Comparing Characters (was Re: good/bad slyth/Disappointment...)

[Judy]

No: HPFGUIDX 175211

Even though I am a Snapefan, I am perfectly willing to admit that 
James and Sirius do have their good points, and that Snape is 
certainly no angel (he was a Death Eater, after all.)  However, some 
of the things people are saying here against Snape, and in favor of 
James and Sirius, really go beyond anything presented in canon. 

To start with, Prep0strus asked:
>  I want to know if there is canon for the marauders being bullying
> jerks outside of their relationship with Snape. Now, there is no
> denying they were bullies.  And that they were arrogant. 
> But I can't
> recall anything to make me think they would pick on anyone simply 
> for being smaller or weaker than them, or even being of a different
> house

> I think they have a specific vendetta against snape, or perhaps
> slytherins.  And while this doesn't excuse their bullying, I think
> maybe it can show them in a better light.  I'd like to think of them
> as defending younger members of all houses from bullying near-death
> eater slytherins,

And Carol replied:
> As for canon regarding their bullying others besides Severus Snape,
> have you forgotten the detention that they received for giving 
> another student a swollen head in HBP (one of the old cards Harry 
> has to recopy during his post-Sectumsempra detention) or Lily's 
> remarks about James hexing people in the hallways because they 
> annoy him?


To which Prep0strus said:
> Unfortunately, other than DH, my Harry Potter books are in storage 
> at the moment.  So I'm unable to respond with canon. I am glad to be
> reminded of James hexing people who annoyed him and the like – he
> really was a bully.  But who was the student? A slytherin?  And,
> looking deeper into it, I have to wonder, coming from Lily? Could 
> she just be talking about Snape here?  Surely, he would hex 
> Snape for no reason at all.

Now my response: 
If your books aren't available, no problem, I'll be happy to refresh 
your memory. :-)

When Harry is copying out the records of James' and Sirius' 
punishment, the student they are recorded as hexing is named "Bertram 
Aubrey."  It never says what house he was in, but Aubrey is not the 
name of any Slytherins that we've heard of, so there's no reason to 
think he was a Slytherin.  Harry also comes across records of a bunch 
more punishments for James and Sirius, but it doesn't say whether 
those were for bullying or for something else (like cutting class, 
say.) 

In Book 5 (in Snape's Worst Memory), Lily says accuses James 
of "walking down corridors and hexing anyone who annoys you just 
because you can – I'm surprised your broomstick can get off the 
ground with that fat head on it. You make me SICK."  There is nothing 
here about James just hexing Snape, Lily speaks of James hexing 
anyone. 

Harry is extremely upset at what he sees of his father's behavior.  
He identifies with Snape: "He knew how it felt to be humiliated in 
the middle of a circle of onlookers, knew exactly how Snape felt as 
his father taunted him, and that judging from what he had just seen, 
his father had been every bit as arrogant as Snape had always told 
him."  (OoP, Am. Ed., p. 650.) 

After spending several days upset about his father's behavior, he 
finally manages to contact Sirius and Lupin. Lupin tells him, "Look 
Harry, what you you've got to understand is that your father and 
Sirius were the best in the school at whatever they did – everyone 
though they were the height of cool – if they sometimes got a bit 
carried away –" 

So, Lupin isn't saying that James and Sirius only hexed Snape and no 
one else.  He's saying that James and Sirius felt entitled to lord it 
over others because they were "cool." And Sirius doesn't disagree, he 
says that he and James were "sometimes arrogant little berks."  
(Which does show that Sirius now sees that this was wrong –as I've 
said, he does have his good points.)   

In the same conversation, Harry asks why Lily ever went out with 
James, and learns that Lily dated James:
"Once James had deflated his head a bit," said Sirius.
"And stopped hexing people just for the fun of it," said Lupin.
"Even Snape?" asked Harry.
"Well," said Lupin slowly, "Snape was a special case." 
Lupin & Sirius then go on to say that James still hexed Snape (and 
Snape cursed James), but that Lily didn't know about it.

So, it's pretty clear here that James had been hexing people other 
than Snape. We have it on the word of his future wife, and his two 
best friends. 


About the incident on the Hogwarts Express, Lanval says:
> Then it's *Snape* who gets contemptuous and turns up is nose (he
> sneers, in fact) at James for wanting to be in SLytherin. He
> essentially calls Gryffindor the house of brainless jocks
.
> And please, just because James gets on Severus, and appears to be a
> bit of a spoiled brat, in no way means that he was less-than-
> loveable to the rest of the world.

Lanval also says:
> ...Snape sneers at James, and insults his choice of
> house. Let's not omit that, if we're talking canon.

On the topic of how "lovable" James seemed at the time, see my above 
comments.  As for who was at fault in the confrontation on the 
Hogwarts Express, the order of events is:

1) Snape tells Lily, "You better be in Slytherin."  I didn't see this 
as an insult to the other houses, just Snape's hoping that Lily will 
be in the same house as him.

2) James jumps in and gives his opinion, (not like Snape & Lily had 
been talking to him), and insults Slytherin by saying, "I'd think I'd 
leave, wouldn't you?"  As others here have noted, this is EXACTLY 
what Draco says about Hufflepuff in the scene where we first meet 
Draco. As you may remember, in Book 1, Dumbledore says that James and 
Snape loathed each other at first sight, similar to the way Draco & 
Harry did. Initially, Harry assumes this means that Snape bullied 
James, as Draco bullies him. After the Snape's Worst Memory scene, 
though, he fears this means that James was the one who was a bully 
like Draco. I think James being like Draco is exactly what JKR is 
trying to show us here. 

3) Then, there is some back-and-forth between Sirius and James, in 
which James insults Slytherin again by implying that someone who 
seems "all right" can't be a Slytherin. 

4) After this, yes, Snape does say, "Well, if you'd rather be brawny 
than brainy."  However, I see this as pretty minor insult; more minor 
than "I'd think I'd leave, wouldn't you?" or the "And I thought you 
seemed all right!" comment. A lot of people would rather be brawny 
than brainy.  (Think of how jocks and nerds are treated in most high 
schools.) And, Gryffindor house isn't the "brainy" house, that would 
be Ravenclaw,  with "shrewd, clever, cunning" Slytherin as the runner-
up. So, it's safe to say that yes, James would rather be brainy than 
brawny.

5) Sirius ups the ante considerably by saying that Snape is neither 
brawny nor brainy, which unlike Snape's comment, isn't true. (Snape 
is certainly brainy, and he's brawny in magical power.)

6) Lily -- not Snape -- gets ticked off at James' and Sirius' 
treatment of Snape, and she and Snape leave. 

7) James and Sirius make fun of Lily by mimicking her, James tries to 
trip Snape, and someone calls Snape "Snivelus." 

I really don't see how Snape can be viewed as starting this 
conflict.  I think if the exact same conversation were written, with, 
say, Ron telling Hermione that "You'd better be in Gryffindor" and 
Draco and Crabbe taking the roles of James and Sirius, everyone would 
see Draco & Crabbe as the bullies. 

Lanval:
> I'm glad DH finally cleaned up with some fanon misconceptions about
> Snape. He was no innocent abused lamb, ganged up on from all sides
> for no reason. He spies, he snipes, he lies, he helps to drive a
> wedge between two sisters, and shows some pretty worrisome character
> traits.

Actually, what we see of Snape's childhood in DH does make me think 
that he WAS an "abused lamb."  It confirms our suspicions that his 
home life is desperately unhappy, and now we see that he is a misfit 
among other children, too, the only child in the area who is not from 
a muggle family, and given totally inappropriate clothes to wear.  
And, he was picked on from the first time he set foot on the 
Hogwarts' Express. 

As for his "spying" on Lily and Petunia, that seemed like pretty 
normal kid behavior to me, actually. Same with "driving a wedge 
between two sisters," sniping, etc.  The main thing I'd say in 
criticism of 11-year old Snape is that he has a low opinion of 
muggles.  My interpretation of this is that the muggle children have 
rejected him, so he decides to reject them back.  Magic is the only 
thing Snape is good at – he's not good-looking at all, he's not 
physically strong, he's very unpopular, he's poor – so the only way 
he can preserve any self-esteem at all is by deciding that being 
magical is very important.  Once he's decided this, though, it leads 
him to look down on Muggles. I don't see this as arrogance on Snape's 
part, but rather as the typical, and desperate, ego-defense mechanism 
of a nerd. 

Also, this is why I have no problem with Snape having a muggle-born 
as a best friend.  I don't think Snape cares anything about ancestry 
and "pureness of blood," at least not until he's spent a few years in 
Slytherin. (And even then, I see him as just parroting his 
friends' "Mudblood" comments, rather than having any real investment 
in pure blood ideology.) To Snape, being magical, powerfully magical, 
matters a great deal because magical ability is all that he HAS.  
Lily is magical (powerfully magical – he notices this right away), 
just like him. Her ancestry is irrelevant, until the other Slytherins 
make it relevant. 

Lanval:
> I don't think there's enough canon to make Mrs Snape the
> perpetual victim here, and there certainly is none that Severus was
> in any way abused by his father (another fandom myth down the
> drain...).
> I would go as far and suggest that Harry's early childhood was in
> fact far worse than Snape's. Not only was all the abuse in the
> Dursley household heaped upon Harry, canonically, by three family
> members, but he also lacked what young Severus had: a mother who
> probably did love him, the prospect of a brighter future, and, at
> least for a few years, a real friend.

Harry was treated horribly at home, no question there, although the 
tone in the first few books is considerably different from what we 
see of Snape's home, with JKR writing the Dursleys as a parody, like 
something out of a Roald Dahl story. (By the way, this bothered me – 
I don't like anything that makes light of mistreatment of children.) 

However, I think you are minimizing how bad Snape's situation was. 
Snape can't wait to leave so he can get away from the conflict at 
home.  In the only scene between his parents, his mother is shown as 
cowering. (I tend to think that Eileen Snape's misery has affected 
her magical powers, so that she can't defend herself from Tobias. 
This is exactly what we see with Voldemort's mother, Merope.) Harry 
sees put Snape in the same category as himself – a Lost Boy who 
didn't have a home before Hogwarts. If Harry's opinion isn't enough 
to convince you, then what would be? 

Lanval:
> I don't see a single line in DH that supports the idea that Snape 
> was an outcast at
> Hogwarts because of the way he looked, or dressed, or because he
> was generally 
> considered a "little oddball". He is welcomed into his house with 
> no more or less of an 
> advantage than anyone else.
> Come his fifth year, he *still* has friends. Not only in his own
> house, but also one from another house, which is somewhat unusual.
> So much for lonely, despised, persecuted-by-all Severus Snape.

How about in OoP, where the Marauders are bullying Snape:
"Several people watching laughed; Snape was clearly unpopular."

True, it's only one line, but it's the ONLY thing we are ever told 
about Snape's relationship as a student with anyone other than the 
Marauders, Lily, or the Slytherins. 


Lanval:
> What was it that drew  Snape to Lily? He was watching 
> her "greedily", so would it be 
> fair to say he *only* became her friend because she was pretty

Snape is how old in this scene?  Nine?  Ten?  That's not an age where 
boys tend to care about a girl's looks.  That's an age where boys 
think girls have cooties. 

I interpreted Snape's "greedy" look as desperation to meet another 
magical child, someone who would have something in common with him.  
And, it seems that he did find this in Lily, until their different 
experiences in Hogwarts pulled them apart. 

Adam (Prep0strus) said: 
> As a girl, Lily called James, as a boy, toerag.
> As a woman, Lily called James, as a man, husband.
> As a girl, Lily called Snape, as a boy, friend.
> As a woman, Lily called Snape, as a man, Death Eater.

We do see Lily accuse Snape of wanting to be a Death Eater (although 
not of already being a Death Eater.)  However, it appears that she 
makes this accusation on the very same day as one of the times that 
she calls James "an arrogant little toerag."  She calls James this 
when he turns Snape upside-down, and her accusation of Snape appears 
to take place that night, when he is trying to apologize. So, I don't 
see how you can say that James is just a boy when Lily calls him a 
toerag, but that Snape is a man when Lily calls *him* a Death Eater. 

What would Lily have continued to think of Snape?  Well, presumably 
she died without knowing that he was working for Dumbledore and 
trying to save her, so she probably died thinking he was a Death 
Eater.  However, I do want to point out that Lily was not quite right 
when said that Snape had chosen his path.  He was a Death Eater for a 
few years, true. (Probably about four years, from what we know of the 
timeline.)  But, his path didn't end there – he spent the next 18 
years working (and dying) to undo the damage he had done.  

So, no, Lily didn't know what Snape's path would be.

-- JudySerenity, he sees Snape as certainly flawed, but basically 
good and very, very tragic