Snape's abuse (Re: Forgiving Snape)

[unicorn_72]

No: HPFGUIDX 131857


Sarah wrote:
> > > <snip>
> > > I work for child protective service.  And Snape is 
> abusive.       
> > > Sorry.  He's emotionally abusive (yes, there is such a 
> thing),    
> > > neglectful, and physically abusive towards Harry in 
> OotP.         
> > > Umbridge is abusive in her punishments, but she is not nearly 
> as  
> > > bad as Snape is.  (At least in her duties as a teacher 
> before     
> > > she tried the imperious curse.)
> > 

KarentheUnicorn's Reply:

A hard life does not generally make one a especially nice person, 
and since we are using our own lives and work as examples, I'll use 
my own personal Snape as an example. I am reminded of my own 
grandmother, my fathers mother. She was very much a Snape. Lets just 
say I was Harry, and I will say Granny was Snape. We disliked each 
other, and, we had to live together since my father did not want her 
to live alone.

So, I was forced to live with a woman that our personalities did not 
Match well. We argued, we fought, she sometimes said nasty mean 
things to me, that hurt me, and I never understood her. My age by 
the way at the time was around 8-15 years.
She favored my older cousin, since she was the first grandchild 
born, she was prejudice to a degree also, She used to complain about 
me playing with the children from the few houses near us. Lets put 
it this way, there were not many people to play with because we 
lived out of town, there were very few children, probably 5 other 
houses that were close by, and I had only one choice in my childish 
wants of playmates. Her worry was, what will people think when they 
ride by and see me with all these kids who were different.
To me, I though she was just being cruel to me, and not wanting me 
to have friends, later, I realize she was just worried that I would 
have a bad reputation or though bad on by others....

I look back on her now, with much regret. I was just a kid, and 
basicly did not see the forest for the tree's. I found out a lot of 
things about her when she died. That she had a terribly hard life, 
her mother married her off at 13-15 years old, I can't remember 
exact age. She married her off to an older man, and while married to 
this man she worked hard in a factory, and had three children by 
this man. People I never knew about till she died. But you see, that 
is the blindness of a child, we never really look into these things, 
because as children most of us are self centered.
I found out that one day, my grandmother came home to find her old 
man of a husband in bed with her so called mother.....upon that 
revelation, my grandmother left, but, being a young girl back then, 
on your own, she could not care for her children, so, she had to 
give them up....to my memory, she had to give them up to...Child 
Protective Servies, the father did not want them...Imagine that. 
Even after my grandmother was married again, to a good man, she was 
not allowed to have her children back...needless to say, two of 
those children still never forgave there mother.
She had 4 children by the new man she married, who was my 
grandfather, the oldes son died in a car crash, this was before I 
was born, my grandfather also died before I was born, so I never 
knew him.

...Needless to say, my grandmother had a terribly hard life before I 
was even born....yet, I never really knew all the facts about her, 
and judged her thinking she was simply being mean to me because she 
did not like me....which in the end, maybe in some way she didn't 
like me...but, we came from very different backgrounds. We were 
entirly two different generations of people growing up in the same 
house, with vastly different life experiences, no wonder we 
clashed...strong willed people tend to do that.

So, to put it plainly, I wish I had known all this and realized all 
these things about her, I may have viewed her differently at the 
time, when we argued, instead of being a self centered little kid. 
If I had understood her, maybe I would have seen her actions 
differently, maybe I would have been able to forgive her easier, and 
understand the point she was trying to make...or maybe I could have 
just sat down and talked with her about things I wish I had now.

I suppose its easy to judge people though...when you don't know a 
thing about them. So, let me try and examine the real Snape.

Teach Potions Class involves, 11-17 teenagers, and while we all gota 
love kids, we all don't have to live at a school and teach at a 
school filled with little wonderful kiddies. If you are a sorta 
person who might have disliked teenagers when you were a teenager, 
odds are you still dislike them to a certain degree. Now, you might 
ask, why be a teacher then. Perhaps, Snape, had few options open to 
him at the time, I'm sure after Voldemorts fall, not many people 
were willing to hire a ex death eater..and I understand that, it is 
not a known fact that he was a death eater. JUST like any society, 
city, or town, I'm sure there were rumors about him. (Though, the 
wizarding world don't seem to keep in touch with each other, It 
almost seems to me people don't know each other half the time). I'm 
still sure it might have been difficult for him to find a job

He sounds so young....it seems quite strange to me that all these 
people were so young, it is almost easy to see how he could have 
been led to join Voldemort, I mean, why would he follow James and 
Sirius and be on their side, if like in the pensive scene he was 
tortured by them? Would he not follow the people who even though 
leading him astray may have been the only people to show him any 
kind of friendship?

I have also been thinking of something else:
I was thinking, why does Snape care what Harry, Neville, Ron, etc do 
in his potion's class. Why does he in fact, Correct them, tell them 
what they are doing wrong, try to make them see what mistakes they 
are making. Like in one episode where he tells Harry to write him an 
essay on why he did the potion wrong?

WHY does he care, why not ignore them when they screw up, it seems, 
if he didn't care if they did good in his class, he would never try 
to be involved in what they are doing. He seems actually to neglect 
his Slytherin students....meh...maybe I am just not seeing something 
I should. But, why does he care if Harry gets it right? Even if he 
is doing it in a snarky way and being rude to them...why should he 
care?? One would think, if he was on Voldemort's side, he would want 
Harry to do badly in potions and not make him write essays on why he 
screwed up...meh..anyway.

I myself believe, Rowling put Umbridge in not only to further the 
story, but to make a point, about Snape...I could be wrong, but I 
think she was actually showing us what an actual bad teacher is.

Now, I find myself defending Snape again, but, I think in this case 
it is because, there is no way I believe anyone could consider 
Umbridge a better teacher or person than Snape, but I guess I've 
been proven wrong by the above comment. May I remind you that she 
went out of her way to take over the school, and make everyone do 
what she wanted, no matter the cost of life, appearance, or 
otherwise.

I have YET to see Snape try to take over the school, talk bad about 
Dumbledore, or talk bad about McGonagall, of course we are only 
seeing him through Harry's eyes, but when they are around he seems 
submissive to there will, he does not try to get over them, now, 
perhaps if he had the power Umbridge had, with the Ministry behind 
him, we might have seen a different Snape...But that is comparing 
apples to oranges. He wasn't, he has been loyal to Dumbledore at 
least, In My own opinion.

 
I am drawn back to the scene where he shows his dark mark to Fudge, 
It would not have served Voldemort for him to do so, Voldie wanted 
to keep his return private till he had garnered more power. Snape 
revealing his dark mark to Fudge is publicly undermining Voldemorts 
desires to stay hidden till the right time...and also it was putting 
Snape himself in danger, Fudge could have easily brought Snape to 
trial again if he wanted, their was no reason Snape had to show that 
tatoo off, Dumbledore didn't turn to him and say, Show him Snape...

Umbridge was out to hurt Dumbledore and the school from the 
begining, she was out to hurt Harry, but she was pretending she was 
doing it for the better of everyone. Snape on the other hand has not 
really made it a secret that he doesn't like Harry, Obviously 
Dumbledore knows they both have a strong Dislike for each other. I 
will submit that Dumbledore wanted them to work together on 
Occlumency for more than just Harry learning it, I think he wanted 
to put them together one on one, I think he wanted to try and get 
them to work together. That is another reason he is so disappointed 
it didn't work out, because he though maybe if Snape saw what a sad 
life Harry had, he might gain some empathy for the boy.

And who is to say that he hasn't, sometimes it takes a while for 
people to realize things, maybe Snape needs time to digest what he 
has seen. We all know he comes to the wrong ideas about Harry, I 
still dont' think he really realizes how bad of a life harry had 
with his muggle relitives and I think him seeing that, may 
eventually work on his mind, if not publicly for him, at least 
privatly. We just don't see the adults in without Harry around, we 
really don't know how they act, or what their personal thoughs are, 
we see Harry, we really don't see them.

I also believe that as some have suggested, we can not JUDGE these 
people by our standards. I can't see taking a point of view that 
would not apply to the wizarding world and tossing it on them, it 
just doesn't work for me. It appears to me they don't have a child 
protective services in the wizarding world. It appears to me they 
let their orphans like Tom Riddle live in a muggle orphanages, I do 
NOT understand why this happens, but it does. So, to say well, Snape 
is abusive...I believe obviously the whole wizarding community is 
abusive if you want to take that point of view. Maybe Snape has not 
had anyone show him any kind of loyalty or love his whole life, 
maybe no one has ever looked out for him. But, oh, we can all judge 
these people with our own standars, again, we are the child looking 
in on this situation, we are in Harry's head.

Perhaps we should view Snape as someone who is much like Harry. 
Harry feels he has to look out for himself, that is what he has had 
to do most of his life. No one cared about him, his muggle family 
sure didn't. But, generally, is that not how life is? One has to 
look out for one's self, if one had no family, or if one's family 
does not care for you, then, you are pretty much on your own. Maybe 
Professor Snape had to look out for himself, maybe his friends were 
not as kind as Harry's, and helped protect him. It seems being in 
the wizarding world and looking out for one's self, might mean a 
rough life.

Being that the wizarding world is not a kind place, I would say, if 
he has in fact had a rough life, and has not had protection to speak 
of, then Isn't it easy to say, Dumbledore is the first person that 
might actually care about him. Everyone keeps saying he was a death 
eater, he did terrible things, yes, but maybe at some point one has 
to forgive, as Fake Moody said to snape. Dumbledore is a forgiving 
man, so...maybe we should try to be like Dumbledore...instead of 
being unyelding like Snape.


Now, this is all...just thinking on my part, But, its quite easy to 
just say he's bad, but we don't have the facts about him as yet. We 
don't know his past, we can't really judge him yet till we know. If 
say, Harry find out things about Snape, that will change his 
opinion, it might change how he feels and reacts to Snape....much 
like how I changed in my opinion on my grandmother...meh, who knows 
really.

KarentheUnicorn