Snape's DE past

[Nora Renka]

No: HPFGUIDX 111194

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "arrowsmithbt" 
<arrowsmithbt at b...> wrote:

<snippity>

> Nobody thinks that Snape is a half-wit, in fact just the opposite. 
> He's intelligent and logical. Much too intelligent to confuse Harry 
> with James (echoes of Sirius). Whatever antipathy there was between 
> the two has absolutely nothing to do with Harry and Snape is smart 
> enough to know this. On a couple of occasions Snape compares Harry 
> to James but he doesn't confuse them. Why would he bother? James is 
> dead; Snape won that contest on points. I don't claim that he likes 
> Harry, more that he is exaggerating his dislike. Like all 
> successful agents Snape is a consumate actor. He probably sits iin 
> his dungeon duplex giggling to himself thinking up new ways to get 
> under Harry's skin.

I've got one problem with this general characterization--it's 
basically IceKing!Snape that we see tossed out here every once in a 
while.  Snape is intelligent and logical.  He's also been shown to be 
*intensely* emotional more than once.  I postulated once that the 
entire MAGIC DISHWASHER 'Snape is acting in the Shrieking Shack in 
PoA' idea was based around the conjecture "Snape wouldn't ACTUALLY 
lose it like that....would he?"  Post-OotP, really looks like he 
would, wouldn't he?  Unless you think that his fury there is also 
just a cover for some unknown and obscure purpose, too.

Intelligence and emotion, as we've argued before, don't behave in any 
clear-cut relationship with each other.  Intelligent people 
frequently do things that they *know* aren't correct (or whatever) 
because they are emotionally driven to do so.  Hey, neurobiologists 
out there on the depression thread, want to weigh in?

But I do say this as someone who's still not convinced that he's 
actually back spying on his old buddies in any close-to-direct 
manner.  In fact, I have no idea what he's doing--best suggestion 
ever made to me was that he's running the staff lottery.

Make Snape into the consummate actor in all the situations where the 
more straightforward reading is that he's furiously angry/emotional 
and fuming, and you just...flatten the character out.  He's not 
perfectly logical all the time.  Sometimes he gets to the right 
conclusion, but in the wrong way.  And sometimes he won't listen when 
he's about to be proven wrong.  On the other hand, he very well can 
put things together that no one else seems to 'get'.

Me, I wouldn't mind seeing some version of George or his sister Diana 
popping up, although either of those requires a little more...moral 
consistency, shall we say, than seems to be evinced right now.

-Nora sits back in her cozy rocker and awaits the inevitable Great 
Snape Armageddon with a wine bottle