Snape and Harry and expulsion LONG

[montavilla47]

No: HPFGUIDX 188876

> Montavilla47:
> I think we'll have to keep on disagreeing about whether
> this remark amounts to abuse or not. My dad is dead and I
> miss him a lot, but if someone said mean about him, I would
> think about the many, many people who loved him and have
> told me what a great guy he was.
> 
> That's just something people tend to learn. That's what
> schoolyards and gym class are for, aren't they?
> 
> 
> Alla::
> LOL, I did not think you considered anything that Snipe does to be abuse, I am not sure why you specifically singled out this episode as something we disagree on. I think we just disagree on whether Snipe is an abuser in general.

Montavilla47:
I singled it out because I don't think it's particularly
abusive.  I think Snape is angry and it's a pretty jerky
to say.  

Alla:
> My dad is dead too and I miss him terribly as well. If anybody would have had a nerve to start badmouthing him to me, I of course would have remembered all people who think and say good things about him, however the person who would have said bad thing would have ceased to exist for me, period, and end of story. About dead good or nothing was grilled in me too early for too long.  I would have thought that such person has no class, no respect for me, and as I said, I would have stopped maintaining any relationship with such person. However, I do not think I would have considered myself verbally abused by such remark, especially now when time passed and pain is muted. And I have had twenty something years with my dad and good times to remember him by. Harry however, who had a bit over a year with his parents and mostly dreams to remember them by? Yes, I think this is an incredibly vulnerable area for him and Snipe is preying on his vulnerability as vulture, hitting below the belt so to speak.

Montavilla47:
I would say that what is doing is pushing his buttons.
As far as Snape's concerned, Harry doesn't really have 
vulnerabilities, because he's already managed to built
some pretty strong walls of hate and contempt.

And he's just as good at pushing Snape's buttons right
back.


> Montavilla47:
> He probably did. But he didn't really manage to do that,
> did he? Which brings us back to the idea of "weenie" dark
> impulses.
> 
> Alla:
> 
> That is certainly a matter of opinion. I happen to think based on this quote that he managed to humiliate Harry pretty darn well personally. Oh and I am looking at this chapter and cannot find the words where **Harry** wants to make an entrance looking as he is, I only see Snape telling him that he wants to do that.
> 
> I am going to start quoting after Snape takes points off.
> 
> "The fury and hatred bubbling inside Harry seemed to blaze white-hot, but he would rather been  immobilized all the way back to London than tell Snape why he was late.
> `I suppose you wanted to  make an entrance, did you?" Snape continued. "And with no flying car available you decided that bursting into the Great Hall halfway through the feast ought to create a dramatic effect."
> Still Harry remained silent, though he thought his chest might explode. He knew that Snape had come to fetch him for this, for the few minutes when he could needle and torment Harry without anyone else listening" – p.161, amer.edition paperback.


Montavilla47:
I guess this is what I was thinking about:

"Not now, Hermione," said Harry, in a darkly 
significant voice.  He hoped very much that they
would all assume he had been involved in something
heroic, perferably involving a couple of Death Eaters
and a dementor."

HPB, p. 163, U.S. Ed.



> Alla:
> 
> "To needle and torment", "his chest might explode" – those descriptions are more than enough for me to think that Harry was hurt and humiliated a lot.

Montavilla47:
I read over that passage again and it's cracking me
up how just the sight of Snape--before Snape even
says a word--fills Harry to the bursting point with 
hatred and loathing.  

Also, the heavy Harry filter in that scene makes it
impossible for me to take any of it seriously.  

We've *seen* Harry being tormented by a teacher
and this ain't it.  This is a teenager pissed off because
he came off worst in a fight by someone he normally
bests and taking it out on the Auror who rescues him 
and the teacher whose duty it is to escort him into the 
school (and take points for rule-breaking and egregious 
stupidity).  

Hello.  What are those increased wards for anyway?  
The locked gate and hyped-up security?  For the 
idiot boy who decided to go spy on the Death Eater 
railroad car.

Honestly, I don't think it's Snape humiliating
Harry in that chapter.  It's Harry who did it.  Snape
simply refused to let Harry off the hook and 
forced him to endure the consequences of his
own lack of judgment.


> Montavilla47:
> I think was Mike Smith who mocked Snape as "Snape: The
> Villain Who Assigns Extra Homework!"
> 
> Alla:
> 
> I had read Mike Smith, I think parody of one chapter, I am not even sure if it was with Snape, but how to put it politely? I was terribly unimpressed, thus I am not inclined to give his opinions of anything Harry Potter much weight and that includes Snape, sorry.

Montavilla47:
You don't have to be polite.  Smith certainly 
isn't. But I think he doesn't accurately point out
that Snape's methods of evil toward Harry are 
extremely weak.

Sort of like trying to shoot bullets at Mongo in 
"Blazing Saddles."  It just makes him angry.


> Montavilla:
> Seriously. As a bad guy, Snape's on about the level of
> the principal in Ferrous Beuller's Day Off. Or Wiley E. Coyote.
> 
> Alla:
> 
> I understand that this is your opinion, yes. It is not mine, I think in our everyday life Snape would be much scarier villain than Voldemort. Meaning that I can see somebody like Snape being allowed to exist peacefully and do all the damage he could do to kid who has a misfortune to look as his former enemy, while of course all decent people would raise to fight a monster like Voldemort.

Montavilla47:
Really?  I think in real life, Snape would end up
being the butt of the student body's colllective
jokes.  And the inspiration for hundreds of 
nasty drawings and scribbles in the bathroom.

Or maybe he'd inspire someone to write a 
seven book series devoted to how mean 
and petty he was.