Snobby Snape?

[Mike]

> Judy wrote:

> Oh, my!  I have never read Snape as being especially anti-jock.  
> Rather, I see him as anti-JAMES. He intensely resented the 
> attention that Quidditch brought to James. 

Mike:
It was Sev's "brawny vs brainy" comment that clued me in, and that 
occured before James even showed he could control a broom, much less 
that he would turn out to be a Quidditch star. Why he thought Gryffs 
would be "brawny", I have no idea. Severus didn't even know which 
house would have the better team. But the comment did convince me 
that Severus looked down on those athletic types, it was code I'd 
heard before. It came in the company of two boys that he didn't know, 
wouldn't find out for two or more years that one would be good at 
*the* sport of the WW. It was a reflexive response from someone that 
disdains athletic types as unworthy.


> Judy added:
> As Rita (Catlady) notes, Snape is hostile to Gryffindors who aren't 
> jocks (Neville, Hermione), and positive to Draco, a Slytherin who 
> is a Quidditch player. In fact, I would point out that Hermione 
> isn't even remotely a jock; she's a *brain*. I'm not even certain 
> to what extent Snape is hostile to Gryffindors (the "jock house") 
> in general, since we don't see him pick on Dean, Seamus, Lavender, 
> or Parvati.

Mike:
Well, I didn't say it was Snape's *only* criteria for placing someone 
under the pedestal. I was also looking at young Severus versus the 
older Snape. I am attempting to analyze young Severus' comments for 
context. I don't know that he has reason to dislike Gryffindors from 
the get-go, but it seems he has already concluded that jocks are 
stupid, hasn't he?

But I am curious as to why you call Gryffindor "the jock house"? Did 
you pick up on something that I missed? I do remember that Oliver 
lamented the fact that Gryffindor didn't win the Q-cup until his 7th 
year.


> Judy continued:
> 
> Severus does *not* throw out the first insult. JAMES does. Severus 
> says he hopes Lily will be in Slytherin, and James (who wasn't 
> even part of the conversation) responds by saying, "Who wants to be
> in Slytherin?  I'd think I'd leave, wouldn't you?" to Sirius. This
> is *exactly* what Draco says about Hufflepuff.

Mike:
I might be cutting James too much slack, but I didn't consider 
his "I'd think I'd leave" comment as an insult to Slytherin, nor did 
I think Draco was insulting Hufflepuff. I took both those comments as 
a 'my house is better than your house' type braggadocio. I mean, 
don't you have to actually say something about the other house for it 
to count as an insult? Something besides, I don't wanna go *there*?

Now, Severus' "brain v brawn" said with a sneer, that qualified as an 
insult against Gryffindor, to me.


> Judy intoned:
> I find it amazing that anyone can read the interaction between 
> Snape and James/Sirius on the Hogwarts' train, and believe that it 
> was Snape who started the animosity.

Mike:
If I said that Severus started the hostilities, I apologize. I 
thought I had said that Severus would have opened the hostilities 
with *me*.


> Judy followed with:
> I also think, Mike, that you are overlooking the fact that Snape 
> wasn't the one getting academic honors as a student. JAMES was. 
> James becomes headboy and all the indications are that the teachers 
> considered him very smart. 

Mike:
Oh no, I didn't overlook that at all. I believe I had commented that 
I found myself in much the same position as James. Labelled as 
a "jock" by people that didn't know me and dismissed until and *if* 
those that once dismissed discovered that I wasn't stupid. Severus 
started out dismissing James with the "brawn v brain" comment.

Unfortunately for dear Sev, he was soon to find out that that was a 
false hope on his part. James was both. But had these two not been 
forced to spend the next seven years together, I've no doubt Sev 
would have walked away from that meeting convinced of his 
superiority. *That* is the attitude I'm identifying, that ability to 
dismiss the jocks as inferior.

I'm not sure what academic honors you've found for James. I do know 
the teachers thought him too smart for his own good. ;)


> Judy concedes:
> One thing (maybe the only thing?) that you and I 
> seem to agree on is that Snape comes across as quite intelligent as 
> an adult, but Snape doesn't seem to have gotten much (if any) 
> recognition for his intelligence when he was young. I imagine this 
> was one of the things that irked him about James, too, and it has 
> nothing to do with James being a jock.  Quite the contrary, it's 
> because James was getting recognition for *scholastic* achievement 
> while Snape wasn't. 

Mike concedes:
Yes Ma'am, I do think that Snape the adult was quite intelligent. I 
even venture that young Sev was quite smart. Then there's this 
disagreement: I think Snape *was* recognized as sharp when he was in 
school. Didn't Slughorn obliquely sing Snape's praises by his 
reference to his Potions brilliance vis-a-vis Harry's newfound 
brilliance via the HBP?

Warning: Soliloquy Coming On

Through the first six books I had correctly assumed that James Potter 
fancied Lily Evans. I had incorrectly assumed that Severus Snape 
adored Lily Evans from afar, or from a mild acquaintance position. 
Now that it turns out that Lily and Sev were friends from before 
starting Hogwarts, I've been forced to reassess their dynamic.

It seems that Severus was trying to defend his territory. He had the 
inside track to Lily's affection (at least in his mind) and he was 
doing everything in his power to deflect any dalliances that might 
occur to her. His strength was his brains, he was going to play up 
his strength and play down anybody (read; James Potter's) strengths 
as unworthy of notice.

Take the memory where Lily brings up Sev's friends playing around 
with Dark Magic. Severus brings up Potter and his mates 'getting up 
to stuff'. As the conversation progresses through Lupin's lycanthropy 
and the prank, Sev gets his foot up to his mouth and rapidly 
progresses towards fully ingesting it. After the "James Potter 
fancies you!" gets wrenched from his mouth, where does he go? "And 
he's not ... everyone thinks ... **big Quidditch hero** --".(1) 
That's it Sev, play down the rivals strength as unworthy of 
recognition. Notice that the only thing Sev manages to get out is the 
jock reference and he's in fifth year here. Seems he's *still* 
pounding away on the jockocracy.

Severus is not about to concede that James may also be smart. He's 
got his template, Potter the Quidditch hero, bah! Why does he think 
this may be affective? Lily must have already shown somewhat of a 
disdain for James. Remember "Messing up your hair because you think 
it looks cool to look like you've just got off your broomstick, 
showing off with that stupid Snitch" (2) I'm sure Sev has picked up 
on Lily's indifference towards "Quidditch heros". Smart move on Sev's 
part to keep Lily's focus right there.

Right after Severus's reference to Quidditch hero, Lily rewards him 
with "I know James Potter's an arrogant toerag." (2) As far as Sev is 
concerned his directive arguments have worked. Lily doesn't 
particularly go for the jock, and when Sev brought up James athletic 
accumen, Lily responded with the "toerag" comment.

Unfortunately for Sev, Lily *has* noticed James Potter, and has 
noticed that he's not just a jock. She noticed he was "walking down 
corridors and hexing anyone who annoys you just because you can" (2) 
She isn't praising James for what he's *doing* with his brains, but 
she has noticed that he *has* them.

She has also taken note of James bravery. And this was where Sev lost 
it in that memory. "-- I won't let you --" was countered by Lily's 
"*Let* me? *Let* me?". This is one thing that Sev can't let stand, 
insofar as he can't let Lily think James was being brave. I don't get 
the impression that Sev's diversion attempt worked in this area.


> Judy concluded:
> I just don't see the whole Snape/Marauder interaction as Snobby 
> Snape looking down his nose at those jocky Gryffindors.

Mike:
I think you misunderstood my premise. I concluded that Snape was an 
intellectual snob from the beginning and that he staked out that 
position on their first encounter. The dynamic certainly evolved from 
there and, much to Severus' eventual chagrin, James proved to be more 
than a simple jock.

I also postulated that I would have enjoyed Sev's company just as 
much as James evidently did and probably for the same reasons that 
James enjoyed it. I probably wouldn't have tripped Snivellus as he 
was leaving the train compartment, but I probably would have expended 
as much effort towards friendship with him as James did.


> Judy closed with:
> I see it as a group of four popular kids bullying a kid who
> was "just this little oddball" (Sirius's description of young 
> Severus) who was "clearly unpopular" (as Harry observes in the 
> Snape's Worst Memory pensieve scene.) I don't think the 
> Marauders bullied Snape because he was anti-jock. I think 
> they bullied Snape simply because they *could*. 

Mike:
I have allowed myself to read between a few lines. I have assumed 
that Sirius' comment about "knowing more curses than most 7th years" 
with Harry's "clearly unpopular" observation and Lily's "I don't like 
some of the people you're hanging around with!...Mulciber!...D'you 
know what he tried to do to Mary..." meant that Snape did a few 
things himself to make these people aware of his leanings. 

I have also surmised that in the first few years of the 
Snape/Marauder dynamic, Snape held the upper hand. Clued in by 
Severus sitting next to prefect Malfoy after the sorting. It probably 
wasn't until their middle years at Hogwarts when the Marauders caught 
up. 

And I dispute the whole "four against one" argument, since we know 
that Severus hung with several DEs in training like himself, that 
Severus gave as good as he got, that he never missed his chance to 
hex James, and our only actual "bullying" episode was a two-on-one 
scuffle.


> -- Judy, a nerd who is no good at chess, and who thinks adult Snape 
> was sarcastic because there weren't many other hobbies open to 
> double agents

Mike, a jock who was good at chess, and thinks that James cannot be 
judged solely by pensieve scene labelled "Snape's Worst Memory" 
because there were plenty of testimonies in the books from many other 
characters that he wasn't a bad bloke.


(1) DH p. 674, US
(2) OotP p. 648, US