Bullying WAS: Re: Prodigal Sons

[juli17 at aol.com]

No: HPFGUIDX 140989


Magda  says:
>People who find Snape objectionable seem to feel very threatened  by
>those of us who find him a deeper character who still has a lot  of
>information and backstory to impart.

PJ replies:
Not  threatened... puzzled and maybe a bit frustrated.

I can't speak for  anyone else of course but sometimes I'm not at all  sure 
we're all  reading about the same characters.  :-)   Everything I've ever  
read of Snape, both in the books and the interviews the author gives, show  
him to be a bad guy through and through.  So, if JKR *says* he's bad  and 
*writes* him as bad, where does the idea of "good Snape" come  from?  Other 
than Dumbledores assertions that he trusts Snape (while  never saying he's a 
GOOD guy), there's absolutely no canon for it that I  can see.
 
Julie says:
I guess we all get frustrated by different things. One is the lack of  agreed 
upon definitions for words like "bad" and "good." A lot of us think  Snape
is a "good guy" because he is on the *side* of Good, not because  there
is anything remotely nice about him. And there is plenty of canon to
support that possibility beyond Dumbledore's trust in him, including  Snape
saving Harry from Quirrel, saving Dumbledore from the ring horcrux,
saving Katie Bell from Draco's potion, refusing to brew more  veritaserum
for Umbridge, and quite a few other incidents that conflict with the 
concept of a unilaterally "bad" Snape. 
 
While JKR said Snape is a "deeply horrible person," she also  said,
quite contradictorally "There is more to Snape than meets the eye."
And if--I say *if*--he turns out be be good in the sense of being on the 
side of Good, what would you EXPECT JKR to say beyond dropping
vague hints like "There's more to Snape than meets the eye"? If she
flat out said "Snape seems all bad, but in the end you'll find out he
really has some good in him and has been helping Harry all along"
then what would be the POINT of reading the books? Well, besides
Harry, of course ;-)
 
My point is, JKR isn't going to reveal the "real" Snape to us in her
interviews. So the argument that she only points out his bad traits
therefore he must be Bad doesn't hold much water. Not to  mention,
what would we have to argue--er, debate about!
 
PJ again:

For me the frustration comes into play when I read that from just one  
snippet of memory it's decided that James MUST have bullied Snape without  
any provocation through out 7 years of school.  But we don't know what  came 
before or after that small bit of memory, whether it was unusual (if it  were 
a normal everyday thing why would it be singled out as "his worst  memory"?) 
or what came before or after.  Regardless,  from that  one snippet James is 
tried and convicted of being the biggest bully on the  playground while 
despite of all the solid canon available on how bad Snape  is, people turn 
themselves inside out to make excuses for him and paint him  as a "good guy".

It's a mystery...



Julie says:
I don't think most of us turn canon inside out at all to make  excuses.
We point out canon that is inconsistent with Snape as nothing more
than a cardboard bad guy. I also know there is a long history of 
enmity between James and Snape before the pensieve incident, 
and Snape certainly must have done his share to keep it going.
But that also doesn't change the fact that James and Sirius were
bullying Snape at the time. And I don't convict James of being the
biggest bully on the playground based on the pensieve incident.
I do, however, convict him of *sometimes* being arrogant and a 
bully as a student BASED on both Sirius and Lupin's admissions
of that fact about James's character. (Was it Lupin who said by
James sixth year he had *quit* hexing other students just for 
fun?) There is also the many demerits Harry has to read through
during his detention in HBP that indicate James and Sirius got
into trouble on a regular basis.
 
Now, I don't know whether James and Snape were equal prats
as Hogwarts students, or whether one was worse than the other,
but it really is immaterial. What matters is  whether they grew out
of it--in essense, whether they grew UP. James did, Snape has
never quite managed it, and there is where James clearly wins. 
 
Julie 
 






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