Quesiton for Snapeophiles and -phobes RE Dumbledore, Snape, and Harry

[Nora Renka]

No: HPFGUIDX 114580


--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "pippin_999" <foxmoth at q...> 
wrote:

> Pippin:

<snip>

> As for the idea that Voldemort's rule would be more benign than 
> Snape's, last I looked Voldemort was trying to kill Harry and 
> everybody else, and Snape and Dumbledore were trying to keep 
> Harry and everybody else alive. That entails some suffering on 
> Harry's part, as a treatment for cancer might require a child to be 
> treated with poisons and irradiated. 

If I may cut in...I do agree with Pippin here that we should keep the 
little thing, that Voldemort is trying to kill people and Snape is 
not an evil bigoted overlord, in mind.  However...it's an interesting 
question as to *why* the things that Snape does that we could 
consider wrongdoings (I'm not saying evil, and I'm not for a reason) 
provoke such intense responses.

I've plugged before the concept of the Ordinary Vices, and I think 
Snape falls into that category nicely.  Voldemort is harder to 
comprehend in some ways--his evil is massive, and often as impersonal 
as it is personal.  That is to say, of course he has it out for Harry 
personally, but he also regards people as undesirables and thus 
effaces their humanity into a category.  I don't think he personally 
hates all the 'Mudbloods' he wants to exterminate--but it'd almost be 
more understandable if it were deeply personal.  Voldemort is Radical 
Evil, and on a large scale.

Snape's failings are more, so far as we have seen, on the personal 
level.  Voldemort is the kind of thing that a whole society must 
mobilize to face as a group; Snape's wrongdoings are the kind of 
thing dealt with within society, within a group, a more limited 
situation.  It's certainly more *human*, and is personal.  Looking at 
Snape's behavior makes us ask the questions: "How should people treat 
each other on a daily basis?  What about cruelty that doesn't involve 
anything so radical as torture?  How do we all get along, dammit?"

These are, of course, the base problems that occur *within* a liberal 
society, and Dumbledore, as the leader of the little society within 
Hogwarts, has the responsibility of trying to balance all personal 
claims.

To sum up, because I probably wouldn't read my own writing above:

Voldemort==Massive, Radical Evil--difficult to imagine, in some ways 
(lots of reader skepticism about the 'reality' of his actions)

Snape==Everyday, Ordinary Vices--things we've all run into in some 
form or another, and much more difficult to figure out what to do 
with.

As always, I think only for myself, but I hope this idea may be 
useful?

-Nora enjoys the sun and blue sky and heads outside