Lack of re-examination SPOILERS for Corambis and Tigana

[Carol]

No: HPFGUIDX 186602

> > Pippin:
> <snip> And I get a sense that this is what Snape feels much of the time when he is confronting Harry. How many times have we been told that Snape's temple is throbbing or that he is turning dark red?

Carol responds:
Not all that often that I can think of. Only under strong provocation. The description fits Uncle Vernon better. No, I don't want to argue whether Uncle Vernon is a sadist. But I don't see any evidence that Snape is. Umbridge, Barty Jr., Bellatrix, Voldemort, yes. Snape, no. I think that his biting sarcasm is a habit developed as a defense mechanism. As for the detentions, they're generally well-deserved--and annoying but not painful. They're considerably less dangerous than sending eleven-year-olds out to help Hagrid find the monster that's sucking unicorn blood, and nothing at all compared with Umbridge's quill. Now Filch, who wants to restore the old methods--chaining kids to the wall, whipping, etc.--there's a sadist for you, if a rather pathetic one.)
> 
> a_svirn:
> And how many times did Snape's restraint crack? Once, when they duelled in the end of HBP and when he'd just damned his own soul anyway. Pretty impressive for someone you call a sadist. 

Carol responds:
I agree in general, but I don't think that Snape has just damned his soul. Dumbledore has presented the action to him as not only necessary to save Draco's soul but as a humanitarian means of saving a dying old man from other DEs who might Crucio him and from the teeth of Fenrir Greyback. And, although we don't hear those arguments in the Prince's Tale, we know that Snape knows that DD is counting on him to, among other things, take over as headmaster to protect the students of Hogwarts and somehow send a crucial message to Harry. DD asks him specifically if he thinks that killing him to save him from torture and humiliation will damage his soul and Snape, after thinking about it, agrees to do what DD wants. IOW, he has concluded that his action is not murder and won't tear his soul. (The word "damn" is not used; the only soul that we see condemned to eternal punishment is Voldemort's, and he has mutilated it himself.)

Still, I agree with you that Snape's restraint at the end of HBP is remarkable as he confronts Harry's charges of cowardice after he's just performed the bravest action of his life against his own wishes and just saved Harry from a Crucio. No wonder his restraint breaks at the end and he yields to the temptation to hit Harry with what appears to be a Stinging Hex. He must have thought that Harry deserved to be punished, just as Harry thought that Amycus deserved to be punished. And yet, Snape, unlike Harry, doesn't use the Cruciatus Curse.

If he were a sadist, he would not have stopped the DE's Crucio and would have used one himself. (Just to be clear, I agree with a-svirn on this point. I just don't think that Snape damned his soul. But that he's in a self-created hell of remorse is clear from his expression. Even Harry understands that he's in as much pain as Fang in the burning hut.)
> 
> > Pippin: 
> > But despite this Snape does not ever use the cruciatus curse, or ever punish anyone in any way that is forbidden by law or Hogwarts rules. So he may be a sadist at heart, in the sense that his cruelty has become habitual,  <snip>
>
Carol:
He doesn't use the Cruciatus Curse or any other form of painful detention, but his cruelty has become habitual? I don't follow your logic. What has become habitual, IMO, is the facade of cold sarcasm, which he uses with Bellatrix as well as with Harry. The facade drops only when he's with Dumbledore or when he's being courteous to Narcissa or when he's trying to help Draco. I don't doubt that he gets some degree of vindictive pleasure out stinging certain people with his words, but, like Harry and his attempted Crucios, he usually thinks that they deserve it. (As for Neville, he's just annoyed and frustrated with the kid's dangerous ineptitude.) 

At any rate, I disagree that he's a "sadist at heart." If he were, he'd be like Barty Jr., finding excuses to use Transfiguration or other forms of magic on students. We don't see his DADA lessons, but I doubt that he used the Imperius Curse on the students or tortured and killed spiders before their eyes. Instead, he uses posters to illustrate the effects of the curses, discusses them in class, gives them reading assignments, and assigns difficult essays. (The students may consider the essays to be cruel and horrible instruments of torture, but they're a standard teaching method which, probably, enabled Harry and even Ron to get an E in Potions. They learned in spite of themselves through his "cruel" assignments.) 

a_svirn:
<snip>  I still think it's wrong to divorce peoples' inner nature, so to speak,  from their actual behaviour. At best it's confusing, quite often it's just a way to avoid accountability.

Carol responds:
I agree. Severus apparently saw his mother being abused in his childhood and learned to hate Muggles, and possibly he picked up the habit of sarcasm from his father, but he was also apparently abused himself (certainly neglected and bullied by MWPP), so I still think that the sarcasm is a defense mechanism rather than innate cruelty. (His capacity to love and to admire the virtues he sees in Lily as reflected in his Patronus and his instinct to teach Lily when they're both children show that he's not innately cruel. And what "cruelty" he shows as an adult is demonstrated only through verbal abuse, never through physical abuse, despite his adult size, his authority, and his impressive magical abilities. Sure, he sometimes takes advantage of his position to insult a student or dock points unfairly, but I wouldn't call that sadism. We need only compare him with Umbridge or Barty Jr. to see how a real sadist would operate within the confines of Hogwarts under cover of the rules and/or the authority of the Ministry. (I'm not bringing in the Carrows, who showed no restraint at all, because they wouldn't have been hired in the first place had Voldemort not taken over the Ministry.)

Carol, who agrees with Pippin that "The Prince's Tale" enables Harry to understand and forgive Snape by revealing how much they have in common but would not label either of them as a sadist

P.S. List Elves: Please don't count this message as two posts if it posts twice. I'll delete one of them.