Different values of Snape/ Re: House elves

[potioncat]

No: HPFGUIDX 181067


> 
> Aleta: Perhaps I should have made clearer that I was stating my
> interpretation of the events in the book.

Potioncat:
Welcome, welcome. You've hit the boards running! Got our collective 
blood up already! Now we have something to complete with the Elves-as-
slaves-tread....maybe.

 
> Aleta: Actually, he (as you state later) threatens Neville with
> feeding the potion to the toad earlier in the class period, when the
> potion is in fact the wrong color.

Potioncat:
Nasty git, isn't he?

> 
> Carol:
> > It seems to me obvious that Snape would have made no such remark 
had
> > he not known that the potion was made correctly. Nor do I think 
that
> > the potion, even if made correctly, would have killed Trevor. Can 
you
> > imagine the reaction of all the Gryffindor students, complaining 
to
> > their parents and Dumbledore?

Potioncat:
Agreed, of course. But I'm not so sure anyone would have complained, 
nor that Snape would have cared very much had they done so. Actually, 
it's not likely he would have been sacked at any rate. DD needed him.

Remember the days when many of us thought Snape had a purpose behind 
his treatment of Harry and Neville? After DH, we know that he's been 
protecting Harry all along. We know he dislikes Harry. The only 
explanation I have for Neville, is that Snape has no patience for 
careless errors. Although it's hard to believe Neville was the only 
one who ever messed up. I wonder if JKR wrote it this way as a sort 
of misdirection? Neville was the other possible Chosen One.

> 
> Aleta: He doesn't actually tell her not to help Neville.  What he 
says
> is "I don't remember asking you to show off, Miss Granger" (page 
126,
> PoA, Amer. ed.).  

Potioncat:
Snape took points away from Harry on the very first day for "not" 
helping a house-mate. As if Harry could have. 
> 

> 
> Aleta: I don't. I think Snape was being nasty, as usual, to a
> Gryffindor student having trouble.  Crabbe and Goyle are reportedly
> very stupid, and yet we never hear of Snapes's threatening (with or
> without legitimacy to the threatened actions) them or other students
> of Slytherin.


Potioncat:

As for Crabbe and Goyle--we don't see how he treats them at all. (We 
Snape-fans like to point out what we don't see Snape doing, it makes 
him look better.) But we do see him giving them detention in HBP for 
the quality of their work. We also see him being sarcastic to Crabbe-
or-Goyle in Umbridge's office in OoP.

There's another thread that I'm planning to reply to---I think Mike 
started it---about patronage. The more I think about it, the more it 
seems to play into how wizards treat each other. Snape's two father 
figures would have been Tobias and Slughorn. Snape seems to have 
combined Tobias's negativity with Slughorn's favortism and come up 
with his own brand of patrnonage.


Potioncat would lile to say that she is very happy the houseelf/slave 
thread is active, at least something is keeping us talking. But, 
damn, there goes that Disney song again...