Spinner's End

[wynnleaf]

No: HPFGUIDX 156719


> justcarol67 wrote:
> 
> > Carol, who thinks that we can't necessarily deduce a working class
> > background or much of anything else about Snape's childhood from the
> > house he lives in as of HBP
> 
>    KJ writes:
> 
>     One of the things that picks away at my mind is the name "Severus". 


wynnleaf
First I think there's the question of why JKR wanted to show us
Spinners End at all.  Up to HBP, we knew almost nothing about Snape. 
Assumptions among many fans were pureblood and aristocratic, like the
Malfoys and Blacks.  JKR has broken the myth of pureblood Snape.  Why
would JKR want to fool us into thinking Snape was from a working class
background?  I can't really see the point as we enter the "home
stretch" of the series.

We know that Snape was using "used" textbooks in school.  That implies
coming from a poorer background.  Add to that, the greying pants in
the Snape's Worst Memory scene, which sounds like a kid who didn't get
new clothing very often.  

Pettigrew said Spinners End was Snape's house.  Narcissa knew the way
there quite well.  She'd probably been there at least several times,
since it was a complicated route in, yet she had no hesitations as to
directions.  Yet Bella had not ever been there.  Assumption (no proof)
is that Narcissa had visited there regularly in the *past.*  But it's
hard to imagine wealthy, pureblood adult Narcissa going there -- why
not have social calls at the Malfoy home?  Sounds more like a place
Narcissa might have visited with Lucius years before, maybe when Snape
was a young DE.

The books.  I work at a college and have for many years.  *Every*
academic I know likes to haul all their books to where ever they're
going to live while teaching.  Sometimes it's ridiculous -- somebody
bringing their library along for a one-year appointment.  So it's hard
for me to imagine Snape keeping such a large selection of quality
(leather bound) books back at Spinner's End.  Especially with the air
of neglect that we're told exists there.

Snape doesn't spend Christmas at Spinners End.  The place looks, in
the Spinners End chapter, as though it's been neglected ("air of
neglect?").  Peter is having to clean house.  It doesn't sound like
Snape regularly stays there, or spends summers there.

How could Snape learn so many hexes, etc. growing up at Spinners End?
 Hm, well, there's the library there -- perhaps belonging to his
mother.  He could learn a lot from that.  Also, Snape created lots of
spells in 6th year.  Perhaps he was creating spells even before
Hogwarts.  If he came to school with spells he'd created, as well as a
lot learned from books, that would explain him knowing hexes and
jinxes that 7th years didn't know.

We don't know that Tobias Snape was abusive or domineering.  The
hook-nose man in the memory may not have been Tobias, and even if he
was, the memory may be "memorable" precisely because it was unusual. 
  Perhaps Tobias was angry learning that Eileen was a witch and
Severus a wizard.

If Tobias wasn't particularly domineering or abusive, he might easily
have given way to his wife's desire to name their child Severus.  

If Tobias died early in Snape's life, and Snape went to live with
relatives, that doesn't explain away what was probably a lower
economic situation (used textbooks, greying pants).  And if so, where
did the house come from?

The main objection I have to Snape not growing up with his parents, or
Spinners End not being his family home, is that after so much silence
on Snape's background, amidst such great curiosity about it, JKR
showed us what appeared to be a background almost completely at odds
with fan/reader assumptions.  I don't think she would have appeared to
have revealed his background so late in the series, only to trick us
and let us discover later that our assumptions (growing up in a dark
old wizarding family) were correct after all.  I just don't see any
point to that.  There's a lot of other things JKR is trying to keep a
mystery or surprise us about.  I don't think she's planning another
surprise like "Guess what?  Snape's really from a completely different
family background than you thought in the last book!"  

I mean, why would we *care* about such a twist?  We don't have a lot
of reader "investment" in the Spinners End, working class background.
 Why use that as a surprise twist?  There's no real impact.

wynnleaf