Snape - a werewolf bigot?? Was: Say it isn't so Lupin!!!

[pippin_999]

No: HPFGUIDX 170182


> 
> Mike:

> As to being in humiliating positions; I wonder what you think of 
> Snape's "I see no difference" remark? You suppose that might be a 
> little cold-hearted dig at Hermione's large front teeth? No need to 
> answer. :D 

Pippin:
What do Hermione's front teeth have to do with Snape's attitude
towards Muggleborns? Or are you planning to assert that the 
Marauders insulted Snape's appearance because he was a half-blood?

> Mike:
> And let's compare invectives. Filch and Figgy both call 
> themselves "Squib". No doubt Hagrid's use is meant as an attack on 
> Filch's status, just as Filch has led with an attack on Hagrid's 
> status. But, I have yet to see any Muggleborn's refer to themselves 
> as "Mudblood". In fact, it seems to be one of the worse terms 
> available in the WW to use against another person. It is also been 
> used by only the most ardent and obviously bigotted people. 

Pippin:
Circular argument, there. You haven't proved that Snape was 
ardent and obviously bigoted at the time when he insulted Lily
Evans. I think we have canon that he wasn't. Harry would have
noticed if Snape had written, "Die, mudbloods, die" in his
potions book, no? Even the fact that he later joined the Death 
Eaters does not tell us whether he was sympathetic to all their aims. 



> PoA p. 357: "Snape glimpsed me, though, at the end of the tunnel."
> 
> Mike: Sounds like Snape barely found out that Lupin was a werewolf.
> 
> Had he gotten farther, "he *would* have met a fully grown werewolf", 
> *but* *he* *didn't*. Sounds like what Dana has pointed out, Snape is 
> more indignant for what *might* have been, than actually coming close 
> to mortal danger. He's pissed at the *prank* and for James being the 
> one to save him from his own stupidity in taking Sirius up on his 
> information, and probably his goading.

Pippin:
Really?  How would you feel if you saw an angry grizzly at the end of
a tunnel you'd been tricked into entering? Safe? Like your life wasn't
really in danger? Like the person who tricked you just wanted to 
give you a good scare? The tunnel is *twisty* --Crookshanks' tail
bobs in and out of view as he leads Harry and Hermione along,
they don't see Sirius and Ron ahead of them, and there's a 
a twist just before the tunnel reaches the opening at the 
Shrieking Shack end. From that description you'd have to be 
pretty close to the werewolf to see it. 

> Mike: Sneaky conduct? What sneaky conduct has Snape witnessed?

Pippin:
Snape heard Lupin confess to sneaky conduct, ie not telling
Dumbledore that Sirius was an animagus, and convincing himself
that Sirius had found some other way to enter the castle. Since
Snape did not hear the part where Sirius explained that it was
Crookshanks who had helped him into the castle, this would
sound like more of a confession than it actually was.
 
It's always sounded odd to me that Lupin claims responsibility
for leading his friends to become animagi when he excuses 
himself for so much else, but I just realized, it's not only his 
silence as a teacher he has to account for. 

Lupin's also got to explain why he was silent during the
*first* manhunt for Sirius -- the 24 to 48 hour period when
he thought that Sirius was the secret keeper and that the secret had
been betrayed. But of course if he considered himself party to 
Sirius becoming an animagus then he'd be incriminating himself, 
not just his former friend. 

> Mike:
 And his *wrong* opinion, based on his  prejudicial view of 
the evidence, that Lupin was helping Sirius get  into the 
castle does not exonerate him from speaking derogatorally of 
the "werewolf".

Pippin:
Nor does it exonerate Amos Diggory for calling Winky "Elf" --
and we know it's  meant to be depicted as  degrading because 
Hermione calls him on it. But he is a sympathetic character and
likely to remain so. I can't think of anyone in canon *less* likely
to become a Voldemort supporter.
 
> Mike:
> Filch is a Squib. That's a fact. Was Hagrid using a bigotted term 
> when Hagrid called him such? I seem to remember you arguing that it 
> was a bigotted term, even if Hagrid is not truly bigotted.

Pippin:
The word isn't derogatory, the usage is. In both cases the
speaker is being rudely impersonal and rudely reminding 
another of their lower social status. But taking advantage of
someone's lower social status to insult an individual is not the
same as advocating that status, or advocating that it should
be even lower. 

Pippin