good and bad slytherins/Disappointment and Responsibility

[Judy]

No: HPFGUIDX 175240

Debbie (elfundeb) wrote:
> Lily had the influence of Gryffindor, where she spent most of her
> time. Snape did not.  Environment does contribute to bad 
> decisions.  I'm not denying that Snape made terrible decisions, but
> Lily's choice was easier. Let's just say I'm not enamored of the 
> Sorting Hat these days, considering what it does to impressionable 
> eleven-year-olds.

That is exactly how I feel, too.

Debbie continued:
> I'm not really a Snapefan either, though I find him the most
> compellingly drawn character in the book.  But the Snape-
> Sirius/James relationship touches some very raw nerves with me. 
> My siblings and I were the socially awkward misfits (though my 
> home life was vastly better except for the lack
> of money), and were subject to merciless bullying.  While I was
> not a primary target, it took a severe emotional toll on all of us,
> and to this
> day I have a visceral dislike of bullies.  For what it's worth, I 
> have the same reaction to Fred and George, even though I 
> understand that JKR doesn't
> see them in the same light.

I agree with this completely (other than that I am a Snapefan.)  I 
also was a target of severe bullying, and like Debbie, I just can't 
bring myself to like bullies such as James and Sirius. (And to a less 
extent, Fred and George.) 

I imagine that some people will ask me. "Isn't Snape a bully?"  My 
answer would be: Not in the same way. We never see Snape and his 
buddies ganging up on other kids at school. And, Snape isn't 
generally a physical bully. He says snarky things, but that's usually 
about it. The one exception is when he threatens Trevor the Toad. I 
know a lot of Snape-haters put a great deal of emphasis on the scene 
in PoA where Snape feeds Neville's potion to Trevor, but I've never 
been very affected by it. I guess it's partly because I have a hard 
time seeing myself getting attached to a toad (although I love 
animals in general), and partly because I always assumed that if 
Neville was so scared of Snape, Neville wouldn't have brought Trevor 
to class, and so the whole "Snape threatening to poison Trevor" thing 
always struck me as a bit of a plot hole. (Montavilla47, I did love 
your "You keep your toad in your room" line!) 

I just don't see sarcasm as being all that bullying, especially when 
it is just one person being sarcastic, rather than a whole group 
insulting someone. You can choose to ignore a snarky comment, 
especially from someone who makes a habit of sarcasm (although Harry 
rarely does, despite Hermione admonishing him to.) On the other hand, 
it's hard to ignore being physically attacked. As they say, "Sticks 
and stones will break my bones, but words will never harm me."

By the way, I had a teacher (in chemistry, as it happens) who once 
said something to me that was a lot more hurtful than Snape's comment 
about Hermione's teeth. Despite this, I would feel bad for this 
teacher if he ended up being bitten to death by a giant snake. 



Irene:
> I'm completely with you about finding Snape's fate tragic and 
> loving his character. 

Thank you!

On the top of whether Snape was alone, as I said he was, 
Irene continued:
> I'd like to comment about Lucius as a friend. Actually, I think
> Lucius could have been a very good friend to Snape. Maybe a main
> reason why Snape found Slytherin way of life so attractive (can't 
> see him being that eager to be friends with Crabbe and Goyle 
> seniors). Lucius is at least 4 years older, rich, cool and popular 
> in his House at least. If he had taken poor misfit under his wing, 
> in boarding school environment this is of enormous importance.

And, from va32h:
> Lucius is apparently a lifelong friend. We saw that prefect Lucius
> warmly welcomed Snape at the Sorting. Snape has a rapport with
> Lucius' son, and Lucius' wife has no hesitation to turn to Snape in
> time of need (and knows where he lives).
> Snape is *not* opposing Lucius for most of his adult life, either.
> Snape may have turned spy when he was just 21, but let's not forget
> that for the next 13 years, there was no one to spy upon. 

I see Lucius as a sociopath, albeit a less extreme one than 
Voldemort. We know that he tortures people for fun (at the Quidditch 
World Cup.) He seems to be purely out for himself, all the time.  We 
don't ever even see Lucius showing love or affection to *Draco*, his 
only child, so I don't see how he could genuinely care about Snape. I 
don't think Lucius, Voldemort's "slippery friend," was ever a true 
friend to anyone. 

My view of Snape and his relationship to the other Slytherins is that 
they would have valued him greatly for his magical skill, which I 
think we can all agree was both quite high and was very well suited 
to the Dark Arts and Potions emphasis of Slytherin House. I see Snape 
as someone who was so thrilled to finally have his skills valued, to 
have people praising and admiring him, that he didn't realize how 
evil these new friends were, and how incapable of genuine caring  -- 
which, in JKR's books, is the same thing. Once Snape went over to 
Dumbledore's side, of course, he really no longer even had the Death 
Eaters' poor excuse for friendship. (He may have socialized with 
them some, although we don't see it. But even if he did, it wouldn't 
have been very comforting to him, because he knew he was no longer on 
their side.)

Again, I see Snape's relationship with his "little Death Eater 
friends" as analagous to Dumbledore's friendship with Grindelwald.  
Dumbledore was so happy to FINALLY have someone like him, someone who 
shared his abilities and interests, that he was blinded to 
Grindelwald's true nature. Just as some have noted that Snape had 
Lily to try to show him the error of his ways, Dumbledore had 
Aberforth. But neither Dumbledore nor Snape could see the truth until 
it was too late. The difference, as I see it, is that the tragedy 
that opened Dumbledore's eyes happened very soon, only a few months 
into his friendship with Grindelwald, while in Snape's case, no 
personal tragedy occured foryears. 

I actually think a big reason why JKR included the whole 
Dumbledore/Grindelwald story was to prepare us for Snape's 
redemption. (Not that we Snapefans needed preparing, of course!)

I do think that Snape really cared about Draco and Narcissa.  
However, that would presumably be much later (it would have to be, in 
the case of Draco), and we see Draco reject Snape in books 6 and 7, 
because he feels Snape has usurped Lucius' position with Voldemort. 

Someone (I forget whom) said that Snape couldn't be bullied that much 
at school because he would have had Lucius' protection. The problem 
here is that Lucius was at least four years ahead of Snape. Students 
don't seem to have much contact with those in other years, and in any 
event, Lucius would have soon finished school.  

As for why I said that Snape spent most of his life spying on Lucius, 
remember that Lucius doesn't need Voldemort around to do evil. In 
CoS, he slips the Diary into Hogwarts in an attempt to unleash 
Slytherin's monster, and in GoF, as I mentioned, he leads a group of 
former Death Eaters in tormenting Muggles. Based on this, Lucius has 
been up to no good all along. I think Dumbledore would have wanted 
Snape to keep spying on Lucius, even when Voldemort was in Albania. 



Dana, I didn't have time to read your whole post, but I wanted to 
respond to one point that you made.

Dana:
> Snape could have been James if he had made different choices.

I don't think so.  We are told that James was wealthy, very athletic, 
reasonably good-looking, and adored by his parents. Snape was none of 
those things. If you just mean that Snape could have married Lily had 
he made different choices, then yes, that might have been true. But 
Snape was always going to have much tougher childhood and adolescence 
than James had, no matter what he did. 

I also suspect that, had Snape really and truly turned his back on 
his "little Death Eater friends" he would not have ended up living 
happily ever after with Lily, he would have ended up dead. I think 
Voldemort would have come knocking on the door of such a talented, 
and seemingly evil, Slytherin, whether Snape wanted to work for him 
or not. 


Prep0strus, I think a lot of our differences result from the 
assumptions that we made about the actions taking place off of page.  
I'd like to quote a great post that Nora made a few weeks ago.

Nora:
> Whenever I go back and read what Rowling actually wrote, after being
> submerged in discussion groups, I'm always surprised at how *little*
> of Snape there actually is in the books.  Page-time, he doesn't get
> that much.  Harry is built as a character through a lot of page 
> time, access to his thoughts, etc.  Snape was built as a character 
> by hints and a whole lot of refusal to give out information...
> 
> The problem and glory of this is that it then encourages each reader
> to build their own mental Snape.  This is glorious because it's
> successful in engaging the reader, leading to elaboration and
> speculation.  It's problematic because each person builds his own 
> idea on a remarkably small amount of material, which starts to make
> discussion difficult--I probably don't share your mental image of
> Snape, you don't share mine, but what we can point to in the text to
> gain common ground is not that much

I think Nora captured it exactly.  One of the reasons that Snape is 
so popular as a character, I believe, is that his ambiguity allows 
people to project what they want to see (whether good or bad) into 
his character.  

So, it can be fun to debate him, but ultimately, people will have 
different views of Snape because they will be making different 
assumptions on all the aspects of him that we *don't* see. (For 
example, I believe that Snape was a lot nicer with the Hufflepuffs 
and Ravenclaws than he was with Harry and his friends. Your mileage 
may vary.) 

-- JudySerenity