Why does Snape wants DADA job if it cursed? LONG

[Sydney]

No: HPFGUIDX 148886



Alla:

 >I'm not saying she's going to
?shunt aside all aspects of the Snape question (far from it), but I
>*am* fairly sure that she's not going to linger lovingly over them in
>detail, as we all would probably like her to just to settle some
>perpetual arguments.
>The gain of a simple explanation is that it's there on the table and
>characters can then do things that react to it and relate to it. 

Snape wanting the DADA job because he wants the DADA job and he
doesn't care about the curse ISN'T AN EXPLANATION,  simple or
otherwise.  I'm not asking JKR to 'linger lovingly' on it-- her brisk
efficiency is one of my favorite things about her writing.  I'm
wondering what, when All Is Revealed, is going to turn out to have
been going on, with a point that relates DIRECTY to Snape's
motivations and to the relationship between Snape and Dumbledore,
which, like it or no, remains one of the central driving forces of the
entire series.  I don't expect a chapter of 
stream-of-consciouness internal monologue;  I expect three lines of
dialogue similar to what we  got with Bagman.

Look, I'm not saying that every teeny detail in the books is due for
some Huge Twist and ties in to a big plot thing. What we're doing here
in the predictions game is reverse-engineering a plot.  On this
monumental machine is a large ensemble of gears marked 'Snape'.  Now,
that's a pretty big important part of the engine here.  And there a
big widget sticking out of it marked "wants DADA job".  Now, as a
'motivaton', it's a gear, it exherts force-- it's not an ornamental
feature like the engraved "coolio wizarding history" curlicues on the
"Horcrux objects" turbine. 

Naturally, as someone who is trying to figure out how the whole
machine works, I want to know about this gear.  What drives it?  What
is it driving?  What's it attched to?  What's its purpose here?   Now,
you may well say, 'oh, I really do think that bit is just ornamental'
or 'no, no, that's actually part of the Red Herring Noisemaker', or,
"God, I hate that Snape bit, I don't want to deal with it".  But from
where I'm standing it seems to be connected in some way to the
"Snape's motivations" lever and the "Dumbledore's relationship with
Snape" axle which goes deep down into the workings of the whole shebang. 

Lupinlore:

> But then, we aren't talking about a movie.  The kind of psychologically 
> realistic take we are discussing might not be good on film, but at 
> least some of us think that it is, at least occasionally, good in 
> novels.  ... they just let irrationality be 
> irrationality and self-destructive behavior be self-destructive 
> behavior and they acknowledge that sometimes human motivation is 
> neither logical nor meaningful for anyone other than the person being 
> motivated. They don't try to make every answer to every question be 
> some kind of deep revelation that takes the plot and characters in a 
> surprising or new direction.  That's terribly uncinematic and would 
> make for a horrible film script -- but it can make for a very good 
> novel.


I'll just reiterate what Magpie and Gatta said, are you suggesting
that JKR is something along the lines of Virginia Woolf, who is
writing outside the classical tradition of storytelling?  There's a
reason every Hollywood studio was bidding in the 7 figures for the
film rights to the series, and it's not because it's a novel of murky
interiority where things just sort of happen.

And in any event, what kind of 'realistic' novel doesn't find human
motivations 'meaningful'?  In War and Peace, the most random little
characters are given clear, consistent, and understandable motives. 
Even Captain Ahab, king of the "irrational impulse", had his leg eaten
before deciding the whale embodied universal evil.  In the sort of
'good novels' that I think you're referring to, a prominent character
being driven by an odd self-destructive impulse would be precisely the
sort of thing that woud be the most interesting and the most attached
to 'deep revelations'.  The word I would use for novels where people's
motivations don't make sense and have nothing to do with what happens
in the story is, well, "bad novels". 

Just to be sure I understand Lupinlore and Alla's position--
Lupinlore, you yourself started this thread with this excellent question:

>If the position is
>probably cursed, why on Earth does Snape want it so badly?  Is he
>faking his desire?  We have no evidence for that, indeed all the
>evidence we have including the application records cited by Umbridge
>show Snape has wanted the position badly for many years. Yet Snape
>hardly seems the type to to commit professional suicide for the sake
>of a principle. 

And you have settled on the explanation that Snape has fixated on the
DADA post from an irrational drive that will not be further
explained by JKR.  You deal with Snape's attitude to the curse by
suggesting a soup of denial and arrogance that will not be of any
particular interest.  Personally I think this wouldn't fly in either a
movie or a novel, even one by Virginia Woolf, but maybe it's just
because I'm a Hollywood hack <g>.

Or, this just in from Lupinlore: 
 
>Villains never really make sense, that's part
>of the reason they're villains.  Heroes or "good" characters,
>however, are supposed to make at least a surface kind of sense.

Okaaaaay... so either it's a hyper-realistic slice-of-life 'good'
novel where we can't really know anything about anything because
people are too complex;  or it's a sub-Disney fairy tale where the
Evil Stepmother is mean because she wants her own children to
succeed and not Cinderella.  Wait, that's actually a reasonable
motivation...*tries feverishly to think of totally
unmotivated villians*.  

Anyways, personally, I happen to think Snape is EXACTLY the sort of
person to commit professional suicide for the sake of a principle.  I
would say this is one of his most prominent characteristics.  When
have we ever seen Snape do anything to make his life easier-- trying
to get along with people, letting things go, giving easier assignments
in his classes so he doesn't have to work so hard?  Who kept fighting
back for the sake of sheer stupid pride against James and Sirius in
the Pensivescene, when even I was mentally shouting, "dude, STAY
DOWN!"?  The expression to 'cut your nose off to spite your face' was
invented for people like Snape.  I would say that the
"out-for-himself" Snape theorist could not, to be blunt, possibly be
more wrong, which is why they are having cognitive disonance with him
doing something as manifestly NOT out-for-himself as, as Lupinlore
initially put it:

>WANT[ing] a cursed job over his entire career at Hogwarts (evidently
at least 14 years).


So. WHAT principle is it that Snape wants to commit professional
suicide for?


zgirnius:
> I think Dumbledore wanted Snape to still be at Hogwarts when
> Voldemort returned. And with the DADA curse, there was a
> possibility that would not work out if he gave Snape that
> position. Dumbledore always intended to send Snape back to spying
> on Voldemort (as he did when Voldemort returned in GoF). And, to
> help get Snape initially accepted back to the fold, Snape had to
> have something to offer Voldemort-. And that, Dumbledore always
> planned to be his position at Hogwarts in close proximity to
> Dumbledore. Something he knew Voldemort valued, as he had ordered
> Snape to seek employment there himself.


Right-- I like this as a motivation for Dumbledore.  So, let's clean
up one of the possibilities on the list:  Snape wants to quit spying,
which he knows he can do by leaving Hogwarts, which in  turn he knows
he can do by securing the DADA job.  Dumbleodre wants to keep him at
hand, ready to return to V-mort's side in his original capacity. 
Pros:  the advantage to this is that Snape could plausibly be using
the DADA job as cover for leaving Hogwarts TO VOLDEMORT.  Because he
could always, say, well, master, you DID tell me to get the DADA job!
 I kept applying!  If you didn't want it to result in my leaving the
school and reducing my usefulness to you, you shouldn't have put a
curse on it!  Cons:  it feels a out of character for me to have Snape
trying to get out of action-- he seems  more prone to butting in to
things!  And he seemed ready enough at the end of GoF. But on the
whole this theory stands the kick test, consistency-wise.


>Still, what do people think about JKR's own explanation to Stephen
>Fry, that Dumbledore is worried the DADA position will 'bring out
>the worst' in Snape? Why would she say something so directly she doesn't 
>mean?

Ooooh, but she DID mean it!  "Bringing out the worst" in people is
exactly what the DADA curse DOES. It's takes the victims darkest
secret, and then belts them in the gut with it.  Of course Dumbledore
is worried the curse will bring out the worst in Snape-- it was bound
to somehow out him as a double-agent, just as it was bound to out
Lupin as a werewolf.  


>Even though I don't always believe
>in my Grey!Snape theory, I have to say JKR's own answer fits best
>with what Lupinlore is proposing here and what Grey!Snape proposes--
>Dumbledore was concerned a weakness in Snape, almost an addiction to
>the dark arts, would be his undoing if he took the DADA position.
>Simple and clear.

And inconsistent.  If Dumbledore is worried that exposure to the Dark
Arts will cause him to revert to his old ways, what on earth is he
doing sending him to infiltrate the Death Eaters?  I mean, it's
like not trusting someone to teach a grade school Drug Awareness
course, but trusting them to go into deep cover with a bunch of
heavy-using drug dealers.  "I trust Severus Snape completely-- but,
hoo-boy, not enough to let him near any Dark Arts!"  does NOT stand
the kick test.

Ceridwen:
>[The curse acts] not like Imperio in the sense
>that it doesn't compel the person outside of their will.  As zgirnius
>said, Lupin was understandably unsettled enough to leave the castle
>without his Wolfsbane.  He didn't resist, thinking 'OMG, I've got to
>get that potion!'  He was compelled, which is what the Imperio does,
>but through circumstances, not through active agent.  If Snape is
>DDM, the circumstances on the tower would have compelled him to
>perform the AK for whatever reasons (so DD wouldn't be savaged and
>die slowly at Greyback's claws? or whatever). 

Maybe it's like a reverse Felix Felicis-- it creates bad luck, and
impulses the victim to actions likely to have bad consequences?  The
most basic thing you would mean if you said you were 'cursed' is that
you were having extraordinary bad luck.

Random note:  If Quirrel DID teach DADA twice, (one year, then a year
off, then back for Harry's year), did the poor devil actually get hit
by the curse TWICE?  Once when he got the brilliant idea to go get
hands-on experience in the Dark Arts, and once when he got fried or
whatever by V-mort leaving him?


--Sydney