[HPforGrownups] Re: Snape's the Rescuer - Really?/Justice to Snape

[sistermagpie]

No: HPFGUIDX 170796


Biff
I'm afraid that when I read all of the "caring" things that Snape 
has done, I don't read them as anything more than a teacher doing 
what is expected of them. I think that Snape walks a tightrope in a 
way, being a spy. He's subjected to much more scrutiny, from both 
sides, and he knows it. It would expected that a teacher would take 
care of the children and he did. I believe he did it almost 
mindlessly, his mind compartmentalizing things that needed to be 
done. I believe he put Sirius on a stretcher because the children 
were on stretchers and it was just easier to transport everyone in 
the same way. Perhaps he would have had to perform 2 different types 
of magic at the same time to bring the children in on stretchers and 
Sirius, say, bound and gagged, dragged across the ground. His 
actions were almost mechanical, cold. 

Magpie:
You still wind up with Snape needing to be acting as a professional person
taking care of people efficiently, being shown lifting the injured onto
stretchers in a scene where he's alone. If JKR had just come up with any
other way to avoid this scene--and there are many--you wouldn't have to
find a negative explanation so that Snape is acting (as another person
might think he was "acting" when he's mean to Harry because he's a spy). I
think the point of Snape's character is he can do both. He doesn't have to
be a "caring" person to be caring for people in this scene--or several
times in HBP.

Biff:
And yet, he obviously can't help his personal feelings getting in 
the way of things at times, which I believe explains his gagging 
Sirius. He had pronounced sentence on Sirius in his own mind- he 
was "done" with him and didn't want to hear anymore from this 
person. 

Magpie:
Yes...but...so? Sirius is guilty according to everyone in the WW except the
few who know the truth. Snape has personal reasons for wanting Sirius to be
guilty. Given who Sirius is supposed to be, there's nothing out of the
ordinary about Snape using the same spell he used before on a prisoner to
bind him. If his carrying people back to the castle is just Snape acting
like a professional person, gagging Sirius is the same thing as far as I
can see. Certainly I'd expect Snape to do it--usually whenever Sirius has a
working mouth he insults him. (I would think Sirius might do the same for
Snape for the same reason.)


Biff:
I have been tempted over the years to feel sorry for Snape and to 
hope that there is something more there, just like I did with Draco 
(hey I like bad boys, ok?), and in some ways I do. But then I 
remembered part of an interview with Jo Rowling where she spoke 
about Draco. She was just amazed to find there were those who 
thought Draco was "misunderstood". They think he can be changed with 
love and tenderness. She wrote Draco to be bad. I believe she wrote 
Snape in the same way. 
My opinion only, of course.

Magpie:
But JKR said she felt sorry for Draco as well in that interview. I don't
think that saying his bad qualities were real, precludes the real character
being sympathetic. I would be wary of taking JKR's statements about bad
boys and making them into character statements that are more revealing that
I think she would be about characters. I think she's both sticking up for
her characters--who are a lot harsher and darker than the romantic bad boy
woobie--and also finding ways of not revealing anything about the
character. Statements about not dating Snape or Draco are, imo, shallow and
silly diversions from any in-depth discussions of what we might expect from
either of them. It's easy to say that nobody should want to date them etc.
But the woman's tipped her hand I think--however much she protests the
whole thing, it turned out more stuff from fanon turned out to be true than
anyone would have imagined.

Lanval:
If DADA were synonymous with Healing, why is none of the other five 
DADA teachers Harry has known a Healer? (Well, hello -- maybe that's 
how Lupin earned his money, working as a Healer! *eg*). I'll take 
Umbridge out of the equation here, of course, 'cause she's a 
Ministry bureaucrat, not even a qualified teacher. Moody? Not a 
Healer. He could use one, though. Quirrell? Uh, no. Lockheart? :D

Magpie:
I'd say mostly because Snape's on a totally different level (I doubt
Hermione would ever say that Lupin sounds like Harry when he talks about
DADA). I don't think any of them know the Dark Arts as well as he does--and
I don't mean that to elevate Snape above everyone. Lupin has skills as a
teacher that Snape doesn't have at all, and everybody doesn't have to be
able to heal to teach DADA to be "the best." It just seems like Snape has
from the beginning been established as the familiar combination of
archetypes of death/healer. He makes poisons and antidotes. He makes up
dark curses and can heal dark curses. Lupin's dark illness is taken care of
by Snape, not Pomfrey (or Lupin). All Dark Arts teachers are not healers.
Snape is. If all he ever did was once lift people onto stretchers I
wouldn't say that--I wouldn't be surprised if Lupin or Sirius were ever in
a scene where they did the same thing. But yeah, I think Snape's really
been established as being about both of those things. The only reason the
stretcher strikes me as anything at all is because it seems like part of
the pattern.

Alla:
I am talking about image of Snape and in the context of the story it 
gives me **zero** medical associations, that is why I do not think 
JKR may necessarily put them in there for that purpose as well.

It is not just image of somebody we do not know, we **know** the 
context in which Snape puts people on the stretchers and it does not 
give me any healing images.

Magpie:
I guess I just have the opposite problem. I can completely understand not
thinking that *Snape* putting people on stretchers is about Snape healing,
because we know what Snape's like. But it still seems like even to get
there you have to recognize that stretchers etc. are associated with
hospitals and paramedics etc. It doesn't have to make the person a healer
necessarily. As I said, I can imagine Lupin or Sirius doing the same thing,
and if they did in that scene I'd think of them acting as a person taking
care of the injured, even if the person on the stretcher was Snape and
Sirius was the one levitating him.

Alla:

Um, I am not going into any effort to deny anything. I am genuinely 
interpreting this scene as Snape's ultimate hypocrisy and 
practicality - to look good in front of Fudge and get the reward.

This image of Snape putting Sirius on stretchers honestly disgusts 
me **a lot**.

Magpie:
I understand how you interpret the scene--it just seems like the whole
reason it's hypocrisy is because there is healing imagery there.  Snape is
going through motions of putting him on a stretcher when really he wants to
take him to Dementors. Isn't that what twists the knife a bit with it?

But I don't think this scene necessarily matters so much in that--I was
going to ask if scenes of Snape healing in HBP struck you as being
connected to healing, and you said they did and that's fine with me. I
still think Snape's intentionally a combination of death and medicine. If
it was just an isolated incident without the other stuff where he heals, I
wouldn't read the same things into the scene.

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