[HPforGrownups] Re: Snape, Apologies, and Redemption

[Kemper]

No: HPFGUIDX 152363

  nethwen2:
> <major snip here>Professor Snape, on the other hand, is a VERY strict
>
> teacher who has exceptionally high standards.
> Harry and Neville (bless him) are poor students.  They do not make the
> grade
> and they never will - although Harry of course has extra help what with
> Hermione doing his homework for him and his acquired Potion's book where
> he
> repeatedly cheats throughout the year.  *sorry going off on a tangent
> there
> lol.  I can't stand cheating*.  Okay, so what Professor Snape does is
> humiliates, and punishes weakness, nothing more.  He lashes out with his
> tongue.  I do not think such actions warrant being brought before the
> headmaster and being brought to task.
>
> Kim:
> I have to disagree with you here.  From moment one in Snape's class,
> before
> Harry had any chance at all to prove himself an able or poor student,
> Snape
> humiliated him.  On many occassions his tactics of humiliating Harry and
> Neville reached cruelty levels.  And when Snape gives Harry zeros for
> potions that are better than those made by some others in the class, he's
> not just humiliating a poor student.  Harry was not so poor a student that
>
> he was not doing work that would at least get him half credit, along with
> nearly everyone else in the class.  Snape gave him zeros on several
> occassions that should have been given at least some credit.  I don't see
> him as merely humiliating a poor student and punishing weakness (which in
> itself is an abhorrent thought). snip
>
..
.
Kemper now:
Does Harry feel humiliated?  Does he feel he's abused?  I don't think so.
Some could argue that he doesn't feel that way because he's been conditioned
through his upbringing to be numb to that sort of stuff.  I would say he
seems fairly cognisant of abuse when it's inflicted upon him by Umbridge, so
he is aware what abuse looks like and, arguably, feels like.
Even in the Potion Master's first class, the reader doesn't see that Harry
feels humiliated.  We see that he's a bit pissed maybe and that he uses
humor well.  We don't see Harry teary-eyed after class, jotting down
victimy-notes in his feelings journal.

So what we bring into our interpretation of the reading is opinion shaped by
our thin or thick skinned background, where we're either eager to see
the abuser to validate our victiminess or where we easily see the difference
between an abuser (Umbridge) and, for lack of a better word, a dick
(Snape).

-Kemper


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