Snape! Snape! Snape! Snape! Loverly Snape! Wonderful Snape! (long)

[lagattalucianese]

No: HPFGUIDX 148326

> 
...
> 
> So, I guess I am treading a fine line.  He is deriving pleasure
> from acts whose effects are cruel.  That is pretty close to being
> sadistic, by the latter definitions you were discussing.  IMO.
> 
> Hermione makes a similar "mistake" when she is discussing
> the death of Lavendar's rabbit.  She is interested only in
> proving her point about Trelawny's prediction.  Lavendar's
> emotional state is much less important to her.  That is why
> the other student see her as cruel.
> 
> Laura Walsh   lwalsh at ...
>
La Gatta Lucianese:

I think that Hermione and Snape are more similar that a lot of people 
realize in that they are both inclined to put logic ahead of empathy. 
Snape gets so irritated with Neville precisely because he cannot 
understand why Neville cannot follow a simple sequence of 
instructions without getting something wrong. Hermione is more 
sympathetic not because she understands Neville but because he's in 
her house and she thinks Snape is picking on him. She is very 
unsympathetic with what she sees as Lavender's gullability and 
fundamental silliness.

Snape and Hermione differ (and I think it is this that makes him 
exasperated with her) in that he is imaginative (the Half-Blood 
Prince), while she is by-the-book and uncomfortable when she has to 
improvise (or when somebody does better than she does because they 
are improvising).