is not his     
> father but his uncle). 
	
I think the shouting man may well have been his father, simply 
because it is much, much more difficult to dissociate yourself from 
parents, even when they treat you badly.

People often ask how Harry could turn out so well, and forget that 
most of his abuse is coming from a man he isn't related to. Petunia 
and Vernon are not his parents. He can, and always could, tell 
himself firmly that his *real* parents wouldn't have treated him 
this way. He may even dimly remember that they *didn't* treat him 
that way.

When Vernon screams about people of `your sort', Harry has in his 
subconscious mind the idea that this man is actually nothing to do 
with him. It is sheer accident that he has any connection with 
Vernon. It's interesting that Harry bitterly resents having to call 
Vernon's sister `Aunt' and has to be forced to do so. Again, she 
isn't a blood relation.

But if the shouting man was Snape's father, and did 
despise `mudbloods', then Snape has a problem. There's no 
dissociation – what your parents do, when you are small, is right.

But how could Snape be both a racist-in-his-childhood and a mixed 
blood himself? One possibility is that the mixed blood is the 
family `shame'. In a racist society, the amount of `impure' blood 
can be very important. JKR is working from British history, rather 
than U.S. history. US racism seems to follow a `one-drop' system, 
where any non-white blood makes you black. 

Racism in British India had a very firm gradation of status, where 
the `half-caste' was higher in status than the `native', the `Anglo-
Indian' higher in status than the `half-caste', and the person with 
one great grandparent (`a touch of the tar brush') could get quite a 
way up the societal ladder.

Not to the top, of course. One has standards, after all.

[Ugh! It makes me shudder just to write this. But that was the way 
it was.]

Anyway, the point I am making is that it was *notorious* that people 
of mixed blood who'd cast their lot with the ruling British were 
often *more* racist than the the whites who, after all, didn't have 
to worry about losing their status. The people of mixed blood were 
often brought up in the British Indian culture. They were stuck as 
second class citizens in the world they were brought up in, but 
couldn't leave it for the `non-white' India because they didn't 
really know that world, or understand how to make a living in it.

So, very often, they reacted by dissociating themselves quite 
violently from the non-white world, making it totally and absolutely 
clear that they identified with the white world only. Often they 
would be ashamed of the offending non-white relative who had ruined 
their `purity'. 

Tom Riddle is a good example of that kind of attitude. 

And it's half-and-half Seamus who spends much of OOP opposed to 
Harry, following the MoM line. 

So that would be one possibility. The Snapes are `not quite quite', 
and have responded by becoming racists. They despise their own 
background.

There is a second possibility, and that is that Severus Snape's 
father was completely pure-blooded. But then he had a dalliance with 
a witch who was not a pure blood (half-blood, maybe?). She was quite 
suitable for that kind of thing, but then he got her pregnant 
.

Well, we are talking about the 1950's or very early sixties. Even in 
the muggle world, shotgun marriages still took place. And the 
Wizarding World seems more old-fashioned than the muggle world –
 `marry the girl, or find a new job' could well have been the 
response.

And then little Severus would have been truly a screwed up kid. Like 
Harry, despised because of his blood (only it's his father doing the 
despising). Like Harry, his parents suffered because he was born.

Unlike Harry, he got to watch his parents arguing, and cry. Because 
he knew this would never have happened if he didn't exist?

You can get very angry in that sort of situation. Angry enough to 
want to change the world that did this to you.

> The only difference is that when Snape came to 
> Hogwarts, his life didn't magically change - he was still poor, 
> weak and friendless.

I think it is a much closer reflection. Snape was poor, and 
despised, and had absolutely no place in the world he was born into 
except the one right at the bottom. He had neither money nor 
pedigree. Harry is the same. In the muggle world, he has neither 
money, nor pedigree – in fact, he's despised by his relatives for 
his blood. 

Snape is that reflection in the wizarding world. He is Harry as he 
could have been with no escape route – bitter, angry and emotionally 
damaged.

> 	No wonder he wanted to tear the world down.

Agreed.

Pip!Squeak