Snape, Hagrid and Animals

[nrenka]

No: HPFGUIDX 144100

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "lagattalucianese" 
<katmac at k...> wrote:

<snip>
 
> Somewhere about the time of the Prank and Sirius almost getting 
> Snape killed, I think Dumbledore or somebody must have intervened 
> (or maybe the kids themselves did sort it out, James versus Sirius 
> e.g.) because after the Shrieking-Shack incident, I don't think we 
> hear any more about it. I certainly hope that there was some sort 
> of resolution. You can make a case for the Prank being an innocent 
> stunt (sort of), but allowing one student to get another student 
> into a situation that will very likely get him killed is *way* out 
> of line, as I *hope* even Sirius' staunch defenders will agree.

But then why don't we have Sirius getting expelled for it?  
Dumbledore *has* to find out about it, Dumbledore has to know a good 
deal about the issues at stake, or why else would he say "My memory 
is as good as it ever was" in response to Snape's "He tried to kill 
ME, Headmaster".  That's the line of someone who knows what's going 
on, and made a choice not to expel.  Certainly someone who didn't 
agree with Snape's own evaluation of the situation.  And this *IS* a 
someone with Legilimency skills, who can tell when he's being lied 
to.  Dumbledore uses it subtly on Harry (see CoS); I assume he wasn't 
above using it on a young Black.  Is it so hard to trust in 
Dumbledore, particularly as you believe him wholeheartedly about 
Snape?

In addition, all of our information about the so-called Prank is 
incredibly messy.  I don't even like to argue about it at all because 
I can't make it make sense whatsoever, just in terms of mechanics.

> I think the reason Sirius is so nasty to Snape is precisely 
> *because* Snape fights back.

You have to admit that in general, we have an unclear picture of 
instigation.  We get the Marauders as instigating in one scene, but 
we have reports which indicate things flowed the other ways.  We have 
an unaccounted for 'gang of Slytherins' with some genuinely nasty 
characters.  We have hints of Regulus Black and something.  It's more 
than just "Sirius and James beat on a victim who fights back", I 
think.

> As for Dumbledore, I think he should have intervened, and I hope 
> that at some point he did, because I'd hate to think Hogwarts is no 
> better than that high school I taught at, where the only recourse 
> the victim's parents had against a gang of socially favored bullies 
> was to remove her to a private girls' school.

I wonder about trying to map our jock/nerd dichotomies onto Hogwarts, 
where everyone is packing magical ability and the ability to 
retaliate.  I have to say that I've never gotten the "worship the 
Quidditch jocks" vibe out of the books, but maybe that's just me.

It is canonical, I grant you, that Dumbledore doesn't like to 
intervene, and likes to let people work things out.  But he does 
generally know what's going on, and thus it's a reasoned choice on 
his part not to.

> Let me add in passing that I personally don't think Snape was ever 
> a Death Eater in sober reality. I think he's been DDM from the get-
> go, and went where Dumbledore sent him. But if he was a Death Eater 
> in his misspent youth, I understand exactly where he was coming 
> from, just as, on the basis of what I've observed of the behavior 
> of our gilded youth, I can understand where the kids who shot up 
> Columbine were coming from.

I can buy some variations of DDM!Snape, but the whole "Oh, Snape was 
never a DE"...that's thematically profoundly *lame*.  DDM!Snape is 
supposed to be the model of someone who changes and holds firm to 
this change, right?  This is a great effort for him and it makes him 
into someone better than he was.  Where's the exemplar if he wasn't 
actually a DE to begin with?  Where's the profound and meaningful 
change in character?

I think there's an internet corrolary for comparing things to the 
mean kids in high school, but that may just be me.  It's a dangerous 
comparison to make because the setup of society isn't the same.  It's 
even quite an assumption that James and Sirius were given privileges 
that no one else was, the 'gilded youth'. 

> Well, the problem as I see it is that the fine details are there, 
> and you can argue about them till you're blue in the face, but 
> they're still *there*, whereas the "spirit of canon" is pretty much 
> dependent on how each individual chooses to interpret it.

It is, but it isn't.  We know that JKR's not writing a story where we 
get massive shades of grey in many areas, really.  She's dimissive of 
any number of ideas about characters; she's not writing a story in 
which Dumbledore is manipulating everyone to some nefarious end; 
she's not writing a story in which Lucius Malfoy is actually a 
justified guy.  She's writing a story where the morals get clouded, 
but the principles themselves remain pretty clear.  It's not John 
LeCarre.

> --La Gatta, who went to university teaching to get away from little 
> creeps like Sirius Black, and is now going to go and look for some 
> aspirin...

-Nora went to university and found a bitter and unpleasant professor 
who liked to single out and bully students like Snape-the-teacher, 
but managed to avoid said person with art and skill, thanks to the 
ability to choose classes