Sadistic!Snape? (was:Snape's canon opposite/ Proving loyalty...)

[nrenka]

No: HPFGUIDX 140346

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "kiricat4001" <zarleycat at s...> 
wrote:

> Marianne:
> 
> And, whether or not one wants to characterize this brief exercise 
> in terrorizing Neville about the possible demise of his pet as 
> sadistic, what has always bothered me is that Snape never changes 
> his approach to Neville. Obivously he knows what effect he has on 
> Neville, right? I mean, Snape is a superb Occlumens so he must be 
> able to "read" Neville.  And, his long career as a double agent 
> must have honed his skills in reading people through their 
> slightest facial ticks and reactions to a razor's edge. So, I can't 
> for a moment believe he had no idea of his impact on Neville.  

This has always made me wonder, too, about whether a fundamental 
assumption is correct.  Okay, let's take as given that Snape is very 
perceptive.  This is a cardinal tenet of DDM!Snape, after all: Snape 
is a super-spy who can read situations well enough to know what is 
going on very quickly.  He has to, in order to protect his very 
precarious position.  He's good enough to realize in a short time 
what he has to do on the tower.

If Snape is that perceptive, then he'd have to realize what effect 
he's having on both Harry and Neville, right?  And so he must then be 
doing it deliberately, since he doesn't change.  Can he help 
himself?  I think he must be able to have enough self-control, 
otherwise how could he possibly be the super-spy that he is?  Aren't 
all of Snape's actions careful, calculated, and deliberate in this 
model?

Now we still have the open category of "Yes, he's doing it 
deliberately, but he's doing it for the best of reasons."  Which then 
raises the question: what kinds of reasons would necessitate keeping 
one student scared and lacking confidence, and building a large level 
of enmity with another student who's desperately important to the 
destruction of Voldie, something DDM!Snape must also badly want?

> Maybe what it comes down to is that Snape has no idea that not all 
> people will react the same way to the same style of teaching.  
> Snape realized that Neville would bumble his way through Potions, 
> and, since that was all he could do, that was all Snape expected.  
> It never seemed to occur to him that perhaps trying a different 
> tact with this student might have gotten better results.

Option three: he doesn't really care about Neville learning; at least 
not enough to try a different tact.  After all, I'm sure that spy!
Snape has had to use any number of methods and is used to weaseling 
his way around situations there.  But it just doesn't matter in the 
classroom.  I can buy that, almost.

>> Lupinlore:
>> And I totally disagree.  Snape is a textbook example of petty 
>> sadism which JKR has depicted perfectly.  The sad fact that he is 
>> allowed to teach is one of the deepest sins (and I use that word 
>> quite deliberately) of the Wizarding World, and helps account for 
>> the fact that so many fans have such deep contempt for that world, 
>> and would likely be happy to see Voldemort destroy it were it not 
>> for such rare examples as the Weasleys.

Note for Betsy: if you venture further out in the wide world of 
fandom in LJ, you'll find a surprisingly large number of people, both 
pro- and anti-Dumbledore (he's an exceedingly divisive character) who 
actually think of the WW as a dystopia, and would never want to live 
there.  Surprised?

-Nora needs to steal her copy of Ordinary Vices back from a friend, 
the book which discusses the damage doable by everyday petty evils