Snape's punishment a "moral" issue? Was "Two Scenes..."

[Sydney]

No: HPFGUIDX 144089

> colebiancardi:  
> 
> I would like to add that people who seem not to deserve 
redeemption or
> forgiveness are the ones who should get it.  Forgiveness & 
compassion
> given to those people who *deserve* is the easy way out.  

Plus, if you 'deserve' forgiveness, how is that even forgiveness?  
It would be a mistake or a misunderstanding that got cleared up.
 

> Forgiving is not *losing*.  How is holding on to your resentments
> winning? 

I think I phrased this once on another board as, "why do people want 
Harry to win a hating competition with SNAPE?"  Harry waiting around 
for Snape to change or apologize or be humbled, would have Harry 
turn into Snape-- resentful and victimized and getting off on the 
humiliation of his enemies!

Snape was still waiting for an apology for Sirius, for the 'third 
party authority figure' to put Sirius down, to get 'his own' back.  
And what was the good of that?  I confess that before OoP I was 
eagerly antipating the fun showdowns that were sure to come 'round 
between Sirius and Snape.  And you know what?  The one showdown 
wasn't fun at all, it was petty and sad and counter-productive; and 
then Sirius died and it all became utterly beside the point.  I 
think that's JKR's great wisdom, that you CAN'T get your own back 
from another person;  you have to find your peace inside yourself, 
independent of what's happening in the soul of the person you have a 
conflict with.  

There's a parallel, I think, between Harry's hatred of Snape, and 
Snape's hatred of Sirius.  Both have ample reason for their 
resentment, and both let their own issues cloud their judgement of 
the other person's character.  Snape tells Harry that he tried to 
warn James that Sirius was a traitor, and James was too arrogant to 
think he might be mistaken;  Harry tries to warn everybody that 
Snape is a traitor, and thinks D-dore was too soft to see what Snape 
really was.  I suspect Snape's eagerness to believe the worst of 
Sirius blinded him to other possiblities, such as Peter.  Snape is 
uncaring of Sirius' personal hurts and difficulties and is keen to 
kick him when he's down.  I sincerely hope that Harry will be able 
to break that particular parallel and give Snape a little compassion 
in Book VII, because DDM!Snape is in a bad, bad place right now.

Of course it's not easy to see people we who treat us badly with 
clarity and fairness, and to forgive them, and to let them be who 
they are without affecting us.  That's why Harry's a HERO, a hero 
whose uniqueness has been tied to his love and courage and 
compassion, not his ablility to do really bad-ass things with a wand.

And could we please stop labelling Snape's treatment of the students 
with the quasi-legal "child abuse" as thought that's an obvious 
thing that any non-evil person would agree with?  I think Snape is 
MEAN, but I don't think he's a child abuser and sort of resent the 
implication that I'm an evil chid-abuse-supporting monster for 
having a more stringent definition of the term.  If that's child 
abuse, then I'M an abused child.  And so's anybody else that got out 
much before the age of 12.

-- Sydney, who think the Durselys ARE child-abusers and would have 
appreciated D-dore mentioning something about it, like, 10 years 
ago, but thought 'too little, too late' when he got on his high-
horse in HBP