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

[dumbledore11214]

No: HPFGUIDX 144321

> > Alla wrote:
> > Personally, I DO consider Snape's defense as not abusive by the
> > standards of WW society one of the strongest ones, sort of. What 
I do
> > not consider a strong argument is the defense of the society, 
which
> > does nothing about Snape.
> 
> Miles:
> But these are very different things.
> I totally agree, that the Wizards' Society is corrupt, foul.<snip> 
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.

Alla:

Hogwarts corrupt? Probably not, on the other hand Board of Governors 
seemed to be awfully fast in dismissing Dumbledore from his position 
in CoS. Granted, they claimed they were blackmailed by Lucius, but 
still...

On the other hand, I would not say that Hogwarts has great teaching 
standards, quite to the contrary, really, IMO.

And Yes, I do think the man who is responsible for those standards 
made an awful lot of mistakes. Although I do think that he had the 
best of intentions.

Let's forget for a second about Snape teaching shenanigans, let's 
just count how many truly incompetent teachers  we already saw on 
Hogwarts staff. Trelawney, Lockhart, Umbridge come to mind right 
away.

So, either Dumbledore is not always capable to implement high 
teaching standards or his standards of teaching are not very high, 
IMO.



> 
> Alla:
> > What we do NOT know IMO is that whether wisarding kids are
> > emotionally more resilient than "muggle" kids  and IMO they are 
not.
> > That is why I am very much in doubt that JKR intends US the 
readers
> > to take Snape's behavior as something innocent, even if WW could 
care
> > less.
> 
> Miles:
> Whether something is abusive or not, to some extent has to do with 
the
> society a child lives in.
<SNIP>
> Should we judge Snape's acting in classes as child abuse, despite 
the fact
> the people in his world would not do? I don't think so.

Alla:

Actually, we don't really know what people of his world think of 
Snape being abusive or not, IMO. What I mean is that we don't hear 
parents complaining, but maybe they do complain to Dumbledore and he 
just tells them that everything is going to be Ok or something like 
that.

We saw at the end of HBP that the only reason why Order Members 
tolerated Snape was because of Dumbledore's trust in him. If he 
could convince Minerva, somehow I think Dumbledore could calm any 
person complaining about Snape mistreating his or her child. Just 
speculating here obviously.

In any event though, as I said upthread, I do NOT believe that JKR 
intended to give "Potterverse" morals THAT different from ours. I 
believe it will be demonstrated somehow at the end of the tale. I 
could be wrong of course.

That is why I feel very comfortable judging Snape by my " muggle" 
standards. I believe that this is what JKR does despite placing him 
in the world with magic, you know. :-) I think that her position in 
the interviews supports it too.

I will NOT be as comfortable judging character by " my" standards in 
ANY book. Sometimes when I read, I do get the feel that morals of 
the world which writer created are much different from ours. I do 
NOT get this feel from Potterverse, AT ALL, despite the fact that 
those kids heal physical wounds REALLY fast. Neville still remembers 
his uncle throwing him out of the window several years after that. 
granted, the action is abnormal by " muggle" standards in the first 
place, but if you analogize it to muggle child who got hurt by 
family member, I would expect muggle child to remember it for a long 
time too.

Ron is afraid of spiders and he also remembers what Fred and George 
did to him when he was very young. Nope, I absolutely think that 
emotionally those kids are just as vulnerable as RL kids are. IMO of 
course.


Miles:
> But that does not mean to see Snape as a character we should like, 
according
> to Rowling's intention. No, definitely Snape is a nasty person, he 
seems to
> be almost unable to be kind or friendly (only exception - Draco), 
he is
> unfair, I would dislike him if I knew him.
> But he never crosses an important, invisible line. He never hurts 
or touches
> any student (or pet) in class, he may threat to do so (do we 
believe him?),
> but he seems to know what would be abuse in *his* world, and he 
acts
> according to these rules.

Alla:

Sorry, Miles. I believe Snape crosses this important invisible line 
multiple times. He may have rarely hurt the children physically, but 
emotionally I think he hurt them multiple times. Whether we believe 
him or not ( actually while I did not really believed him in PoA, in 
retrospect I would not put past him the desire to kill Trevor. You 
know, just because the pet annoyed him too much :-) ), is not 
important to me. IMHO of course.
 What important to me is that Neville believed him, what important 
to me is that Neville is afraid of Snape more than anything else.

Oh, by the way many people speculated that if Neville would have 
faced Bogart now, he would have a different fear, because he outgrew 
being afraid of Snape.

But isn't it interesting that JKR does NOT show it, ever. I believe 
that if she wanted to show that Neville is now afraid of something 
or somebody else , she would have easily done it. After all, she 
easily found the place for Molly to face her Boggart, I absolutely 
believe that if she wanted to Neville would have faced his again, 
BUT she does not, so as far as I am concerned, unless shown to the 
contrary, Snape is still Neville's biggest fear.

To me that show that this child had been hurt by this teacher A LOT.



> 
> Alla wrote:
> > I DO think that Dumbledore is supposed to be the most progressive
> > thinker in WW, what I am not sure I agree with is that Dumbledore
> > approves Snape's teaching methods. <SNIP>

> Miles:
> Snape has been member of Dumbledore's staff for some 14 years. You 
really
> think that he would not interfere for 14 years, if he would totally
> disapprove Snape's teaching methods? <SNIP>Maybe he changed his 
methods before? And now, I
> think we really should assume,  Dumbledore is satisfied by and 
large.


Alla:

Well, it is your prerogative to assume anything you wish of course :-
), but no I would not assume that Dumbledore is satisfied by and 
large.

Do you think that Dumbledore was satisfied with little Tom coming to 
Hogwarts and creating his band of future DE?  He did not interfere, 
he pretty much allowed Tom to do whatever he wanted.

Do you think Dumbledore was satisfied by how Dursleys treated Harry? 
IMO in HBP he was quite vivid in saying that no he was not and how 
many years it took him to interfere? Fifteen years, right? It is one 
year longer than Snape was teaching in Hogwarts, so maybe next year 
Dumbledore would have sit Snape for a little talk, if he would have 
been still alive of course.

Dumbledore clearly states that it was a mistake to let Snape teach 
Harry Occlumency, he has no problem calling those lessons a fiasco. 
Are you saying that it is that improbable that Dumbledore was not 
very satisfied with many other things Snape did, but hoped that 
Snape will come to his senses? I think it is very IC for Dumbledore. 
Very stupid, IMO, but also very IC.


JMO of course,

Alla