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

[pippin_999]

No: HPFGUIDX 144335

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "dumbledore11214" <dumbledore11214 at y...> 
wrote:
> 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. JMO obviously.


Pippin:
We do know that wizard kids assume emotional independence and
responsibility for themselves  much sooner than ours do. We'd 
never let our pre-teens muck around with anything as lethal as a wand
with no supervision, we'd never leave a group of boys and girls 
overnight behind closed doors under the supervison of a few seventeen year
olds, or leave a thirteen year old on his own for two weeks in a place 
like Diagon Alley, much less send an eleven year old into the heart of London
with a shopping list and a great big bag of gold. In fact, I suspect
if *we* had wands, we'd be told to keep them under lock and key,
and separate from the spellbooks. <g>

Wizard kids can expect to deal with each other, and the adult
world, largely on their own terms. That's their culture, a bit Wild
West, but apparently it works for them. The senior generations, the 
ones whose formative years were not scarred by the first Voldemort war, 
seem to have  their  heads on straight. I don't expect this to change, and
as long as it doesn't, the kids are going to have to deal with Snape 
and his kind on their own. The law is not concerned with gits.
Regardless of where you draw the lines, there will be bullies  who are 
careful and clever  enough to stay inside them. 

Standing up to the bullies is all very well, but they're unlikely to
be picking on you if you can really do it. OTOH, there's nothing a bully
likes better than demonstrating that resistance is futile. It's a
noble thing to fight a losing battle if you are trying to stop
a murderer, but if pride is all that's at stake, there are easier ways
to defend it.

JKR's advice to bullied children, on her website, is to tell someone
and keep on telling. Now, her characters don't follow this advice
very often, and there wouldn't be much of a book if they did, but
what advice do you think Harry would get if he could complain to JKR
about Snape? Well, we know that, IMO. The answer to sarcasm and 
insults, in JKR's book, is *laughter*. 

Really, do you think Harry would be so upset with Snape raking him 
over if he could just imagine Snape dangling upside down in his 
underwear? Aren't we shown this in a million different ways? 
Don't people keep telling Harry that he doesn't need to take 
Snape's taunts seriously? Isn't that the whole point of the boggart 
lesson as well? And if Snape really is dangerous and a murderer,
it spoils the joke *and* the point of the lesson. I doubt JKR is
going that far. 

When I said in an  earlier post that Harry needs to 
realize that he owns his feelings, I was not talking about stoicism,
I was talking about the realization that Harry's feelings take
place entirely inside Harry. There is nothing Snape can do
(aside from magic) to reach inside Harry and *make* him
feel humiliated, any more than Harry can reach inside Snape
and *make* him feel sadistic (although I'm sure that Snape
feels that's exactly what Harry does. )

Harry  may not be able to control how he feels, but it is
entirely up to him what he does about the feelings. He can
sulk and scowl and seethe until he finally blows up, or he can 
grin and say, "Enchantingly nasty!"  

A thirteen year old is not, IMO, too young to understand this,
in fact many of them figure it out for themselves. 

Dumbledore says that Snape is wounded, and that's why he
hasn't overcome his feelings about Harry's father. DD blames himself
for forgetting this. Now maybe Harry can't overcome his feelings 
about Snape because he is more wounded than
Dumbledore thinks he is, but Harry has learned to laugh off insults
from Draco and Vernon, who used to terrify him, whereas we've
never seen Snape manage to laugh off an insult from anybody.
In fact, we've never seen him laugh at all.

 
Pippin
wondering if Snape will laugh in book seven