Victims, Oppressors, and redress (was DD's sacrifice and Snape sacrifice)

[lupinlore]

No: HPFGUIDX 143736

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "pippin_999" <foxmoth at q...> 
wrote:
<SNIP>

PIPPIN:

> Adult!Harry and Snape *are* peers. It only remains for Harry to 
realize it.
>  Even if Harry returns to Hogwarts, Snape would no longer have any 
claim 
> to superiority over him either as  a professor (as Snape has  left 
his post)  or 
> as an adult, once Harry turns seventeen. 

LUPINLORE:

You are, of course, quite correct in a legal sense.  Under wizarding 
law Harry and Snape are both adults -- or will be as soon as Harry 
reaches his seventeenth birthday and becomes a licensed wizard.

But that does not alter the fact that Snape is a child abuser.  Yes, 
his abuse is not as bad as that perpetrated by some others, and he is 
not the same as Voldemort.  But his abuse is one of the central facts 
of the books.  Realization of legal equality does not restore actual 
equality to such a relationship.  In order to do that serious redress 
of emotional and social wrongs is required.  And I stand firmly by my 
contention that if JKR waves her hands and dismisses this with "it 
was all Dumbledore's plan" or "that's the way it is in the Wizarding 
World" then it would be very poor writing.  And if she actually 
proceeds to make a hero out of said child abuser, well it is beyond 
poor writing.

Now, redress, as Alla especially has pointed out, in message # 143119:

ALLA;

I mean, yes of course JKR won't bespending pages on going on and on 
how bad Snape was to Harry and Neville, because indeed one book left  
and too many loose ends to tie, BUT I think that if Snape will be 
punished for who he is, as a package deal, it is perfectly reasonable 
to assume that abuse will be included in there.

<SNIP>

I think there are ways for JKR to write just few sentences and still
show that Snape will not go punishment free.

LUPINLORE:

I certainly agree with everything said there.


PIPPIN:

> 
> The way I see it, Harry and Snape both have to grow out of their 
roles of
> victim and oppressor, which I believe JKR sees as a very limited 
way to 
> confront the world. 

LUPINLORE:

Well, you are very big on the idea of adulthood as being a major 
driving factor in the series.  I am not -- certainly not to the 
extent that I think the wrongs of childhood can be dismissed or that 
seeking redress for those wrongs in any way represents being stuck in 
an undesirable state (and I'm not saying that you have made such a 
statement, I'm only stating my own view).

More to the point, I don't think JKR has any such 
overriding "philosophy" of growth and development, much less 
of "victim" and "oppressor."  In that she is following patterns, I 
think they are the unoriginal and frankly boring patterns of the 
hero's journey and the idea that, for some silly reason, it's 
supposed to be made without appropriate emotional support (thus 
dictating Sirius' death, Lupin's emotional coldness, Dumbledore's 
mistakes, the bizarre failure of the adults to recognize abuse in 
Harry's case, etc.).  But like I say, that is not any kind of life 
philosophy on her part, but a slavish devotion to an outworn and 
wearisome set of literary tropes and the rather bizarre belief that 
addressing the wrongs done to Harry would somehow make things 
uninteresting for a reader.  In fact, they would greatly deepen the 
emotional levels of the novels and make things much MORE 
interesting.  Then again, JKR ain't the world's greatest when it 
comes to dealing realistically and believably with emotions.

Which is yet another strike against DDM!Snape, particularly of the 
superspy subvariety.  If part of the driving factors behind the saga 
is an insistence that the hero be unsupported save by boon 
companions, then having Superspy!Snape roar out of the scenery to 
save the day is frankly silly, and all he sillier if it is all part 
of some plan of Dumbledores (yes, we have Anakin and Gollum, but 
neither of them are superspies operating in accord with some pre-
arranged plan or set of contingencies).  If she was going to do 
something like that, I'd have been much more impressed if she had 
defied outworn tradition and kept Dumbledore (or Sirius) alive.  
Coming up with a superspy!Snape to save Harry, identify/destroy 
horcruxes, or otherwise tip the scales would strike me as, well, 
rather hypocritical at this point.


Lupinlore