good and bad Slytherins/Disappointment and Responsibility/Sirius' choice

[lanval1015]

No: HPFGUIDX 175207

 
> Irene:
> Carol, I really like your analysis. Just wanted to add that I 
don't 
> understand why people make such a big business of Snape calling 
Petunia 
> a "Muggle". 

Lanval:
Because that's what this group is all about, making a big business 
out of one remark by any given character? :P

Irene:
McGonagall does the same in book one, when she says to 
> Dumbledore "Are you going to leave Potter with these people? But 
they 
> are Muggles!"
> 

Lanval: 
Actually, you may confuse this with the medium-that-must-not-be-
named, in which McGonagall says something aloing the line of the 
Dursleys being the "worst kind of Muggles". I'm not sure though, 
it's been a long time since I saw it.

Of course there's nothing inherently negative about the word. I'm 
looking at SS/PS , first chapter, and I'm finding this, in DD's 
conversation with Minerva:

"...even the Muggles have noticed something's going on..."
"...dressed in Muggle clothes..."
"if.... the Muggles found out about us all.."
"...a kind of Muggle sweet..."
"... before the Muggles started swarming around..."

And, the only slightly negative one from Hagrid:
"... an' poor little Harry off ter live with Muggles..."



Irene:
> And Ron does the same in book 4, I think. "If the Muggles agree, 
we will 
> pick you up. If they don't we will pick you up all the same".
> 
> It's the general wizarding view that the Muggles somehow count 
less, not 
> specifically Slytherin one.
> 

Lanval:

That last example is about the Dursleys specifically, not about 
Muggles in general. I don't recall Ron saying anything condescending 
about Hermione's parents. 

About Snape. I can't speak for anyone else, but I quoted him calling 
Petunia a Muggle while arguing that he was just as arrogant as 
others, and that he did not point out Petunia's "shortcomings", but 
found her altogether beneath his notice. And he says it 
*spitefully*. He repeats it later on the train, too, that Petunia 
is "only a ...". Maybe that's why he felt it was perfectly all right 
to open and read her private correspondence?

That's all. As an argument that nine-year-old Snape is already a 
raging Pureblood fanatic and a contemptuous bigot, it won't fly. But 
come to think of it, I seem to recall discussions in which Arthur 
and Molly Weasley were accused of precisely that -- contemptuous 
bigots, full of pureblood superiority. Why? Because Arthur's 
interest in Muggles was considered "condescending". And because 
Molly once mentioned King's Cross as "packed with Muggles".

Surely, if *that* deserved attention, the case of Snape, future DE 
and ardent supporter of LV, might deserve some?