Of Sorting and Snape

[Zara]

No: HPFGUIDX 175405

> lizzyben:
> 
> Well, there's two levels here - the actual story itself, and the 
> meta level. I'm pretty much sticking to the meta level, cause I 
find 
> it so facinating. 

<snip>

> lizzyben:
> But on the meta level, it's horrible. Because, ultimately, it's JKR 
> selecting those memories, and she's selecting those memories for a 
> reason. There's an agenda here, IMO.(Warning: here's where this 
post 
> stops making sense - this is just my reaction to the chapter).

zgirnius:
I get that there are different levels - I'm not sure what the word 
meta means in this context (math major here...) but judging from the 
rest of your post, I get a different sort of meta idea about the 
Prince's Tale chapter and Snape in general than you do.

> lizzyben:
> OK. There is a story here, but I felt like the author's dislike for 
> the character got in the way of telling that story in an effective 
> way. Because in this chapter, I could hear the Author practically 
> screaming in my ear, and the author was saying "EWWWWW!" First, 
> little Snape is always described in the most unflattering, off-
> putting possible way - he looks "greedily", he's watching Lily 
> through the bushes like a stalker, he's wearing weird clothes & has 
> dirty hair. EWWWWWW! 

zgirnius:
The greedy look is still the old Harry filter game, if you ask me 
(for the last time, because in this chapter Harry finally changes his 
mind about Snape). Harry has not been won over yet at this point, 
this is the very first memory he sees, a memory he tells himself he 
is willing to watch only because being in anyone else's head, *even* 
Snape's, has got to be better than thinking about what he has just 
seen (the deaths of Fred, Lupin, and Tonks confirmed). Lily and Harry 
are described in the next chapter as 'feasting' on each other with 
their eyes, which I agree is a more positive description, but I think 
they denote the same sort of emotion of longing. She's played this 
game before (Harry in "The Cave", Snape's expression of hatred and 
revulsion in "The Lightning Struck Tover" being a prominent 
example). "The Prince's Tale" while being a collection of Snape's own 
memories, has neither a pro-Snape nor a dramatic narrator. It is the 
usual narrator that has the occasional tinge of Harry's views and 
prejudices.

The weird clothes and dirty hair confirm the suspicions we may have 
harbored since OotP that Snape was, at best neglected by his parents 
(based on the memory of the yelling couple, Snape alone shooting 
flies in the dark room, and the greying underpants). I really do not 
believe that Rowling included that as a negative and a result of her 
dislike of the character. On the contrary, it is, in my view, 
important information she wants us to have and know about the 
circumstances of boy!Sev. (I consider her response to an interview 
question about why Snape has greasy hair post DH, another indication 
that she does not consider this feature a mark of Snape's 
inferiority - she answered that perhaps he cared more about other 
things).

And his wanting Lily as a friend, before she can have had any 
influence on him, is in my opinion a sign that we are *not* supposed 
to view him as already, or intrinsically, 'bad'. Her appeal to him is 
not entirely and exclusively her magic, as I read those scenes, which 
shows he valued aspects of her personality - her happiness, her open, 
loving nature, etc.

> lizzyben:
> He's pathetic, he's desperate for friends, but 
> he's nasty and mean too. EWWWWW! 

zgirnius:
So he should have been friendly and well-socialized in order to avoid 
the supposed Calvinist message here? Then he would not have needed a 
friend....

> lizzyben:
> At the age of nine, he's already a 
> bad kid - he drops branches and wants Lily to be in (gasp) 
> Slytherin! EWWWWW! He wants to be friends with Lily, but he's 
> defending Mulciber! EWWWW! 

zgirnius:
See, I don't think we are supposed to EWWW over Snape wanting Lily to 
be in Slytherin (which is really, Snape expecting to be in Slytherin 
himself). Rowling deliberately (I believe) gave James the same line 
as she gave Draco in PS/SS, about going home if he were sorted into 
Slytherin (Hufflepuff, in Draco's case). So to me the authorial voice 
was not condemning Snape for this wish at all. 

His 'bad act' with Tuney's letter is one Lily shares in, she was 
equally curious once she knew the letter existed (Snape told her 
about the envelope). Mulciber, Mudblood, and the failed apology are 
supposed to be worse, IMO, showing us a slide down from where he 
started.

> lizzyben:
> He's crying over Lily's letter, & ripping 
> up a photo! EWWWWW! Even his love is twisted & wrong! And etc. By 
> the time I reached the scene where DD/JKR tells pathetic, wretched 
> Snape "you disgust me," I just wanted to rush into the story and 
> say "OMG, OMG leave him alone already!" 

zgirnius:
It is a really subjective thing. I *loved* it when Dumbledore said 
that to Snape. Absolutely, kicking my heels against the mattress and 
squeeling with glee, love. And, for the record, Snape has been a 
favorite of mine from the start, eclipsing Hermione at the top of my 
list after HBP. I really don't think the story of Snape is supposed 
to be one of being born damned, and living out life that way. It is a 
story of a fall and a redemption. And you get a more powerful 
redemption story if the fall is great. "You disgust me" was telling 
us that rock-bottom for Snape had been going to Voldemort and asking 
for Lily's life. And from there the memories represent an upward 
climb.

> lizzyben:
> And his love was obsessive and 
> weird, because Slyths can't have normal relationships. 

zgirnius:
This is the same love that generated the Doe Patronus so eloquently 
and beautifully described in the chapter named after it, a chapter 
and description written by the same author. I *really* think we are 
supposed to believe that Snape's love of Lily was something beautiful 
and ennobling. Snape's relationship to her throughout Harry's 
schoolyears is not 'normal' - but that would be because she is dead.

A non-Snape aside - Slytherins can and do have normal relationships - 
that is the story of the Malfoy family and Draco's friendship with 
Goyle in DH. The Malfoys individually and collectively made all sorts 
of evil choices, but a core motivation for all of them was love of 
one another in a very normal and touching family and friends sort of 
way. At least, this was the story as I read it. And on a meta level, 
I feel this is why they all survive, avoid Azkaban, and we see Draco 
and young Scorpius being a normal father and son on Platform 9 3/4 in 
the Epilogue. Love saves them, and not love for shining Gryffindors, 
either.

> lizzyben:
> And he hated 
> Harry for no reason! 

zgirnius:
Rowling, based on her interview comments, clearly has more of a 
problem with that than I do, I must agree with you there. Then again, 
she clearly likes Harry a whole bunch more than I do as well. (I do 
like him, in case anyone is wondering, there are just a slew of 
characters I like better).

> lizzyben:
> And the only morals he ever got were from Lily 
> & DD - his exposure to the golden glow of Gryffindor goodness 
> diverted him from his natural selfish slimy Slytherin ways. 

zgirnius:
As I already stated, I disagree that it was her intent to portray 9 
year old Snape as naturally slimy and selfish. Lily and his love for 
her absolutely had a transformative effect on Snape - but since this 
is Harry's story, having Snape love a Slytherin girl, etc. etc. would 
hardly fit in with the overall scheme - it had to be Harry's mom, and 
she had to be a Gryffindor for any number of reasons, including the 
one that if she *had* been a Slytherin, I think she and Snape would 
have ended up together <g>. Mulciber et al would have had far less 
pull on Snape.

> lizzyben:
> And, 
> most importantly, he didn't really change. Because people can't 
> really change in this universe. Snape tries, he really tries, but 
he 
> fails because of his naturally bad Slytherin character. It's a 
> redemption story without a redemption. This is reinforced by the 
way 
> Snape dies, and is left in the shack as worthless. How we never see 
> any sign that Snape gets an afterlife (unlike the Elect). How Snape 
> is never given forgiveness or absolution before his death. He is, 
> still, judged by the Author as unworthy.

zgirnius:
But he does change. Rowling shows him change. As far as his death and 
what it is supposed to mean, a lot of this is hugely subjective. I 
loved Snape's death, I loved that it was awful, and obscure, and 
random, and that the closest he got to pre-death forgiveness/ 
absolution/ what have you was that Harry complied with his final 
request ("Look at me".) Oh, he also died not knowing for sure that 
Harry would act on the information Snape brought, and (if it mattered 
to him, which I believe it did) not knowing that Harry would actually 
*survive* that encounter and triumph anyway, yet another sad thing 
about the death. And then that final miserable year of his life, 
appearing to murder Dumbledore, watching Prof. Burbage killed in 
front of his eyes, being the hated symbol of the new administration 
at Hogwarts, having noone but a couple of talking portraits for 
company, his ignominious booting from the school, was all awful as 
well, absolutely, it chokes me up to think about it all. But Snape 
went ahead, did his dangerous tasks, and kept his commitment in spite 
of all that - the same guy who (presumably) became a Death Eater to 
be part of something bigger, with friends who appreciated him and 
gave him respect. If that was not a change, and a big 180 one at 
that, I don't know what would be.

If Snape had somehow been accepted in life before he gave Harry the 
message from Dumbledore, or if the spirit of Lily had appeared and 
thanked him, or some such, his achievement would have been (in my 
eyes anyway) lessened. 

> lizzyben:
> It's a totally harsh & 
> deterministic view of human nature, but that's what's offered. 

zgirnius:
It is what is offered in your opinion, naturally. I got a rather more 
hopeful message out of it. (I do find predestination a depressing 
idea too). Snape loved and was loved, by exactly one person, ever, 
and because of his (his, not hers, not Dumbledore's) choice to honor 
that side of himself, he was enabled to make enough of the right 
choices from there on in to make his own significant contribution to 
the victory of Good at the end of the series.

> lizzyben:
> Basically, I've just been trying to figure out if Snape gets to go 
> to heaven. And based on the cosmology of the Potterverse, it seems 
> like the answer is no. That breaks my heart, for real.

zgirnius:
Rowling wisely (IMO) does not go into the details of the Potterverse 
afterlife - from what is written in the books we cannot decisively 
conclude what variety of dispositions may be available for departed 
souls, nor where individual departed souls now are. We do not know 
that Lily, the Reduced Marauders, and Dumbledore are in Heaven any 
more than we know that Snape is there. The Resurrection Stone brings 
back the first four mentioned in some form (described as like 
Riddle's memory self, a person whose final disposition we would have 
to imagine to be the worst available) because they are Harry's loved 
ones, not because they are the ones in Heaven. 

We see Dumbledore in Harry's near-death experience in "King's Cross", 
as well as, apparently, Tom Riddle again.  If those are the two 
alternatives, we may conclude from canon that Snape shares Albus's 
fate, and not Tom's. Remorse is key, this is mentioned at a couple of 
different points in the book, and Tom is incapable of it. Snape (and 
Dumbledore) had it.