Snape and DADA

[eloise_herisson]

No: HPFGUIDX 112065

Magda Grantwich:
>  
> > The worst in Snape is his inability to understand people.  He
> > consistently assumes the worst of others <snip> 

Nora:
> Let me say first of all that I think the analysis here is really 
> perceptive, and I like it quite a bit.  This is, perhaps, something 
> where JKR will hit us with something more subtle than the basic 
idea 
> that you don't want someone who was deeply involved *in* the Dark 
> Arts teaching about them, because the pull to become re-involved in 
> them is too strong.

Magda Grantwich:
> <snip>
> 
> > Should he become DADA professor, he would view his task as 
training 
> > a miniature army of aurors, without regard for their youth, their
> > innocence or their human tendency to make mistakes.  <snip> 

Nora:
> It also seems to me that this is akin to one of the tendencies of 
> what we've seen so far as the Dark Arts--they are arts of 
domination 
> and control over other people.   
<snip>

I've had problems snipping here. I think that all of this is spot on 
character analysis. However, it doesn't really (for me anyway) answer 
the question I was trying to ask. Which is why I've left in too much 
but not enough. ;-)

If the worst of Snape is his inability to empathise with or 
understand others, a tendency to assume the worst of others, why 
could JKR not say so? What could that possibly give away about the 
next two books? Even if it the fact that Dumbledore thought it would 
give him too much opportunity to dominate or control, I don't really 
see that that isn't something that we couldn't have worked out 
relatively easily.

What JKR's statement suggest to me is that we are going to find out 
something about Snape which is going to be of great 
significance. Whether that is simply something about Snape himself of 
whether it is something about Snape's part in the developing action 
is the question and I suppose it must be the latter.

I'll throw another of his personality traits into the mix: a tendency 
to go it alone, which combined with a certain secrecy and assumption 
that he knows best, better even than Dumbledore on occasion, could 
lead him to be a bit of a loose cannon. Would his specialising in 
DADA encourage this?

Or are we going to see the Darker side of Snape's personality trying 
to assert itself in any case, DADA or no? Are we going to see him 
being drawn back towards the Dark Arts? Has he ever truly left them 
behind? I think not, although I don't believe he still practises. OK, 
maybe he still shoots flies for fun. Did Dumbledore suspect that for 
Snape, teaching DADA would cause him a massive conflict as he 
equipped his students to fight against his own preferred form of 
magic?

Perhaps we *will* see him teach DADA and JKR is intending to show us 
the consequences; that would certainly be a reason for not telling us 
what they were. I hope it's more complicated than his using an 
Unforgivable on Harry (or Neville) though. 

Of course that reminds me that we *have* seen Snape teach DADA and 
that it did bring out if not the worst in him, then something pretty 
close: he used it as a way to try and expose Lupin. And in the matter 
of Lupin, he was both arrogantly disregardful of Dumbledore's opinion 
and acting on his own, arguably as a loose cannon. It's a pattern of 
behaviour which I fear we'll see again.

~Eloise