Snape as father figure, was Sirius as Father Figure

[phoenixgod2000]

No: HPFGUIDX 130928

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "Amanda Geist" <editor at t...> 
wrote:

<snipped>
 
 
> Snape has been a consistent male authority figure from day one. He
> represents a critical aspect of "father": the authority, the 
disciplinarian,
> the existing Power whose standards and restrictions the child 
rebels
> against. He's the father who won't listen; who doesn't seem to 
care; who
> sets rules and allows no excuses; whose rules seem to be arbitrary 
and mean;
> who is *always there.*

I am going to agree with Sherry and Alla (good job the both of you, 
btw), Snape isn't that kind of father figure for one reason.  The 
kind of tough uncompromising father that kids grow up to respect and 
understand do what they do out of love. they want their children to 
grow up strong and disciplined so they enforce that discipline until 
the child is ready to enforce that discipline on themselves.  I grew 
up with a father like that.  My dad was an ex-military prison 
administrator. He ran his home like a prison ward and could smell 
trouble at fifty paces. And I got off relatively easy because I 
wasn't his daughter! When I was a teen I hated my father and we had 
a terrible relationship. I didn't understand what he was trying to 
do. I'm older and wiser now and I see more clearly. He might have 
been an ass sometimes, but he was an ass that had my best interest 
at heart and in the end I am better off for what my father did.  
Snape doesn't have Harry's best interest at heart. He isn't being 
hard on Harry for any other purpose other than being hard on the son 
of his bully makes whatever passes for his heart a little lighter.  
thats what seperates Snape from what you're talking about.

> Snape and Harry, in my opinion, grew closer in OoP, and not one 
whit warmer.
> There is a tremendously strong bond between them, which grew 
stronger
> through OoP, and which neither of them seems inclined to break. It 
is a bond
> of emotion, and although the emotion is hatred, it is a bond 
nonetheless.
> Neither of them will release one iota of that emotion; they remain 
embedded
> in each other. The subjectivity of this bond gets very in the way 
of them
> appreciating, or truly seeing, each other.

I actually agree with you here. I think there was the glimmer of a 
breakthrough between the two of them that is broken by actions on 
both their parts. Growing closer without growing warmer is a perfect 
way to describe it.
 
Snape finds
> it convenient, and easy, to keep hating Harry, but I don't think 
there's
> real passion there. So Snape is able to have a degree of 
objectivity towards
> Harry; it allows him to teach Occlumency to him, and it allows him 
some
> effectiveness as a father figure.

Nope, sorry. I don't buy Snape having anything close to objectivity 
towards Harry at all. Objectivity would allow him to see Harry as 
himself and not an extension of his father placed in Hogwarts for 
Snapes own amusement and torment.

But something tells me we aren't ever going to quite see eye to eye 
on Snape :)

phoenixgod2000