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

[juli17 at aol.com]

No: HPFGUIDX 114786



--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, juli17 at a... wrote:
>>
>
>Julie sez:
>
>I definitely can't agree with your assessment. 


<SNIP
>
>Snape falls in the second category. He's definitely a miserable 
git, 
>but he's yet to do anything evil, even to Harry or Neville. (Verbal 
abuse 
>doesn't quite qualify, IMO). 

Dzeytoun writes:

> I will disagree with this strongly.  Verbal abuse most definitely 
> does qualify as evil.

Julie sez:

I think we have a different definition of evil. Verbal abuse is wrong,
mean, and a bad thing. But it's not necessarily evil. After all, we've
all committed verbal abuse at one time or another. If you have 
sisters or brothers, you've probably done it multiple times! Not
to mention the things husbands and wives often say to each
other. Saying mean things to hurt another's feelings is something 
humans (and wizards) resort to in anger, fear, prejudice, etc. It's
not nice or kind, but it happens.

Now, continual and deliberate verbal abuse intended to push  
someone down and destroy their self image is a little different. 
That is criminal abuse. Snape rides the edge on this one, but it's
still questionable if he's "abusive" as a person, rather than an
occasional user of abusive methods. Even with Neville, I think
Snape is motivated more by his inability to tolerate incompetence
and total lack of empathy for others, than he is by any actual intent 
to emotionally damage or destroy Neville. He's a miserable git at
times, but he's not evil. 

Umbridge, on the other hand...


Julie also wrote:
> 
> And, yes, we don't know what he did
> >when he was a DE, but until we do, we can't conclusively say if
> >he's done anything evil. Voldemort, OTOH, has killed repeatedly, 
> >including Harry's parents, Bertha Jorkins by torture,  had a child
> >-Cedric-killed on his orders, as well as attempting to kill two 
> other 
> >children (Harry and Ginny). He's also directed the DEs to torture
> >and/or kill hundreds (maybe thousands) of other wizards. Even if 
> >we haven't *seen* these things, we know them to be true, unless
> >we believe the whole WW is delusional. Evil is as evil does, and
> >Voldemort has done plenty of evil things.

Dzeytoun writes:

> But, even granted all this is true, IF we had to make a judgement on 
> what we have SEEN, well...

> And, as Alla has said in her post, therein lies a major weakness in 
> the plot.  Voldemort and the Death Eaters are so far off stage it's 
> hard to react emotionally to them as a threat at all.
> 
> Snape, on the other hand, is very much on stage and it's quite easy 
> to react to his evil (and yes, I think he is on the balance an evil 
> person, albeit one who probably works for the "good" side).
> 
> 
> >
> >IMO, there's really no comparison between Voldemort and Snape
> >when it comes to matters of evil, even if Snape is the much more 
> >complexly drawn character. 
> >
> 
> And yet we really as yet have no basis for such a comparison, based 
> on what has actually been SHOWN to us.
> 
> 
> Dzeytoun
> 

Julie says now:

But it has been SHOWN. We've seen Voldemort try to kill Harry, we
saw him order Pettigrew to kill Cedric, we heard him admit to torturing
and killing Bertha Jorkins, we heard him admit to killing Harry's parents.
Even if you don't accept the whole of the WW's word on Voldemort's
past acts against hundreds of innocent wizards, we have indeed been
shown some of his "present" acts. 

So we can make a comparison. Snape is a bitter, mean, occasionally
abusive git, while Voldemort is a torturer and murderer. In matters of
evil, Voldemort wins hands down. 

Julie 



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