[HPforGrownups] Re: Snape and respect

[Shaun Hately]

No: HPFGUIDX 51190

On 30 Jan 2003 at 18:12, pippin_999 foxmoth at qnet.com wrote:

> Shaun said:
> 
> >>Even if I accept that's true - and I do to an extent - even if I 
> accept that Hermione is a soldier, for that to even start to excuse 
> Snape's behaviour, he'd have to be a drill instructor.
> I don't believe he is. He's a teacher. She is a school girl. A 
> teacher should *never* lose sight of that, even if the child 
> does.<<<
> 
> You're referring, perhaps,  to the incidents when Hermione set 
> Snape on fire, broke into his office and helped knock him 
> unconscious? If they were both adults, I'd say she had it coming. 
> <g> 

Well, I'm not sure Snape knew about the setting him on fire, and I'm pretty sure he 
thinks Harry did the break in. So those two don't count. (-8

'If they were both adults, I'd say she had it coming.' Yes, possibly. But they're not. He's 
an adult, she's a child - and more significantly, IMHO, he's a teacher, and she is one of 
his pupils.
 
> Now, it's clear that Snape has no appetite for children, and in the 
> real world he shouldn't be teaching.  But the Potterverse isn't the 
> real world, it's a place where the adult world contains Beings like 
> Hags, whose appetite for children is of quite a different sort <g> 

Yes, and I actually don't think it's fair to make precise comparisons between the 
Wizarding world and our own. Their treatment of children does seem different - few 
schools in our world expose kids to potentially deadly detentions. But from what we have 
seen, Snape's treatment of certain pupils is *not* normal teaching practice at Hogwarts. 
Even given the differences we have seen, that is an aberration.

> Stories with a child protagonist  can be as shallow as 
> Scooby-Doo or as profound as Twain, but seldom will you find 
> that the child's victory depends on  anybody taking  pity on the 
> child for childhood's sake.  Usually, when an adult takes pity on a 
> story-child, it's a Very Bad Sign (cf. the witch in Hansel and 
> Gretel). The adult will in the end prove to be ineffectual if not 
> actually villainous.  To have it otherwise would make the adult 
> rather than the child into the protagonist -- Greek  *proto* first, 
> agonistes, actor, combatant, (from *agonizesthai*, to contend, 
> from *agonia*, contest, from *agon*, from *agein*, to drive, lead.

I didn't expect Snape to show Hermione an ounce of pity. Ideally, what I would have 
liked to have seen is what he did with Goyle in the same situation, a moment earlier.

"Snape examined Goyle, whose face now resembled something that would have been at 
home in a book on poisonous fungi.

'Hospital wing, Goyle.' Snape said calmly."

No pity there, no fuss, no obvious compassion. Simply an assessment of the situation 
and a calm, sensible instruction.

But as to the literary construction - I understand how that goes, and I can fully accept 
that JKR had a valid literary purpose in making Snape the way he is. And the disgust 
and anger I feel about Snape's actions in that scene are an indication of her success.

The books *would* be different if Snape was a different person - and I might not like the 
books as much. But I think there is a real and obvious distinction between *liking* a 
character as a literary construct, and *liking* the same character as a person.
 
> As to your other point, Snape *is* The Trio's drill instructor, in a 
> sense--his antagonism does much to force the Trio into a unit in 
> Book One.  And while 14 year old Hermione does indeed need a 
> space where she doesn't have to be a soldier, a corridor full of 
> Slytherins, one of whom has threatened her life more than once, 
> is not it. 

I just disagree. Snape is not their drill instructor in any sense. McGonnagall fills that 
role. Snape's job, his role, is to teach them one subject - no more than that. 
McGonnagall and Dumbledore as head of house and head of school have more 
responsibilities than that. That's a personal opinion, of course.

And I think a school corridor on a normal school day is a place any child is entitled to 
feel safe and protected. It won't always happen - but a teacher should always be 
responsible for doing what they can to ensure it does.

> Even if  Hermione learns from this that she shouldn't rely on 
> Snape, or any of her teachers, to protect her--that may have been 
> his intention or part of it. Two of Hermione's teachers have 
> proved to be less than protective, to say the least. It is already 
> clear at the time of the incident that something is once again 
> rotten in the state of Hogwarts, and that no student could have 
> confunded the Cup.

I can't see that as his intention. I can put down the other incidents of his cruelty to 
having that motivation as a possibility - but not this one. This one is different, IMHO.

The fact that two of Hermione's teachers have proven to be serious liabilities simply 
makes Snape's actions less understandable to me. She already knows teachers cannot 
be trusted 100% - and that's a lesson she needed to learn. Snape is a position to know 
that she has learned that lesson. He knows about her dealings with Quirrel and with 
Lockhart (and I would suspect he'd add Lupin to that list as well) - he has every reason 
to know that she understands the flaws of those who teach. He doesn't need to ram it 
down her throat.

>  As to all that goes on in Snape's head I couldn't begin to guess, 
> but I will submit a  LOLLIPOPS apologia for Snape's behavior in 
> this scene. He has once again arrived just too late to prevent a 
> Muggle-born witch from taking a curse meant for Harry Potter. 

OK... if that is true, I *might*, just *might* be able to forgive him. If his reaction was one 
born of frustration at his falure to save someone who he thinks he should be saved, or 
born of guilt, or of memories of the past that welled up inside him, I could *maybe* have 
a little sympathy for the man in this case. Still unacceptable, but less than deliberate 
cruelty.

But I find that hard to credit - because of this:

"Snape looked coldly at Hermione, then said, 'I see no difference.'"

That pause. For me to grant him sympathy, I have to assume he had enough self-control 
that none of his feelings were apparent in his face or manner at all - but not enough to 
stop himself making that comment.

I find that duality *very* hard to credit.

Yours Without Wax, Dreadnought
Shaun Hately |webpage: http://www.alphalink.com.au/~drednort/thelab.html
(ISTJ)       |email: drednort at alphalink.com.au | ICQ: 6898200
"You know the very powerful and the very stupid have one thing in
common. They don't alter their views to fit the facts. They alter
the facts to fit the views. Which can be uncomfortable if you happen
to be one of the facts that need altering." The Doctor - Doctor Who:
The Face of Evil | Where am I: Frankston, Victoria, Australia