Canon for OFH!Lucius

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 161023

Carol earlier:
> > What I'm wondering is whether you're defining "slippery" in the
same way as other readers. For myself, I'd say that it's a Slytherin
quality, common to Lucius Malfoy ("my slippery friend") and Snape
("slithering out of action) and to Tom Riddle, keeping his evil nature
secret through charms and wiles, and probably to Phineas Nigellus and
Salazar Slytherin himself. Even the Slytherin symbol (note the
resemblance of Slytherin to "Slither"), a snakes, suggests slipperiness.
> 
> Pippin:
> Hmmm. But snakes aren't really slippery, though they appear so.
> They have to have traction or they don't go anywhere. I'm not sure
> the true nature of Slytherin is to be slippery, though they have
that reputation.

Carol responds:
Snakes are neither slippery nor slimy, right? But as you say, they're
perceived as slippery, perhaps because they really *are* "slithery."
IOW, it's hard to hold onto a snake. But even those who dislike snakes
know that they're not slimy.
> 
> Carol earlier:
>  ("Slimy," no. Snakes aren't slimy. Snails and eels are.
> > and I'm surprised that a DDM!Snaper would call him slimy, with all
the disgusting qualities attached to that adjective.)
> 
> <snip'>
> 
> > Vile? Offensive? Repulsive? Odious? Resembling mucous?
 
> Pippin:
> 
> An unattractive substance with protective, even healing properties?

Carol again.:
What healing properties can you find in slime, whether it's the slimy
trail that snails and slugs (nasty creatures that destroy plants)
create for themselves or pond scum? Can you think of a single positive
connotation for slime or slimy? I quoted you the dictionary
definitions and the synonyms, ever one of them revolting and derogatory.
> 
Pippin:
> 
> There's plenty of canon for it, of course.
> "slimeball", "slimy, oily, greasy-haired", and of course "Snivellus".

Carol responds:
And who is calling Snape by these names? His enemies, in particular
Sirius Black, the man who states in PoA that he wishes Snape had died
as a result of the so-called Prank. That his enemies call him slimy
doesn't mean he really is. Dumbledore's enemies call him a doddering
old fool. Hardly an accurate perception despite DD's capacity for
human error.

Having somewhat oily hair and a capacity for concealing your thoughts
and loyalties does not make a person slimy. According to the
dictionary, only a vile, repulsive person deserves that epithet. So
snape needs to brush his teeth (Harry's perception) and wash his hair?
so did Sirius Black in PoA. But I don't see anyone referring to him as
 slimy or a slimeball despite his many faults. Black uses those terms
for Snape because he associates him with the Dark Arts. James Potter
called him Snivellus, turning his name into a sound-alike insult
(compare Peves's "loony, loopy Lupin") for the same reason that he
tormented him: "Because he exists."

The use of those terms by his enemies, people who clearly have no
understanding of the HBP or (in Black's case) the adult Snape hardly
qualify as evidence that he really is slimy. And, since you believe in
DDM!Snape, I don't understand why you would argue for their validity.
Do you also think that Harry is an attention-seeking, unstable
teenager? That's what his enemies say. 
> 
Pippin:
> If Snape has deep down integrity and that is why Dumbledore knows
> he can be trusted, then he also has an insulating layer of phoniness
> concealing it. I think that's what registers on Harry and Sirius as
> slime, but not being analytical types, they never give much thought
> as to why it would be there. They just don't trust it because it's
> the antithesis of the way they relate to the world.

Carol:
But "slimy" suggests that he has no integrity, that he's scum. I'm
trying to think of an appropriately loathsome character, possibly
Wormtongue in LOTR or the hand-wringing Uriah Heep in "David
Copperfield." Those people were not concealing trustworthiness beneath
sarcasm and a sinister air. They really as slimy and cringing as they
seemed, fooling only the gullible or the bewitched. DDM!Snape, OTOH,
fools Voldemort, making him slippery (ambiguous, elusive), not slimy
(repulsive and odious).
> 
Pippin:
> Of course DDM!Snape isn't really slithering out of action either --
he's acting in concealed ways. There's so much concealment and
deception around Snape in any case that I don't see how he could
function without some sort of protective barrier between the 'real'
Snape, whoever that is, and all the roles he has to play. 

Carol:
Agreed. But that protective barrier is Occlumency and his ability to
act, not a coating of slime (hypocrisy, unctuousness). I just thought
of a character in HP who might fit the concept of a slimy character
that I'm trying to get across--Borgin, who is presented as oily and
obsequious when he deals with Lucius Malfoy but muttering under his
breath against him after he leaves--kowtowing because he's afraid to
turn Lucius away even though he knows him to be a Dark wizard and
probably suspects that he was a DE as well. Karkaroff, with his
fruity, unctuous voice shows some of the same traits, fawning to
Dumbledore and Barty Crouch Sr. without meaning a word of his feigned
friendliness or remorse.

I don't see anything of the sort in Snape, even if, as you and I both
doubt, he's ESE.
> 
Pippin:
> Slime also discourages closeness, and we can see that with
> very few exceptions, even his colleagues don't feel that they really
> knew Snape. They certainly couldn't if Snape was keeping secret from 
> them a thing that was so soul-shaking it changed his entire life.

Carol:
Slime would discourage Narcissa from shedding tears on Snape's chest
and kissing his hands. I think what discourages Snape's colleagues
from getting close to him is those dark, seemingly empty eyes, that
soft, dangerous voice, that penchant for sarcasm. He looks sinister
and dangerous, not someone you want to get on the wrong side of. And
yet, the others, even McGonagall, follow his lead in their treatment
of Lockhart in CoS. It seems to me that he's a respected colleague, if
not a friend. And up until at least the end of OoP, relations between
Snape and McGonagall are quite civil, almost cordial. We don't see
them interacting in HBP, but McGonagall sends Filch with the cursed
necklace directly to Snape, clearly trusting to his expertise in
dealing with such a sinister object. Yes, by that time she knows he's
an ex-Death Eater, but she trusts him. At the end of HBP, she claims
that she trusted him only because DD trusted him, but I'm not sure
that's really true. She had worked with Snape, even having a friendly
Quidditch rivalry with him, and had seen him unquestioningly do
Dumbledore's bidding. She knew, I'm sure, that he had made the
Wolfsbane Potion for Lupin. I see no evidence that any of Snape's
colleagues, even Lupin, view Snape as slimy. Only Harry, Ron, and
Sirius Black regard the adult Snape in that way. Certainly, neither
Hagrid nor Dumbledore has any such perception.
> 
Pippin:
> OTOH, I don't think Lucius has any integrity left. Maybe he cares
about his family on that animal level JKR likes to talk about, but
given the opportunity to choose, I think he'd sell them out as readily
> as Bella would. He's slippery in that he's always going to be
> found on the path of least resistance.
> 
> Does that make sense?

Carol:
I certainly agree that Lucius has no integrity left, if he ever had
any. But in my book, that makes him the slimy one.

Maybe it's all semantics, but, IMO, you can't ignore the connotations
of ambiguity for slipperiness and odiousness for sliminess. In my
book, it's Snape who's ambiguous and Lucius who's odious.

Carol, hoping that Pippin will look again at the dictionary
definitions that she snipped