Snape--Abusive?

[pippin_999]

No: HPFGUIDX 114686


Valky: 
" Then Neville takes his magnificent stand against his greatest 
fear and  inspires all sorts of amazement from his class mates.
> > 
> > What do you think?<

Dzeytoun:
> Excellent points.  I think you may well be onto something with 
the  Neville scenario.  Certainly the evolution of his character in 
OOTP  would lead in this direction, and you can't help but feel 
that there has to be some goal toward which this is heading.  
Perhaps if we pair  people up with their "enemies" whom they 
will eventually defeat/destroy, it would be Harry vs Voldemort, 
Ron vs Draco, and  Neville vs Snape.<

Except that Neville has already taken a magnificent (if so far 
unsuccessful) stand against a far more dire antagonist: Bellatrix 
Lestrange. You are going to have a hard time convincing me that 
we haven't actually seen her hurt Neville worse than Snape has, 
considering the fourteen years of living death she inflicted on his 
parents and that we've seen Neville himself emotionally and 
physically tortured by her. Snape makes an attractive scapegoat, 
but surely she is the one  responsible for Neville's nightmares 
and irrational fears?

I believe JKR made Snape borderline for a reason: no matter 
where we draw the line between "difficult" and "abusive" there 
are going to be people who are careful and clever enough to stay 
just inside of it and still make others miserable. You'd have to 
move the line all the way to saintliness to catch them out, and 
where would that leave the rest of us? 

Making special rules just to deal with the Snapes is tyranny, and 
so, I'm afraid, is moral conversion by force. Besides, it doesn't 
work. People are so passionately determined to do what they 
think is right that even those who aren't usually sneaky will resort 
to clandestine behavior if they must--like joining the DA. Then 
you need an I-squad to ferret them out, and that means creating 
another group with special privileges, and those attract bullies 
the way veela attract testerone. Meet the new boss...

JKR said that Dumbledore allows Snape because he thinks the 
children need to learn to deal with all kinds of people. I think we 
are going to see that there are other ways of dealing with bullies 
than getting revenge.  It wouldn't be very satisfying to me if Harry 
was noble enough to forgo vengeance on  Pettigrew  for killing 
his parents and then took out his wrath on Snape for insulting 
them. To paraphrase something Ron never said, he'd really 
need to rethink his priorities.

Pippin