good/bad slyth/Disappointment/Responsibility/Sorting/Snape

[juli17 at aol.com]

No: HPFGUIDX 175201

 


Prep0strus:
<snip> Snape, who had a hard childhood, did have  a
friend in it – the good influence, Lily, and his relationship with  his
mother appears to have a least some positive aspects.  Compare  to
Harry, who had no one who showed him love, even if it doesn't  appear
he was physically abused.

Then, he gets to school, and is  immediately welcomed by his house.  In
addition, he keeps his  cross-house-borders friend Lily for years,
while remaining a tight part of  his Slytherin team.  He winds up
losing her friendship, but keeping  theirs into adulthood.  It does
speak a little for Snape – his  relationship with her, even after she
failed to forgive him, means so much  to him that harm done to her
causes him to reject the social group he's had  since he was 11, to
work against them.  That is pretty powerful.   But it doesn't excuse
him from joining that social group to begin w/ - and  he DID have a
choice.  If anyone maintains he didn't, that simply  means they believe
he was too weak to avoid influence, and I refuse to let  that weakness
be something I admire in Snape.


Julie:
OF COURSE he was too weak to avoid influence, because he was an
11 YEAR OLD child! All children are easily influenced, and we see  that
evidence from both James and Snape on the train. They've already  learned
certain "ideals" from their parents which has made each  determined to be
chosen by their particular houses. BTW, we also saw it with Harry, when 
he meets Draco on the train and forms a negative impression of  Slytherin
after their exchange, which is reinforced by Ron almost immediately  (along
with giving Harry a glowing picture of Gryffindor and a  marked preference
to be sorted into that house). 
 
Yes, technically all these 11 year olds have a "choice"--or they  don't, if 
the
arguments that the Sorting Hat at least partly makes the decision  and it is
"never wrong" according to JKR. (If the Sorting Hat does play an actual  
part, 
rather than just parroting the child's desire, then we have a matter of the  
hat
deciding Snape belonged in a house that brought out his very worst  
tendencies,
rather than his very best--and there's a horrifying concept). In any case,  
however
much the child's choice decides his or her house, I still don't believe any  
child
can really make an *well-informed* choice at the age of eleven, when their  
only 
source of information has been their family. Yet here they *are* making  that
choice, one that will only further narrow these views they've learned from  
their
families, rather than broadening them. And while Sirius made a choice  
against 
his family, at the age of eleven I have to believe it was made based  far 
more on
his personal agenda--rejecting a family who perhaps has already shown a  
marked
preference for Regulus based on whatever likenesses or behaviors parents  can
and do use to favor one child over another--than based on any general  
principles,
i.e., how his family treated *him* indicated the value of "Purebloods"  
rather than
any general outlook they espoused toward non-Purebloods. (It's also ironic  
that
11 year old Snape made his decision on the same personal basis, as 11  year
olds are wont to do, because the Muggle in *his* life treated him and his  
mother
very badly, while his mother the witch from Slytherin, apparently instilled  
in him
that his opportunity to access his own wizard  ancestry by joining Hogwarts 
and 
the WW would be his escape from a demonstrably horrible childhood. Add  in
Petunia, the only other Muggle with whom we know he had some regular  contact,
and it's not a real wonder that as an eleven year old child he would  
immediately
be attracted to the concept of Wizards being superior in every way to  
Muggles.)
 
There is no doubt that there are many influences pressing for  dominance at 
every 
stage of our life, but we are by far the most vulnerable to those  
influences, good
or bad, when we are children. And for the Sorting Hat to basically  *use* that
vulnerability by taking into account, to whatever degree, the child's  
heavily baised
preferences, makes it a very suspect tool. If you add that it also uses the  
child's
"personality" against the child, by placing him/her with  like children who 
will only 
reinforce the growth of one set of traits that are already present in  
abundance,
rather than encouraging the growth of lesser or more subdued traits that  will
make the child a *well-rounded* adult rather than one with an  uncontestedly
narrow view of life and thus limit his/her potential, then you have  
something that
is a horrible tool that should be discarded. That generations of teachers  and
Headmasters haven't recognized that fact. or if they have, have  refused to do
anything about it, probably explains why the WW is shown as such  a divided
and problem-riddled society, IMO. 
 
 
Julie
 



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