Real child abuse/ Snape again

[a_svirn]

No: HPFGUIDX 145626

> > Miles:
> > You are talking about emotional abuse - but the prerequisite for 
> emotional
> > abuse is a emotional connection between abuser and abused. 
Typical 
> emotional
> > abuse happens between parents and children. > 

> Alla:
> 
> IMO, there is no such thing as typical emotional abuse - it can 
> happen between different parties in very different situations - 
> parents and children, husband and wife, as you acknowledge between 
> teachers and children. I would also disagree about no emotional 
> connection between Snape and Neville and I see that you did not 
> argue that there is no emotional connection between Snape and 
Harry, 
> so I take we DO agree that there is an emotional connection 
between 
> them - in fact I would argue that Snape purposefully increased 
such 
> connection and made SURE that Harry knew about it.

a_svirn:
Somehow I don't think you use the term "emotional connection" quite 
the same way Miles does (correct me if I'm wrong, Miles). You mean 
that Snape hates Harry and despises Neville in a very "emotional" 
way, while Miles is talking about closeness and affinity between 
children and those who are dearest to them. I wouldn't say that 
Snape fits the profile. 

> Alla:
> Those kids are in boarding school, they don't see their parents 
for 
> many months, in fact Harry and Neville have NO parents to see and 
> teachers stay in loco parentis for all of them anyway.

a_svirn:
Are you suggesting that SNAPE stands in loco parentis to Harry and 
Neville?! I will be first to agree that Neville is an emotionally 
abused kid, but you are looking in the wrong place. He may be an 
orphan for all intends and purposes, but he has a parent figure – 
his grandmother. And she is doing a very good job of abusing him 
emotionally. It's from her he's got an idea about being an 
inadequate wizard and an unworthy son of his heroic parents. 

> Miles:
> > Another necessity for abuse is that they cause or could cause 
> serious
> > behavioural, cognitive, emotional, or mental disorders. We never 
> saw any
> > student of Snape's classes that suffers from any of this.
> 
> Alla:
> 
> You may have not seen it, but I definitely did - to me Neville's 
> boggart is a metaphor for all that. IMO of course.

a_svirn:
This is debatable to say the least. Why do you think Neville's 
boggart is less "normal" than Sean's or Ron's? Ron's is a spider; by 
the way, does it mean that Ron has an awful mental disorder 
triggered, no doubt, by the Twins' abuse of him? (You know this 
story about teddy-bear?) By this rate you'll get all DADA class 
tucked up in a padded cell in no time at all. 

I agree it's significant, that Snape turned out be his boggart. In 
fact, it's downright fishy, and precisely because there is 
absolutely NO apparent connection between the two, emotional or 
otherwise. Personally I suspect very strongly that Snape was 
involved somehow in the Longbottoms' affair, and the memory of him 
lingered somewhere in a remote nook of Neville's mind. Hence his 
terror.