In Defense of Snape (Against Snape in JKR's words)

[vmonte]

No: HPFGUIDX 122109


>Betsy:
No one avoids a question like JKR. And she provides such
entertainment as she does so. Not much insight into Snape's

>vmonte: Betsy, you cut out the most significant part. I
will quote it again though. JKR: ..."But you must not forget that
Snape was a Death Eater. He will have seen things that
 Why
do you love him? Why do people love Snape? I do not
understand this." [EBF-04]<

>Pippin wrote:
But Dumbledore said that Snape is now no more a Death Eater
than Dumbledore himself, and JKR criticized Sirius on her web
site for treating Snape as if he couldn't have reformed.

vmonte responds:
Good point.

>vmonte: We also find out that Snape was once a Death Eater. So, that
also is a bad sign in my opinion, especially since he doesn't seem to
have had a moral epiphany. He is still a deeply horrible person, no?<

>Pippin wrote:
The world isn't divided into good people and Death Eaters. JKR
has said that she doesn't believe children become evil unless
they're damaged. This suggests she sees evil as a two step
process. People become damaged, and then evil can take root
in them, like germs can grow in a wound.

vmonte responds:
You don't think that Snape is damaged? I have a lot sympathy for
abused children. However, I lose all my sympathy for those who grow 
up to do what was done to them. Not all abused children grow up to be 
abusers, by the way.

>Pippin wrote:
That suggests that you can clean the germs out and get rid of the
infection, but you aren't necessarily all better then; you still have
the wound to take care of. Snape's ability to empathize with other
people has apparently been damaged and like Harry tearing into
Dudley at the beginning of OOP, it seems he's no longer as
responsive to other people's distress as he should be,
especially when he's the cause.

vmonte responds:
Yes, you are right about Snape. I on the other hand, see the Dudley
and Harry dynamic at the begining of OOTP in a different way. If you
didn't know Harry, and were watching this scene through a penseive,
you would think that Harry was a bully, right? My bet is that James
and gang were picking on Snape in much the same way--they were
repaying him for all the crap they've had to endure from him. I'm not
saying that what they did was right, because doing what you know is
wrong makes you just as bad, IMO.

>Pippin wrote:
snip
...But he is no longer seeking out innocent people to victimize.

vmonte responds:
Sure he is. He's got a whole classroom full.

>Pippin wrote:
I'm sorry for the awful experience you had with that teacher, and I
can see why you'd want to see Snape as a stand-in for her, but to
tell you the truth she sounds much worse than Snape -- more
like Umbridge.

vmonte responds:
Believe me I'm not scarred for life because of this teacher. I was
afterall in my twenties, and not an eleven-year-old like Harry and
crew. And this person was like Snape, not Umbridge. I was never 
physically hurt by this teacher.

>Pippin wrote:
So I think, although he insults Harry freely because that is the
way that Slytherins treat anyone they consider beneath them...

vmonte: Is that a another way of saying they are a bunch of racists?

>Pippin wrote:
...and he criticizes Harry to excess, that he is not abusing Harry
because he wants to break him, any more than Harry wanted to break
Dudley. He just wanted a target for all the rage and frustration he
was feeling, and Dudley, he thought, deserved to be it.

vmonte responds:
I do believe that Harry was targeting all of his rage and frustration
on Dudley during OOTP, yet he was capable of snapping himself out of
it to save Dudley's life, and then later to feel compassion for
Petunia who's treated him like crap all his life.

I hope you are right about Snape and that he eventually gets
his "aha" moment when he realizes that he can let go of his past and
move on. He better hurry up though, he only has two more books left.

vmonte :)