[HPforGrownups] Re: LID!Snape rides again (was: High Noon for OFH!Snape)

[Magpie]

No: HPFGUIDX 150029

Neri:
Oh, I don't see "hates you, but doesn't want you dead" as schizoid.
Quite normal, actually. I'm sure most of us (certainly myself) have
several people that they hate but don't want dead. But Quirrell
doesn't even begin to describe here the paradox that is DDM!Snape. He
doesn't mention that Snape owes his life to James, that he revealed
the prophecy to Voldemort, that he's supposed to feel so much remorse
over this that even 15 years after the case Dumbledore had trusted him
completely, that he stopped the Occlumency lessons and AK'ed
Dumbledore after saving his life and taking a UV to kill him,
supposedly because of some extremely stupid mistake although he's also
supposed to be that hotshot secret agent.

Magpie:
I'm still not seeing the suppose schizoid-ness of DDM!Snape.  In fact,
haven't you admitted above that the way he acts is perfectly natural for
someone feeling remorse, symbolized by the Life Debt?  If the Life Debt is
symbolizing remorse, than this is Snape dealing with remorse, acting this
way.  He hates James even more because of his Life Debt, but also feels that
much more need to square himself with him.  So why must this remorse be
separate from his personality, something we know he would be repressing if
not magically unable to repress it?  Why can't it just be something he'd
repress if he could but he can't?

Neri:
Well, even Dumbledore admits it's funny, and it gives Harry headache,
and this is after just *one* book. After six books of accumulating
paradoxes, DDM!Snape gives me headaches too.

Magpie:
Are you suggesting that Dumbledore saying "funny" is supposed to be
Dumbledore hinting it's false?  Because to me, "funny" sounds just like what
it usually means, a comment on how the human mind works.  People often don't
feel grateful and loving towards people who have done them a great service.
We often hate them because we can never pay them back--and Snape can't ever
pay James back because he will never be in the same position as James was to
him.  This was a speech written in the first book, which, I suspect, might
have been the last if the series hadn't taken off (no reason to commit to 7
books of a series nobody's buying).  I think had there been only one book
Rowling would have been okay with that explanation of Snape, because it's
essentially the real one.  DD doesn't even say "funny how SNAPE'S mind
works," he says "funny how PEOPLES' minds work," indicating this is a
comment about human nature, not just Snape.  He expects people to recognize
this behavior as human, which I did.

Neri:
The simple fact is that no other character of JKR is nearly so
contradicting and conflicted as DDM!Snape. He'd be grossly atypical of
her character writing.

Magpie:
And I continue not to see what's so contradicting and conflicted about him
beyond the usual human capacity.  It seems like we don't even really
disagree about what's going on.  We all are saying that Snape chafes under
the remorse he feels and hates being aware that James Potter did something
good for him.  We all even seem to admit that the "Life Debt" is way of
referring to this feeling, symbolizing it.  Only you are separating these
feelings from Snape's real personality and the rest of us aren't.  We just
don't think there is the Snape who longs to join Voldemort but is stopped by
this foreign entity curse on him that makes him unable to perform certain
actions.  We think, as far as I can tell, that there is no Snape who longs
to join Voldemort, and that these feelings that keep him from doing so are
his own.

It still also seems to come down to your considering it a given that Snape's
treatment towards Harry on a day-to-day basis, his refusal to continue the
Occlumency lessons, etc. can not co-exist with being DDM, and feeling
remorse over his past misdeeds.  But to others of us, the two aren't
inconsistent, and go well together--and have even been acknowledged as going
together in the text by DD.  It's like Harry worrying his father did
something with a love potion to make his mother marry him because surely
Lily hated him based on her behavior in the Peniseve. JKR, otoh, expects us
to recognize that Lily likes James even in the Pensieve.  I also think that
Sirius and his mother loved each other--and they treat each other horribly.


So for me, DDM!Snape has been totally consistent throughout the series.  The
Life Debt, in your explanations, has been inconsistent by contrast,
sometimes making Snape feel pain due to James or Harry feeling pain,
sometimes only being a problem if one of them dies.  Even in your own
explanation here it should be indistinguishable from real remorse (since
that's what it's supposed to be artificially creating) so I don't see why
Snape's behavior should be a problem with genuine remorse.  Because he's
fighting it and wishes he didn't have it?  People do that with real remorse.

I think it's LiD!Snape who is grossly atypical character writing.  Most of
JKR's characters seem built around a central conflict, something that makes
them dynamic.  LiD!Snape, is a flat villain whose conflict is an illusion.

-m