Snape, Hagrid and Animals

[leslie41]

No: HPFGUIDX 143829

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "nrenka" <nrenka at y...> wrote:
>
> --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "leslie41" <leslie41 at y...> 
wrote:
> 
> <massive snip>
> 
> > Leslie 
> > (who loves these kinds of arguments, and who firmly believes 
that 
> > Snape is Dumbledore's man because it would be too easy and offer 
no 
> > lesson if he weren't)
> 
> Of course there's a lesson if he's not.  It's just not the lesson 
that 
> much of the fandom wants Rowling to be offering.
> 
> If he's not, there's a story of someone being unable to genuinely 
> renounce past actions and inclinations (the DE lifestyle), in part 
> because of holding on to old grudges where they could be let go by 
> opening one's awareness (Harry is not James).  It's a story of a 
soul 
> curdled by resentment and a devotion to some value other than love.
> 
> It's only one possibility, but there's hardly 'no lesson' in 
something 
> that's not a nice sparkling lovely DDM!Snape.

Well, that's a good point.  But remember Rowling's readership.  
She's not really thinking mostly about the "lesson" adults will get, 
and that's a very sophisitcated "adult" take on it I think.

But should my instincts fail me, and should Snape actually be "bad," 
the child reading the story would just think "Oh of course Snape is 
evil.  He's ugly and not very nice.  Harry was right about him all 
along."

The child would then feel vindicated in their assessment of Snape, 
which is an assessment that draws mostly on surface demeanor and 
appearance.  The "lesson" there that's reinforced is that people who 
aren't nice and aren't attractive don't usually turn out to be 
good.  

The far more valuable lesson for a child would be to demonstrate 
that often times "nice" has absolutely nothing to do with "good," 
that the two are entirely separate things.  That "nice" people can 
and do seemingly mean things all the time, and that when you examine 
the actions of people who seem very cranky and mean at first glance 
you find someone who has in truth done a lot of good.  

Harry continually makes excuses for anything good that Snape does, 
much as he ignores the incompetence of Hagrid.  This is because he 
likes Hagrid and he does not like Snape.

A child who is presented with an evil Snape at the end of Book VII 
gets the message that it's okay to judge a book by its cover, and I 
don't think that's the message Rowling wants to send.  

Leslie