Re: Snape¹s Overlooked Memory


Efren Irizarry, II wrote:
> karnak17@xxxxxx wrote:
> > Efren Irizarry, II wrote:
> >
<snip>
> > [The Potions Text] did mirror Snape's personality. It was his
> > book. And the personality mirrored in the book CHANGED as the
> > book proceeded. <snip>

> I personally like the idea that it represented more than one year.
> Given that we know he had the book since before sixth year, despite
> it being a sixth year book, that opens up the possibility of it
> being used for a very long time, as I suggested last post.

That is my impression also.

<snip>
> Then we've got the notes based on the actual potions in the book.
> He may have written some of those before sixth year, or maybe not--
> IMO a majority of that stuff /was/ written in sixth year.

Kids do superfluous work in their schoolbooks WHILE they are studying
in them, not a year ahead of time on randomly chosen blank pages.
Snape was doing perfect potions for Sluggie on his "first attempt",
which implies he worked out the potions improvements ahead of time, at
the same time as the spells.

<snip>

> >>>Lily behaved as though James was the one who mattered, and Snape
> >>>was beneath her attention. And that was probably exactly what
> >>>she believed, although it was almost undoubtedly NOT her
> >>>conscious intention to give this impression.
> >>
> >>That is one of the possibilities, yes. But even given that, there
> >>are *still* multiple reasons as to why.
> >
> > Yes! I buy that.
>
> I assume you mean that you buy the possibility of there being
> multiple possible reasons. Out of curiosity, do you have any
> preference for either of the two that I presented? Either 1. That
> Lily cares about James more than Snape, in an absolute sense, or
> 2. Lily cares more about the act of aggression and the aggressor,
> instead of specifically James or Snape.

Probably the former.

<snip>
> Looking back on the poster's comments and your response, your own
> version still seems more like a caricature of what she suggested,
> than necessarily "her" Lily. And actually, the poster didn't say
> that Lily would be self-satisfied with her own behavior. <snip>

True. It was less "her Lily" than a Lily with her moral viewpoint,
which is not the same thing. My focus there was to argue against her
moral viewpoint, rather than her view of the facts, or I would have
been less free with the hypothesizing.

> <snip>
>
> >>(On an unrelated note, that makes me wonder, what harm did the
> >>rivalry cause to James' personality? Probably less, but that's
> >>not necessarily a fault of James. It isn't James' fault that he
> >>had real friends and a good home life to fall back on, whereas
> >>(perhaps) Snape did not.)

It is James' fault that he took advantage of his "real friends" to gang
up on Snape four-on-one, and that he traded on his popularity to enlist
the student body in general as cheerleaders to his public humiliation
of someone he knew was friendless and unpopular. IMHO.

> > If I understand you, you seem to be arguing that the "rivalry" was
> > experienced the same way by James as it was by Snape. <snip>
>
> I think that Snape got his opportunities to humiliate James just as
> James got his chances to humiliate Snape. James may have set the
> benchmark with the Levicorpus incident, but I would indeed be
> surprised if Snape never humiliated James to a decent degree.

Well, I don't know what you mean by "a decent degree" here, so it is
hard to say whether I agree with you. But here is my impression of the
matter;

Firstly, if James had EVER been tortured by Snape BEFORE the Pensieve,
then surely Sirius and Lupin would have mentioned it. They didn't.
They admit James' jinxed people "just for fun". Sirius says: "Snape
was just this little oddball who was up to his eyeballs in the Dark
Arts and James . . . always hated the Dark Arts." Harry: "[B]ut he
just attacked Snape for no good reason." Sirius: "I'm not proud of
it." "Little oddball" doesn't sound threatening to me. It sounds
more like Snape's INTEREST in the Dark Arts, not his misuse of it, was
James' justification. Otherwise why not mention such misuse? Again,
they didn't.

Secondly, I feel safe in ruling out PUBLIC humiliation for James in ANY
year. Assuming Snape did get to turn the tables, it would have to have
been out of public view, which by definition would make it Not The Same
Thing. We have seen for ourselves that the three other Houses ALWAYS
seem to unite against Slytherin, and James himself was "popular" and
"the height of cool". There is no way a "clearly unpopular" Slytherin
could EVER do to James what James did to Snape in the middle of a
crowd. James would immediately have had people rushing to his defense
(as with the DA and Draco on the train).

Thirdly, I deduce that year Seven -- and probably Six -- saw more
aggressively vengeful behavior from Snape. It is when Harry asks about
Year Seven that Sirius and Lupin are able to come up with mitigating
circumstances; that Snape "never lost a chance to curse James". But
they do it "slowly" and almost pleadingly. "Well . . . You couldn't
really expect James to take that lying down, could you?" They don't
sound like people who think that they have that much of a case.

OTOH, something must have happened in the Sixth Year, something very
serious, or why the attempted murder? So there is something we do not
know here, and I am pretty sure it is something very nasty. However
nasty it may be, though, it would still not make the James and Snape
experiences comparable. Such serious damage, if it occurred, was
clearly followed by an even more serious and humiliating payback, and I
suspect that such was the typical pattern. If Snape had acquitted
himself so as to seem anywhere near James equal (or even well enough to
survive the conflict alone without James' HELP), he would not STILL be
so enraged and humiliated.

Just to be clear, I realize all the above are intuitive deductions
based on minute clues, rather than proof of anything.


<snip>
> Nevertheless, I /must/ think that his friends and family helped
> protect him psychologically.

The fact that his friends considered him worth protecting and defending
would, yes, have protected James psychologically. But they showed this
by ACTUALLY PROTECTING HIM. Which, as I said in my first post about
the psychological consequences of bullying, is what makes the long term
difference.

<snip>

> I like to imagine that James' household was altogether more
> pleasant than either that of Sirius or that of Snape. <snip> I
> certainly doubt it diminished his self esteem...

But something did. Or why couldn't he ask a girl out without trying to
bribe/coerce her? Why lap up and encourage the fawning admiration of
Peter Pettigrew? And why why abuse and jinx people "for fun"? Sounds
like he was trying to make himself feel big by making others feel
small. That reeks of low self-esteem to me.

<snip>

> > 3) When Dumbledore says that "[Snape's] wounds run too deep for
> > the healing" and that this is why he cannot overcome his hatred
> > for James twenty years after the fact, I believe he is saying
> > that the bullying itself did Snape lasting damage. I see no
> > other interpretation which would not be far-fetched at this point.
>
> I prefer to read Dumbledore more literally, thinking that he is
> referring specifically to the unending grudge between Snape and
> James, when he talks about "wounds."

A wound is damage done to a person -- physical or emotional. To hold a
grudge is an action someone does. To equate one with the other seems
more like changing D's meaning entirely than taking him literally.

<snip>
> For the portion of nastiness that increased while Snape was in the
> school, I concur that a good deal of it must be due to the rivalry
> between James and Snape. With assistance from a few other
> speculative ideas, like Snape not having many true friends.
> (again, I think that all of this damage did not change Snape
> fundamentally. Rather that it increased his preexisting anger at
> the world)

Depends on what you mean by Fundamentally. "Fundamentally" our
personality is established by age five. But lots of people with
monstrous childhoods and who have plenty of pre-existing anger at
eleven can either turn out to be wonderful people or seeming monsters.
And early teen years are considered by experts a very crucial period.
It depends on whether anything happens during that time which
"reconnects" us with a positive image of self from an earlier time when
we felt loved and valued, (even if that time was only infancy), or
whether it reinforces a negative self image acquired later.

What we have seen happening to Snape is, within a certain context (that
of nobody doing anything about it) MORE than enough to create an image
of himself as someone unworthy of protection or decent treatment; more
than enough to make the difference between anger and lethal rage; and
more than enough to turn an insecure youth into an emotional cripple.
That seems plenty fundamental to me.

I sincerely doubt that Rowling is writing this story because she thinks
that what happens to us in our school years, or how we are treated by
adults and other children at this time, is not fundamentally important
to how we turn out. But whatever her own views, it is certainly
important in real life.

.

Relevant Pages

  • =?iso-8859-1?q?Re:_Snape=B9s_Overlooked_Memory?=
    ... the relationship between James and Snape *was* ... then surely Sirius and Lupin would have mentioned it. ... > opportunity for his own public humiliation. ...
    (alt.fan.harry-potter)
  • Re: Solving the Mystery - Vickies Universal Snape Theory part one.
    ... A correlating trend would mean that Harry *also* loves the Dark Arts. ... But you seem to be suggesting that James does not have the same respect. ... I contrasted Harry and Snape in part to point out that there are many different paths one can take, and yet still share a proficiency in DADA class. ...
    (alt.fan.harry-potter)
  • Re: Snape = Gryffindor
    ... I have to admit, PP always seemed more of a Slytherin, not because he was "bad" but because he was supposed to drawn to more powerful people, presumably viewing Voldy as more powerful than James and Sirius, which doesn't seem very courageous, a key Gryffindor quality. ... I don't think Snape ever did much to them at first. ...
    (alt.fan.harry-potter)
  • Re: Snape and Lily: potions partners?
    ... Slughorn definitely has his own reasons for mentioning Lily, ... think that James was ever WORSE than this? ... me that what most pained Snape was his public humiliation. ... > about James to Harry. ...
    (alt.fan.harry-potter)
  • Re: Whats happened to this place?
    ... The various 'pranks' and outright attacks and bullying (which, ... the Marauders started the war to punish Snape merely for existing, ... only James was quicker. ...
    (alt.fan.harry-potter)
Loading