Unfinished Business (was: did Lupin kill Sirius)

[jwcpgh]

No: HPFGUIDX 83089

<arrowsmithbt at b...> wrote:
> Assailed on two fronts; no matter. Though the way be long and 
weary, onwards I toil, bearing a banner with a strange device.
> 
Laura:
Cry me a river.  You know you love it.  <beg>
> 
> First Laura, with snipping:
>  >
> We said several posts back that Snape *is* his anger. He has long 
ago chosen to make rage, contempt, cruelty and disregard his 
emotional vocabulary. 
> 
> Kneasy:
> Not sure what you mean by "...disregard his emotional vocabulary.."
> I think it speaks to him clearly -  a bright core of tightly 
focussed anger. <snip>This is a cold man. Group hugs would never 
appeal even if his life had been uneventful.
> I sympathise. Ersatz coercive bonhomie does not appeal to me 
either. 
> 
Laura responds:
I may have written unclearly-I meant to use disregard as a noun, as 
in disregard of others.  Yes, Snape is cold on the outside, raging on 
the inside.  
I'm not talking about ersatz coercive bonhomie (nice phrase). I'm 
talking about normal, volitional relationships.  He rejects any form 
of connection except the most superficial, as far as I can see.  And 
he might well have done so under less dramatic circumstances.  But he 
can't legitimately go around believing that he has suffered more than 
others whose families were killed by LV and his little friends. 

> Laura
>  >
> Yes, I agree that Snape seeks catharsis. I wonder, though, what 
will change about him if and when he gets it. What I'm trying to get 
at is that I think Snape likes being angry. I'm not sure he perceives 
it as suffering at all, although we readers do.
>  >
> 
> Kneasy:
> He probably does nurture his anger, but to him it is a justifiable 
> anger. So why let it go?
<snip>

Laura responds:

Sure, but what I'm asking is what happens after the catharsis you say 
he needs.  Let's say he kills LV (which I don't think will happen, 
but this is more to do with Snape's character than with plot 
predictions).  My sense is that he wouldn't change one bit.  Yet 
isn't catharsis supposed to achieve something?  Isn't it supposed to 
allow a person who is suffering from an inner injury to find 
resolution, and thus allow him/her to rid him/herself of the 
resultant feelings of anger, anxiety and frustration?
Cold would be okay.  Snape doesn't have to buddy up with anyone. He 
can be a loner.  But Snape is beyond cold.  He takes positive 
pleasure in belittling, insulting, intimidating and humiliating those 
of his students who are his chosen targets.  Do you see that as his 
way of sublimating his anger against LV?  I don't.  I think it's a 
kick for him and it wouldn't stop if LV were dead. 
> 
> Laura:
>  >
> I don't agree that he's repressing his anger-come on, when does he
> ever do that? <snip>  >
> 
> Kneasy:
> More crossed  lines here, I think. My point was that some posters 
seem to want him to suppress it, work it out, come to terms with it. 
My reading of Snapes character is that this is foreign to his nature. 
<snip> 

Laura responds:

So is catharsis possible for him at all?  Or does he even want it?  
My understanding of catharsis is that it's a way of coming to terms 
with an emotional injury such that the poison, so to speak, is purged 
from the psyche.  If the cathartic process is successful, 
compensatory behavior will end.  But if Snape killed LV would he feel 
purged of his anger?  I doubt it.  He was angry before LV came on the 
scene and he'll keep being angry afterwards (if he lives that long). 
I think what he wants is not catharsis, not healing, but revenge.  
Now I'm not saying he's wrong-if LV did murder his family Snape has 
every right to want to want him to suffer in turn.  But I'm not sure 
I believe that revenge brings healing.  You can hurt the person who 
hurt you and still feel injured.  The idea of catharsis is that the 
pain of the injury disappears (although it might take a while).  


> Laura:
>  >
> I don't think we've scratched the surface when it comes to
> understanding where Snape's anger comes from. Here's what we do
> know: he arrives at school already well versed in the dark 
arts...<snip> 

> Kneasy:
> Well  versed? One comment from Sirius about Snape knowing more Dark 
Magic when he joined the school than half the seventh year. This from 
a scion of the evil Black family and who probably knew just as much 
if not more of Dark Magic at the age of eleven (he didn't 'reform' 
until after he joined Hogwarts). <snip> 

Laura responds:

I looked through canon and didn't find any other references to 
Snape's childhood expertise with the dark arts, so yeah, we have only 
Sirius's comment, which also says that Snape was "famous" for his 
attraction to the dark arts at school.  That sounds to me like more 
than personal prejudice.  And if you suspect Sirius of being equally 
knowledgeable, then who better to call Snape on it?

<snip>
> Kneasy:
> Unsurprisingly, I don't agree with your interpretation of 
the 'prank'.  Firstly, canon for 'after hours' please. It 
states 'evening'.

Laura:
You're right, canon doesn't say that it was after hours.  However, we 
*never* see students outside the castle at night without explicit 
permission, or unless they're sneaking around under invisibility 
cloaks.  So my inference was that Snape shouldn't have been outside 
at night.

Kneasy:
> Secondly, any teenager who goads, taunts, or 'jokes' another into 
> extreme danger is not blameless. School Rules? Who could envision 
> similar circumstances? What would cover the situation?
> "Rule 17: Attempted manslaughter is not allowed."
> Sirius should have been punished. He knowingly put Snape in danger. 
<snip>

Laura responds:
Really?  What happened to the idea of personal responsibility?  (Some 
libertarian you are, Kneasy.)  If someone suggests that you do a 
certain thing, who has the power to decide whether to do it-them or 
you?  Even teenagers don't do *everything* their peers tell them to, 
especially peers they hate.  Snape was so consumed with his desire to 
get the goods on the Marauders that he didn't stop to think.  His 
anger is misdirected-he let Sirius make a fool of him.  Snape should 
be angry at himself for being so gullible.  Sirius acted wrongly and 
should have gotten a stern lecture but I think that would have been 
enough.  
> 
> Laura:
>  >
> Snape is so angry and insecure that he takes everything
> as an insult except craven obedience-his reaction to Lily in 
Pensieve 2 is an example. If every interaction you try is met with 
hostility, the attempts will soon cease-as witness Lily. Yet no one 
did anything to Snape that he wasn't willing and able to
> do to them first.
>  >
> 
> Kneasy:
> Wow! Where did you get this one from? Insecure? Just like Ghengis 
Khan. Expecting craven obedience from Lily? He just wanted her out of 
the way  - she was just making things worse.

Laura responds:
Oh, so now it's Lily's fault that James humiliated Snape?  Would it 
have been better if she ignored what was going on?  She saw someone 
being victimized-in front of an audience-and tried to put a stop to 
it.  Although I'll bow to your superior knowledge of male scuffle 
dynamics, I can't believe you think Snape's reaction to her is 
justifiable.  

Teenage!Snape is not adult!Snape.  Yes, I think he acted the way he 
did because he felt odd, disliked and vulnerable-to me that adds up 
to insecure.  His adult persona is his way of fixing that. 

Kneasy: 
> James and Sirius gang up on Snape; jump him without warning (such 
brave boys). He's disarmed before he knows what's  happening. Both 
jinx him when he has no wand (just  who the Slytherin and who the 
Gryffindor here?), then Lily jumps  in. <snip?They really were 
> a nasty bunch of thugs.
> 
> Proof please that Snape did anything to WMPP that was not provoked.
> 
Laura responds:

On rereading the pensieve 2 scene, I would have to say that Snape 
wasn't entirely defenseless.  James walks up to him and speaks to him 
(wand not in battle position), Snape reaches for his wand, and then 
they begin.  No, it was hardly their proudest moment.  But Snape does 
manage to inflict a little injury.  
No, I don't like that scene at all.  But I don't believe it happened 
in isolation.  I went back and tried to find any reference to 
MWPP/Snape incidents other than the prank and couldn't find any, so 
yeah, I was making an assumption (caught red-keyboarded, I'm 
afraid).  But I will argue that if James had been as bad as you think 
he was, I wonder if everyone except Snape would speak about him so 
fondly and with so many references to what a good person he was.  
Mayby you'd think this is a result of the circumstances of his death, 
but I have to believe it was more than that.  
<snip>
> Kneasy:
> I doubt Sirius would  relish facing Snape without back-up. I doubt 
a fair fight would appeal to him. We all know characters like Sirius; 
> happy to instigate mischief but missing when the blame gets 
> apportioned. Snape seemed quite happy to  take him on in Grimmauld 
> Place. Sirius? Wind and bombast and not much else IMO. The 
Ministry? No option without being accused of cowardice.

Laura responds:
Well, we've been around before on the subject of Sirius.  All I'll 
add here is that if Sirius was willing to provoke his powerful and 
evil family at the age of 11 (according to your argument, because his 
being sorted into Gryffindor would have been a direct insult to his 
family), I sincerely doubt that he would ever have been afraid of 
Snape.  As for the MoM, I can't believe that even you think he 
wouldn't have come to Harry's defense in a split second.  No one, not 
even DD, was going to keep him away from the DoM that night.  

Don't worry about speculating-Holmes was talking about detection, not 
literary analysis.  :-)