[HPforGrownups] Re: Sirius and Prank again? Fools Rush in where Wisemen Fear to Go

[Irene]

No: HPFGUIDX 130066



nrenka wrote:

> 
>>The truth is that most people are just not prepared to believe that 
>>a handsome, clever, popular and (most important) socially fitting 
>>boy is a bully. Especially if he chooses his targets carefully. 
>>People will go to extraordinary lengths to find excuses for him, 
>>and perform the most amazing mental equilibristics on the way.
> 
> 
> If I read you correctly, you're saying that Dumbledore and McGonagall 
> were both fooled by James et al. because he was handsome, clever, 
> etc.  I have a hard time reconciling this with the Dumbledore who's 
> very sharp at what's going on around school and very quick to pick up 
> on people who are not really what they seem to be--young Tom Riddle 
> being a main example.

Tom Riddle was a very different case - he wasn't socially fitting, he 
was a manipulative sociopath.

> 
> You read the objections made from a fairly solid canonical basis as 
> trying to explain away nasty habits. 

It might be my personal bias, but lots of arguments about how the Prank 
was mostly Snape's own fault, and how the Pensieve scene is not really 
two-on-one, are bordering on the "blame the victim". But then again, it 
might be just my  personal buttons pushed, I accept that.


  But this argument posits its
> own explaining away, one that makes Dumbledore and McGonagall into 
> fairly willing dupes/completely biased/or maybe just ignorant.  

I worked with children. The bullying is not always as clear-cut as Draco 
vs. Neville. Very often the bullies are  well-liked by all children, 
clever, charming, polite to the teachers, bring glory and points to 
their house.
It's very difficult for an adult not to get into "they are nice 
children, they don't mean any harm really" attitude.
And the victim is a generally very unpleasant child - might be a liar, 
or as we had in one case, prone to stealing.
It's very difficult for an adult not to get into "servers him right" 
attitude.

> There's quite possibly, in contrast, a formulation by which all of 
> these aspects fit together--why they're remembered so fondly without 
> casting aspersions upon the perceptions of those doing so, but also 
> the nasty and cruel behavior perpetrated.
> 
> Missing information.  What a drag.
> 
> -Nora admits to playing generally with the card of authorial 
> attitudes towards characters in mind, but who bets against the author 
> in a WiP?

Not me. I'm not the one declaring that if books 6 and 7 do not turn out 
exactly as I want them to, it would be a mistake on JKR's part. :-)
She can completely kill any sympathy I have for Snape, and I will accept 
it.

Irene