[HPforGrownups] Re: Snape and respect

[Amanda Geist]

No: HPFGUIDX 51054

What a great thread! Ah, for the days when only two of my children could
walk or talk, I was at home all day, and could post to my heart's content.

Marina said

> I think Snape's "purpose" is really just an excuse.  He's harsh
> because he likes being harsh.

Sort of.

This is hard to frame and express accurately. My take on Snape is that he
simply doesn't care on the level we are examining this. Not that he is
unaware that it was a cruel thing to say; I'm sure he did. But I don't think
he gets off on being mean to the students or is on a power trip or anything
like that. In past attempts to express this, I've said he's on "autopilot."
His frame of reference is completely off the map from what we're concerned
about.

Givens:
(1) Snape probably is jealous of Harry's fame. Snape put in a lot of
dangerous time in the trenches, and no-the-hell-body knows diddly about it,
and Harry didn't do anything but sit there, and he's a household word. How
irritating. That said, though, I think this jealousy is not an overriding
thing; I think it's on the scale that I experience at work--I'll put in
hours and hours on a project, feel real pride in it, and genuinely enjoy
standing in the back hearing reactions to it and simply knowing I was a big
part of it. There is *always* one tiny part that wants recognition for my
role--I will sometimes let drop in conversations the part I played--but it's
not a driving thing. Lack of knowledge of my contribution is more of an
irritant. Which is how I see Snape's reaction to Harry's fame. Irritating,
but minor. [This is augmented by the Harry=Mini-James effect, see Given #3]

(2) Snape, I believe, sees Ron and Hermione as adjuncts to Harry. He never
saw Hermione as anything else, even when she was. In that first classroom
scene, she was not yet a friend of Harry, but I think Snape believed she was
because of the way Harry deflected Snape's questions to her. I think it is a
tragedy of Snape's character that he cannot appreciate the talent Hermione
has because of the emotional filters he's projecting. Paderewski teaching
piano, indeed, and hating the one student he's got with a natural ear for
music. So I believe that Snape's automatic responses to Hermione and Ron are
"set" to a nastier level than other students.

(3) I also believe that Snape is projecting rather a lot. I think that he
retreated emotionally a long time ago, for whatever reason--love, horror at
his own actions, whatever trauma, he retreated from it rather than face it.
His reactions and judgements have not matured since then, even if his
intellect and experience have. Consequently, the reactions that Harry and
his friends provoke are, in large percent, still largely reactions to James
and his friends. Snape is, by tromping on Harry, making sure James gets the
comeuppance that Snape never saw him get at school. Similarly, by favoring
Draco, Snape is giving himself the breaks he never got at school.
[I am not saying AT ALL that this is all there is to Snape's actions--I
think Snape operates on many levels simultaneously. I am speaking of the
subconscious in this aspect--I think he's consciously unaware that he is
doing this, because he is ferociously proud and would probably recognize the
childishness of what he is doing if he let himself. So he does not let
himself. I will not get into my theory that on the conscious level, he's
taking a malicious pleasure in favoring Draco, knowing he is letting Lucius'
son grow up unprepared and inexperienced in facing adversity.]

Okay, with those givens, here's what I think Snape is about in his
interactions with his students. Snape has seen incredible horrors in his
rather short life. I am theorizing, but I'd imagine that to be a useful spy
he probably had to be rather close to Voldemort. He has probably seen people
he knows have terrible things done to them. He has probably done terrible
things, whether willingly or un or both. He has had to make choices on the
fly and let conclusions be drawn about him in order to protect his larger
role. He's been in life-and-death situations; and given what we know of at
least one horrible Dark-inclined creature, likely, worse-than-death
situations. This is playing on a major scale.

He carries that scale with him. And measured against that scale, hurting the
feelings of a girl doesn't even register. I'm sure he was aware that it was
a cruel thing to say, but at the same time, on some level, it simply doesn't
matter that it was mean or that she was hurt.  Snape may well, at some time,
have been capable of sympathy or empathy. He's certainly sensitive enough.
But given his past as a DE, if Snape let himself be empathetic on any level,
it could be the break in the dam. He'd implode. Perhaps his psyche is
protecting itself by insulating him in that mantle of cruelty.

So he doesn't care. He won't care. He simply goes about his duties and
interacts with students carelessly. On autopilot. Not involving himself in
those interactions as much as they do, because (a) his world is bigger; (b)
his experience is broader; (c) he cannot pull back from the level of trauma
he has experienced, sufficiently to consider an insult to be traumatic.

If that makes any sense.

~Amandageist, old Snapologist