Another angle on Hermione's parents/Good and Bad Slytherins/Snape and Sortin

[sistermagpie]

No: HPFGUIDX 175171

> > debbie
> 
> > I don't agree with those of you who think that Hermione was being
> > insensitive when she modified her parent's memories.
> <SNIP>
> > I think Hermione's actions were always out of love. Her parents
> > were not comfortable in the wizard world, so Hermione tried to
> > protect them from the uglier side of it.
> <SNIP>

Chris:
> I have to say I agree with you as well, when I first read that
> Hermione had modified her parents' memories and sent them to
> Australia I saw it as a very powerful act of love and protection
> for them. It must have been heartbreaking for her to do this to
> them but as you say it stopped the grief for them if she didn't
> return. It never entered my mind that it was a terrible thing to
> do and only made me think of it when I read the posts here.
> 
> IMO what Hermione did to her parents just shows how much she
> loved them and wanted to protect them.

Magpie:
That's not the point! It's compassionate and loving to put your cat 
to sleep when it's sick. That doesn't make it okay to do it to 
people. With people you have to respect their ability to make their 
own choices over the ending of their own lives. Hermione's parents 
are intelligent people and parents. Would any person agree to just 
have their life entirely taken away just because they won't remember 
it? Far more importantly, would any parent agree to forget they ever 
had a child because that way they wouldn't worry about the child 
being in danger? 

This is exactly what's so creepy about the whole thing for me, that 
it's all about how sad it is for Hermione because she's making this 
sacrifice, which just reiterates the impression that her parents are 
some lower form of life who can't understand things so she can make 
decisions for their own good. I'd be less creeped out if it was seen 
as merely cold! Maybe I'm just particularly sensitive about the idea 
of having my free will taken away from me, but this will always be 
chilling for me, even though I realize it's really just a funny way 
of getting rid of an inconvenient blip in the plot. Wizards do this 
all the time to Muggles, and that Hermione has grown to see this as 
okay is, imo, a bad thing. And I think it reflects the many reasons 
that the books, to me, just don't argue a convincing case for respect 
between cultures. (And why I object whenever somebody says the books 
make things "hard" for us in ways they actually seem to make things 
really easy.)

Debbie:
Actually, this is part of my problem. I don't find either one to be
loveable, as 11-year-olds, as 15-year-olds, or as 21-year-olds. The 
Lily who wrote the letter to Sirius from Godric's Hollow sounds as 
though she's been corrupted by James and Sirius (with its airy tone 
and unnecessary dig at Petunia). James seems just as cocky as ever. 
This is a bit off the topic of Sirius, but JKR has completely failed 
to convince me that after Lily's principled rejection of Snape she 
would substitute his tormentors (and Sirius remained Snape's 
tormentor until his death, so this was not an  adolescent thing) as 
her best male friends, and in the case of James, he lover and husband.

Magpie:
Lily seems perfectly suited to them already, for me. In the SWM isn't 
she already trying hard not to laugh at James' jokes about Snape--
even before he calls her a Mudblood? She clearly already likes James 
in that scene. I don't think she had that much trouble with it. JKR 
doesn't seem to consider this sort of thing always a bad thing. I 
think Lily genuinely did think that James and Sirius both had the 
qualities she most admired in men--they just also had bad qualities 
too. Iow, while I do think all the houses influence their members, 
they're also already being Sorted for certain qualities and probably 
have certain things they're more likely to go for to begin with.

I would also note that to me the problems in the Snape/Lily 
relationship seem clear pretty early, naturally all from Snape's 
side. He's not able to get out of his own needs and desires to really 
see things from her pov.

As far as Sirius is concerned, I always saw him as rebelling against 
his family and that's why he went the other way--and DH didn't change 
that impression for me. Sirius is pretty arrogant, I don't know if 
he'd just change what he really thinks just because some kid across 
the way said he didn't like Slytherin. He didn't seem that angry at 
James' remark, he just didn't smile, but grinned when he said he'd be 
different. He could have said just "I am all right." I still read the 
scene as Sirius already primed to be different from his family, with 
James just an added prize. Because JKR doesn't show Sirius coming in 
with one idea and changing to another that I can see, and I think she 
would have shown that if Sirius was really supposed to have come to 
Hogwarts set for Slytherin and suddenly realized this might lose him 
his friend.

Sirius may never have lost his Black arrogance, but the man certainly 
seems like a Gryffindor through and through to me in terms of his 
personality. He never slipped up on Purebloods being superior, 
obviously, but more importantly, he was a danger junkie and died in 
the most Gryffindor way imaginable.

I also don't think the Sorting Hat just works on where you want to 
go. That's important because your choices "show" who you are. If 
you're someone who values Intelligence the most you'd be "choosing" 
Ravenclaw naturally. JKR has said the Hat is never wrong, and I think 
that's based somewhat on what you're choosing. You can't really 
choose to go into a house because your friend's there, imo. But if 
you genuinely value the qualities of that house--even if you aren't 
familiar with the houses as such--you're choosing to go there. Harry 
doesn't choose Gryffindor, iirc. He says not Slytherin and the Hat 
chooses Gryffindor, and chooses correctly. If you really don't want a 
certain house that, too, is going to indicate you're natural values. 

For instance, somebody who really cringes at the idea of being a 
Hufflepuff doesn't appreciate what Hufflepuff stands for, so wouldn't 
be a natural Hufflepuff. I think that's part of the reason everyone's 
so proud of their house-they do all kind of believe their house Sorts 
for the most important thing. Hermione *did not* belong in Ravenclaw. 
Even leaving aside exactly how her intelligence manifests itself, she 
herself dismisses it as "books and cleverness." She values courage 
more and uses her intelligence to those ends. Likewise I would say 
that Snape was not in Ravenclaw because he, too, saw learning as a 
means to something else rather than just knowledge for knowledge's 
sake. (Knowledge is power perhaps?) Or at least, he valued something 
else more. We know that Snape did want to be in Slytherin at that 
time, at least. He may have continued to favor that house his whole 
life.

Alla:
It seems to me that Snape knows really well where muggleborns and
muggles stay in WW based on this. Speculation of course, but I
believe based on canon inference, I think word Muddblood rolled off 
his tongue at that age.

Magpie:
A me too here. I took that scene between Snape and Lily as an early 
sign of Snape wanting to have it both ways and already believing in 
the superiority of some over others. 

lizzyben:
Just wanted to add one thing. When James said "just like my Dad" and
waves an invisible sword, I'm convinced that Snape interpreted that as
"I want to be a bully, just like my Dad." Hence his "small,
disparaging noise" and later comment about "brawn." James sees his
father as someone to emulate, but Snape sees his as an abusive bully.
So while James sees his desire to be like his father as something
noble, it provokes a negative reaction from Snape. Just another
example of the (many) misconceptions & misunderstandings from that 
scene.

Magpie:
Of course, Snape *does* emulate his dad the bully, if that's what his 
dad was. Snape becomes a bully. I would say seems to associate being 
the bully with being the winner. James probably means he wants to be 
the hero who protects people from bullies--though in this universe, 
at least for me, those two things (bully and protector from bullies) 
often bleed together into one.


lizzyben:
I don't think anyone expected a Hallmark ending & total redemption of
the House, but many readers did expect some type of reconciliation.
But that wasn't what the book gave, and I think we have to conclude
that that's because reconciliation & co-existence wasn't the intended
message of the book.

Magpie:
That's how it reads to me too--it just wasn't the intended message of 
the book. I think JKR wrote a happy ending, and that a reconciliation 
and coming together with Slytherin just isn't something she thinks is 
necessary for that. It's not surprising that in interviews she's 
asked why Slytherin is even kept around, and her answer is that it's 
because the better people have this "Dumbledorian" dream of the 
utopia that would happen if they all came together, but it's not 
something the book is going for. There's a clear limit for how much 
of a connection there can be even with the Slytherins who change or 
aren't that bad. 

It's more like this story just describes and on-going battle and 
we're hearing about one of those places where the dark side gained 
too much power and had to be wrestled back into its less threatening 
place imo. Readers may focus more on it being integrated and write 
fanfics to that effect because they can see it happening, but the end 
of the book seems to confirm for me what the focus of canon has 
always been, which is Harry and his circle being unthreatened.

Judy:
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.

Magpie:
True, but I would also just throw in that this area is always fuzzy 
in canon. Harry hates Draco for his "obsession" with the Dark Arts as 
well, and when have we seen Draco using them? Not much at all. But I 
think nevertheless that Harry is supposed to be telling us the truth 
there. There's a certain kind of kid that's "obsessed with the Dark 
Arts" but it doesn't get shown in canon by them always doing Dark 
spells. It's the obsession that's important, and Snape did seem to 
have that given the little canon we have. At least he seems to have 
had that from what I read.

-m