Tyranny (WAS Harry learning from Snape)

[Nora Renka]

No: HPFGUIDX 114481


--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "Hannah" <hannahmarder at y...> 
wrote:
> Hannah now: When has Snape's behaviour resulted in an utter and 
> absolute disaster? If you mean the occlumency failure, I don't 
> think it can be entirely blamed on Snape; Harry doesn't try, he is 
> very stupid when he looks in the pensieve, he never even tries to 
> resume lessons.  

I ain't Dzeytoun, but I think I can come up with a line of reasoning 
that works here.

It was stated earlier in another thread, and I do believe this 
myself, that Snape is a teacher who is feared, not respected.  I 
don't think that fear and true respect, with regards to a superior, 
are particularly mutually compatible.

I suspect the argument Dzeytoun is making, if I unpack it, is this:  
Dumbledore is being unduly lenient in allowing Snape to behave as 
Snape wishes towards the students, with some restraint, but not a 
particularly strong amount.  (This point, minus the unduly part, has 
been largely confirmed in JKR interview, when she says that DD keeps 
Snape around in part because the kids need to learn some life lessons-
-that's a rough quote, but I'm fairly sure the gist is there).

This is, throughout the books, resulted in an escalation and 
continuation of hostility between Harry and Snape, with some 
culpability on both sides, but probably putting more of the blame on 
Snape--in part because yes, he is the teacher, and as such is in a 
superior position of authority, which brings certain amounts of 
responsibility with it.  And I think it's really pretty settled that 
we don't see any of the other teachers behaving in truly Snape-like 
ways; ergo, he *is* something of an anomaly at Hogwarts.

Given this situation, Harry's distrust and fear of Snape is a 
situation which feeds into the Occlumency mess.  [Side note: I really 
*do* want to know how much DD knew what was going on with that, and 
his responses to it--that matters quite a bit to getting a more 
accurate interpretation of what happened and why.]  Now, to jump 
backwards, IF the hostile situation between Harry and Snape had not 
been allowed to continue largely unchecked, with no necessitated 
examination of ideas on either side, THEN we can see the situation in 
book 5 with the lessons being quite a bit different.

There is the question of balance, here: does DD have the right to 
force Snape to change his behavior, versus whether DD has the right 
to allow Snape to continue the exercise of his behavior on his 
inferiors.  A difficult question.  If my friend would ever return my 
copy of Shklar, I'd go diving to see what she thinks...

Does that make any sense?

-Nora recovers from the emotional wringer of Verdi