[HPforGrownups] Re: Deatheater Snape

[Silverthorne]

No: HPFGUIDX 99640

Kneasy: 
Besides, I like the symmetry: Snape hexes James' broomstick but saves
Harry from the same hex.

Silverthorne:
Isn't it just?

Kneasy:
> > The crying child? Son-of-Snape. The adults are Sevvy and possibly
> > Florence, the proud parents of this lachrymose tot.


Silverthorne:
Interesting idea...however...if Snape turned to DD the first time V was around, then according to canon, he was, at best in his mid-twenties (Rowling acknowledges that Snape is in his mid thirties when the series starts in some interview or another). And the boy-turned--teenager is at least ten, I suspect, in the memories (Well, nevermind the boy--the kid shooting flies I think is a teenager?). Point is, for that to be Sev's child, he would have had to have fathered one while he was still at Hogwarts for the little cherub to grow up enough for those memories to be the ones that affected Severus's defection. The idea is good, but I suspect your timing is off.

Kneasy:
> > It's the only sliver of Snape's past I can see that might give a clue
> > to motivation. A family. And since they don't seem to be around 
> > anymore.....


Silverthorne:
Um. just to point something out. If your family was the source of most of your pain when you were a child, would you honestly maintain contact with them once you were an adult if it wasn't necassary? Just asking--I know in my case the answer is 'no'. I have a mother and a grandmother that live somewhere on the east coast (well, the Grandmother may be dead by now, I'm not sure though). Between the pair of them and all their nasty little games, I was a wreck by the time I got out from under them. I don't know where they are now, and I don't really care. Point is, they made my life a living hell as a child, and I really do not want to go back to that. So I don't. Hence, as far as most people around me know, I have no mother's side of the family...they may as well be 'dead'.
> 


Kneasy:

This crying child memory has been used to allow Snape some level of well, excuse, if you like, for his later behaviour. 



Silverthorne:

Not, not excuse, at least not from me. Simple logic, proven out time and again in RL.


Kneasy:

Abused child,  bound to turn out nasty and probably into an abuser himself - logical no? Maybe, it's possible. But I don't like to ascribe stone cold certainty to the ineluctable progression of abused => abuser that some seem to make. Because it can happen doesn't  mean it must happen. What sort of message would that give to an abused child? You'll be the
same? Uncomfortable thought.


Silverthorne:
As a abuse survivor myself, I can tell you with certainty that not all abused children go bad themselves. I can also tell you that it's a hell of an upward climb *not* to turn out the same way, even if you have the sweetest nature in the world (which I used to have until one too many things turned me a bit snapish myself...^^;). As for 'telling' any abuse victim what you said just--Rowling doesn't. In fact, she almost negates the idea with Harry--who, even after he has gone through in his life, still acts very much a normal teenage boy with no abusive (although definitely confrontational) tendencies. I think an abuse victim, quite frankly, would more likely get that idea from reading the posts on this board...lol!


Kneasy:
Anyway, I think Sevvy is just plain nasty and the treatment he hands
out to Harry and Neville may have originated with his own child.
Some people don't need an excuse to enjoy what they do. 


Silverthorne:
Perhaps not, but then I doubt the guy would try as hard as he did to protect Harry then. After all, the way you paint him, all he would really have to do is *truly* neglect a moment when he should have gone to DD or stopped something from happening to Harry. In fact, with no reason to give a s***, I expect that by now, that's exactly what he would have managed to do, 'loyal' to DD or not. Subconcious hate has a lot of control over people's judegement. But I don't buy for a moment that Severus had a child or a wife---I doubt he got that far out of his own teenage morass before everything went to hell in a hand basket.



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