Snape as one of the Good Guys... analogies

[lealess]

No: HPFGUIDX 127680


> Alla earlier: 
> Whether in the "METAPHORICAL" sense Snape actions could be 
> analogysed to rape, I am not sure, but I am not directly 
> opposed to that analogy.
>   
> Magda:
> What other sense is there for an analogy?  For an effective
> comparison, the two acts should be - on some level - of equal 
> weight and importance.  Otherwise you can keep extending the 
> horizons until you're equating the Holocaust with raiding the 
> cookie jar.


Since the topic is sexually violent analogies, here is another: 
where I live, if a sexual predator is released from the hospital/prison in which he was confined, the community is notified of his presence in their locality.  Whether this is right or wrong, the assumption is that the predator always remains a danger, one of which people need to be aware.

How is a werewolf different from this?  Much as I love Lupin, when 
he fails to take his behavior-dampening drug, he has no control 
over a certain highly destructive aspect of his personality. Dumbledore gives second chances, and causes the condition of Lupin, 
a potentially dangerous predator, to be hidden from the community.  Lupin subsequently became a hazard to students and staff, through failure to take his wolfsbane, even though it was carried to him by Snape. (Certainly, everyone was in an emotionally stressful situation at the time, but Lupin may get to use that as an excuse for his behavior where others wouldn't be afforded that same excuse.)

Going further with this analogy, the effects of contact with a 
sexual predator can last a lifetime.  Presumably, then, someone almost made a victim of a werewolf could be traumatized for a very long time. Finally, sexual predators have been known to make their victims complicit in their activities, i.e., recruiting other children for the predator, perhaps even becoming a predator as if 
it was inevitability. And a person bitten by a werewolf would presumably become a werewolf 
 

My point is, analogizing Lupin to a sexual predator, shouldn't the
community have been notified of the potential danger, so it could 
at least take steps to protect the students?  But of course, that 
would make Lupin unemployable, at least around children.

The problem I have with some analogies is one of scale.  Rape is a
crime which seeks to destroy the core identity of the person 
attacked, is a violation of the person as much as anything else (it seems to me).  Can we really say that is Snape's intent?  I know 
some will, but I do not see the evidence.  And Lupin can be a dangerous predator at certain times of the month, but overall, he does not want to make other people his victims.

Keeping in mind that we see the class through Harry's eyes and 
through incidents which involve Harry and his friends, I wonder if anyone has ever told Snape that he is abusive to children?  
Shouldn't this be Dumbledore's responsibility, assuming he knows everything and is on the side of nice (and good)?  What is his responsibility to children, bringing a recidivist werewolf on the grounds of Hogwarts?  As the list of potentially dangerous creatures being given second chances grows (and includes Buckbeak, Grawp, Firenze, Hagrid?, Moody?), as well as the list of people stuck in childhood dilemmas, it becomes obvious that, at least, the childcare standards in the WW aredifferent from ours.  One has to wonder how resilient wizard children are, physically and emotionally.

lealess