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territesting
Severus and the Dark Arts!
Was he fascinated by the Dark Arts? Did he love them, as Harry suspected? Was he seduced by them?
Or did he fear them? Was that why he became such an outstanding DADA teacher? Was he driven to defend himself because he was almost killed by a Dark Creature, Remus Lupin in his werewolf form?
Was he so good at DADA because he loved or feared the Dark Arts? Or did he have to be interested to endear himself to his Dark Lord?
Where did he learn about them? Did he read about them in his mother's books? Did she teach him? Or did he learn them in Slytherin?
territestingSeverus and the Dark Arts!
Was he fascinated by the Dark Arts? Did he love them, as Harry suspected? Was he seduced by them?
Or did he fear them? Was that why he became such an outstanding DADA teacher? Was he driven to defend himself because he was almost killed by a Dark Creature, Remus Lupin in his werewolf form?
Was he so good at DADA because he loved or feared the Dark Arts? Or did he have to be interested to endear himself to his Dark Lord?
Where did he learn about them? Did he read about them in his mother's books? Did she teach him? Or did he learn them in Slytherin?
The branch did not read to me as having ANYTHING to do with Dark Magic, unless ALL the wandless, accidental magic children perform before attending school is "Dark." Harry blows up his Aunt by accident even AFTER he starts school; emotional outbursts of magic seem to be perfectly normal. (The "lie" comment reads to me as authorial insertion.)
The flies incident appeared to me to take place when Severus was a teenager - i.e. had already been at Hogwarts for a few years. I rather think he picked up whatever Dark Arts he studied as a child/young man before joining the DEs AFTER he started at school and realized he was the chosen target of a gang of Gryffindor bullies.
Even after he KNOWS Peter managed to be a spy within the Order for a YEAR, he underestimates him in the Shrieking Shack, choosing to let a werewolf (who is about to go thru the change) and a boy with a broken leg guard him, so HE can bounce Snape's head off the tunnel ceiling. There are several different ways that COULD have been handled differently.
And then there's his opinion of his family - whom he calls ALL of them dark - despite the fact that the blast marks on the family tree say otherwise. They can't ALL be dark if every generation seems to have someone who married a muggleborn or muggle or 'blood traitor' or was born a squib. And what does it say about Sirius IF he accepted money from Uncle Alphard IF said uncle was 'dark'. Unless it was purely to oldest nephew from childless uncle? The implication was that Alphard ONLY left money to Sirius - if he had left an even amount to Regulus then he would not have been blasted off the tree.
And he was quite wrong about Regulus as well. -- Hwyla
Yes, many witches and wizards don't know how to dress like muggles, but she certainly knew if something didn't even 'fit' even if she didn't know 'style' - and she SHOULD have been at least somewhat aware of the style of muggle mens clothing - she had her muggle husband as an example.
And what would be the point of showing us a depressed Merope and Tonks, with limited magic, if not to clue us to Eileen?
We also have the evidence of just what kind of curses Snape was using at the time Lily drops him. A whole book of them that HARRY finds 'funny' and similar to something Fred & George would cast.
With the one exception of SectumSempra (which I still don't believe he invented) the worst seems to be the toenail growing one (for possible pain). Are we to believe that Harry in 6th year would consider a 'dark arts' lover as a good friend? Are we to believe HARRY was 'dark' since he was using these same curses?
And there's the proof of the 'He Exists' reason in SWM. IF it really ever was about Snape being 'dark' then James would have said so when Lily asked him why they picked on Snape. Not one word of 'darkness' is thrown around by either James or Sirius - it's all about Snape's appearance. -- Hwyla
Sectumsempra
What I see is a stressed, isolated boy determined to defend himself because he knows no one else will do it. And yes, his basic temperament is very like Harry's, except that Severus is more introverted and sensitive. But I've seen these two as spiritual twins for years, just as Sirius's spiritual twin is Bellatrix.
Re: Sectumsempra
Word about Sirius and Bellatrix! I'd never put that together, but you are right on there.
...? Did you mean "unreliable" witness?
The actual wording I meant to type was that I find Sirius to be a far from impartial witness. I suppose what I was really looking for was what the court would call a 'hostile witness' -- Hwyla
Combined with the fact that canon does not provide a coherent explanation of what Dark Arts are, well...
We do know Severus himself considers Sectumsempra to be Dark magic. I'm guessing he started using and developing Dark spells after he was nearly eaten by a Dark creature and the attack was dismissed by the authorities. He needed stronger spells to stay alive because his peers were out to get him and he couldn't rely on the support of the system.
I still like the idea that that's Severus pen-name or that he ghost-wrote it. "Revenge" and "green"? It has JKR-style joke all over it.
(OTOH Vindictus Viridian appears in portrait form in the PoA film and the OotP game, which if we chose to accept these as evidence says at least that he's dead, and he's in a style of dress that suggests 18th century to me, so it must be considered a real classic on the subject if it's still in print in Harry's day. Then again that dress could crop up later in the WW than it would in the Muggle world.)
Snape's mum
there's NO necessary logical connection, positive or negative, between being interested in/versed in Dark magic and being prejudiced against either Muggleborns or Muggles
One could be trained in Dark arts & prejudiced against Muggles/Muggleborns (DE's, presumably)
Trained in Dark arts & accepting of Muggleborns at least (Krum, Slughorn)
Dislike Dark arts & prejudiced against Muggleborns (Fudge, according to Dumbles)
Hate Dark arts & not prejudiced against Muggleborns, but dislike Muggles (Molly W-remember her 1st comment on platform)
Hate DA, not prejudiced against Muggleborns, condescending like Muggles (Arthur)
Re: Snape's mum
Sirius claims Severus knew some curses, which is not one and the same as Dark magic. How could Sirius know what Severus did or did not know on arrival? How does he know what seventh-years do or do not know, for that matter? And from what we see in canon, you wouldn't need to know all that much to know "more than half of the seventh-years".
to the scene in DH where he makes a branch drop on Petunia (though this was not deliberately done)
You agree it's not deliberate (I agree as well), yet count it as "Dark"? I don't follow. And is all uncontrolled children's magic then "Dark" (Harry teleporting or flying, the glass at the zoo, Neville bouncing when dropped)?
his performance of shooting down flies from the ceiling in OotP(does one have to use Avada Kedavra for this???).
He's described as a teenager so he was already attending Hogwarts at that point. The spell is not described with AK's characteristic green flash, nor would it be necessary to use that spell to "shoot down" flies (you could Vanish their wings, for example). What he is doing is perhaps not nice (not that people don't swat flies all the time) but it needn't be a "Dark" spell. I don't see that it's different than simply hitting them physically unless we had more information about what he was shooting them with.
For all we know he is practicing his Pertificus Totalis, since that one doesn't seem to have an accompanying light. A hex Hermione used in her first year. A fly that suddenly can't move IS likely to fall. And it would be a good spell to practice if one expects to be attacked, since it would prevent the other person from casting anything else at you.
My personal theory regarding Sirius' comment is that Snape came into first year knowing a lot of spells - possibly one he got straight from a book - JUST like Hermione. Remember Ron actually called her 'scary' for using the Petrificus Totalis on Neville, despite the fact that we see the same spell used by Albus later in the books (to freeze Harry on the Tower)
I think he just knew more than the other first years. But then we have Lucius welcoming him after sorting (and Sirius calling him Lucius' Lapdog) and Sirius also accusses him of hanging out with these older Slytherins. And in Gryffindor the older kids pretty much ignore the younger kids UNLESS they are either family or on the Quidditch team with them.
But in Slytherin, their Head of House at the time encouraged and ran a club that not only had different ages together, but different houses. I therefore tend to believe that Lucius learned his 'networking skills' from Sluggy and 'collected' his own useful people to know. And that he soon saw Snape as a possibly useful person to collect in the future, just based on his intelligence.
So, I tend to think the Marauders just could not understand how this firstie (and maybe a few others firsties as well) were being allowed to hang out with 5th years and older. And they just decided that since Sev knew things THEY didn't know then that must also be the reason the older kids wanted him around - the only thing the Marauders could imagine Older Slytherins wanting were 'dark curses', so of course Sev must have known them or otherwise why let him hang around? -- Hwyla
I've always felt that 'Lapdog' meant that young Sev was somehow under Lucius' protection (and since Lucius appears to have been a prefect (I hope I'm correct on that?)
we have Lucius welcoming him after sorting
Which is a bit curious, as I don't normally think of Lucius as the open, friendly sort, especially towards ragged-looking little specimens like Severus. It's very unlikely he somehow knew the child already. Perhaps he's just trying to look good, or maybe it's some "we Slytherins have to stick together" camaraderie, or maybe he's thinking "you never know, he could be brilliant, it could pay off in the future", as you suggested with the idea of "collecting" like Slughorn.
On a Yahoo list I'm on, one of the folks from the UK often brings up the practice of "fagging", which is/was apparently common at boys' boarding schools, where a young new student becomes a personal servants of a sort for an older one, and says JKR might have been hinting that Severus was in this sort of a position with Lucius by having Sirius call him a "lap dog" even though Lucius is considerably older than Severus.
In which case I think Lucius chose him more because he looked poor and was not known to be a pureblood. Much more likely to need protecting and be thankful for it. Might even have paid him something. Of course he might not have meant anything more by it than Percy did to Harry - it's unknown.
It would somewhat explain why young Snape was allowed to hang out with the older kids - he was just there to run and fetch?
It is interesting that Sirius rants about young Snape being friends with Bella and Lucius' Lapdog. Might be another of those things JKR got her math wrong on, but Bella should be through with school and Lucius is about 6 years older. The only way I can imagine it is IF she had intended for young firstie Snape to be hanging out with the 7th year Slytherins. Too bad we never find out -- Hwyla
It's possible that his welcoming Snape at the feast didn't happen as such. It could be visual shorthand for, "Within weeks of Snape's sorting, Lucius had spotted his exceptional talent and taken him under his wing, thus starting him on the path to the dark side. This is why people refer to them as old friends. But there was no way to put all that in the flashback except as a montage moment that shouldn't be read as the literal truth".
If it did happen, the most likely explanation is your suggestion of camaraderie between Slytherins. While I also like Hwyla's suggestion below that Snape fagged for Lucius, that wouldn't explain why Lucius acted nice to him when they met: a lordly seventh-year looking for a fag wouldn't be nice, he'd inform the poor kid that he's been chosen and his duties begin now.
However that may be, if Lucius really was friendly to Snape at first sight, unprompted, it's the only time anyone was in all of canon. There's no way that wouldn't make a huge impression on the despised working-class boy.
-L
how about both?
I believe that he is so good at DADA because he knows the subject so thoroughly, and he is eager for his students to learn to defend themselves and avoid the pitfalls that he faced.
I seriously doubt, however, that teaching DADA would tempt Snape to revert into a Dark Arts-phile, because surely working among the Death Eaters would accomplish that much more effectively. Teaching pimple-faced brats about grindylows and hinkypunks hardly has the same draw.
I believe Dumbledore denies Snape the DADA position because he knows it is cursed, and so Snape can have a reason to profess discontent with Dumbledore to the Death Eaters. IMHO, Snape may prefer teaching DADA to Potions because the students would probably pay better attention and he would have some good life lessons to teach, but he's probably not nearly as hungry for it as rumor has it.
We actually do get a definition, of sorts-
But doesn't that mean that healing is a Dark Art? Or are we to think that all the healing spells are reversible?
(In any case, Severus is a great healer, too. I see that as his role in the DEs.)
One more thing here. Many of us are still convinced that only a racist would join the DEs and they were obviously bad by definition. But why do we think this? Isn't it more likely that the young recruits to this cult were deceived? That's how cult leaders usually work.
BTW, I have a crack theory or two about Sev and Lily. If we are supposed to think that he did everything for Lily, why wouldn't he have joined the DEs, and perhaps even reported the prophecy, for Lily? Here's how it works: He joins up hoping that he can entice Lily to join, and that he will be able to protect her within the organization. When the prophecy comes along, he's already disillusioned and worried, but he thinks: Aha! Something that will give me leverage with the Dark Lord! Now I can protect Lily better! So he reports it, and immediately starts pleading for Lily - which becomes intensified when he discovers, to his horror, that she has become a target. Initially he wanted her to be a DE herself, and thought he could get her in if he was in Voldemort's favor.
Sorry - I'm a bit off topic here! More to follow on my livejournal.
Re: We actually do get a definition, of sorts-
What is the difference between reversing a healing spell and causing an identical injury all over again?
Re: We actually do get a definition, of sorts-
Re: We actually do get a definition, of sorts-