Snape

[Tonks]

No: HPFGUIDX 122051


To respond to ALL of the post about Snape:

1. I think it is possible for someone to be a good person (not evil) 
and still an unpleasant person to be around.  It is also possible to 
be an evil person and have everyone like you.  A very smart 
psychopath can pull that off.  So I think that being good or evil is 
the state of ones soul, while being nice or nasty is a behavioral 
thing. A fully developed mentally healthy person would be both good 
and nice.  There are not too many of those people around.  Most of 
us are flawed in one way or another.  Even otherwise good and nice 
people do nasty things at times.

2.  As to Erickson's developmental stages and Snape.  You are 
assuming that the man we saw in the pensive was Snape's father, but 
we do not know that.  But let's assume that whoever the man was that 
he was a father like figure during Snape's early development.  Now I 
want to say here that just because the man was verbally and 
emotionally abusive does not automatically imply that he was also 
physically abusive.  So we can not say that Snape was physically 
abused with any certainty.  We will assume that he was indeed 
emotionally abused.  And it is this emotional abuse that has 
prevented Snape from becoming a fully emotionally mature adult.  I 
think there is evidence that Snape is very intelligent.  Like many 
emotionally abused children he may retreat into books instead of 
interacting with other people.  Snape's social skills are sadly 
lacking, as he apparently has not had good role models in this 
area.  He has learned to turn off his emotions.  He also has an 
internalized *bad parent* which comes out to play when he interacts 
with his students.  I don't think that he can help that.  Perhaps 
his learning occumency was a way of trying to block that part of 
himself, or to protect his true self from internal abuse by the 
internalized bad parent.  There does not seem to be any mental 
health clinics in the WW.  I suspect their approach to any form of 
mental illness however mild or sever is the same as the rest of the 
world up to the middle of the 20th century.  That is to basically 
ignore it unless the person becomes a danger to society.

So I do think that we, who are both good and kind, should cut Snape 
a little slack.  He has had a rough life, he has made his mistakes 
(the full cost of which we do not know), and we need to have some 
compassion.  Yes, even with the nasty bastard himself.  If DD says 
that Snape is OK, I trust DD's judgment.  Therefore Snape is a good 
person, a forgiven person with his scars still so visible to us all.

Tonks_op