Sadistic Snape

[juli17 at aol.com]

No: HPFGUIDX 140390

 

Betsy said:

... But I believe that exchange <Snape and Harry's  first classroom
interaction> shaped Snape's
treatment of Harry over the  rest of the books.

Amiable Dorsai:
So he formed a snap impression of  Harry from one classroom
interaction, either didn't bother to compare notes  with his colleagues
or ignored their opinions, blinded himself to any  evidence that might
contradict that opinion, and based his entire approach to  Harry on
that basis.  So he's not a sadist, he's a crank.   Gotcha.  Thank you
for the correction.

 
Julie: 
I think it's been apparent from the beginning that Snape formed an 
immediate opinion of Harry and has acted on that since,  contrary
evidence aside. It's all part of the fact that Snape insists on  seeing
Harry as a carbon copy of his father, and twists the evidence  in
his mind to support his conclusion. Which doesn't make him a 
crank, or a sadist, but a bitter man with tunnel-vision  regarding
Harry and James. 


Betsy Hp:
It's canon now that there *was* a thought within  certain circles that
Harry may become a Dark Lord himself, and that Snape was  aware of such
theories. And Harry does bare an uncanny physical resemblance  to
James, who did not handle his popularity well (from Snape's POV  anyway).

Amiable Dorsai:
Ah, therefore he decided to alienate the  budding young Voldepup, 
insuring that he, the one person who saw through  this Dark Lordlet's
facade, would be in no position to influence his  character for the
better.  The brilliance of this gambit just takes my  breath away.

This then, was not sadism, but stupidity.  Check.
 
Julie:
No, again it's Snape's tunnel vision. If Harry is like James, who
*Snape* sincerely believes was a major berk (true or not) and
allowed popularity go to his head, then he has reason to  believe
Harry might do the same thing. In fact, I too think this is one
factor in Snape's treatment of Harry, and the one he uses to
justify his abusive behavior. He believes he's "stamping out"
that James-like arrogance in Harry. No doubt he enjoys doing
it also, the sadist factor, but sadism isn't the only factor, or
even the major factor. 


> >>Amiable Dorsai:
> ...insulting an orphan's  father...

Betsy Hp:
Whenever Snape brought up James it was usually  (IIRC) when Harry was
doing something colossally stupid, like sneaking into  Hogsmeade when
there was a mass murderer out for his blood. Snape, with good  reason
(especially after reading some of Sirius's "advice"), was trying  to
turn Harry away from emulating his father. Snape chose a piss-poor  way
of going about it, I grant. But again, I see a reason for  his
behavior. Enjoyment of Harry's suffering wasn't it,  IMO.


Amiable Dorsai:
Because sarcasm and insulting James has  always done so much to
influence Harry's behavior for the better.  Not a  sadist then, just a
one-trick pony.  Okay, got it.
 
Julie:
Again, it doesn't matter. Snape insults James because he dislikes
James so much. And since he thinks his interpretation of James  
is accurate, he figures why shouldn't Harry know exactly  what 
kind of man his father was? This isn't effective, but Snape is not  a
congenitally nice man (one who might keep his opinion to  himself
to spare hurt feelings), nor is he rational enough on the subject to 
consider the fact that his attacks on James simply entrench Harry's 
support of James rather than revealing the *truth* (Snape's  version)
about James. 


> >>Amiable Dorsai:
> ...insulting a student's  looks...

Betsy Hp:
And by doing so kept his Seeker out of detention  and on the field...

Amiable Dorsai:
He excused despicable behavior  from a student because that student was
on his House team?  So he's not  a sadist, he's a cheater.  Roger.

I'm really beginning to appreciate  your analysis of Snape's character.
 
Julie:
This is one instance I do think Snape was sadistic, insulting  Hermoine
simply for his own enjoyment. More about "cheating" below...


> >>Amiable Dorsai:
> ...playing  favorites...

Betsy Hp:
While not a good thing for a teacher to do, I'm  not sure how this is
sadistic behavior.

Amiable Dorsai:
You're  right, it does serve better to illuminate his other character
flaws, doesn't  it?


Julie:
Umm...I'm not sure it illuminates Snape's character flaws (of which
he has plenty) so much as it illuminates the flaws of the Hogwarts
"house" system. It's all about house points, about competition,  and
winners versus losers. The system encourages teachers to play  favorites,
and Snape isn't the only one who does it. McGonagall does it too. And
so does Dumbledore, very much so when it comes to Harry. They
all "cheat" a little, though many of the teacher probably don't realize  it.
It's virtually impossible not to favor *your* kids in this scenario,  since
the human brain continually reinterprets events, quite often in favor  of
the interpretation we most desire. 

> >>Amiable  Dorsai:
> ...casting aspersions on a student's intelligence to another  teacher
in front of the student and his classmates...

Betsy  Hp:
Again, not good behavior, but hardly sadistic. (McGonagall made  sure
everyone in Gryffindor house saw Neville as the house dunce. Why  isn't
she labeled sadistic?)

Amiable Dorsai:
Actually, I agree with  you that McGonagall is sometimes over the top.
This excuses Snape how,  exactly?
 
Julie:
It doesn't. But I still don't see Snape's behavior here as sadistic.
I think he's humiliating Neville because he believes Neville 
deserves it. Since Snape teaches by humiliation, and seems to
believe it is a valid way to induce students to improve their skills 
in his class, he may think he's delivering "encouragement."  I
think McGonagall's intent with Neville was similar. Embarass
the boy enough and he'll get it right next time. Snape does
take more pleasure in it than McGonagall (or at least so Harry 
perceives), but that doesn't make sadism his chief motive.

>  >>Amiable Dorsai:
> ...making an unjustified criticism of another  teacher to that
teacher's class...

Betsy Hp:
As McGonagall does  with Trelawney? Again, not very sadistic, to my mind.

Amiable  Dorsai:
Let's see... McGonagall reassured a student who was badly shaken by  a
spurious prediction of his own imminent death; Snape tried to undercut
a  colleague against whom he nursed a grudge.

Yep, perfectly comparable  situations. 
 
Julie:
Not totally comparable, but again, not sadistic on Snape's part. As
you say, he's nursing a grudge. He's "getting back" at Lupin for
past wrongs, which is revenge.  


> >>Amiable Dorsai:
> ...threatening to poison a  student's pet and then being abusive
after he's thwarted...

Betsy  Hp:
Actually, I'd catagorize the toad incident as trying to vividly  drive
home the lesson that the potions the students are making  are
*supposed* to be consumed. Frankly, I think Snape was trying to  reach
Neville here...

Amiable Dorsai: 
'Cause, you know, threats  and intimidation have always worked so well
to improve Neville's class  performance.  Kicking it up a notch will
surely create even better  results...  
 
Julie:
And again, Snape doesn't evaluate his methods to see how  well
they work individually. He's set in his ways as well as in his  mindset,
which is that if he teaches the students should learn, and if they  don't
then they deserve to be shamed into performing better. It's not a 
good method for most kids, but Snape doesn't care about that. Like  
a lot of other teachers, he sticks with his method, unable or  unwilling
to consider that he could be *wrong.* Additionally, it does provide  an
outlet for his frustration over having to teach a bunch of "dunces." 
Emotionally immature, but not deliberately sadistic, IMO.


Betsy  Hp:
...It didn't work, unfortunately. And taking five
points for  Hermione's cheating strikes me as something much less than
abusive and  certainly not sadistic.

Amiable Dorsai:
No, just inconsistent.   Snape punished Harry because he didn't help
Neville; he punished Hermione  because she did. 

Snape does seem to enjoy these little lose-lose  situations, doesn't
he?  Nope, not sadistic at all.  Nope,  nope.
 
Julie:
Nope, not sadistic. Snape doesn't care about lose-lose situations,
he cares about incompetence and *defiance.* Hermoine defied him.
And disobeyed him, which in this case could justify his taking of
points from Gryffindor. (One of the few times it's justified, IMO).  

>>Amiable Dorsai:
> And then there's the time he tried to  have the very souls of two
innocent men destroyed.

Betsy Hp:
You  mean the mass-murderer and the teacher who helped him into the
school where  he nearly killed a student? Those innocent men? Shall we
accuse Harry of  sadism since he expressed a desire to see Sirius dead?

Amiable  Dorsai:
Harry was willing to hear evidence that countered his  preconceptions.
Snape was not.
 
Julie:
Harry doesn't hold a grudge like Snape does. Or Sirius does, BTW. 
Snape doesn't *want* to hear the evidence, so he doesn't. Just as
Sirius doesn't *want* to believe Snape is on the Order's side, so 
he doesn't. (And it's irrelevant whether Snape eventually proves to
be DD'sMan or ESE. If one makes an argument that intuition was
enough to justify Sirius's condemnation of Snape despite arguments
to the contrary *at the time,* then it's also enough to justify  Snape's
condemnation of Sirius at that point despite arguments to the contrary). 

<snip>

> >>Lealess:
> Honestly, Snape is  not cut out to be a teacher.
> <snip>

Betsy Hp:
I think  he's an excellent teacher, myself. I just think he's of a
certain (out of  favor now unfortunately) sort. It's been discussed
ad nauseum, but I don't  see any evidence that any student suffered
unduly in his classroom. And yes,  that includes Neville. Neville who
still has a pet toad and who doesn't seem  all that afraid of
Snape anymore, IMO.

Amiable Dorsai:
Nor has he  any hope of advancing further in a subject closely related
to his best field  of study.

It's kind of ungrateful of me, I suppose, to be so hard on old  Snapey;
back in college, I used to tutor high school students in math  and
science. Lazy teachers like Snape provided me with pretty  good
spending money.  It was particularly gratifying, not to  mention
lucrative, when I found a student who was quite capable of  learning
the subject, but who had been turned off by incompetent instruction.  
There was one math teacher, who, like Snape, tried to intimidate  his
students into learning the material themselves, rather than take  the
effort to teach it.  He was always good for two or three clients a  year.  

Worked out for almost everyone: I had gas and date money, my  clients
did well enough to pass (one is now an electrical engineer, so at  some
point, this kid who was "hopeless" at math was solving  partial
differential equations), the teacher was able to slack off.

It  saddens me that such teachers are now, as you write, "out of favor"
how are  today's college students to earn an honest dollar, if that's true?


Julie:
I agree that Snape isn't a good teacher, though his method may work
on *some* students, Hermoine for instance, who takes negative 
feedback as a motivation to prove the teacher wrong. But neither is
Hagrid or Trewlany or Binns. They all leave a number of students
unmotivated and inhibit learning with their methods. Though I  don't 
think it has anything to do with sadism, just that too many teachers
rely on habitually ineffective methods because they are *comfortable*
with them, and have either no ability or no motivation to change. 
 
Snape has plenty of faults, including bitterness, intolerance, anger,
impatience, a need for vengeance, a lack of empathy, etc, etc. 
I don't see Snape quite the same way Betsy does, but I do agree
that his behavior is not simply--or largely--grounded in sadism. 




Vmonte also wrote:
<snipping examples of Betsy's opinions on Snape>
Carol wrote a  very good post regarding Snape the other day that I'm
still thinking about.  She used information found in the books to make
a very interesting case for a  loyal Snape. Unfortunately, it's
reading comments like yours that make me  even surer that the OFH
Snape posters are on the right track.
 
Julie:
It sounds like you're willing to let your objection to someone else's
opinion decide how you view a character--i.e., Snape is OFH because
it's better that he be than that you agree with Betsy. Maybe I read
that wrong, but I hope if Carol's post is the one that you're still 
thinking about, that's the one you'll give more weight. 
 

Vmonte again:
In your quest to make Snape a hero you have begun to  attack the true
hero of the books. Harry is not the bad guy. Anyone with any  "sort of
substance" can tell you this is a fact. If the only way you can  prove
your point about Snape's loyalty is by putting down Harry  and
company, then I can pretty much place bets right now that your  ideas
are dead wrong.
 
Julie:
I don't think Betsy has attacked the true heroes at all. Harry is 
responsible for his behavior, just as Snape is responsible for his.
A. Dorsai said McGonagall was wrong to humiliate Neville but 
how does that excuse Snape humiliating Neville?--and it doesn't.
Just as Snape's bad behavior doesn't excuse Harry's bad 
behavior. To put it another way, if Snape performs a thousand 
bad acts, and Harry performs only ten bad acts, then Harry 
*still* performs ten bad acts. And since Harry is the hero, we
need to see him learn from his errors and rise to the occasion
far more than we need to see Snape do so. 
 
And while we all know Harry is the hero of the book in the 
traditional sense, any reader still has the right to find other 
characters more interesting, even more heroic. There are
several posters here who don't name Harry as their favorite HP 
character, who don't even like him much, which is within their 
rights. While I can say I would find it hard to be in Harry's head
all the time if I didn't much like Harry, I'm more than willing to
accept that others might not find it problematic and would still
enjoy the books for the characters they do like better. 
 
The "sort of substance" comment flew over my head, BTW,
because I really don't know what you meant. 


Julie 





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