Snapedom

From the (tiny) excerpt of The Standard Book of Spells, Grade 1 that's recently been added to Pottermore (Ch 14; see this guide if you want to know exactly where):

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I this kind of puts an interesting perspective on just what it could really mean to say that Severus is fascinated by or knows a lot of Dark magic.

Things are rather quiet lately... So lets have another round of fanfic recommendations! (Whee!)

Now, I can't remember if I have recced any of the following before, and I'm too lazy to check every post I've made, so if it happens that if you've seen me reccing the same fic before, chalk it up to old age and fuzzyheadedness.

Now, the first two fics I heartedly recommend are Lily/Severus, and people who know me know that I really, really LOATHE Lily Evans, so if *I* like a Lily-centered fic, it's really, really good.

First of all, Come Once Again and Love Me by laventadorn.

http://www.fanfiction.net/s/7670834/1/Come_Once_Again_and_Love_Me

"Severus wakes up in the afterlife expecting something rather different than being almost-seventeen again. Seriously, what kind of game is this? But wait - Lily's come back, too - from 1981? Perhaps it's a second chance... but to do what?"

It's an incredibly good fic, with really excellent characterisations. It's 25 chapters and it's finished, so brew a pot of tea, open a pack of biscuits and read!

Next comes Ananke by  Eunike.

http://www.fanfiction.net/s/3127339/1/Monsters

"A strange set of events sends the 19-year-old Lily into a terrible future where she and most of her friends are dead and the war is still on."

A very Lily-centric fic, and not the worst for it either. Lily has some growing up to do.. It's 37 chapters long but still a WIP.


A rather dark one-shot: Monsters by Unspoken Tragedy.

http://www.fanfiction.net/s/3127339/1/Monsters

"You could have saved them, if you had taught them better. In the end, no matter how many people try to forget or attempt to cover it up, they will only ever be four vicious boys… who got what was coming to them."

Warning: Character death!

And finally, my latest obsession, a Severus/Hermione WIP (with 53 chapters and counting). Wether you like SS/HG or not, this fic explores what might have happened if Snape had someone in his corner, some glimmer of hope. He makes a different decision on the Astronomy Tower with everything that entails. Even if you don't want to read this fic, at least read chapter 46 for a nice cathargic Snape-tells-Dumbledore-what's-on-his-mind bit. It's Chasing the Sun by Loten.

http://www.fanfiction.net/s/7413926/1/Chasing_The_Sun

Since it's Friday, I'm recommending a one-shot I just found on the genfic board. It stars Filius Flitwick, who considers himself something of an elder brother to Severus-

genfic-hogwarts.livejournal.com/375236.html

This is part of his life we know little of. Where did he live? Whom did he live with? What did he live on? What did he do as a DE?

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I think some of you might like a look at the face of the 'real' Severus. This bust of Lucius Septimius Severus (145 - 211) can be found at the Roman-German Museum at Cologne, Germany.

hp_friendship/hp_friendship is a new prompt-based ficathon that celebrates one of the big themes of the Harry Potter series: friendship. We would like to showcase friendship between Harry Potter characters in all its many facets. What do friends do for friends, and what do they do to them? You tell us!

( There are several Snape-centric prompts still available that might interest you )

There are also a few "any character" prompts that seem to be made for Severus Snape. Why don't you have a look at our List of Prompts (on DW)? And if you found something to your liking, the prompt claiming post can be found here (and here on DW)!

Hope to see you over at hp_friendship/hp_friendship!

Here is a link to a Facebook album of a photo shoot featuring a young man strongly resembling Severus Snape at a slightly ruinous castle or old manor. Really beautiful shots, moody and atmospheric, nice image references for artists. And, curiously enough, the model's name is Sebastyan Smith! Hmmm...

https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.155392891219014.35724.155127934578843&type=3

Another Way to Look at the Relationships
between Severus, Lily, MWPP, and Dumbledore

“Whatever you give your dog, your dog will give you right back.
If you give chaos, your dog will give you chaos a hundred times.”

Dog Whisperer: “Peanut, Sunshine, Roxy, and Angus”
Cesar Millan (Italics in the original)

Author’s Note: This article was inspired in part by the discussions on Snapedom about Snape and prejudice (Sailorlum’s original article on 2/19/10, and 00sevvie’s reply on 3/15/10). My thinking about Remus and Sirius as canids rather than people is partly an extrapolation of Mary_j_59’s essay on Snapedom that Black’s behavior towards certain characters makes more sense if we think of him as a dog relating to his pack rather than a person relating to other people. (10/26/08) ( Read more )

Partly because I would like to stop impinging on sylvanawood's Photobucket space, partly because I am not too fond of having Alan Rickman appear to be our main visual reference for Snape (especially since we have a tendency to pick apart the smallest nuances of canon, and he really doesn't fit them that well), and partly just for a change of pace, I would like to change the header graphic and default icon for this community.

I have the minimal Photoshop skills required to make them the right size (the banner is 899x281, so it needs to be at least that large - bigger can be shrunk but I don't want to fiddle around with the layout) and add text, but I am not an artist nor great shakes as a photomanipulator. I think it would be great if they could feature art made by a community member or members, but it doesn't have to be the case. Feel free to post about this in your own journal(s) for visibility to people who might not be members or who are only on LJ; they're welcome to leave comments here if they're interested.

So: I would like to invite everyone to make suggestions, if they have existing work they would be willing to allow as banner/icon, or feel like doing something new. I would prefer not to have to chase down permissions, so please, your own work only, unless you can show me proof the artist gave permission for me to use their work this way, or there's a findable Creative Commons license that permits it.

Anonymous said (please sign next time!):
Before the first potion class, Ron tells Harry that supposedly Snape threats Gryffindors unfair. True, just a rumor. But a rumor which gets confirmed again and again in the book. And no amond of reinterpreting will make Snape a perfect teacher.


I agree with marionros that Harry was a terrible student and predisposed to read any impartial, professional attempt at imposing pedagogical discipline on him as “unfair” and proof of personal bias against Harry. I don’t agree that there were NO lapses from professional decorum on Snape’s part, but much of what Harry perceives as injustice evaporates upon close examination.

I’ll address below the probable source of the “rumor” that Snape treats Gryffindors unfairly.

But first, where, exactly, is this “rumor” “confirmed”? Much less time and again?

( Honestly )

When Voldy had just killed Harry's parents, leaving Harry orphaned, and Dumbledore is speaking with Snape about needing to protect Harry...

Snape is refusing, telling Dumbledore that the Dark Lord is gone for good and that Harry does not need protection.

Dumbledore tells Snape, instead, that Voldy will be back.

Question:How does Dumbledore know that Voldy is not defeated for good?

It can't be the prophecy that Dumbledore heard, b/c Snape eaves-dropped on it and he is not convinced that Voldy is coming back.

This is a piece posted recently on Fanfiction.net by Jiang Qing. The original is here. I asked her (I assume it's a a her?) permission to repost it here because I thought it was interesting food for thought, and it's easier to quote for discussion if the content is right here in the comm post. Please note that I do not necessarily agree with everything said here, I just thought it would be interesting. I'll post my own review/comment in a comment on this post.

Severus: A Secret Sex Icon?

or

Why We All Pity the Fool, Lily Potter.

[snipped author's note about why it's posted on FFN]

After that extensive authors note, it's time to get down to business. By business, I naturally am referring to the essay's title, the complicated character of Severus Snape. It's time to get down to Severus Snape. For the sake of being disgusting, let's imagine getting down on Severus Snape. Or rather, let's not. The question is, why is Severus Snape so damn alluring? J.K Rowling quoted in one of her interviews (I'm paraphrasing here, c'mon this isn't a real essay) that she intended Severus to be a vile character; a bully, bleak-hearted, inclined to favouritism, unable to conjure any sympathy from the audience (at least, until the end). This is all true. Yet, and this is a big yet, there's something about the man that makes you want to jump him. ( Read more... )

So, I was just exploring some other fandoms of mine, and I came across a fan’s sketch of a character that reminded me very much of Snape.

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The URL for the full thing is below, so you can see if you uncover any other Snapely insights. And for those of you who visit Death to Capslock, keep an eye out for this character in my posts there as well:)

http://ask-cyrus.tumblr.com/headcanon

In my current exchange with summeriris about Albus Dumbledore's plans regarding the Elder Wand, their purpose and implications (see here and here I came up with one possible scenario by which Severus may have possibly avoided his encounter with Nagini without hampering other aspects of the plan - it leaves Voldemort believing someone accessible is the master of the Elder Wand, that person isn't the actual master. The scenario I came up with is:

However if he had been given all the information in a timely manner Severus could have modified the plan to give himself a chance at survival without harming Harry's. For instance, provoke some minor DE (preferably someone who isn't on Tom's good side) to a fight and appear to lose convincingly. When the time came he could have attempted to convince Tom the other DE was the true master. (This only has a chance of working if Tom doesn't have too much time to notice no improvement in the wand's performance, so Tom shouldn't be told too soon.)

I wonder if the community can come up with additional scenarios?

For this purpose I wouldn't consider getting rid of the Elder Wand completely, because I'm afraid this would have resulted in Voldemort setting Nagini on *Harry*, and Severus wouldn't want that if he knew that Harry had a chance of surviving an AK.

Administrivia:

I am now the maintainer of snapedom. I couldn't bear to see it go under, even though it's not as lively as it used to be just post-DH.

I don't expect I'll be making large changes to the rules or operations, except one: I'm considering turning off anonymous comments. I've tested posting comments with OpenID and it works fine for LJ and Dreamwidth accounts, so as long as you have an LJ (or DW) account you could still post comments. Or I might possibly set the ability to comment to members-only, which works well on another community I maintain where the subject tends to attract trolling. This hasn't been changed yet, I'm just thinking about it. Discussion welcome.

Also, I asked sylvanawood if she wanted to pass the LJ community (which has been closed since 2008) over to me as well, because if so I was thinking of maybe reopening it.

ETA: Snapedom will be run by someone else, it won't be shut down. We'll keep you posted about the details.


I've never made a secret out of it: this community is not moderated. People were supposed to settle their differences among themselves, like adults do. Obviously this is not possible.

And I don't have the time any more.

I can't constantly look over posts, deal with bombastic complaints from people 'from journalfen' who find this or that behaviour intolerable, have to read pompous advice from 'moderate fandom wankers' who wouldn't recognize sarcasm if it bit them in the arse and I can't always watch your posts for possible racism, sexism, whatnotism.

No one reads the rules. No one respects the rules.

Many valued members have left long ago, tired of the wank. I'm getting tired, too. I don't have time for this, I never did but it's not getting better over time.

So, if someone here wants to run the site, mail me, I'll hand it over. You do what you want, I'm not associated with it any longer. Otherwise the site will close on July 31st.
And no, I don't welcome comments on this.

In the thread of my previous post there were several arguments and questions about the behaviour and discipline in British schools.

Well, in my younger days (ahem!), I followed the Bristish series 'To serve them all my days' (adaptation of the Deldefield novel of the same name, broadcast 1980, when JKR was in her early twenties).

It's about the 21 year old David Powlet-Jones, the educated son of poor Welsh mineworkers who, after serving three years in the trenches of WW I, gets dismissed (shellshock) and offered a job at a British public boarding school. David has a bit of a chip on his shoulders for not being of the right 'class' as the rest of the teachers and the students, and he still struggles with the aftermath of the war, but settles in quickly. We follow him through his career during the interbellum of the twenties and thirties.

His first headmaster is the wonderful genial Algy Herries (I'm sure that JKR thought to model her Dumbledore on him, but she sadly failed as Herries is a truly good an great man), but in later years he clashes with Algy's successor, a truly petty man (if you want to understand the word 'petty', watch out for Headmaster Alcock). Through all the ups and downs of his life, David has, at least, the love and support of Algy and Mrs Herries, most of his collegues, his wife (wives) and most, if not all, the boys in his House.
David reminds me of Snape in many ways -  a man who came to teaching shellshocked by tragic events, who discovers that he can, indeed, teach and that he enjoys doing so, whose life is spun around an age old school - but alas for Snape, David has love and support, whilst Snape has not. *looks sad*

For those who want to see the series, if only to understand and see the way teachers and students related to eachother in British boarding schools, you can see the entire series on Youtube, starting from here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sYgV55Uhq4U

But you can, of course, also buy the series on Amazon.

Happy watching!

The first time I've read "Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone", I utterly hated it. Still do, as a matter as fact. And no, it wasn't the crappy writing or the story that upset me so much, but the awful character of Harry Potter.

Now, it isn't unusual for a children's book to start out with a disagreeable child as it's 'hero', but one would expect that child to undestand, through the course of the book, that it *has* been disagreeable, and then try to 'better itself'. "The Secret Garden" comes to mind.

Harry's story was different, however. I realised *how* different when Harry's attitude towards Snape didn't change after Harry had found out that his assumptions about the man had been false. Instead it was suggested by the author that Harry hadn't been wrong about Snape because "Snape was a mean bully of a teacher".

Point is, I never saw any "bullying mean teacher" at all. I saw a teacher who, when confronted with a disrespectful student in class tries to discipline said student, only to be frustrated by a manipulative Headmaster-with-an-agenda and an author who clearly can't stand anyone, real or fictional, being in authority over her self-insert protagonist.
For instance, in that infamous "first potions class" Snape's impromptu quiz is merely a reaction to Harry's insolence; Harry and Ron are making fun of Snape's introductory speech by "pulling up their eyebrows at each other". As I've said before, I've been in the same situation as a twelve-year-old, when a teacher, who turned and saw me whispering with a classmate, thoroughly embarrassed me, catching me out with an impromptu quiz. I hadn't been paying attention, and blustered and blabbered and I got the point: pay attention! I did not resent the teacher, or thought her "mean" because I had learned to respect a teacher's authority. And there's the rub.

I was born in 1965. All my teachers learned their trade in the fifties and sixties, if not earlier in some cases. Most of them, therefore, expected (quite rightly in my mind) their pupils to have learned to respect adults when coming to school, and as an extension to that, to respect a teacher's authority. And we did. So we learned a lot.
J.K. Rowling however, is of the opinion that her hero Harry is too good and important to pay respect to *anyone* (with the possible exception to her other self-insert Dumbledore), and certainly not to... certain groups of people.

Muggles? Barely human.

Slytherins?! Don't make me laugh.

And so Snape's attempts to have order in his classroom are constantly ridiculed as ineffective and "mean" and vilefied as "bullying".

Some of you might be so influenced by the autor's "voice" that you might agree with her. Ponder, however, the following excerpt from John Rosemond's, "Ending the Homework Hassle" :


In order for one person to learn something from someone else, that person must figuratively “look up” to the other. Without respect and admiration for the teacher’s knowledge and authority, the student will not learn much of value. At best, he may absorb lots of facts, but the likelihood is he will not be able to put them to much use.
Likewise, a child who does not come to school with a previously established respect for authority is not likely to become an effective learner. He will not understand why it is important for him to pay attention to the teacher or do what she (or he) tells him to do. He may also bring behaviour problems with him to school that further interfere with his ability to put his intelligence to good use.
He will probably interpret his teacher’s attempts to discipline him as indications they don’t like him. His parents, neither able nor willing to see their role in his problems, may even support this view. As he progresses through the grades, his attitude toward his teachers, and the educational process as a whole, will probably become increasingly cynical. In his mind, school will become a battleground of “me against them.”
His inability to understand the value of an education may lead him to drop out of school as soon as he is able. Regardless, he’ll probably drop out mentally sometime around junior high school. When he enters adult society, his disdain for authority, for the system, will follow and cause him untold problems throughout his life.

John Rosemond, Ending the Homework Hassle, pp 146-147


Does this not describe our Harry to a T?

So I urge you to take off the "Harry vision" goggles and look at what is really happening in those pages. Disregard all those mood-enhancing red herrings, all those "Harry saw Snape looking at him and knew that Snape was plotting evil deeds" and "Snape sneered" remarks. What the hell is a 'sneer' anyway? A grim smile? The world-weary face of a teacher who has too much of his plate and yet has to teach and guard a shitty little boy who clearly hates his guts?

Take away the disgusting bigotted remarks against Slytherins (so we must all think the worst of Snape for being the Ultimate Slytherin), take away the personal remarks about his greasy hair, his hooked nose and billowing cape (no wonder the American illustrator gave him whiskers, he sounds like the parody of a 19th century villain who constantly twirls his whiskers!) and take away Harry's misinterpretations of the man's actions (see above), and what do you have left?

So... a couple of years ago in my high-school Spanish class I read a short story which told of a young man in Mexico, who had grown up living a perfectly normal, happy life; but later joined a group of rebels, just because he was young and he thought it would be cool. This led to him getting arrested and sentenced to death. The story revolves around his night in jail before his execution, where a friend comes in and promises to help him survive execution... but in the end, the firing squad discovers that he hasn't died, so the commanding officer orders him killed anyway. I feel like Snape could be in a similar situation to this young man in some ways, especially based on Whitehound's analysis in "But Snape is Just Nasty, Right?" Certainly it's canon that Snape joined the Death Eaters in part because he thought it would make him look cool and/or impress Lily.