Of Sorting and Snape

[lizzyben04]

No: HPFGUIDX 175441

> Hickengruendler:
> 
> The child hat nothing to do with Snape. It was part of Voldemort's 
> soul. Voldmeort did it to himself through killing and splitting his 
> soul. This soul could have been helped, while Voldemort was still 
> alive. After death, it was too late, and other people can not undo, 
> what Voldmeort did to himself. Hermione said it in the chapter with 
> the ghoul and Harry said it again in the last chapter. It could have 
> been saved by Vodlemort showing regret, because then the sould could 
> heal. Voldemort didn't, and we are shown which fate awaits him, not 
> for being a Slytherin, but for being an evil and remorseless 
> murderer, who split his soul several times. Snape, in contrast, did 
> show regret and truly repented, what he did. He went through the 
> painful development, which Hermione mentioned. He therefore can hope 
> for a much better afterlife, than the Voldemort baby.

lizzyben:

Again, it's a totally irrational intuitive reaction, but I think that
baby had a great deal to do with Snape. I say that w/absolute,
unexplainable certainty. The parallels between the descriptions of
Snape in the previous chapter & the baby in King's Cross are just too
striking. And you know what it is? That baby is the scapegoat, the
"other", the Shadow, the one that the Wizards can project all their
sins upon & stuff under the chair where no one can see it. It's the
elves, goblins, Slytherins, too. It's the truths that the wizards have
to cover up & hide so that they can keep their illusion of perfection
& superiority. It's like something out of "the Lottery". It's
absolutely chilling to me. 

The philosopher William James has commented on the role of scapegoats
in society, & his quote is eerily reminiscent of the King's Cross child: 

"If the hypothesis were offered of a world in which ... utopias should
all be outdone, and millions kept permanently happy on the one simple
condition that a certain lost soul on the far-off edge of things
should lead a life of lonely torture," most people would feel that the
enjoyment of such a utopia would be a "hideous thing" at such a cost."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Moral_Philosopher_and_the_Moral_Life


Well, that's the Wizarding World, and it is a hideous thing.