EBA!Snape

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 162591

Bart wrote:
> justcarol67 wrote:
> >>Snape was clearly taken in by the philosophy of the Death Eaters,
 having the basic self-conception, "I'm better than everybody else;
why doesn't everybody recognize it?". 

Carol responds:

Whoops. I didn't say that. I was quoting you!
> > 
Carol earlier:
> > Can you supply some canon here to connect these two ideas? I don't
see how Snape's view of himself (the Half-Blood Prince?) relates to 
Voldemort's ostensible philosophy of pureblood superiority. Regulus 
Black would have been taken in by this philosophy, but why young 
Snape? I think what he wanted was recognition and acceptance (and 
possibly revenge against certain Gryffindor opponents of LV).

Carol again:

Okay. This part I did say. :-)
> 
Bart wrote:
> Recognition and acceptance, certainly. Calling himself The
Half-Blood Prince shows his sensitivity about his muggle father.
Classic egotist masquerading an inferiority complex. <snip>

Carol responds:
I know this is just speculation based on the shouting man in Snape's
childhood memory being Grandpa Prince rather than Tobias (surely Harry
would have recognized the man as a Muggle by his clothing), but I
don't think his Muggle father is in the picture. I think the Pureblood
Princes have treated their Half-blood grandson rather badly and the
nickname he gives himself is a kind of compensatory gesture (I may be
a Half-blood, but I'm still a Prince). I don't see the egotism,
either. His talents and intelligence are real. What I do see is a
desire for recognition that he has yet to receive--and for
Dumbledore's approval, which he receives to some degree throughout the
books. He does express disagreement with Dumbledore on at least two
occasions, but he ends up doing what DD wants. "Dumbledore trusts me!"
he tells Fake!Moody in GoF. And, clearly, DD's trust is very important
to him, whether he's DD's man or not. (And, of course, I think he is.)

> 
> Bart:
> His criticism of the pupils, of other professors, and building up of
himself occurs throughout the series. Do you really need for me to
come up with examples?

Carol:
Criticizing others, no. But do note the variety of people he
criticizes, including Peter Pettigrew and Bellatrix. He even pushes
Umbridge to the point where she puts him on probation. But "building
up of himself"? Yes, please. I would like some examples--other than
"I, the Half-Blood Prince," which is spoken under highly unusual
circumstances.
> 
Carol earlier:
>  > I don't recall his boasting at all on any occasion. Even the HBP
speech doesn't involve any gloating about his own abilities, only
resentment that Harry would used his own  spells against him.)
> 
> Bart:
> Damn, I WILL have to look up the quotes. They ARE there, if you look
for them. Look, in particular, to when he talks about potions, what he
says about Lupin in POA, his attitude towards Sirius in OOTP, just for
example.

Carol:
Me look for evidence to support your argument? <grin> Seriously, I do
want to see the quotes. I rather suspect you're seeing something in
them that I don't see. As for his attitude toward dear Sirius, in PoA,
he thinks he's a murdering traitor. In OoP, they can't get past their
schoolboy grudges, and if someone called me Snivellus and implied that
I was trying to hurt Harry by following DD's orders to teach him
Occlumency, I wouldn't be nice to him, either. And how would what he
says about Lupin reflect his view of himself, which is what we're
talking about here, specifically boasting?
> 
> Carol earlier:
> > And how, exactly, can you reconcile "a clear moral and ethical
code of his own" (which I agree that he has) with being evil? What is
that coed, in your view, and how does it fit with his leader's being a
fake? 
> 
> Bart:
> Many people have moral codes that others consider to be evil. I eat
meat, which many consider to be evil.

Carol:
I think the code of the fundamentalist Muslims, who believe that
suicide bombing will grant them a place in Paradise, might be a better
example than meat-eating. And I suppose the code of the Death Eaters,
if they have one, might qualify. ("Evil, be thou my good.") But I
accept DD's view that Snape is now no more a Death Eater than
Dumbledore. Tell me, please, what *you* see as Snape's "clear moral
and ethical code" and how it's evil. I see a code all right, involving
placing yourself in danger for your convictions, righting the wrongs
you've done, and repaying debts of honor even to your enemies (the
life debt to James). Just how that's evil, though, I can't quite make out.

Bart wrote:
> I must admit a lot of it is backwards logic; taking Snape's
behaviors and attitudes, and asking how they can be reconciled. In the
case of Dumbledore speaking of his motivation, Dumbledore can be
counted on to give as little information as possible. In this case,
one might ask how could Riddle's interpretation of the prophecy drive
Snape away, so decisively. The only logical answer is that he showed
his true colors, his true hypocrisy. Also note that a big part of the
"Voldemort Philosophy" is more than purebloods, halfbloods, and muggle
born; he believes that the WW should rule the muggle world. <snip>

Carol:
I don't disagree with you regarding Voldemort. I just accept
Dumbledore's words that Snape "returned to our side" spying "at great
personal risk" before Godric's Hollow and that the reason he returned
was his recognition of the way that LV interpreated the Prophecy. IOW,
when he gave LV the information about the Prophecy, he didn't know
that LV was going to go infant hunting. Even Harry stated that the
obvious thing to do, once LV found out that there were two boys who
fit the Prophecy criteria, was to wait and see which boy turned out to
be the threat. At any rate, I don't see what LV's hypocrisy has to do
with his interpretation of the Prophecy, which is what canon tells us
caused Snape to reject LV and go to Dumbledore. Your "logical answer"
isn't logical to me.

Carol earlier:
> > Can you show some canon for this perceived jealousy? DD is hardly
Snape's contemporary--he's about 115 years older, more like a
great-great-grandfather than any kind of peer or equal, and he's
always in a superior position to Snape--headmaster, head of the Order,
etc. I don't think that Snape envies Dumbledore: I think that he wants
DD's approval and envies *James* <snip>
> 
> Bart:
> I guess "jealous of Dumbledore" is an overstatement.

Carol:
Good. Thanks for conceding that. But do you agree that he wants DD's
approval and that if he's jealous of anyone, it's James?

Bart:
 I don't believe he holds anything against Dumbledore; it's more
against society as a whole. Consider: He clearly was (and continues to
be) an extraordinarily talented mage, who should have been able to
write his own ticket in the WW. But all we saw was that he was treated
with scorn (as opposed to a wizard, such as Dumbledore, who was
admired from the time he was a student). 

Carol:
By James and Sirius, do you mean? I think that the Gryffindors had
their usual anti-Slytherin prejudice and those who weren't amused by
Severus's humiliation were afraid of being hexed by James if they
spoke up in Severus's defense. Also, he very clearly didn't want any
defenders, as we saw from his reaction to Lily's interference. Scorn?
I don't see it. But I do think he wanted recognition, especially from
Dumbledore, but the only people who had ever given it to him were the
older Slytherins who had allowed him to join their gang (and maybe
Slughorn, based on his treatment of Snape in HBP). So, IMO, he joined
the Death Eaters at least in part because his Slytherin friends were
the only ones who had ever fully appreciated his talents and because
he hoped that Voldemort would reward those talents. Pureblood
philosophy had nothing to do with it.

Bart:
With the superficiality clearly shown among many in the WW
(particularly by Corn Fudge and his ilk) it is not a stretch that
Snapes outward appearance overcame his inner talent in forming the
judgment of others.

Carol:
I don't think his appearance had anything to do with it. For one
thing, the older Snape is no longer skinny, stoop-shouldered, and
pallid. He's developed a posture and a style of walking (sweeping and
swooping) and a tone of voice and a way of looking at people that can
silence a classroom command respect (or fear?) even from Death Eaters.
Probably by the time he joined the Death Eaters, he was already
cultivating this persona--compensation again, but very effective. At
any rate, his appearance as a teenager didn't prevent Slughorn from
recognizing that he was exceptionally gifted as a potion maker, and
his appearance as an adult certainly didn't deter Narcissa from
grasping and kissing his hands. Maybe his nerdy appearance led to
*James's* contempt for him, but I don't think it would have kept him
from getting a job in the WW. Cornelius Fudge certainly doesn't react
one way or another to it, only to Snape's losing his temper at one
point and showing his Dark Mark at another. We're seeing Snape from
Harry's pov, and I don't think he's actually any less attractive than
most of the Hogwarts teachers--and more so than Umbridge and
Fake!Moody. I think that he was judged as a colleague and equal up
until the end of GoF, when McGonagall and a few others discovered,
through his own courageous gesture of showing the Dark Mark, that he
had been a Death Eater. That's when they became suspicious, not
before. Just look at the end of CoS, where he leads them all to show
their contempt Lockhart.
Carol earlier:
<snip>
> > What cruelty? Do you mean his sarcasm and his unfair point
deductions or his hatred of Harry or something else? Can you show me a
single instance of Snape's ostensible cruelty that's comparable to
Umbridge's detentions or her sending Dementors after Harry or her
intention to Crucio him, or to Bellatrix's actual Crucio of Neville?
Snape *saved* Harry from a Crucio? How is that cruelty? <snip>
> 
> Bart:
> Not all evil is equal in degree. Snape satisfies his sadism in petty
ways, such as using his position to arbitrarily punish those he
dislikes while looking the other way with those he likes. His cruelty
to Sirius is obvious. When he takes over Lupin's class, he attempts to
betray Lupin's trust. 


Carol:
I don't see the sadism, really. When do we ever see him enjoying
taking points the way that Umbridge enjoys her blood-letting
detentions or Bella her Crucios? The only example I can think of is
"Whoops!" when Harry's correctly made potion slips and breaks. That's
a petty bit of revenge, I admit, but he thinks that Harry has been
stealing from his supplies and lying about it. But, at any rate, the
petty tyranny of a schoolmaster and the sick sadism of a Crucio-loving
Death Eater are poles apart. I acknowledge that Snape isn't nice.
Neither are a lot of people. But that doesn't make, say, a Scroogelike
boss into a murderer. Not nice does not equal evil. If Snape is
protecting Harry and risking his life to fight Voldemort, he isn't evil. 

And God knows, hating Sirius Black, who in Snape's mind tried to kill
him when he was a teenager, who humilitated him in public (along with
James Potter), attacking him two on one without provocation, does not
make him evil, especially since in PoA he believed sirius Black to be
a murderer who was trying to kill Harry. If disliking the wonderful
Sirius makes a person evil, best turn me over to the Dementors right
now. As for Lupin, he knew him to be a werewolf who could endanger the
students and believed him to be helping the would-be murderer into the
castle. And Sirius Black *was* a would-be murderer who had already
shown near-psychotic rage by slashing up the Fat Lady's portrait.
Snape was simply wrong about his intended victim, who happened to be a
rat Animagus whom Snape could not have suspected was the real Secret
Keeper, Peter Pettigrew. What surprises me is snape's remarkable
restraint in making the Wolfbane Potion perfectly all year and saying
nothing (except assigning that essay, which would enable the more
astute students, or at least Hermione, to see their own danger). Evil?
Where? He was protecting Harry, the boy he hated.

Carol:
> > But DD could and *did* trust Snape completely. there was every
reason to drop the Occlumency lessons after Harry betrayed Snape's
trust by entering the Pensieve. 
> 
Bart:
> <snip> He trusts that Snape is loyal to the Order. Snape dropped 
> the Occlumancy lessons, but did not tell Dumbledore that he had done so.

Carol:
Canon for that, please? How is it that DD knows they were dropped and
isn't angry with Snape? 

And "completely" means "completely," in all respects. Yes, he trusts
Snape to be loyal to the Order. But he also trusts him with the cursed
DADA class, with Harry's life, with Draco's life, with Katie Bell's
life, and with his own life at the beginning of HBP. When he comes
back from the cave, it's Snape and only Snape that he wants to see.
And at the end, he trusts Snape to do whatever he means by "Severus,
please." Whether Snape lived up to his trust or not, and I believe he
did, Dumbledore did trust him. Completely. We just don't yet know why.
> 
Bart:
> 
> P.S. I think Snape is a more interesting character than Harry.
There, I said it!
>
Carol:
Hooray! At least we agree on that!

Carol, astonished to discover that this is only her second post of the day