Student!Snape and bullying (WAS student!Snape keeping Lupin's ...)

[Zara]

No: HPFGUIDX 181187

> Carol responds:
> My point, and I think I agree with Alla here, is that we shouldn't
> look at Severus as a poor little helpless victim. They attacked him
> two (or four) on one because if they attacked him individually and
> openly, he'd have given them a run for their money, or perhaps 
beaten
> them. 

zgirnius:
My point is only, that I believe harassing him using the advantage of 
numbers is precisely what they did, and not just the one time in SWM. 
I'm having trouble understanding whether or not we agree on this 
point.

Throughout your post, you choose, on a recurring basis, to preface 
the word 'victim' by words such as poor, weak, helpless, and 
innocent. Severus may have hexed people for fun on a regular basis, 
and gone around insulting Muggleborns with bloodist slurs. He may 
have been amazing with a wand. While he was doubtless poor <g> he may 
not have been perceived as worthy of sympathy. But if it was a 
recurring event that he (as an individual) was attacked/harrassed by 
Marauders (plural, and as a unit) then he was a victim. 

The way I am using this word, corresponds to the definition I find in 
Merriam-Webster Online, namely, "one that is acted on and usually 
adversely affected by a force or agent". The extent to which such an 
individual is weak, or helpless, or poor, or innocent, may determine 
how sympathetically, contemptuously, or gleefully others view him, 
but it does not change whether or not they were acted on and 
adversely affected by, agents. This is what I mean, when I say I 
believe Severus was a victim of the Marauders. Whether or not he 
liked the word, I think he realized he was acted on and adversely 
affected by those individuals. 

> Carol:
> If they did make a habit of attacking him as a group, it could not
> have been because he was the sort of weakling that bullies like to
> pick on (cf. Mark Evans in OoP). 

zgirnius:
Real-life bullies pick their victims for any number of reasons. The 
huge heavyweight boxer type beating some skinny kid younger than 
himself is certainly an instance, and probably the image that first 
pops into the average brain upon hearing the word `bully', but it is 
by no means the only situation. And I find that in HP, the issue is 
dealt with in many of its various forms.

Hogwarts reminds me of my own school in one regard. At the schools I 
attended during my Hogwarts years, girls did not fight. Oh, there 
were rumors that a couple of the really tough girls who smoked 
illegal substances in the bathrooms got into fights after school, but 
it was very much the exception. The only fights I witnessed in school 
were between boys, and I was aware that the least popular boy in my 
middle school got roughed up on occasion. Girl bullying took the form 
of ostracism, nasty names and comments about of appearance and dress, 
and mean-spirited jokes. At Hogwarts, the girls are as magically 
powerful as the boys, but we don't see them hexing people in the 
hallways or drawing wands when they have disagreements either,  Ginny 
being the lone exception who tends in my view to prove the rule I 
just stated. (She grew up surrounded by older boys
)

But of course, Hogwarts has girl bullies and girl victims of bullying 
too. Luna is victimized by others in her House. Is this because she 
is weak, or because she is odd, and so no one sympathizes with her, 
and so no one stands up for her? I would say the latter. Hermione is 
victimized by Pansy and her little gang. Her vulnerability is that 
her close friends are boys, who just don't play those little games. 
When Pansy launches some witticism and her gal pals start to giggle, 
Hermione is not in a position to retaliate in kind. Is this because 
she is weak, or because she does not have her own group of giggling 
girls to back her up? I'd say the latter.