Why do we call Snape "greasy git' and what other names can we call him. WAS: Ca

[Jen Reese]

No: HPFGUIDX 144503

horridporrid:
> My personal least favorite Snape insult is Snivillus.  But that's 
> because I picture the scene where Snape was handed that nickname
> as being him angry and surrounded while James and Sirius and Peter 
> laugh at him (Lupin would be there, but hanging back, because he 
> knows it's wrong, and he also knows that he's a freak too, and he 
> could well be next if anyone finds out his secret -- but Snape 
> would just see him as one of the gang) and Snape starts to cry in
> his rage and Sirius thinks it's Christmas come early and he starts
> picking on Snape even more, and Snivillus is born.
> 
> So whenever a grownup uses it I kind of picture them seeing this 
> little eleven year old boy, hurt and sobbing, and pretty much 
> calling him a cry baby.  Emotion over intellect, but there you go. 
> <g>  


Jen: This is *exactly* the reason I can't hate Snape and it might be 
emotion over intellect, true. Or JKR's style. She needs the 
characters to be certain things for Harry, to inspire certain 
feelings in him and certain things for the plot. In OOTP, Sirius 
needed to be someone Harry identified with, as a person trapped in a 
hell he couldn't get released from, but also a person whose 
character traits of recklessness, bravey and love of Harry (and 
James) led him to go to the MOM and lose his life. She wrote him 
completely believably to me. 

And Riddle. I know he didn't inspire compassion for everyone, but 
imagining baby Riddle abandoned by his parents, and most likely 
getting less attention than other babies because he never cried was 
moving to me. Even 11 year-old Riddle, with huge red flags about his 
behavior and not much sympathetic going on with him still made me 
squirm. JKR could have made an easier villain to hate by depicting 
him as a boy with every advantage who threw away his choices. But I 
think that was exactly the point! Dumbledore showed Harry that 
Voldemort wasn't always a monster, he was once a pitiable baby, and 
a human boy, and those events make him weak, not strong as he 
presents himself to be. And baby Riddle *did* inspire Harry's 
compassion.

Which comes full-circle to Snape. What does JKR need for him to do 
in Book 7? My personal opinion is she needs to inspire Harry's 
compassion and also to help him understand what mistakes Snape made 
that pulled him toward dark magic and LV's camp. The way to do that 
will be to continue the story started in OOTP, with the bits from 
the Occlumency lesson and Snape being the target of bullying, and 
add to that story in such a way that Harry will realize who Snape 
IS. Not who Harry thinks he is, but the full story of how Severus 
Snape became the person standing in front of Harry whom he hates 
*even more* than the evil monster who killed his parents, set-up 
Sirius and possibly (IMO) manipulated the killing of Dumbledore.

Jen