Real child abuse/ Snape again

[pippin_999]

No: HPFGUIDX 145733

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "Jen Reese" <stevejjen at e...> wrote:
>
> > > Pippin:
> > > Oh, I disagree. We do see other teachers abuse their power.
> > > I think telling a student he is fated to die is an abuse of
> > > power.
>  
> > Alla:
> > Yeah, sure. I will agree with that, and if Trelawney would have 
> > done it every single lesson, I would even agree with you that it 
> > is an emotional abuse.
> 
> Jen: This point reminded me of Trelawney's and Harry's discussion in 
> HBP:
> 
> "I miss having you in my classes, Harry," she said, soulfully as 
> they set off together. "You were never much of a Seer....but you 
> were a wonderful Object...." Harry did not reply; he had loathed 
> being the Object of Professor Trelawney's continual predictions of 
> doom. (The Seer Overheard, p. 544, Scholastic)
> 
> That bothered me, about Harry being the Object. I know that's just 
> psychic talk, but the fact that Trelawney is basically 'fessing up 
> to using Harry and then finding out how deeply Harry hated being in 
> that position did make me think of a teacher abusing her power. I 
> hadn't realized quite how much Harry hated it until JKR used the 
> word 'loathed' which is usually reserved for Snape <g>.
> 

Pippin:
Yes, exactly. Trelawney's constant predictions of an early demise
are just as regular a feature of Harry's life as Snape's insults. But
though Harry is extremely upset at first, he eventually learns not
to take her seriously. It doesn't require any apologies or forgiveness,
and Harry doesn't have to tell her off.  He is able to separate his
loathing of being an Object from his feelings about Trelawney herself;
she's annoying, but he doesn't hate  *her.*

 It comes as a pleasant surprise when she changes tack and predicts 
something nice about him for once, something about minister for 
magic and fourteen children, IIRC, but he's not obsessed with getting 
her to do it.

He does, however, regularly cheat on his divination homework,
imagining all the disasters he can, and he's highly pleased when
Trelawney praises him for it. Then he's  highly deceptive about his sudden 
expertise in potions in HBP. It's that craving for approval, I think. He 
doesn't want at all to be palsy-walsy with Slughorn, he doesn't
like him very much, and yet he can't resist trying to earn his praise.
I think it just drove Harry up the wall that there was no way he
could get Snape to approve of him. It's that, IMO, more than the insults
themselves, that made him hate Snape. But as Dumbledore said, there's
no getting approval from everybody.


Comparing Snape to Trelawney made me see that quite apart from
Snape's feelings about James, he would seize on Harry as the object
of disdain in his first class because of who Harry is.

Just as Trelawney's prediction is far more dramatic because it
concerns the Boy Who Lived, Snape's demonstration that Harry is the sort
of  dunderhead he usually has to teach is far more dramatic because 
Harry already commands the attention of his classmates, and indeed 
the whole WW.  Like Snape, Trelawney also makes use of Neville's 
obvious nervousness -- she psychs him into breaking a teacup.

Trelawney's methods, by the way, are no secret. McGonagall is
quite aware of her habit of predicting the deaths of students. So
this sort of thing is  known and tolerated at Hogwarts. McGonagall
doesn't think much of it, but she's not putting a stop to it either. 

What I was trying to get at is not Hogwarts as bootcamp, but Hogwarts
as the sort of environment a kid faces if s/he is, say, training to be
a concert pianist or a competitive figure skater. Public failure
and adult style rivalries are part of the game  and anyone who
participates at the higher levels can expect to face them, maybe not from 
their primary trainer (that would be a fiasco, as it was in Harry's case 
with the occlumency lessons), but certainly in the course of their studies. 

Pippin