Understanding Snape

[Jim Ferer]

Severus Snape is the worst good guy in the HP universe, an 
intimidating, angry, misanthropic man.  He appears to have been on 
the outside looking in since his own school days, an outcast and 
disliked figure who turned out to be on the right side when it came 
down to genuine evil.  All this makes him a fascinating character.

After OotP, I think I understand him at last.  Snape, I believe, is a 
classic social phobic.

How are social phobics made?  One way is tension at home, and we see 
in Snape's memories that he had that, unable to bear the scenes of 
his father verbally abusing his mother. Cold, rejecting parenting is 
a major precursor to severe shyness, and Snape's home life makes that 
likely (but not certain).

Another way to make a shy:  not fitting in. Snape's always been 
described as this greasy, unkempt kid who showed up at school knowing 
far too much about the Dark Arts. He probably wasn't Mr. Popularity, 
was he? (Any parent who sends their kid to school unkempt is hurting 
that kid.)

Brick on the load 3: bullying and humiliation. We don't know how much 
James and the others bullied him, but the Lawn Scene wasn't the first 
time, apparently, and they humiliated him pretty thoroughly. It's a 
scene to make you cringe, especially if you grew up shy like I did.

Seeing friends being friends is painful to a shy, having to watch 
people enjoying what you don't have right in front of your face.  
When the leader of that group and big man on campus is your principal 
oppressor hatred is bound to follow.  Now what happens? Your 
tormentor's son [Snape hasn't got a son, of course] shows up at 
school, already famous, with close friends from the first day!  

Puberty makes it much worse. Watching a couple hand-in-hand is a 
knife in the heart to the severely shy.  Every pretty girl is just 
taunting the shy male, who often turns a particular rage towards 
females. [If you browsed over to the newsgroup alt.support.shyness 
you'd see misogyny and rage that would take your breath away.] 

Snape's misanthropy seems more general that that, but if you look at 
his behavior through the lens of severe shyness it starts making 
sense. He's been denied the pursuit of happiness, and it colors 
everything.  Dumbledore was probably one of the few people ever to 
treat him with anything like real acceptance as opposed to the Death 
Eaters' phony acceptance.

Jim Ferer