good and bad Slytherins/Disappointment and Responsibility

[juli17 at aol.com]

No: HPFGUIDX 175395




Lanval:
Well, if that's what Alla wrote, then that's her opinion, and she 
has every right to express it. 

I'd like to get one thing straight: I think it's acceptable 
to "attack" characters, as long as it's reasonably supported by 
canon (yes, Snape's creepy obsession with Lily can be supported). 
And Snape being abusive to children... er, how is that totally 
unsupported?


Julie:
I just want to point out here that while the two positions above
are reasonably supported by canon, it is also very possible and
valid to argue against those positions using canon as support.

For instance, Snape's creepy obsession with Lily. I don't see it.
I know some fans have latched on to a couple of points to support
this position, one being young Severus's "greedy" look as he 
watched Lily on the playground. That word is fraught with some
negative connotations, but I took it here to simply mean Snape
wanted something badly--the chance to be friends with Lily, another
magical child with whom he could share his knowledge of that magical
world and his joy at his (and her) future there (particularly 
poignant for Snape, whose life so far has been anything but joyous).
I saw nothing sinister or weird in Snape's greedy look, partly 
because we know his future, so I don't think he was ever looking
at Lily then or later like some kind of sexual predator.

As for Snape being abusive, again there is a word with a very
wide variety of meanings. Some fans, like Lupinlore, believe Snape
committed "Child abuse" in the gravest meaning of the word (though
even then it can go to much further extremes, like with Umbridge
and horrific physical abuse done to children in real life situations).
On the other end of the spectrum, some fans, myself included, do see
Snape as a mean teacher, even a verbally abusive teacher, but do not
see him committing actual child abuse. For me this is because while
he's the stereotypical mean teacher kids recall with dislike, he is
no more than that in these kids' lives, and his actions, while 
unpleasant at the time (and scary to some kids like Neville, who BTW
was probably a bit frightened of McGonagall too), does not have a
long-reaching effect on their lives IMO. (Granted Harry is a special
case, but the relationship between Snape and Harry grows to become
so complicated by their tied pasts and individual actions that it 
goes beyond a mere teacher-student relationship anyway.) 
BTW, this is not to say I nor I think most Snape fans approve of
Snape's meanness as a teacher. In the real world, he'd likely be
fired and rejected from any other teaching positions. He's not
suited to teaching children. But neither is he a child abuser in
anything approaching a criminal or seriously damaging sense, IMO.


Lanval:
But once we go off into Conjectureland, where we all like hang out 
from time to time, it gets harder to swallow when unfounded 
accusations are made. "Snape eventually became a DE, so he was most 
likely trying to kill Petunia with that branch" would be a good 
example. "Sirius despised Snape for his weird looks the moment he 
saw him" would be another.

Julie:
Again, IMO, many of the canon-supported arguments are still largely
conjecture when it comes to defining a character's motives or intent,
and when it comes to defining such complex terms as "greedy", "child
abuser", "evil" etc, etc.


Julie 



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