Snape

[ms_luna_knows]

No: HPFGUIDX 122171


--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "Tonks" <tonks_op at y...> wrote:
> 
> 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

Ms. Luna here,
I understand the way you have described Snape as being a good person who is unpleasant 
to be around, but I'm not sure I totally agree with it.  I believe Snape to be a *trying to be a 
good person who is unpleasant to be around*.  I believe that Harry brings out Snape's 
*true* self, which is the reason Snape is Particulary unpleasant to Harry and his friends.  
Snape is unable to separate Harry and his friends from James Potter and the Maruader's 
and the old feelings come back full force when Harry is present, the same thing happens 
between Snape and Sirius.  Although I believe Snape to be a reformed DE and not a truely 
evil person, and that we should *cut Snape a little slack*, I am not completely convinced of 
him being a *good* person, at least not in the way I understand  a *good* person to be.