Snape and DADA

[eloise_herisson]

No: HPFGUIDX 112160

Eloise previously:
> > 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? 
 
> Magda replies:
> These qusetions are, at the moment, unanswerable because we don't
> know what's ahead in the series in any detail.  But I don't think 
not
> having the answers prevents us from speculating.

Eloise:
Exactly. My point was that JKR has given us a little hint there, 
saying in effect that if she told us why Snape was unsuitable for the 
DADA post, that it would be giving away things about the future 
books, therefore giving basis for speculation.

Magda:
> 
> One of the things I think will happen in the next two books is that
> Harry will have the choice of whether he wants to walk away from 
what
> seems to be his destiny (ie, kill or be killed by Voldemort).  If 
the
> power of love is going to be Harry's biggest asset, then he's got to
> voluntarily assume his role as WW-saviour, otherwise the whole 
effort
> will be meaningless.  How can love help Harry if he's coerced or
> forced to take up arms against Voldemort?  It's our choices that 
show
> us what we are, and Harry must make this choice.

Eloise:
This is true. Though I have a problem with the idea that Snape would 
be able to coerce Harry into anything; Harry`s stubborn enough to
do exactly the opposite.  Actually, given Snape's feelings for
Harry, I wonder if his temptation might be deliberately to ill-equip 
Harry for the task ahead of him. Anyone who's read my old posts
might remember that one of my recurrent themes is my belief that 
Snape is basically jealous of Harry and wants he himself to be the 
one who brings about Voldemort's downfall. But if that is the worst of
him, it was pretty perceptive of Dumbledore to have realised at that 
early stage. Not impossible, but difficult to predict if Snape took 
up his teaching position before Voldemort's downfall
..

Did he? He changed his loyalties before that point, but Sirius was 
surprised to learn he was at Hogwarts, which I should have thought he 
would have done if he'd taken up the position before his 
incarceration in Azkaban. Logically it should have been the September 
before Lily and James' murder, I think. 

Now if Snape only came after the teaching job *after* Voldemort's 
unhappy encounter with baby Harry, I can just imagine Snape letting 
slip something which would give away the fact that he resented it was 
a baby and not he who had been responsible for ending Voldemort's 
regime.

Magda:
> 
> And Snape won't understand it.  The future of the WW (tens of
> thousands of innocent people) depends on Harry snapping into it and
> practicing heavy-duty spellcasting so he can win the Big One that's
> coming up.  All this talk about love and choices will strike Snape 
as
> just so much wussery about emotions that can only make a wizard 
weak,
> not strong.  Harry should try to conquer those emotions, not channel
> them.  

Eloise:
Love, perhaps, but I think Snape knows about choices.

<snip>
 
> > Eloise: 
> > 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. 
> 
> Magda replies:
> I wish that were true but frankly I doubt it.  For some reason JKR
> finds the Trio fascinating but personally I think the MWPP 
generation
> is much more interesting.  And JKR is pretty miserly at doling out
> information about them.


Eloise:
Well, when you put it like that, I doubt it, too. ;-)

I'm just trying to interpret what JKR said:

"JKR: <sighs> That is an excellent question and the reason is
that, I
have to
be careful what I say here, the reason is that to answer it fully
would give
and awful lot away about the remaining two books but when Professor
Dumbledore took Professor Snape on to the staff and Professor Snape
said I'd
like to teach defence against the darks arts please and Professor
Dumbledore
felt that that might bring out the worst in Professor Snape

<laughs> Somewhat"

Now yes, perhaps answering it fully would mean explaining the sort of 
thing you explain above, "giving away" the fact that
Voldemort can only be defeated by the power of love, etc.

My problem is the fact that she didn't really need to say that
about giving stuff away. We can all predict what Snape would be like 
as a DADA teacher. Some reference to that would be fine if that were 
what it was. One of her slightly evasive answers that appears to 
answer the question but gives nothing away.

I hope there *is* more to be revealed:

"The character of Professor Snape fascinates me. Will you reveal his 
back story further in the next Harry Potter book? You will find out 
more about Snape in future books. Keep an eye on him!"

(  http://www.quick-quote-quill.org/articles/2000/1000-livechat-
barnesnoble.html  )
 


<snip>

> 
> > Eloise:
> > 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?
> 
> Magda replies:
> That's not a description of Snape at all but it's definitely a good
> description of Harry!  

Eloise:
Ah, but Snape and Harry (and James and Sirius, for that matter) have 
a certain amount in common. As someone else noted, we tend to dislike 
in others that which we recognise in ourselves. 

Snape is the ultimate suck-it-up-for-the-team
> man; he won't go against Dumbledore even when he thinks the old guy
> is wrong.  The closest he came was assigning a werewolf essay in POA
> and even then he was aiming at Hermione, knowing she'd do it and
> hoping she'd tell Harry who'd been private with Lupin earlier.  (And
> I loved Ron's detention assignment in the hospital wing so that he'd
> see that Lupin wasn't there.)

Eloise:
Juli's come up with the incidents I was thinking of. If I might 
expand a little, I see him working to his own agenda all the way 
through PoA. From the overheard conversation with Dumbledore, it is 
clear that he has been openly disagreeing with Dumbledore 
all year about the appointment of Lupin. Because Dumbledore
doesn't 
take him seriously, he attempts to entrap Lupin himself, acting at 
the first opportunity he gets, *without* involving Dumbledore or 
anyone else. He also makes it clear that he was hoping that it would 
be *he* who caught Sirius. Whatever the motive, he wanted it to be 
*he* individually who did it.

We don't know exactly what happened with Quirrell. Was he warning 
Dumbledore about him, too? Did he tell him he was going to do during 
the troll incident? I don't know, but it could certainly fit the 
pattern of behaviour seen in PoA.

As I tried to point out before, in assigning the werewolf essay, in 
teaching werewolves at all, Snape was using the DADA curriculum to 
try to further his own agenda.  We don't know fully what
Snape's 
agenda is, yet, but Dumbledore might and JKR certainly does.
That's what intrigues me about this whole question.

Magda again (different post):
>> I think the key to this mystery is his soliloquy to Harry about not
> >wearing emotions on your sleeve or you'll be easy meat for the Dark
> >Lord. Snape views almost all emotions as potential sources of
> >weakness and therefore things to be clamped down on hard for
> >safety's sake.

Aura:
>If his penseive memory of a small child cowering while a man shouted 
at a
>woman is read that Snape grew up in an abusive home (and I think 
that's
>exactly what that memory is to show us), then Snape would have 
learned to
>protect his emotions starting at a very early age. I'm terribly 
tired so
>I can't explain all the blahblahpsychologycakes, so you'll just have 
to
>trust in my psychology degree that hiding ones' emotions for safety 
is
>common to children who have grown up in abusive (or alcoholic) homes.

Eloise:
But didn't you read this soliloquy as heavily ironic? Snape
*does* wear his emotions on his sleeve (he must be a brilliant actor 
when spying). From his first poetic entrance, through his undisguised 
dislike for the trio, Neville, Lupin, Sirius
.

We see him spitting in rage, colouring and with vein throbbing when 
confronted by Crouch/Moody, incandescent at the climax of PoA.
I'm not saying that Snape doesn't see emotions as potential
sources
of weakness, just that he hasn't done a very good job of learning
to 
hide them on a day-to-day basis.

~Eloise