Broken, Pathetic Snape////Was:Apologizing to Snape?

[msbeadsley]

No: HPFGUIDX 139237

Sandy: 
<<It would have been lovely to see Harry cool off toward Snape and
re-interpret him as someone broken and pathetic and really just not
worth building up a head of steam over.>> 

<Meri now, not having posted in a good while. Do you really consider
Snape to be "broken and pathetic"?>

Wow, did I get you out of retirement? ;-) I'm stoked!

Actually, I had kinda thought it was Lady.indigo who said (or at least
implied) Snape was broken and pathetic, since she seemed to be arguing
that the onus was on Harry to try to clear the air and begin to effect
some healing (or at least try to) with Snape because Snape was too
"stunted" emotionally to reach out...or something like that. But
anyway, I didn't say that Snape was/is broken and pathetic (although I
suspected the phrasing might push some buttons and chose not to
refrain or rephrase; sorry 'bout that)--I said it would be lovely to
see HARRY *re-interpret* Snape that way. (And he has adequate
inspiration; everything he's been told as well as seen indicates that
Snape is so hateful to Harry because of stuff that happened at the
hands of irresponsible, idiotic minors (I was bullied too; now that I
have grown up, I can't imagine retaliating against those bullies, much
less their offspring! That's just dumb. IMO.), one of whom is dead and
the other a wanted man with little hope of ever getting a real life.)
How many grownups do *you* know who still harp incessantly on the ills
done them in *high school*? (I must be getting old; it's been sooo
long since then; who gives a rat's patootie now!) It would be a way
Harry could take the "sting" out of having to deal with Snape without
having to expect anything from Snape to help him do it.

How would Snape react? Well, who the heck is he, really, anyway? Faced
with a Harry who showed him nothing but outward respect and inward
cool contempt or even indifference, if Snape is, as he seems, addicted
to taking out his stale adolescent angst on Harry, he'd bait him
harder and harder until he finally got a reaction he could punish and
be smug about. If he's a true member of the Order, he might just
consider Harry's new demeanor an improvement, a landmark in terms of
Harry developing some control. That doesn't mean he'd stop baiting
Harry necessarily, just that he might do it pro forma, for
appearances. If he is both stunted emotionally and actually on a side
other than Dumbledore's, I could easily imagine him being enraged by
what he would be likely to perceive (correctly, to some degree) as
Harry's arrogance in trying to move in some wise beyond Snape's reach.

<consider him to be the exact opposite of that. Those two adjectives 
conjure up an entirely different wizard: Pete Pettigrew.>

Oh, Wormtail, the man who chose to live in hiding as a rat (as opposed
to Sirius, who subsisted in hiding on a diet of them; there's a neat
little irony I'd missed or forgotten), is utterly pathetic. Not just
broken. Very fragmented, downright crumbling. (But, like Gollum, not
out of play entirely until "THE END".) Snape at least keeps a sturdy
facade in play; we really don't know it's any more than that.

<But Snape seems to me to be calculating and clever, always seems to
know exactly what he's doing and what is going on.>

Do you include the scene which terminates Harry's Occlumency lessons
in this? That's a valid viewpoint, certainly, but it makes a lot of
things look very different.

<In fact in six books I don't think we've ever seen him panic under
duress or not stand up for himself. (Even in the pensieve scene he
doesn't take James and Sirius' abuse lying down...okay admittedly he's
up in the air but he doesn't quail does he?)>

No, he doesn't. (So how DID he get the name Snivellus; is that a nasty
running (no pun int) joke about his "abnormally large nose," as
Moony-of-the-Map put it?)

<I mean, he's pathetic in the sense that he is a grown man who gets
his jollies off torturing little children, but as many have argued on
this very list, that probably has more to do with his teaching style
than anything else. But broken? I don't see that. I can just picture
him coming over to DD's side during the first war, head held high and
not looking back and not caring if he's judged. He's a forceful
personality, I can't ever picture Snape being broken.>

I didn't mean "broken in spirit," anyway. I meant <checking
dictionary>...oh, now this IS interesting: "Broke/broken: To cause to
separate into pieces suddenly or violently; smash." That would go with
the notion of being *Sever*us. I like "To become unusable or
inoperative: The television broke" better, though. While he's a
forceful personality, there's no doubt, is there, that he's not a very
functional human being in a social sense? You say "he is a grown man
who gets his jollies off torturing little children" (did I miss a
smiley emoticon there?) and yet object to the notion that he's broken?
I'm confused.

Sandy aka msbeadsley, remembering The Spy Who Came in From the Cold,
and hoping anyone who decides to partake remembers to keep a Cheering
Charm handy