Of Sorting and Snape

[lizzyben04]

No: HPFGUIDX 175549

> houyhnhnm:
> 
> This is your perception and you certainly have the 
> right to your own psychological reaction to the story, 
> but I don't see anything in the entire series to support 
> it and a great deal to contradict such a reading.

lizzyben: 

Well, each individual person will have individual interpretations -
especially of a chapter that seems so laden w/metaphors. I don't think
that it's literally supposed to be Snape. It's supposed to be LV, I
totally agree. But IMO, on a symbolic level, it's much more than that.
Basically, I think the "baby" is the shadow, that has been rejected &
purged. That shadow also takes the shape of Snape & the other
Slytherins that were also purged from the novel. This is just my
(possibly baseless) interpretation here. 

houyhnhnm:
> I did find the presence of the baby confusing on the 
> first read.  I thought at first it was the soul piece 
> liberated from Harry by the AK.  
> And Voldemort didn't have to end up as a helpless, 
> suffering, moaning creature for eternity.  He could 
> still have avoided his fate, even after the terrible 
> things he'd done, even after shredding his soul into 
> pieces, if he had been able to feel remorse.  

lizzyben:

But he couldn't. Psychopaths can't feel remorse.

houyhnhnm:
> So, if Voldemort with all his grievous sins could still 
> avoid damnation by feeling remorse, how could there be 
> any doubt of Snape's fate in the afterlife.  Snape whose 
> face looked "as though he was in as much pain as the 
> yelping, howling dog stuck in the  burning house".  Snape, 
> wringing his hands, promising "anything" to Dumbledore, 
> "looking like a man who had lived a hundred years of 
> misery", wishing he were dead and then summoning the 
> courage to see his way forward, protect Lily's child, 
> and evolve even beyond that to see no one die "whom I 
> could not save", and finally to remain faithful to 
> Dumbledore even after DD was gone.

lizzyben:

Yes, Snape the character finds a measure of redemption. Snape the
shadow, not so much. I've finally figured out why the "baby" made me
think of Snape, & why the descriptions seem so similar.(They're both
described as "wounded", "shuddering", in pain, etc.) Both Snape &
the "baby" are different representations of Harry's shadow. 

Description of the Jungian shadow: 
"We will feel highly uncomfortable when we are around someone that is
carrying a part of our Shadow. As I said before, and it bears
repeating, there will often be a repulsive element to it. We will be
repulsed by that person and whatever they stand for. To gain access
and awareness of one's shadow, one should carefully consider those
qualities in another that repulse or disgust oneself."

http://www.shadowdance.com/shadow/theshadow.html

Harry in King's Cross:

"He was afraid of it. Small & fragile & wounded though it was, he did
not want to approach it... Soon he felt near enough to touch it, yet
he could not bring himself to do so. He ought to comfort it, but it
repulsed him."

Yeah, on one level it's LV, but in a Jungian interpretation, that's
Harry's shadow - the part of his personality DD tells him to reject &
ignore. And hey, it sort of sounds like DD telling Snape "you disgust
me", doesn't it? Snape is DD's shadow, LV is Harry's shadow, and
Slytherins in general are Gryfindors' shadow.

houyhnhnm
> I, too, am made uncomfortable by the imagery of the 
> small maimed, creature, trembling under the chair.  
> It reminds me a little too much of the child in the 
> closet in Ursula LeGuin's short story, "The Ones Who 
> Walk Away From Omelas".  I tend towards Universalism 
> in my vague, uncertain notions of the afterlife.  But 
> even I am willing to admit that if anyone deserves 
> damnation, it was Voldemort.  And it has nothing to do 
> with Severus Snape.


lizzyben:

Yes, that story is a good comparison. Or the way it reminded me of
"The Lottery". Both stories involve appointed scapegoats that everyone
else can oppress & fling stones at in order to maintain their society.

And that makes sense too. Because shadows work on both an individual &
a collective level. On an individual level, if we don't recognize the
shadow, if we don't integrate it into our personality, we'll project
those qualities onto other people instead & hate them for it. But
societies do that too. On a collective level, sometimes an entire
society will project their shadow onto some "other" group, which
becomes the recipient of all the flaws that society cannot admit to
having - and the society will then seek to punish or purge that
"other" group. That group becomes the society's appointed scapegoat
that can safely hate & revile. In turn, the "other" group can project
its own shadow onto the first group, creating a cycle of mutual
destruction & hatred. This is how wars & genocides begin. This is sort
of standard Jungian stuff.

It's also a perfect description of the relationship between Gryffindor
& Slytherin houses.  Slytherins are the Gryffindors' scapegoat &
collective shadow that they can project all their unacknowledged
faults onto. And there's a whole lot of faults for them to project.
They really *need* Slytherins around to function as this scapegoat for
their society, which is why we don't see the house disintegrated or
reformed. Or integrated. 

Just like, in King's Cross, the "shadow baby" is figuratively
rejected & repulsed as something totally inhuman, totally monstrous,
totally alien. DD is encouraging Harry to reject a part of himself, &
see it as an "other" instead - that's classic shadow projection. On
both an individual & collective level, Harry & the Gryffindors are
caught in a deep cycle of shadow projection that almost guarantees
more hatred, scapegoating, dehumanization, violence & conflict. IMO,
this is why so many people feel uneasy about this chapter & the
ultimate ending of the novel.


lizzyben