Snape and Magic Dishwasher. Was: Re: DD and the rat:

[Nora Renka]

No: HPFGUIDX 115998


--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "bluesqueak" <pipdowns at e...> 
wrote:

Let me play devil's advocate, because it's far much more fun than 
doing analysis on madrigals, for the moment:

<dons a top hat with a pair of horns, in the spirit of Momus>

<snip>

> Ah, yes of course. I forgot. It's all Snape's fault [grin]. Under 
> no circumstances can Sirius be a git. Sirius has *reasons* for any 
> nasty behaviour. Snape doesn't understand poor Sirius. He is 
> unsympathetic to what he's been through. 

<snip>

> OK, I'm being sarcastic. Because frankly, neither Snape nor Sirius 
> are nice people. The reason we see Sirius as nice is quite simple - 
> Harry likes him. We see Sirius through his viewpoint. 
> 
> When not viewed through Harry's viewpoint, Sirius
> 1)was a school bully
> 2)played a potentially lethal trick on the kid he bullied
> 3)owns a slave (whether house-elves are always slaves is a moot 
> point, but I'd say that Dobby, Winky and Kreacher are all treated 
> as if they were slaves by the Malfoys, Crouches and the Blacks)
> 4)treats that slave with contempt.

<snip>

> Pip!Squeak:
> Anything is possible - but to date we've seen Sirius allow the 
> unconscious Snape to knock his head against a tunnel wall, bully 
> him two on one (to be fair, James instigated that one) and tell him 
> how to get into a tunnel with a werewolf at the other end. What 
> he's said against Snape is - *not* that Snape used to attack him at 
> school. Instead, he's said that the young Snape was fascinated by 
> the Dark arts, knew a lot of curses, hung around with Slytherins 
> who later became DE's, and was slimy. And oily. And tried to get 
> them kicked out of school. 
> 
> Unfortunately, the current state of canon evidence (rather than 
> speculative evidence) is that Sirius and James were the bullies, 
> Snape the victim. Even the trying to get them kicked out of school 
> can be (speculatively) fitted into a 'victim' pattern for Snape - 
> people who're being bullied often dream about the bullies getting 
> expelled. 

Ah, Pip!Squeak--if we're willing to be deeply speculative and 
allowant for one character, shouldn't we be fair, and do it for 
all? :)  

JKR has let us know (at least how I read her comments) that there's a 
certain amount of WYSIWYG regarding Current!Snape: he's a sadistic 
teacher who abuses his power.  However, we also know that there is 
Much More To Him, and that he is (at least we think he is, and I'd 
really hate to be wrong on this point) on the side of the angels.

But there are a lot of things about the schooldays that are 
unaccounted for.  For one, we've had one glimpse of the past--and 
it's horribly nasty, and I myself mind it uncomfortable to read.  
This matches the theme of the rest of the book, however; who *isn't* 
seen at something of their worst in OotP?  What I suspect is 
possible, although I cannot, of course, prove it as of yet, is that 
we've been hit with one big reversal of our images of some 
characters, but that we should be wary of extensive extrapolation, 
either into the future (Peter at 15 may not be the correct model for 
Peter at 20, for example) or to take the one incident as the dominant 
pattern for the whole.  We have to fit James-the-git together with 
the James that McGonagall and Rosmerta remember so fondly, and I 
don't see how to do it, yet.  [In contrast, we've had five books to 
establish some sort of pattern for Snape, although yes, we certainly 
have had to reconsider it all in light of rolling revelations.]  I 
can't figure out how these two 'sides' of the problem talk to each 
other.

JKR has told us why Black sent Snape to the Willow--he hated him.  
However, there was the interesting tag (and it was entirely mutual).  
I, for one, can't wait to hear exactly what happened (not to mention 
more on the why)--because I can't make the thing work out in sheer 
sequence of events, to my own satisfaction.  (I've also read every 
attempt to do so.  Heh.)  There's also the OotP revelation that 
Lucius Malfoy (age 41) was at school with the generation in question 
(36-37); we have Bellatrix Black (trophy winner) and lots of other 
things to consider, not to mention the interesting questions of what 
Voldemort was doing and how publicly, what 'Mudblood' meant back then 
as opposed to now, etc.

There is, of course, also this:

"But you must not forget that Snape was a Death Eater. He will have 
seen things that
 Why do you love him? Why do people love Snape? I do 
not understand this. Again, it's bad boy syndrome, isn't it? It's 
very depressing. [Laughter]."

Literary economy informs me of the possibility that James et. al. 
having been taken down a peg and our sympathies directed to be with 
Snape, it's his turn next book to take the textual beating.

> Snape isn't a true sadist. *Umbridge* is a true sadist. Umbridge is 
> what real sadism looks like. Snape is a git in the fine old English 
> tradition of sarcasm so withering you burst into tears, and have to 
> be dragged out of the toilet two hours later, you're so upset. 

Snape is, perhaps, a good picture of Judith Shklar's 'moral cruelty' 
(unfortunately, a friend of mine has stolen my copy of the book, so I 
can't quote the relevant bits).  No, it's not physical--but it still 
hurts, and frankly, it's designed to hurt and strike at one's very 
concept of one's self.

Random trolling of an online dictionary gives as a definition:

"The deriving of pleasure, or the tendency to derive pleasure, from 
cruelty."

I humbly submit (and JKR's comments bolster) that I think Snape 
*enjoys* watching the kids sweat, when he has them in a difficult 
situation.  He's enjoying Black and Lupin's distress in the Shack, 
even if he doesn't intend to actually have both of them carted off to 
Azkaban.  He belittles Neville outside of his own class, where he 
doesn't even have the 'keep the idiot kid from blowing things up' 
excuse.  He's not Umbridge--but I'm no fan of the slippery slope 
argument, either.  Unlike Snape, I see the difference. :)

-Nora claps her hands and waits eagerly for a good chance to argue 
the other side