Of Sorting and Snape

[Judy]

No: HPFGUIDX 175161

Ah, the end of the series doesn't mean the end of the debate between  
Snape's supporters and detractors!

Prep0strus (in post #175139) says, of James & Sirius bullying Snape:
> Snape isn't an entirely innocent victim.  He's a boy practicing
> dark arts 

Well, Snape is certainly not an innocent by his late teens or so, 
since he's joined the Death Eaters. However, you are making some 
statements here that are not based in canon. You say that Snape 
is "practicing the Dark Arts" and imply that he does so even as a 
boy, even during the time when Lily is friends with him. The fact is, 
though, that we hardly ever see Snape practicing the Dark Arts in 
canon at all, and certainly not as a boy (unless you want to count 
killing flies, which we see him doing once.) We see him cast 
Sectumsempra once as an adult, but here he is actually trying to save 
Lupin from a Death Eater. That is the extent of the Dark Arts that we 
actually see Snape USE. 

In fact, we don't really even hear *about* Snape using the Dark Arts. 
For example, in the Pensieve trial scene in GoF, Karkaroff accuses 
various Death Eaters of horrible things – torturing muggles, 
murdering wizards, using the Imperius Curse. But, when he gets to 
accusing Snape, all he says is that Snape was a Death Eater. Even 
when Crouch Sr. doesn't believe that Snape is a Death Eater, 
Karkaroff doesn't back it up with an examples of what Snape has done. 
He just says, "I tell you, Snape is a Death Eater!" Moody, watching 
the proceedings, whispers to Dumbledore about various things other 
Death Eaters have done, but all he does when Snape is mentioned is 
look skeptical about Snape's being on Dumbledore's side. Lupin does 
mention that Sectumsempra was a specialty of Snape's, but we don't 
know if that means Snape used it a lot, or if it means instead that 
Lupin is aware that Snape invented the spell. That's about it in 
canon for Snape using the Dark Arts. Compare that to, say, how much 
Dark Arts we see Voldemort or Bellatrix performing. 

Now, what we do see in canon is that Snape is knowledgeable about the 
Dark Arts -- fascinated by them, in fact. But, knowing the Dark Arts 
is not the same as using them. In fact, long before we know of 
Dumbledore's friendship with Grindelwald, we see two professors 
(McGonagall and Binns) stating (or at least implying) that Dumbledore 
is quite knowledgeable in the Dark Arts.  

I think this is where some of the divergent views of Snape come in.  
Snape is clearly described, by Sirius at least, as being fascinated 
by the Dark Arts even as an eleven-year old. Some readers take that 
to mean that Snape was always a Dark Wizard, even as a child. I don't 
see it that way. Snape has always struck me as someone motivated by 
a love of knowledge, as someone whose ambition is to LEARN about 
magic, especially the mysterious, enigmatic, forbidden Dark Arts. In 
other words, Professor Snape, with his sitting room walls (even the 
doors) covered completely with books, strikes me as an intellectual, 
as a "magic nerd" (analogous to, say, a math nerd) if you will. This 
is quite different from Voldemort, whose purpose in learning the Dark 
Arts is to rule people (and conquer death), or Bellatrix, whose 
purpose in learning the Dark Arts is to cause pain.  

Now, I know at this point some of you will say that Snape does cause 
pain, that he bullies Neville and insults Hermione's teeth, but 
regardless of how hurtful you see this behavior as being, Snape 
certainly doesn't use Dark Magic to do it. Snape can insult people 
quite well without using magic at all. So, that can't be his goal in 
learning the Dark Arts. 

As for the debate on Sorting, I would like to remind people that 
canon repeatedly states that students are Sorted based on personality 
traits (and in the case of Slytherin House, perhaps pureness of 
blood.) I know that Harry tells his son that the Hat will take 
preference into account, but I certainly don't see a student's 
preference as the sole consideration. As some have said here, the Hat 
wouldn't be needed at all if students could just state which House 
they wanted to be in. And, even if the Hat gave Harry a real choice, 
Harry had a piece of Voldemort in him, so his experience may not have 
been typical.

I see Snape as being sorted into Slytherin because of his intense 
ambition to learn, his relentless pursuit of knowledge, especially 
forbidden knowledge. I imagine that he did, indeed, have a desire to 
be a very powerful wizard, but that doesn't necessarily mean that he 
hoped to use that power to hurt others. I don't see him as being 
given the choice to go into Gryffindor; perhaps he asked the Hat to 
be put in Gryffindor (because Lily had been put there), but the Hat 
said no. (In fact, wouldn't trying to be in a certain House just to 
be near someone you like be a sort of ambitious, cunning, Slytherin 
thing to do?)

But once Snape was sorted into Slytherin, I expect that colored other 
students' views of him (not to mention the readers' views.) If he had 
been in Ravenclaw, I'd bet his interest in the Dark Arts would have 
been interpreted very differently, as a desire to gain knowledge 
rather than a desire to do evil. I see Snape's being Sorted into 
Slytherin as a fateful event that determined much of his future. As 
others here have said, being put into Slytherin is like being damned. 

Which brings me to my next point.  
Prep0strus (in post #175139) says that Lily's friendship with Snape:
> which extends even to defending him to members of her
> house, is not enough to keep him from practicing the dark arts, from
> falling in with a crowd that dislikes her based on her blood, and
> from pursuing evil.

I've already discussed the fact that we don't see Snape "practicing 
the Dark Arts", so let's look at Snape's "falling in with a crowd 
that dislikes" Lily for her ancestry. How could Snape NOT fall in 
with that crowd? Who else is there for him to "fall in with"? His 
whole house is like that! As many here have noted, we don't see any 
good Slytherins for Snape to be friends with. As for being friends 
with Gryffindors, we know that Snape is bullied by a bunch of them.  
In the "Snape's Worst Memory" scene, it says that Snape was clearly 
unpopular, so that presumably rules out most of the Hufflepuffs and 
Ravenclaw as well. Snape didn't "fall in" with a group that dislikes 
Muggleborns, that Sorting Hat put him there, and he couldn't make any 
other friends at Hogwarts. (Lily wasn't a friend he made at Hogwarts; 
she was a someone whose friendship he LOST while at Hogwarts.) 

I know a lot of people were confused by the scene in "The Prince's 
Tale" where Snape looks "stricken" when Dumbledore tells him that he 
is brave and that maybe the school sorts too soon. I wasn't confused 
by this at all. I read this as Dumbledore saying that Snape should 
have been in Gryffindor. Snape looks "stricken" because he feels that 
being put in Slytherin ruined his life. How telling is it that when 
he wants to apologize to Lily, the door to Gryffindor house stands 
between them? She turns her back on him as he "struggles on the verge 
of speech," and closes the Gryffindor door in his face.  

I also believe that this is the reason that Snape can't stand being 
called a coward. To him, being denied entrance to Gryffindor House 
is what removed Lily from his life, so he sees being called a coward 
as being tantamount to being told that he is unworthy of Lily. 
However, I don't necessarily think that Snape ever lacked bravery.  I 
just think that, with Snape's burning desire to learn about the Dark 
Arts, the Hat thought he was more suited for Slytherin, even if he 
also had traits that would have "qualified" him for Gryffindor and/or 
Ravenclaw.   

To digress a moment, this (mistaken, I'd say) belief that he wasn't 
brave enough for Gryffindor may also be one of the reasons that Snape 
gets so angry at Neville. I think it really pushes Snape's buttons to 
think that Neville – who initially seems so timid – was 
considered "brave enough" for Gryffindor, but Snape wasn't.  Snape 
may be thinking, "You're supposed to be so brave, let's see you stand 
up to me!" Would that justify how Snape treats Neville?  No. But it 
may help *explain* it. (Neville's incompetence in class also 
obviously drives Snape nuts.) 

My belief is that if Snape was really as bad as many people here seem 
to think he was, he would never have worked for Dumbledore, 
particularly not after Lily was dead and he had no chance of getting 
her in his life. I think  the storyline of Dumbledore's friendship 
with Grindelwald is intended to show that even good people can do bad 
things when they are put in situations that encourage evil -- and it 
certainly looks like Slytherin House, especially during the reign of 
Voldemort, encourages evil. 

When I got to the scene where the Sorting Hat is set on fire, I 
thought, "Finally! No more dividing the Wizarding World! No more 
intentionally setting children against each other!" Alas, that was 
not how JKR meant it to be. 

-- JudySerenity, permanent Snapefan, posting here for the first time 
in years