Snobby Snape?

[Judy]

Pippin wrote, in response to my claim that Snape's life was ruined by 
being Sorted into Slytherin:

> Nah, his life was ruined by Voldemort. 
> If it hadn't been for Voldemort, Lily would never
> have perceived Mary's harrassment as political, 
> there'd have been no Death Eaters for Snape to join, 
> and his interest in forbidden magic would have been 
> perceived the way Tom Riddle's was, as the kind 
> of thing that many  bright wizard kids are curious about.

Oh, a LOT of people had their lives ruined by Voldemort. Including, 
of course, Snape. So, I don't disagree here. However, if there had 
been no Voldemort, there would have been no Harry Potter books, and 
hence no Snape. So, I was viewing Snape's Sorting as being something 
that, hypothetically, could have come out differently (within the 
parameters of the Harry Potter story), whereas Voldemort's existence, 
and his evilness, were a given.

> Snape would have published his potions book, and he'd have
> gotten a job somewhere in the potions industry, courtesy of
> Lucius Malfoy's patronage. Then, apart from being the sort of
> dangerous idiot who grumbles when he's had a drink or two 
> that Muggles get away with murder, he'd have been okay.

I was really surprised that Snape turned out to have anti-Muggle 
feelings. Unlike most of the other Death Eaters, he's half-Muggle 
himself (and he's not a raving lunatic like Voldemort.) I suppose 
JKR's rationale was that Snape disliked Muggles because his main 
experience of them was his cruel Muggle father, or because he felt so 
different and cut off from the Muggle community where he was raised. 
But whatever the reason, I would have expected Snape to mostly grow 
out of his anti-Muggle feelings at Hogwarts, once he found that many 
magic-users treated him as badly as Muggles did. That he used the 
term "Mudblood" while at Hogwarts I attributed to the influence of 
his proto-Death Eater friends. Without Voldemort and his anti-Muggle 
philosophy, I'm not sure that adult Snape would even have grumbled 
about Muggles -- at least, no more than he grumbled about everything 
else. 

-- Judy