Scattered thoughts on Snape, Luna, and bullying

[or.phan_ann]

No: HPFGUIDX 177452

I'm afraid this is as rambling and disconnected 
as it sounds, but hopefully there's one or two 
interesting things in here. I think Snape and 
Luna are two very similar characters, and my 
liking for and identification with them informs 
a few points below, rather than anything like, 
I don't know, *canon*. This all started when I 
was thinking about a few issues I have with the
series, and what I might do about them; and I 
thought that JKR should have introduced Luna in 
CoS rather than OotP.

It was her first year, after all, and it would
have avoided the rather clumsy-looking addition 
of a main character in the fifth of a 
seven-book series. I don't necessarily think 
she should have been a major character, but 
consider the situation: an unknown monster is 
stalking the school, Petrifying students, with 
mysterious painted messages appearing on the 
walls, nobody knows how, promising that the 
Chamber of Secrets, a part of speculation and 
folklore rather than serious history, has been 
opened, and that Enemies of some mysterious Heir 
should beware. Nobody knows what the animal is, 
who'll be attacked next, or if the Chamber of 
Secrets has anything to do with it anyway. 
Students are especially worried after it emerges 
that the famous Harry Potter can talk to snakes – 
the symbol of Slytherin – and the Twins start 
jokingly that he is the vengeful Heir. Luna would 
fit in perfectly. In fact, I thought, it probably 
happened anyway, and we didn't see it because JKR 
was "pointing the camera" elsewhere.

Except that, while she'd be the butt of jokes, they 
wouldn't be as friendly as the Twins' were. Look at 
the end of OotP: Luna's so used to people stealing 
her things that she doesn't even accept Harry's 
offer of help finding them again (pp. 759-61 UK ed); 
or HBP chapter 7, (p. 132 UK ed), when she says that 
the DA "was like having friends", or near the end of 
DH chapter 21, (pp. 338-9 UK ed), where the Trio's, 
Ginny's, and Neville's portraits are linked by golden 
chains of the word "friends". She doesn't see m to 
have any other friends *at all*, in her *sixth  year*, 
and the only other interactions she seems to have are 
when other people bully her. 
 
D igression on bullying: I read the recent spate of 
po sts on the subject with interest, and if I'd 
rea lised I'd be mentioning specific messages, I would 
have  written this beforehand; I don't want to flog a 
dead  horse, no matter how interesting its decomposition. 
I don' t think that Draco and the Trio's antagonism has 
anythin g to do with bullying. The first message I want 
to mention is Steve/bboyminn in message 177196:

> Draco threatened Hermione's life. If that makes
> Hermione reasonably fear for her safety and her
> life, she is within her rights to defend herself [
]
> Draco is the provoker. [
] He continual creates 
> situations where others are threatened and 
> intimidated, and he pay a price for that. [
] He can 
> start a fight, he just can't finish it. Not unless 
> the advantage is massively on his side.
>
> A little playground taunting is one thing, but out
> and out threats and intimidation call for action.
> When no authorities are there to act on your
> behalf, then you are compelled to act for yourself.

Ann:
JKR doesn't intend Draco to be a bully, but a rival 
for and equal to Harry, and in any case he often 
seems to be the underdog. He can't bully the Trio 
because they are more powerful than he is. They are 
three friends, with allies (Neville, the twins, the 
DA), and he is one guy with a couple of henchmen. 
Harry outclasses Draco in every way – he is better 
connected, better supported by the adults, appears to 
be more popular, is a hero within Hogwarts, *has his 
own private army*, and is a better broomstick rider/
Quidditch player; Draco only has a chance when the 
adults favour him: in Potions classes and when Umbridge
infests the school. The nearest thing to a fair fight 
is in HBP chapter 7, when Draco wins, but only because
he manages to shoot first. In short, whatever Draco 
says, words are all he has, and I don't think the 
Trio's responding with magic is ever justifiable. 
Whatever Draco he says is "a little playground 
taunting" – even at the end of GoF: 

> He jerked his head at Ron and Hermione. `Too late 
> now, Potter! They'll be the first to go, now the 
> Dark Lord's back! Mudbloods and Muggle-lovers first!' 

Ann:
Bullies are more powerful than the bullied, not less. 
Draco isn't threatening anyone here, he's just full 
of hot air.

> Nita in message 177212:
> Unfortunately, Ms Rowling doesn't believe in this 
> solution [telling someone you're being bullied – Ann] 
> enough to even try it in any of her books. Or 
> perhaps she's simply more interested in dramatic 
> wish-fulfilment than the boring realistic stuff us 
> mortals have to do, which isn't even all that 
> effective...
>
> Neville, Severus and Luna don't get to deliver 
> amazing smack-downs with the help of friends while 
> the readers cheer. It's an interesting imbalance of 
> realism

Ann:
Well, there's my answer. There isn't an imbalance of 
realism because you're not comparing like with like. 
But I do think that solutions to bullying are 
realistically depicted in the books, in Neville's case 
at least (we see very little of Snape and Luna being 
bullied.) He tries fighting back, and ends up flattened 
by Crabbe and Goyle in PS/SS chapter 13 (p. 166, UK 
ed.) McGonagall can get his Remembrall back for him in 
chapter 9 (p. 108), but his refusal to go to her for 
help (in chapter 13, p. 160) is, I think, wholly 
realistic, and not designed to give JKR room for 
"dramatic wish-fulfilment"; the Trio get those. He's 
right not to tell a teacher, because Malfoy knows that 
he shouldn't be bullying Neville anyway. If McGonagall 
told him not to, he'd just jeer at Neville for telling, 
and take care not to be seen. What stops Neville's
being bullied is his personal growth, aided by Hermione, 
fake!Moody in GoF, and the DA in OotP. Whereupon 
Neville's subplot comes to an IMHO abrupt and 
unsatisfying halt, but I think this is, also IMHO, the 
only truly useful answer for anyone being bullied: 
personal growth away from someone who can be bullied, 
not into someone who doesn't care. Luna doesn't seem 
to have anyone like this around for her. I suspect that
while she seems unaffected by bullying, the damage is 
more subtle, and she's gradually moving further and 
further away from the real world, possibly to end up 
as a semi-recluse, like her father. This is subtle, 
insidious damage, and just not caring won't cut it. We 
don't know if Lily helped Snape in this way, but I 
suspect she did, at least at first.
 
Back to Luna. She is an extraordinarily isolated 
character, and her obvious (to me) parallel is Snape. 
They are both bullied outsiders (although Snape is 
picked on by the Marauders, while the Twins seem to 
leave Luna alone); they are both talented wizards; they 
are the only two major characters marked as being 
creative (Luna's conspiracy theories and her paintings, 
Snape's potions), and they only have one group of 
friends, and that a very unusual clique: Luna has the 
DA, and Snape the young Death Eaters. This last point 
is a bit contentious, as Snape also has Lily, was 
popular with Slughorn and perhaps other Slytherins, 
but the proto-Death Eaters seem to have been a 
clique of their own at Hogwarts and Lily implies that 
they're Snape's only friends in "The Prince's Tale" 
(pp. 541-2, DH). I think they have three chief 
differences: firstly, Luna is much more tranquil and 
self-confident than the sneering, hexing, easily 
provoked Snape, whose passions are not limited to bile, 
but who is from a young age a double agent in desperate 
circumstances, all for the love of a girl who doesn't 
love him back. We know Luna turns the other cheek; can 
you see her changing sides for her father's sake? 

Secondly, Luna lacks Snape's critical faculty. This 
is an essential part of the creative mind; Snape can 
decide which of his new spells and potion modifications 
don't work, refining them until he's satisfied. HBP 
chapter 12 describes the notes in the Prince's 
Potions book as having "crossings-out and revisions
 
[and] many crossings-out and alterations" for 
Sectumsepra in particular (p. 224.) Luna, on the other 
hand, will believe in anything if it's ridiculous 
enough. In this respect Snape is more of a fully-formed 
character, native to the Wizarding World, whereas Luna 
is more comic relief, and is an outsider. Note that 
Luna never acts on her daft ideas when they would get 
in the way of the action: she's happy enough to mouth 
off about Crumple-Horned Snorcacks, but never tries to 
persuade Harry to teach the DA Aguamenti to douse 
Fudge's Heliopath army. (Great spell and monster names, 
by the way.) This is also essential to Snape's success 
as both wizard and spy: he can't afford to build his 
house on sand when behaving so dangerously.

The other difference, I think, is that they trust 
people for different reasons. Luna heeds the advice 
of those close to her – her father, of course, and 
Hermione when she summons the DA at the end of OotP 
and HBP. Snape, I think, only pays attention to those 
he perceives as intelligent, informed and powerful. I 
can't think of any canon support for this idea; it just 
seems reasonable to me. He doesn't bother paying 
attention to the weak or foolish, and only, I think 
notices them on special occasions: Neville for blowing 
up cauldrons, and Harry for being his parents' son. He 
bullies both, but they are things to him, not people. 
The people he pays attention to because of who they are 
powerful: Dumbledore, Voldemort, Lucius Malfoy (these 
categories will have shifted as he grew older: "The 
Prince's Tale" implies that Malfoy brought him from 
Sorting to Voldemort's side, and they met when Snape 
was only eleven and Malfoy a prefect.) Snape's Worst 
Memory was a rejection from Lily (pp. 569-72), who, I 
think, Snape saw as a refuge from home, Hogwarts, and 
the world at large – as a strong potential protector. 
If they had ended up together, he would have been 
subordinate to her. The fact that wizards are 
inherently more powerful than Muggles probably ties 
into this (Snape/Petunia never had much chance), and 
this, of course, leads inexorably in the direction of 
pureblood supremacy. This is not especially admirable, 
but it's a natural response from a man who has not 
only been victimised throughout his entire life, and 
especially his formative years, but is also highly 
intelligent and ambitious; he reaches this conclusion 
from two starting points, as it were. I'd say that 
Muggles' individual powerlessness is the other major 
cause of wizard/Muggle relations being as antagonistic 
as they are. Whether wizards like Muggles or not, they 
have to admit that Muggles can't do something that even 
wizard children do instinctively; I suppose the best 
real-world parallel would be with mentally handicapped 
people. And the opportunities there for persecution 
and patronisation are legion. (I hope I haven't
fallen into the latter there, or offended anyone in
any other way.)

A final note on Snape
 p.521 in OotP (chapter 26) 
mentions one of Snape's memories: "a hook-nosed man 
was shouting at a cowering woman, while a small 
dark-haired boy cried in a corner". Presumably this 
is his family, but note that Snape's father was a 
Muggle and his mother a witch (pp. 593-4 HBP, chapter 
30.) I'm not quite sure what this means; is it a 
canon error? Is it an argument against what I think 
of Snape's reasons for loving Lily and becoming a 
Pureblood supremacist? Or perhaps it shows that Snape 
knew from a young age that magical power wasn't 
everything. Note that I implied that it was Malfoy's 
personality that drew Snape to the Death Eaters, and 
when they first met they were prefect and new Slytherin.
 

 and one on Luna. I intimated a moment ago that I 
didn't think that she was a very well-written character, 
and was too often used as crude comic relief, reading 
her magazines upside-down or wearing radish earrings. I 
don't think that JKR understands her as well as some of 
the other characters (I think the same's true of Neville.) 
I also think that these invitations to laugh at the weirdo 
compromise JKR's positive messages of acceptance of 
marginal people. She has no friends in the book until 
joining the DA, but is, I think, one of the most popular 
characters in fandom. I think that's because she's too 
separate from the readers for us to really know her, and 
in consequence, be irritated – which is JKR's mistake in
characterising her.

Ann, who didn't mean to go on like this, really she didn't