Snape-the Hero -- Snape-the Abuser

[horridporrid03]

No: HPFGUIDX 143278

> >>Betsy Hp:
> > Ooh, I totally disagree.  I get the sense JKR *loves* Snape.
> > <snip>  

> >>Lupinlore: 
> Well, it depends on what you mean by "love," doesn't it?
> <snip>

Betsy Hp:
That she'd totally hang with him.  That when he's hurt she feels for 
him.  That when he dies (as I'm afraid he will) she will weep for 
him.  That he's one of her babies and she cares for him, warts and 
all.  He is just like Sirius, and Dumbledore, and Harry for her.  In 
his own Snape-like way.

I don't get the feeling Snape is anything like the Dursleys for 
JKR.  She's written him as far too three-dimensional for that.  The 
Dursleys are there to be tortured (not my favorite schtick, but 
there you are) but not Snape.  Because when he does visibly suffer, 
his suffering is described as matching Fang's suffering.  And no one 
sane writes about a beloved and innocent pet being burned alive 
expecting the audience to *not* sympathize with the animal.

> >>Betsy Hp: 
> > JKR does seem to have a taste for random acts of cruelty that 
> > I don't share (though I'll wait for the final word before I 
> > fully accept that she does), but I've never gotten the sense 
> > that she's about any sort of unclean!character writing.

> >>Lupinlore: 
> But then, it depends on what you mean by "cruelty" and "unclean."  
> I think this is the root of the whole "poetic justice" question.
> <snip>

Betsy Hp:
I took "unclean" to mean a character so deprived of any sort of 
humanity that the audience calls for blood without a tinge of 
compassion.  I don't think JKR has written Snape this way.  In fact, 
I'd go so far as to say she hasn't written *any* character as 
totally evil and devoid of sympathy.  Even Tom Riddle, abandoned by 
his mother, evokes a bit of compassion.

I do see a huge difference between cruelty and poetic justice.  
Going back to the movie "A Christmas Story," when Richie beat up the 
bully, that was poetic justice.  If his *father* had beaten up the 
bully, that would be cruelty.

If Harry had jumped Draco all by himself on the quidditch pitch in 
OotP, that could have been poetic justice.  Jumping Draco with a 
loaded fist and the backup of a Weasley twin was cruelty.  Hagrid 
giving Dudley a pig's tail because he was mad at Vernon was 
cruelty.  The twins strangling Dudley was cruelty.  The twins nearly 
killing Montague was cruelty.  Harry using the basilisk's fang to 
destroy the diary was poetic justice.

It's a question of power.  Watching someone powerful stick it to 
someone weaker is not a great example of poetic justice, IMO.  

Betsy Hp