Snape's the Rescuer - Really?/Justice to Snape

[sistermagpie]

No: HPFGUIDX 170765

> Alla:
> 
> Yes, I understand that you are talking about the image of Snape as 
> healer in this scene and nothing more. And I am saying that I 
> inprepret this **image** drastically different from you - as image 
of 
> practical, hypocritical bastard, who is concerned how Dumbledore 
and 
> authorities would see him when he comes back to the castle with 
> **murderer** on stretchers.

Magpie:
But how can you interpret this "image" differently? The image is 
totally removed from the context of the story. If Snape was nailed 
to a cross, for instance, the image would be Christlike. It's the 
image itself that makes the association, not Snape. Snape's 
character can add meaning to the image that's negative, just as 
Voldemort being Voldemort turns the idea of a baby on its head, but 
the imagery is still infantile. The imagery is based not just on the 
situation but on what the associations the author or reader can be 
assumed to have. I have hard time believing that someone shown a 
picture of three unknown figures, two on stretchers and the third 
carrying them away, would be able to interpret that image as having 
anything to do with hypocrisy, and barely that they would say it was 
about practicality. More like they'd identify the people on the 
stretchers as injured or dead and the other person carrying them to 
the hospital or the morgue. 

Sure when you put it into the scene in canon, as I said, it's easy 
to come up with reasons why Snape's really just trying to look like 
a caring or responsible person and really he hates everybody inside. 
But even in that interpretation you have to admit that the image 
he's projecting is one of resopnsibility and care. Though Rowling 
puts no particular twist on it.

> Alla:
> 
> How do you know that this is not about being practical? Maybe the 
> reason why author chose this **image** is to show precisely that - 
> Snape's practical side, no?

Magpie:
Snape's healing people seems obviously something more emphasized in 
the text than Snape being practical in this way (which in this case 
means Snape coming up with handy ways of carrying things or 
transporting people etc.). The image of carrying people on 
stretchers has more associations with the care of injury and 
sickness than it does with practicality. There's not even anything 
necessarily practical about them--JKR could have had him just 
levitate them on their own. Snape's also good at Potions, which both 
heal and poison (poisons and antidotes being common things he's 
teaching), and good at Dark Arts, both hurting and reversing curses. 
It just seems like going to a lot of effort to deny something pretty 
consistent for Snape because it sounds too positive when I don't 
even think it needs to be that positive.

-m