Snape's childhood WAS: Re: Snape: Hero AND Abuser

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 143604

Ceridwen:
> I should probably jump in here.  I think, at least on this current
go-round, that I'm the one who mentioned that Eileen would have too
much power to wield over a Muggle Tobias, to allow herself to be abused.  
<snip>  If Eileen Prince was a Pureblood or close enough to it not to
have been culturally undermined by Muggle values of half a century
ago, then it's less likely that she would tolerate abuse.  IMO.
<snip>> 
> Merope was not exposed to very much in the way of the WW's attitudes
concerning women.  She was browbeaten at home, and considered no
better than a Squib.  If she attended Hogwarts at all, she was
probably so cowed by that time that she kept to herself there, too. 
But somehow, I doubt if she went. <snip> Merope was the direct
opposite of the witches we meet in the rest of the HP books.  And, it
was probably due to her upbringing and isolation from other WW folk. 
She had no feeling of self-worth, so she felt worthless. <snip>

> Since I've never studied psychology formally <snip> I won't dare go 
> into the rest of your message, about Snape's behavior and the
parents being the 'sun' of the child. But, these are my impressions of
the WW, the way women are portrayed and perceived, Merope Gaunt's
outside-the-loop example, and what I think Eileen Prince grew up
seeing that would have made her much less a candidate for tolerating
abuse than otherwise strong women in our own world.

Carol responds:
I agree with Ceridwen that Merope Gaunt and Eileen Prince aren't
really comparable figures in the respects she cited. Merope believed
that she was a Squib and didn't dare defend herself against her wizard
father. Eileen knew quite well that she was a witch, having gone to
Hogwarts and been elected president of the Gobstones Club. She must
have been fairly good at Potions, too, to have taken NEWT Potions and
retained her book. And *somebody*, either Eileen or one of her
parents, must have taught little Severus some of the spells he knew
before he entered Hogwarts (and allowed him the use of a wand).

How, then, can we account for a woman who must be Eileen cowering as a
hook-nosed man shouts at her and her small son (Severus at perhaps age
three to five) cries in a corner? From the little we know of her,
Eileen doesn't seem like the type to be afraid of a mere Muggle. I
think that after her marriage to the Muggle Tobias failed (perhaps
little Sevvie performed some accidental magic?) or Tobias died, she
returned to her parents' home and the man who is shouting at her,
terrifying both her and her child, is her father--who would have
psychological power over her as well as magical power that he's not
afraid to use. I can see Eileen, even as an adult, fearing her father
(as Merope did). I can't see her fearing a Muggle.

And we still have to account for young Severus knowing all those
spells. A tolerant Muggle father who would allow such a thing doesn't
fit with the abusive hook-nosed man. And we also see the teenage Snape
as pallid and apparently neglected, like a plant that doesn't receive
enough sunlight. Perhaps his mother died and his grandparents (at
least the grandfather) raised him without love as the half-blood
offspring of their rebellious daughter's marriage to a Muggle. (She
could have defied her father after she became of age and yet still
feared him.)

The shouting man being Eileen's father is the only way I can account
for the odd mixture of elements in what we know of Severus's
childhood. (He also seems to have tried to ride a broom before
learning how to ride one at school. The laughing girl in another of
Snape's early memories is almost certainly a witch, an unlikely guest
in the home of the Muggle Tobias Snape. Could it be Bellatrix, and
could she have hexed the broom as a cruel prank? Brooms don't normally
throw off riders who aren't afraid to fly, and Sevvie seems more
determined than fearful.)

While I believe that young Severus did indeed suffer neglect and
psychological abuse, which he countered by learning (and inventing?)
as many hexes as possible, perhaps with his mother's help, I think
that the person responsible for the abuse and neglect was no Muggle
but Sevvie's Wizard grandfather, the Full-Blood Prince.

Carol, borrowing Steve (bboy-_mn)'s term "full-blood" since we don't
know for sure that Grandpa Prince was a pureblood (though I suspect
that he was, and a Slytherin, too)