[HPforGrownups] Bullying WAS: Re: Prodigal Sons

[Magda Grantwich]

No: HPFGUIDX 140804

> vmonte:
> No, I don't think that they would have mentioned that Snape was a
> bully to Harry. JKR has a way of never letting her characters ask
> questions when she doesn't want her readers to have the
> information yet. But based on the bully that Snape is now, and the 
> fact that he belonged to a club of bullys while he was a DE, I'm 
> sure that he was one as a teenager too. 


Nonsense.  You and Alla think Snape was a bully for no other reason
than that you dislike the character.

In the scene where Harry questions Sirius and Lupin about what he saw
in the pensieve, they are very concerned that his image of James has
suffered.  This is very clear.  They carefully ascertain just what
exactly Harry did see and then work hard to explain to Harry that
James wasn't always like that - not that he wasn't like that at all,
but rather that he had other, better points as well.  

Had there been any extenuating circumstances, any option of
explaining that things weren't quite what Harry perceived them as,
they would have said so.  Because they wanted to make sure Harry
didn't lose respect for his father.

So if Snape had been a bully, they'd have mentioned it.  They didn't
- in fact they discuss how Lupin wasn't able to stop the others from
bugging Snape.  

As for the he-became-a-DE-so-he-could-bully/torture-people claim -
again, I say nonsense.  People join cults and gangs (the criminal
kind) for all sorts of reasons, especially when you're young and
stupid.  Sirius himself - with no reason to whitewash things - says
his parents were pro-Voldemort only at first until they realised what
he was all about.  So the idea that VOldemort was upfront and taking
out billboard advertising about his real intentions is not
established.  

Magda 

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