Lily (was Complimenting a character WAS: Re: HBP CHAPTERS 7-9 POST DH LOOK

[sistermagpie]

No: HPFGUIDX 184439

> Magpie replied:
> > That's the way I see it too. I think Snape was already 
indoctrinated
> into the Slytherin mindset, but wants to make an exception of Lily 
> from the very beginning--not unusual, really. I think SWM was the 
one
>  and only time he let Lily see that side of him, but that Lily heard
> about and so knew about it before then. <snip> I don't think he 
ever 
> referred to a Muggleborn as a Mudblood in front of Lily and she was 
> able to hold on because of that, but once he did it in front of her 
> (and to her) she hit him with the fact that she knew this wasn't
> unusual for him.
> 
> Carol responds:
> 
> "Knew"? Or assumed? It's not a *fact* that such behavior is not
> unusual for him if there's no evidence to back it up. It's just an
> assumption on her part and yours.

Magpie:
I was thinking she "knew" from her pov, since she seems to think she 
knows when says this isn't unusual behavior for him. Whether or not 
Snape calls other people the word, he hangs around with future DEs. I 
think that's more her point. Not necessarily that she knows Snape 
calls so-and-so a Mudblood, but that that's a regular attitude in his 
circle of acquaintances. So I would guess that from her pov it 
doesn't matter whether she's wrong about Snape having ever used the 
word before (I can't recall him denying it but I don't remember the 
scene that well). She's saying that his hanging out with these guys, 
I assume, means that he has to at the least tacitly approve of their 
attitudes so why should she be surprised that he's called her this? 
Because I agree that if Lily heard about specific accusations she'd 
probably have confronted him with them--that's the way she was. But I 
got the impression she was more just saying that of course he used 
the word--that's how his group of friends thinks of people like her, 
right?

Sort of like if Lily had gotten angry and called Snape Snivellus and 
Snape said, "Well, yes, of course. That's what you and your friends 
call me, isn't it?" referring to MWPP after Lily started to move 
towards James. Whether or not Lily herself had ever used the term out 
loud, he'd be saying that's what the people she likes are about.

Carol:
But we see
> no examples of his actually doing so and therefore have no gauge but
> our own assumptions to determine to our own satisfaction to what
> extent he believed and espoused the Pure-Blood supremacy doctrine. 
We
> *do* know that he hated the two Muggles of his acquaintance but did
> not extend that hatred to Lily, and we can deduce that he was
> self-conscious and defensive about his status as a Half-Blood based 
on
> the nickname Half-Blood Prince (which I think he applied to himself
> for his own comfort and consolation). 

Magpie:
True, but that seems to be chasing after something that isn't really 
important in the end. He's called somebody a racial slur, he chooses 
friends who are going to devote their life to Pureblood supremacy and 
he's a couple of years away from joining a Pureblood supremacy 
terrorist group. Whether he has doubts deep down doesn't stop him 
from making choices that say he's a DE. His being a Half-Blood 
doesn't protect him against it, or his friendship with Lily as a 
child. What does it mean to fully subscribe to the DE ethic, after 
all? Joining the DEs would, imo, be a way of saying you subscribe to 
it enough.

Carol:
> I also see no reason to believe that he hated Muggle-borns or *lied*
> to Lily, as Alla says, when he said as a child that being a
> Muggle-born wouldn't make any difference. The hesitation suggests 
that
> he thought it *might* make a difference to some people, but since he
> thinks and hopes that Lily can get into Slytherin with him, he 
clearly
> doesn't realize how widespread the prejudice is, especially among
> Slytherins, and that Muggle-borns simply are not admitted to 
Slytherin
> (no doubt per Salazar Slytherin's explicit instructions). And, 
again,
> he thinks that Slytherin is the House for brains, where both he and
> Lily belong.

Magpie:
I read it as Snape being confused as a kid. He knows enough to think 
it could matter, but naturally doesn't want it to matter. I think he 
has holding back from telling her something there. I wouldn't call it 
lying, exactly, because he does want her to be in the house. But I 
think he's already dimly aware of a conflict between things he's 
heard and things he wants with Lily and is wanting them to just not 
exist. It's hard to think that any Slytherin legacy is really so 
clueless about what the house is about. Speculating, I can imagine 
that his mother stressed to him that it was the house of brains to 
assure him that he could (and perhaps better!) get in despite having 
a Muggle father. Perhaps his hesitation is because it reminds him of 
his own insecurities too.
 
> Magpie wrote: 
> > Unfortunately for me, since there's so little focus on changing 
this
> mindset I wind up taking Snape's comment to Nigellus as being more
> about his own bad associations with the word than any major 
repulsion
> to the ideas. It's not that I think he's actively prejudiced against
> Muggleborns in canon or anything. It's just that the themes of the 
> books were personal. The bigotry themes are more about Voldemort 
> rather than Voldemort's beliefs being used to focus on education 
about
> bigotry.
> 
> Carol responds:
> 
> there can't be any focus on Snape's changing his mindset since his
> motives have to remain hidden until "the "Prince's Tale," in which
> there's only room for memories that relate to Lily or otherwise help
> Harry to understand that Snape is helping and protecting him. 

Magpie:
I agree. I'm just saying that the books in general--thousands of 
pages of them--just don't really concentrate so much on changing 
mindsets. I could imagine Snape as changing his beliefs beyond his 
personal experiences, but the books are about his personal 
experiences with Lily and how that made him switch sides--it led to 
the murder of Lily. I don't think he ever used the word during canon 
while presiding over his DE-friendly house. What's important is that 
he's anti-Voldemort now. I don't think he's a bigot any more. He 
seems to treat his Muggleborn students perfectly fairly (Slughorn 
seems like the bigot to me). But it's not a drama of a bigot changing 
his beliefs, it's just a switching of sides in a fantasy universe 
using an obvious bad thing in our own world. The fact that we're not 
in Snape's head is of course a big reason for this, but it's still 
what the story is. His being Lily's friend is far more important than 
whatever specific ways he looks at Muggleborns now is--except that 
Lily=Muggleborn so therefore Muggleborns are good.

Carol: 
> At any rate, in a court of law, one person's accusation against
> another must be backed up by solid evidence. I read accusations of 
one
> character by another in the same light. There must be evidence to 
back
> up the first character's charge for me to take it seriously. And the
> only evidence we have is that young Snape eventually joined the 
Death
> Eaters. 

Magpie:
But I think when we're talking about just generally getting a sense 
of a person IRL, or especially getting to know a character in a 
fictional series, that's pretty big evidence. Not that he 
specifically used the word Mudblood at any given time that we didn't 
see, but that Lily's correct in her impression of manners in Snape's 
social circle, all of whom joined Voldemort. Lily seems to have some 
reason to believe what she's saying. As I said above, even if that 
was the only time he ever used the word in his life, I think Lily 
would feel the point was still the same. She's calling him on the 
company he keeps and his enthusiasm for them, not just that this is 
not the first time he's used the word. 


-m