Neville and stuff (Was: In Defense of Snape)

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 123337


Dungrollin wrote:
> >> Now that story sounds oddly familiar...  Substitute "tortured to
insanity" with "murdered by Voldemort" and "grandmother" with "aunt
and uncle"... So why doesn't Harry fear Snape more than anything  else?
> 
> 
Gerry replied: 
> > Well, maybe because he has a different character? Had different
parents, so a different genetic make-up, in which fear genes do not
play such a big part? 
> 
> 
Magda added:
> Also Neville probably grew up hearing from his Gran about his
parents' great sacrifice for the good side and the evils of the DE's
who did it, and seeing his parents on a regular basis.  That would be
pretty terrifying for a child.  Harry didn't find out the truth until
he was 11 and then it came wrapped in a whole lot of new information>
about being a wizard, etc.
> 
> Magda


Carol responds:
I agree with Magda about the difference between Harry and Neville, but
I don't see how this difference leads to a fear of Snape. If I were
Neville, my boggart would be the DEs who Crucio'd my parents. Maybe as
of PoA, he hasn't allowed that fear to take shape in his conscious
mind yet. And, Gerry, I'm not sure that Neville inherited any "fear
genes" (innate timidity?). Both his parents were aurors. I think that
maybe he transferred his fear of his formidable (but nevertheless
DD-supporting) grandmother onto Snape, making a minor fear into a
major one because the major one (Bellatrix and friends) is
incomprehensibly terrifying?

Let's say that you were a child born in the 1930s whose parents had
been seized by the Nazis when you were too young to understand or
remember, but you now know at age eleven who the Nazis are and what
they do to their victims. Your timidity would be understandable, and
you might fear stern authority figures as a mask for the much more
terrible people who had stolen and tortured your parents and might at
any time take you?

I'm not sure if this is a valid analogy. I'm just trying to understand
how Neville's boggart could possibly be Snape, or how threatening to
poison a toad could possibly be compared with really torturing your
parents into insanity.

Carol, who wonders if Neville even realizes that Snape rescued him
from suffocation by Goyle