[HPforGrownups] Re: Favorite Snape Scenes - He's such a lovely professor, no really.

[Vivamus]

No: HPFGUIDX 122279

> >>Vivamus:
> >Most of the theories about Severus really do seem to leave out his
> behavior, don't they?<
> 
> Betsy:
> I'd like to think that I tackled Snape's behavior head on in my 
> post.  I don't try and say Snape is nice, I don't try and say he's 
> fair, and I don't suggest he's not a scary teacher.  I used some of 
> the very examples vmonte brought up to support my theory.  
 
Vivamus:
I must have missed that post.  I did catch the references to him as scary,
but a good teacher.  I also thought the quotes from (don't remember who,
sorry) a teacher with 32 years of experience were more to the point -- you
cannot justify his abusive behavior as good teaching.  Students may learn
under his teaching, but that's not the same thing at all.  They would also
learn well if you simply said, "read the books. You will be tested. Any who
don't know the material will be flayed alive."  Flay a couple of students as
an example (and then magically restore them), and I guarantee that every
student would learn the material letter-perfect in record time.  Can anyone
even begin to think of that as good teaching?  Yet, that is better, in some
ways, than what SS does, because it is at least fair.  

There is more to teaching than getting the students to pass an exam.  A
better test of his quality as a teacher would be to ask how many of his
former students are friends of his *after* they finish school, or how many
of them go on to become Potions Masters or something similar.  

> Betsy:
> I think the deal breaker on both sides of the argument is, can you 
> accept that a person can be good, can fight on the side of good, and 
> still have some nasty habits and bad social skills?  Obviously, I 
> think this is possible.  Others, just as obviously, disagree.  

Vivamus:
I'm not at all sure it is obvious, because you are equating being good as
fighting on the side of good.  JKR is clearly showing us that there is a lot
of gray, and people are not entirely good or entirely bad.  I think SS is a
bad character fighting on the good side.  He is still a deeply lost soul.
One corollary of understanding that a "bad" person can fight on the "good"
side without himself changing, is that a person fighting on the good side is
not necessarily a good person.  Another is that SS is still essentially the
same person he was when he was a Death Eater -- not nice at all.

We have a lot of gray, and JKR has muddied the waters especially around SS
and his motives.  

> >>Vivamus:
> >The only justification I can see for his behavior towards the 
> Gryffindors is that he is acting as a spy again, pretending to be a 
> loyal DE, and so must be consistently nasty towards them where the 
> Slytherins will see it.  It's hard to see him doing that, with DD 
> publicly testifying that he was a spy, but I suppose LV could think 
> him a double, since he DIDN'T successfully warn the Potters, and he 
> could be a double-double, but that seems weird, too. Who would trust 
> someone like that?  LV is no fool.<
> 
> Betsy:
> I do think Snape is a spy.  I don't think he's a double agent.  The 
> open court testimony of Dumbledore *is* a problem, I agree.  (Though 
> I wonder if it *was* an open court.  The amount of witches and 
> wizards suggest it was, though Rita Skeeter wasn't there, so maybe no 
> reporters were there at all, which would suggest the court was in 
> fact closed.)  But Lucius Malfoy appears to accept Snape (as per 
> Draco and Umbridge anyway) and I can't see him being friendly with a 
> traitor of his Dark Lord. 

Vivamus:
DD declared him (where there "at least two hundred" present,) to be a spy
for DD against LV.  The only way LV could accept that (other than the theory
I posted earlier about LV realizing he couldn't bend SS so far as to
endanger Lily) was if SS was actually a double agent, working for LV while
*pretending* to work for DD.   It seems barely possible that he could be a
double-double, which means he is working for DD while pretending to work for
LV while pretending to work for DD, but that makes my head hurt just
thinking about it.  Again, LV is no fool, and the adage, "once a traitor,
always a traitor" would be apt.  

The question of why the other DEs accept him is also problematic, unless he
is a double agent (or a double-double.)
 
> >>Vivamus: 
> >OTOH, it really doesn't fit with his being evil, does it?  If he 
> were evil, he would try to hide it by treating Potter and the 
> Gryffindors better, wouldn't he -- just as Crouch!Moody did, right up 
> until the end.<
> 
> Betsy:
> Yes! Thank you!  This is indeed my point! Evil, in these books, is so 
> often disguised as attractive and good, that Snape with all of his 
> obvious prickles just doesn't fit the profile.

Vivamus:
Ah, but there is a world of difference between DD and LV.  Just because SS
is fighting on the side of DD, that does NOT make him all the way at DD's
end of the spectrum of good vs. evil.  His behavior puts him well over
towards the other end of the spectrum, even if he has reasons for fighting
for DD.  I don't buy ESE!Snape, but it is certainly possible for JKR to take
it that way (if he is a double-double.)

> >>Vivamus: 
> > The real thing that sticks in my craw about Severus is that he 
> *still* treats Harry horribly when they are alone, even when he 
> *knows* Harry truly IS a hero, and when he knows Harry is smart 
> enough not to go blabbing to others that SS is really a good guy.  I 
> think that adds up to SS being mean, petty, vindictive, and 
> unforgiving, but also to his being broken from something that 
> happened a long time ago that he cannot forget or let go.<
> 
> Betsy:
> I think Snape does *not* think Harry is smart.  I think he thinks 
> Harry acts with typical Gryffindor bravado and headstrong 
> carelessness and that Harry has just scrapped through his various 
> adventures by the skin of his teeth.

Vivamus:
I'll grant you that he does not think Harry is smart, but it seems to me
more like intentional blindness than anything else.  Harry *did* get through
that obstacle course protecting the stone, and that takes much more than
stupid luck.  He also found out where the entrance to the CoS is (when SS
and everyone else could not,) and then he went down there, killed the
basilisk, destroyed TR, and rescued Ginny.  He also fought off a hundred
dementors at once, with a Patronus more powerful than perhaps any but DD
could have conjured.  He got through the tasks in GoF.   

We are *long* past the point at which any rational person can write Harry
off as just an obnoxious schoolboy.  Yes, SS could have done so when Harry
was an 11-year-old being treated with adulation by almost the whole WW.  The
rescue of the stone and defeat of Quirrell should have made it clear,
however.  Each of the books has a number of things in it which place Harry
not just above his peers, but so far above them that the adulation really is
deserved -- even if Harry no longer gets it.  (And that may ultimately be
why SS hates him -- because he really *does* deserve the adulation.)

> Betsy:
> There are definitely some "James issues" going on with Snape, but I 
> don't think it colors his thinking as much as some think it does.  I 
> think Snape is more interested in getting Harry to *think* and to 
> actually *listen* to his elders, than in some school-boy vendetta.  

Vivamus:
Where is there canon for SS showing interest in getting Harry to think?  He
insults and abuses him at every opportunity, but where is he trying to get
Harry to think, or listen?  He berates him because he hasn't listened, but
it seems to me that SS is the one not listening in those scenes, not Harry.
 
> Betsy:
> The fasinating thing for me is how *alike* Snape and Harry actually 
> are.  Harry has much more in common with Snape than James.  I think 
> that if they were able to get past their issues, Snape and Harry 
> could make quite a good team.  But they both have a lot of issues to 
> get past.  So I'll just cross my fingers and hope for the best! :)

Vivamus:
Interesting idea.  I think I'll stick with the traditional view that he is
much more like James -- and that James was both an obnoxious jerk some of
the time (as SS saw him) and a really good man most of the time (as most
others saw him.)

I guess we'll find out by the end of book 7.

Vivamus, who has never found pigeon-holes into which people can be fit.
(Snickersqueak, OTOH, like pigeons just fine.)