What cultural standards we are using to determine whether Snape is abusive ?

[nrenka]

No: HPFGUIDX 144320

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "Miles" <miles at m...> wrote:

<massive snip>

> Miles:
> Snape has been member of Dumbledore's staff for some 14 years. You 
> really think that he would not interfer for 14 years, if he would 
> totally disapprove Snape's teaching methods? Maybe he interfered 
> before and Snape changed his methods - we don't know. We see Snape 
> acting for six years (stop - we only see them through Harry's eyes -
> we should doubt his view), and he does not change. Maybe he changed 
> his methods before? And now, I think we really should assume,  
> Dumbledore is satisfied by and large.

Canonically, Dumbledore has issues with detachment: he tells Harry 
(and us) that he's forgotten what it's like to be young, with 
damaging results.  JKR tells us much the same thing, and reinforces 
the statement that he wants to let people fix things on their own and 
not force them, with both positive and negative results.

But it's also canonical that Dumbledore hoped and would have liked 
for Snape to change in his attitudes: hence the comments about how he 
hoped Snape could overcome his feelings about James yadda yadda et 
al.  Maybe Dumbledore was being unrealistically optimistic, for as 
you note, he's known the man for quite some time.  I don't see 
anything to mark that desire as not genuine, though.

Would he interfere?  Well, he does undercut Snape near the beginning 
of CoS and tends to moderate him from there on out, although it's 
been argued that's a show for Harry's benefit (which I don't buy).  
Harry has the suspicion that it's Dumbledore's intervention which 
gets him through Potions at the end of third year, IIRC.  May be 
wrong, but may not--too quick an application of "Oh, that's just 
Harry's flawed perception" leaves us tossing out whatever we can't 
make fit our own mental models, and that's a good way to get 
surprised in the bad way.

Another interview comment points to Dumbledore considering Snape's 
methods something beneficial for the kids to learn to deal with (but 
the way it's phrased, the methods themselves are not exactly approved 
of--that's *why* the kids have to learn to deal).  That raises all 
kinds of questions of intent, and also raises the question whether we-
the-readers want to agree with Dumbledore in all things.  As you said 
earlier:

> I do not see Hogwarts as foul or corrupt. And I do not see the moral
> standards of Hogwarts as foul or corrupt - we all know the man who 
> is responsible for these standards.

I agree that Dumbledore is generally an ethical man setting good 
standards, but he's also shown as making some considerable howlers in 
judgement and estimation of effects.  As a reader, I feel that the 
moral of "think for yourself and don't just follow authority blindly" 
has been hammered in enough for me to say "Is it *really* good and 
true because Dumbledore says it?"

-Nora finds that moral to be why the idea of a pathos-filled death of 
Dumbledore hits pleasantly hard