What's wrong with Mean!Snape ?

[pippin_999]

No: HPFGUIDX 115290


Pippin:
> > Readers understand that because Buckbeak  couldn't 
behave  otherwise without becoming something other than a 
hippogriff,  punishment  would be useless and unjust.<<

Nora: 
> It's an interesting analogy, Pippin, but it does has a major 
weakness, as I'm sure you know--mainly the difference between 
human  and hippogriff.<<
> 
> One famous old definition (Harry Frankfurt's) of 'personhood' is 
the  ability to have second-order desires; to have a desire about 
the  desires that one has.  Easier to give an example: to have the 
wish to  *want* to do good things for other people.  I don't think 
Buckbeak is  capable of that, while I do think Snape is.<
> 
> I think tolerance is an important issue, and I think there *are* 
> lessons to be learned about allowing Snape to be himself.  On 
the  other hand, I think there is a reciprocal issue--Snape 
learning that  he shouldn't always treat people as he does.  I 
keep coming back to  problems of liberalism, but 'you gotta get 
along to go along' is one  of them.

<snip> if we try to accept all of them, we get 
PreposterouslyCompetent!Snape.  That is to say, Snape who is 
very  deeply damaged and cannot help his behavior towards the 
kids, BUT  he's also really just doing it out of frustration and also 
trying to  help them along as he's completely aware of the 
importance of Harry  AND he always has their best interests in 
mind; he's emotionally  damaged from abuse BUT is still 
perfectly in control of his emotions  to succeed as a spy...
> 
> I bet there's one piece of missing information that would trigger 
a  cascade of 'Oh, that's it?'<

Pippin:
Such as Not-linked-to-(other)-vampires-partVampire!Snape?  
Like Buckbeak neither foal nor fowl,Snape could possess an 
atypical mind, thus misleading the legilimens despite not being 
in perfect control of  his emotions (canon: 'Don't ask me to 
fathom the way a werewolf's mind works?").

FBAWTFT implies there's debate about whether vampires are 
capable of overcoming their brutal natures enough to be 
welcomed into the polity, which speaks to Nora's quote about 
personhood.  The centaurs say they shouldn't be. But then, as it 
turns out, the centaurs themselves are better at spouting their 
philosophy (we do not attack foals) than acting on it, so who are 
they to judge? 

Of course that will disappoint those who want to find purely 
human reasons for Snape's behavior, but I think the vampire 
metaphor might be a useful one to explain, in a poetic way, why 
if it's a good thing for Harry to be flexible enough to alter his 
behavior the same should not be expected of Snape. The 
underlying truth would be that humans aren't equally flexible -- 
change is possible for some but not for everyone.

Pippin