OoP: What Snape is really doing out there...

[bluesqueak]

No: HPFGUIDX 66209

Sydney wrote:
> Snape's relationship with his anger has always been very
> peculiar, he's certainly been nursing his wrath to keep it warm-- 
> but in contrast with Sirus he's always given the impression of 
> being in control of it.
> 
> I think Snape's Occulomency technique (otherwise known as lying) is
> very similar to Method acting.  Actors train themselves to replay
> highly emotional memories to themselves over and over again, so 
> they can actually reproduce the feeling, not merely pretend it. 
> Snape has essentially been preparing for the spy 'role' for the 
> last 16 years.

I'd agree that Snape is acting a very large part of the time (see 
the pre-OOP posts 
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/39273 and 
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/39335, plus 
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/39662.)

However, you've skipped over a rather vital part of the 'Emotional 
Memory' technique - the actor has to be in complete control of the 
emotions they reproduce (something that non-actors often don't 
realise). So Snape's technique appears to be complete emotional 
control. 

I noticed in the Occlumency chapters that JKR uses 'coldly' 
and 'coolly' quite a few times. This then contrasts with Snape being 
angry in the very same scenes. The suggestion I get (which agrees 
with your opinion, Sydney) is that Snape uses his anger. He is angry 
when he wants, for what he wants, and to the degree he wants. He is 
in complete contrast to Harry who (in this book) is very self-
indulgent with his anger.


> This is not to say that his 'Vindictive Death Eater' character is 
> not an important part of himself.  No actor makes a role out of 
> whole cloth.  For Snape the role is so critical, and the audience 
> so demanding, that he's pretty thoroughly messed up his brain and 
> delayed his development in perfecting it.

Umm... if I were told that I had to play a part for years on end, 
for 9 months of the year, 12 hours a day, only ever able to relax 
when I was on my own or with one or two highly trusted people ...

... I'd pick an acting persona that was as *close as possible* to my 
own natural personality. So 'delayed his development' might well be 
correct, but I doubt he's any more messed up than he was before. I 
suspect the 'real' Snape is something of a git. And naturally 
sadistic. What would be happening, is that instead of trying to stop 
those impulses completely, he controls them so that they only appear 
in situations he has chosen, and up to a strict point. 

The point generally appears to be physical harm. The closest Snape 
ever comes to actually physically hurting a student is when he grabs 
Harry out of the Pensieve scene and pushes him to the floor. Even 
the jar he chucks at him is aimed over Harry's head rather than 
straight at him.

Actually, all this hard self-control might make him *less* messed up 
than he was as a pre-Spy DE. Is self-control big on the DE agenda? 


> This is why so many actors are as seriously messed up as Snape    
> is...

Wrong way round, Sydney. As a professional actor I can assure you 
that we don't become messed up because we are actors. We become 
actors because we are (mostly) already messed up. :-))

Pip!Squeak