Snape's Culpability in the Prank (WAS: James and Sirius as Bullies)

[Mike]

No: HPFGUIDX 181255

> Pippin:
> 
> Alla gave the example of leaving your loaded gun on a table. Maybe
> things are different elsewhere, but in California, if a minor child
> (anyone under the age of eighteen) picks up that gun and death or 
> injury results, you (the gun owner) committed a felony. It doesn't
> matter whether the child should have known better or whether you
> didn't mean for anything bad to happen. 

Mike:
I'm with Alla on this left coast law, I think it sucks. But this is 
not Sirius' gun, he doesn't own the keys to the Willow. And he's the 
same age as Severus, he's no more a responsible adult than Severus 
is. I'll repeat my previous question: if everything stayed the same, 
except Severus found out how to get past the Willow by watching Madam 
Pomfrey, who's at fault? And if Severus' action wouldn't have been 
different regardless of how he got the information, how is it the 
information providers fault for that action?




> Pippin:
> Teenagers don't have the impulse control that adults have. 

Mike:
So Sirius falls under this same umbrella then, doesn't he? Can't 
blame him for impulsively telling Sev about the knot.


> Pippin:
> It has nothing to do with how smart they are. I'm sure both Snape
> and Sirius could have told you what might happen to a lone wizard
> who encountered a werewolf. But that doesn't mean they would
> relate the information to what they were doing.

Mike:
OK, then Sirius is just as blameless for telling Sev about the 
Willow as Sev is for going after the werewolf. Actually, since 
nothing really happened, assigning blame is kind of a shadow game. 
Which is why it irks me to see people blame Sirius for the whole 
thing.

If, instead, we're talking about exposing their characters, then 
sure, Sirius is reckless. But Severus is just as reckless or worse. 
My point about bringing up stupidity, is that for some reason 
Severus' actions in this case don't seem to count against his overall 
character. He's still the potions genius, the great duelist (btw, 
where in canon do we get the schoolboy Severus, duelist 
extrordinaire? We have one example in canon, and he get's his ass 
kicked), DADA expert, spell inventor.

Somehow, Severus the budding DE, friends of other future DEs, 
inventor of a spell that he later labels as "Dark", gets shunted 
aside as if those things don't count towards his character. The 
Severus at the time of the Prank is a pretty nasty character, imo, 
so why should I give him the benefit of the doubt? IOW, why shouldn't 
I ascribe some nasty motivations to Severus' attempt to catch Remus 
at ... what, I don't know?



> Pippin:
> I'm sure we can all think of damfool things we did as 
> teenagers -- it isn't that we couldn't imagine the consequences,
> it's just that they were somehow off the radar. 

Mike:
I think I was just as smart as Severus was at that age (though I 
didn't invent any new spells <g>), and I did damfool things myself. 
But I was never disillusioned as to what might happen if things went 
wrong, or I got caught. Teenage immortality doesn't necessarily equal 
teenage ignorance. We may have thought we would never get caught, but 
we were under no disillusion as to what would happen if we were. We 
may have been sure we could pull off our death-defying stunts, but we 
sure knew we were defying death because that's where the thrill came 
from. If that's what you mean by being "off the radar", I partially 
agree. But the fact that we knew we were courting danger was part of 
the equation, supreme confidence is different than not knowing it's 
dangerous.


> Pippin:
> Of course the irony is that 'seeing is believing' only for the 
> person who sees. As far as everyone else was concerned, he still
> didn't have any proof. All he'd get if he talked was an angry
> Dumbledore -- and even Voldemort feared that.

Mike:
This reminds me of the irony of Severus inventing Langlock and Moody 
setting that tongue-curling curse on 12 GP against Snape's unwanted 
reappearance.