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Fanon Snape-Hits and Misses

torino10154

6/3/08 01:14 pm

I haven't asked a fanon question yet so how about a general one. There are certain things that are pervasive in fic-he's tall, he wears lots of buttons, he has a mail order potions business hidden from Ministry interference by using the very clever name of Prince's Potions (they'd never suspect a thing!).

So let's talk about fanon hits and misses this week. What do you like about Snape in fic and what just makes you scream?

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  question/rant, severus snape, torino's question challenge

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• zephre

  6/3/08 02:05 pm (UTC)

  

  Ok, I have a question that may fit in this challenge subject area - it may be more of a movie!canon v. book!canon question, although fanon of course messes with both.
  
  In the books, do we ever see Snape inflicting casual physical violence on a student? There is the verbal cutting, of course, but does he ever touch his students at all, let alone to smack them around? (I am excepting the situation with the Occlumency lessons, here, as that was a special case and there's only the one time, I think, that Snape actually manhandles Harry in the books with that, anyway, and it's when he literally jerks Harry out of the pensieve and throws him out of the office.)
  I was actually a bit disturbed to see the way Snape's character was encapsulated in the movies through physical violence toward Harry and Ron. It may be because I just genuinely don't remember anything like it from the books, so if anybody has any references please feel free to point them out.
  
  I find the idea of Snape expressing any of his temper as physical violence in the classroom/with his students kind of disturbing, but again I haven't read all the books in a while so perhaps that is book canon re-interpreted for the movies, which then of course feeds into the fanfiction.
  
  This is not to say he isn't vindictive and kind of scary when his temper goes to full boil, but still it seems to me that book!Snape would scream and stomp up a storm, and cut people to ribbons with his words, and maybe hurt through deliberate negligence, but he never hit any students, even when they attacked him. Am I just totally remembering everything wrong?
  

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  • sev1970

    6/3/08 02:16 pm (UTC)

    

    I don't recall Snape ever laying a hand on anyone other than the one situations you mention. The hitting with books only happens in the movies, and it has always disturbed me because...why add that?

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    • carpet_diemon

      6/4/08 08:53 pm (UTC)

      

      I remember (I don't know where from), but the idea of physical violence perhaps came from its prevalence in British schools way back? I don't seem Snape caning anyone, but the physical bit seems quite a bit more slapstick than anything else.

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  • torino10154

    6/3/08 02:19 pm (UTC)

    

    I think the only times he is physical are when Harry comes out of the Pensieve-he is gripping Harry's arm hard enough to bruise, shakes him, threw him from him. Then if you want to say their duel in HBP (which I wouldn't count myself) when Snape hits him with a whip-like spell and he feels the air has been knocked out of him. But I too don't care for Snape being physically violent. I think he uses words as weapons. So, yeah I agree with you.

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    • zephre

      6/3/08 02:29 pm (UTC)

      

      I think that whole physical violence thing feeds into the fanfiction, although I couldn't point out any particular ones. I'm sure that writers were making Snape violent well before the movies came out.
      But the movies give a certain justification to that interpretation.
      Also, in the books we know Snape is an excellent duelist, but I wouldn't have put my money on him in a fistfight, really.
      
      Snape is so much the protector in the books that to see him become the aggressor against his students bothers me.
      Different story, obviously, when he is dealing with those who are not explicitly under his protection or who are not his responsibility.
      
      [The usual caveats/clarifications about the writing making the difference apply. ]

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  • geri_chan

    6/3/08 03:02 pm (UTC)

    

    The most physical I can recall him getting is during the Pensieve scene where, as you and Torino say, he grabs Harry by the arm, and a little later he hurls the jar of cockroaches at him (athough it doesn't hit him). So I'd say it's out of character for him to get physical with the students in the books.
    
    I recall getting into a discussion about this on the snape_n_lupin Yahoo Group after the fourth movie came out and they had the scene where Snape whacks Harry and Ron on the head with a book, although they seemed to be playing that scene for laughs rather than as "Snape, the scary abusive teacher". I do remember that the director of GoF was drawing on experiences from real-life British boarding schools, which do have corporal punishment--which there really doesn't seem to be in the books. The students may get sentenced to detention in the Forbidden Forest where they can be eaten by god knows what, but they're never spanked or beaten. ;) In fact, doesn't Filch mourn the fact that Dumbledore doesn't allow him to whip the students? Anyhow, I think the violent!Snape thing started with the GoF movie--in the movie-verse that is. I haven't really noticed any fanfic stories with him being violent towards the kids, although I read mainly Snupin, so the focus is more on him and Lupin than the students.

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  • ether_bunny

    6/3/08 03:38 pm (UTC)

    

    I think that with the heavy hinting that JKR gives that Severus came from an abusive home, it would be unlikely for him to repeat those same actions. While I know that like 1/3 of abused children go on to abuse their own children, I think that Severus very consciously made an effort to separate himself from his father, his "muggle" side, even going so far as to take up the pseudonym with his mother's maiden name. I think he was very aware that his treatment at home was wrong, and I don't think he would be inclined to use violent actions toward children (or anyone who wasn't actively attacking him, for that matter. One of the few times we see him use actual violence is when he casts Sectumsempra on James in the OWLs incident.)
    
    I think that he had a lot of bad treatment in his life from a lot of directions, and while he did mimic some of them as an adult (the bullying mostly, I think it was a very learned behavior on his part - it seems the male figures in his life at home and the "approved" and respected males in school all employed these techniques), but unlike the actions by James & Sirius which were applauded and enjoyed, I don't think he would have ever been given the impression that the violence he likely experienced verbally and possibly physically at home were appropriate. I also think that his experiences through the Death Eaters would have brought violence more to the forefront of his mind. As a very young man I think he was in love with the idea of the Death Eaters, but he was obviously pushed away from them and became aware (if he wasn't before) that such actions are wrong. No matter what Harry thinks, Severus is clearly following an internal moral code of his own, and so I was shocked to see him show that kind of casual violence in the movies and felt it was ooc for him.
    
    However, I don't accept the movies as canon. They're a different fandom, in my mind, the characters are all different. (Compare the Rons. I mean, really?)

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